Technology (CBarbH)

Barbarians lack most of the technological resources available to outworlders. They have no steel or written language. They have only a rudimentary understanding of mathematics and science. They have no scholars, wizards, or engineers. Still, as people with creative minds, they've done their best with what they have, coming up with an impressive array of tools, weapons, and durable goods.

A variety of factors influence a culture's technological development. A tribe that has flourished for a thousand years probably has a higher standard of living than a tribe that's only been around for a century. Barbarians with ready access to lush grain fields may never have the incentive to learn to grow crops. A tribe besieged by monsters may be forced by circumstance to invent sophisticated weapons.

For convenience, barbarian societies can be classified into three broad categories. Primary societies, the most primitive, have yet to abandon all of their animalistic characteristics. They live in caves, wield clubs, and have just recently mastered the art of making fire. Transitional tribes have begun to settle in villages and experiment with agriculture; most barbarians belong to this group. Advanced societies represent the peak of barbarian development, having domesticated animals and simple wheeled transportation; they are perhaps within a few centuries of catching up with the civilized outworld.

Rough models representing each these categories are outlined below. Included are technological breakthroughs—the society's most significant accomplishment—along with examples of architecture, weapons, clothing, transportation, art, and character kits. The DM should consider these models as general guidelines, not rigid edicts. He may decide, for instance, that primary barbarians have bows and canoes in his campaign, and that Brushrunners belong to an advanced society.

Primary Model[]

Technological Breakthrough: Fire (produced by rubbing stones together or twisting sticks in AL tinder-filled holes).

Architecture: Caves, snow houses (arctic only), brush shelters (tentlike frames made from branches of saplings, covered with leaves, weeds, and bark), bone houses (bones of dinosaurs or other large animals arranged to form a dome, then covered with hides).

Weapons: Clubs, hand axes, wooden spears.

Clothing: Animal skins, furs, uncured hides, leaves.

Transportation: Walking, hand-dragged sleds.

Artistic Expression: Storytelling, cave painting.

Suggested Character Kits: Brute, Flamespeaker.

Transitional Model[]

Technological Breakthrough: Wheel (logs used as rollers, or solid disks of wood or stone).

Architecture: Hide tents, earth lodges (dome-shaped structures made of mud and stone with earth-covered roofs), stone altars, grass huts.

Weapons: Bows, slings, shields.

Clothing: Skins cut into patterns, cured hides, splintered bone needles, sinew thread.

Transportation: Canoes, rafts, horse riding.

Artistic Expression: Crude sculptures, tattoos.

Suggested Character Kits: Brushrunner, Dreamwalker, Forest Lord, Plainsrider, Medicine Man/Medicine Woman, Witchman.

Advanced Model[]

Technological Breakthrough: Domesticated animals (small herds of goats, pigs, cattle, or sheep).

Architecture: Wood frame structures with thatched roofs, stone hearths, crude stables.

Weapons: Bronze or hammered iron weapons (see boxed text).

Clothing: Felt, crude tanning, simple weaving (spindle and distaff), fringed garments.

Transportation: Small boats, passenger wheelbarrows, primitive saddles.

Artistic Expression: Simple pottery, reed baskets.

Suggested Character Kits: Wizard Slayer, Ravager, Seer.

Hammered Iron[]

Some barbarians have mastered the basics of smelting iron from raw ore and hammering the iron flat to make weapons, tools, and utensils. The DM may allow advanced cultures to use hammered iron, but he should keep in mind that this represents the outer limit of barbarian technology; very few barbarians should have access to it.

Hammered iron may be made into daggers, knives, spears, axe heads, and warhammers. Primitive swords, the equivalent of outworld long and short swords, may also be allowed. Hammered iron weapons have 50% of the value and 100% of the weight of outworld metal weapons (see Table 40 in Chapter 5) and have the same chance of becoming damaged as other primitive weapons.

Thin iron plates are attached to leather garments or secured beneath layers of thick furs to create crude versions of scale mail and brigandine armor (AC 6). Hammered iron shields are usually flat, about 2–3 feet in diameter, backed with layers of leather pressed into hollows of the metal.