ICE REAVER
The windswept glaciers, the frozen mountains, the vast cold plains beneath the shadow of the encroaching ice—these hard lands are home to the fiercest peoples of Thule. The barbarians of the cold lands live off the great herds of caribou that roam the tundra or the teeming seals and fish of the frozen coasts, but when the herds or pods move on, these hardy warriors soon turn their attention to differ- ent prey: The civilized peoples of the warmer lands. Riding giant elk or rowing dragon-prowed galleys, the reavers of the north strike with terrible speed and savagery, pillaging and plundering their way across Thule’s remote marches. From Nar to Quodeth, the reaver tribes are names of terror and dread.
As one of these northern raiders, you are at home in the frozen lands. Your world is simple: The strong survive, and the weak perish. You regard the city-folk of the south as soft and decadent, and despise their hedonistic ways even when you choose to sell your axe or spear as a mercenary. The gods gave you the power to strive and to slay when you were born, and you intend to carve your way to greatness with your bloody sword or axe.
Most ice reavers are humans of Nimothan descent, simply because Nimothans make up the great majority of the raiding peoples of Thule’s northern wastes. They stubbornly cling to their homelands even as the snows grow deeper year by year. A few tribes in the eastern highlands of Thule are Kalays; centuries ago these were the hardy frontiersmen Inner Sea cities, but over the generations they became more and more isolated, adopting the barbaric ways of their neighbors. Finally, a small number of dwarf clans with no citadel of their own share these bitter lands with the human tribes, and follow a similar lifestyle.
Key Identity: Human (Nimothan or Kalay), dwarf, barbarian, fighter, ranger, bard.
ICE REAVER BENEFITS
Your people don’t fight all the time. You were raised
to be a hardy hunter, and live off the great herds of the northern tundra or the seals and whales of the cold seas. The rugged mountains and broken glaciers of your homeland might be impassable to other travelers, but not to you. In battle, you rely on pure ferocity, charging into the thick of the fighting and hewing down your enemies with reckless abandon. Your many battles earn you a reputation among other raiding tribes and barbarian mercenaries employed in civilized lands, and they listen carefully when you speak. In time, your fame grows so great that hundreds of northern warriors answer your call when you decide to launch a raid of your own.
ICE REAVERS IN THE WORLD
You come from a tribe that measures a person’s worth by his or her fighting prowess. If you are a great warrior, you are held in high regard by your people; if not, you are expected to seek the opportunity to prove yourself in battle. Civilized Thuleans who are aware of your tribe’s reputation (for example, the people of Akal-Amo, Orech, or Thran) are intimidated by you, and assume that you are irrationally brutal and violent. However, they hold a healthy respect for your fighting skill, and many southerners eagerly hire ice reavers as bodyguards, enforcers, or mercenary troops.
PERSONALIZING THE ICE REAVER
There are many different reaver tribes, and each has its own unique story or quirk.
Bearslayer: You are a dwarf of a dispossessed clan. Your people were driven out of their native citadel years ago. With the loss of their home, they abandoned their rightful clan name and took up a name of exile, calling themselves simply Bearslayers after the beasts whose home they now shared. Someday you intend to be strong enough and respected enough to lead your people back to their stolen citadel and reclaim it.
Khatranir Warrior: You are among the last of a vanished tribe. Once your people called the heights of Kha, the Ice Mountain, home. They raided far and wide, blooding their t’uchuk ice-axes in lands hundreds of miles distant. None were stronger, hardier, or more widely feared than the Khatranir. But while you were away on a long journey to the warm lands, something terrible happened. When you returned your people were dead, entombed in the snows of Kha by some dire frost curse. You do not know who cursed the Khatranir or why, but someday you will avenge your people.
Rider of Hurgan: You are a warrior of the Hurgan tribe, known throughout Thule as riders of the foul-tempered giant elk. Your people are close kin
to the Quodethi, and of all the ice peoples, the most likely to engage in peaceful trade with the peoples of the south. For you, raiding is not a matter of survival or pure bloodthirst—it is a matter of pride, a way to avenge insults and defend your tribe’s own hunting grounds. Change is coming to the Hurgan people: Your tribe must abandon their ancestral lands and carve out a new home from the lands of the south. Are you the great chief the wise men see rising in the smokes of the future?
Ullathi Sea Reaver: The sea is the mother to your people. The Ullath live on the shores of the icy seas, sealing and fishing throughout the winter months— but when the spring comes and the ice breaks up, they take to their longships and spend the warm months boldly harrying the coastlands of Thule. While raiding is a way of life for the Ullath, your people are also explorers and sea-traders, and have a driving wanderlust to see new places and find new things. There are many ways to become a hero to be sung of down through the years, and you are deter- mined to find your fame someday.
ICE REAVER
You are a raider from one of the barbarian tribes of the frozen north. As soon as you were old enough to fight, you joined the warriors of your people when they rode or sailed against the soft city-dwellers of the southlands. You may have turned aside from the reaver’s path for a time to adventure in far lands, but your people haven’t—whenever you decide to return home, there will be a place waiting for you among the reaver bands.
Skill Bonuses (1st level): You gain a background of Ice Reaver at +2 and can use it for a variety of checks. For example:
Balance or maneuver in snow or ice
Survive in cold conditions
Intimidate people who have experienced barbarian raids
Climb glaciers or mountains (Khatranir Warrior)
Navigate or pilot a ship (Ullathi Sea Reaver)
Calm or train mounts (Riders of Hurgan)
Renowned Raider (4th level): You gain a +4 bonus on skill checks to interact with mercenaries, raiders, or pirates—your name is known throughout the fighting peoples of Thule, and your reputation precedes you.
Reaver Chief (8th level): Once every year, you can call up a force of 80-100 mighty reaver raiders from your homeland to go marauding with you, or a ship and crew to go a-viking. You must summon your reavers in your homeland, and it usually takes several days to gather them. The reavers aid you to the best of their ability for one adventure. This is a small horde of low-level warriors, and it’s best used to deal with other small hordes of low-level foes.
Adventurer Feat, Reaver’s Charge: Once per day, immediately after you roll initiative, as long as you are not surprised you may move to engage a nearby enemy as a free action. You gain a +2 bonus to your first attack roll against that enemy during the first round of combat.