Berserkers

=Overview= Physical combat and melee masters. Berserkers are often blessed with abilities like increased strength and durability, pain resistance, and growing stronger the more injured they are. Increased strength allows more endurance, better jumping, etc. There have been examples in-game of berserkers punching the earth to cause small tremors or fissures.

Fury is their unique skill, letting them enter a battle state of increased power. They will stop at nothing until the battle is over, win or lose. Using fury is typically exhausting.

=History= The berserkers were founded by the Ahura, who ate Xumurdad's stomach and gained Its vigor. She retreated to the wild lands of Pakerion, where she established a guild of like-minded fighters who believed that enlightenment lay in the thrill of battle.

The berserker guild accepts all comers, but the training is so intense that few make it through. Those who finish and come out as guild-certified berserkers are the toughest, most stalwart people Zenderael has to offer.

The guild largely keeps to itself, though many find their services indispensable. Berserkers are often hired out when requested, and many make a living as mercenaries. It's not uncommon to find berserkers drafted into armies. Some choose to remain in the Undertow most of their time where they enjoy a rough and tumbly culture where fighting is an acceptable means of expressing your emotions, both positive and negative.

Power in the guild is traditionally passed down through annual tournaments, the winner getting to fight the Ahura for his title. The tournament is held in an ancient arena deep in the Pakerion jungle. Most of the year it is completely ignored, where plant life takes over and monsters make their nests there. The berserker guild is indifferent as a whole to adventurers exploring the ruins as long as they don't need it for the tournament.

The current Ahura is Rhys Elena.

=Details= Berserkers are a close-combat, physical melee class. While they may have the least magical aptitude of the Zenderael classes, they make up for it in sheer force, durability, and endurance. They are capable of otherwise impossible physical feats, often wielding improbably sized weapons or making leaps and dashes that can only be described as superhuman. They can use mana to make their attacks explode with such force they can function similar to magic: tearing open tremors in the ground, shaking the earth, or causing fiery sparks, and so on.

Most berserkers can take their fair share of hits with a strong tolerance for pain. Some berserkers become more powerful the more injured they are, or in game terms, the lower their HP is. Though a heavy armor class, combative berserkers may keep to furs and leathers to allow themselves greater mobility.

Defensive berserkers will usually wear more armor than their combative counterparts and may even allow themselves a shield. But most berserkers feel a good offensive is the best defensive, often wearing spikes to punish those who would attack them. While not as powerful as their combative counterparts, they excel at grabbing the attention of their enemies and making themselves impossible to ignore.

All berserkers have access to Fury, a skill that puts them in a highly focused battle trance. This makes them immune to pain, increases their physical strength, and often leads to a lowered sense of self-preservation as they become blinded to everything but their target(s), not ending Fury until one or the other is defeated. Some berserkers may even attack allies during Fury if they try to interrupt the berserker from their chosen goal. After Fury ends, the berserker is left drained and exhausted. Outside of Fury and a handful of self buffs, berserkers lack supportive abilities.

Berserkers are especially vulnerable when it comes to ranged attacks, having very few of their own and needing to keep close range with their opponents to do consistent damage.

=Members=
 * Ahura: Rhys Elena
 * Acher Ostendramm
 * Alexander Varista
 * Bograak the Foe-Cleaver
 * Go And (DROPPED)
 * Nova Kylethe
 * Virelai the Nameless

=Headcanon=

Losing guild status
Among the berserkers, guild status can only be revoked after losing a fight against the Ahura.

Fury (Yoiko)
Fury isn't always rage, and can instead manifest as passion or even as panic. Any intense emotion can be used to fuel Fury, which can have a small impact on how a berserker's instincts operate under Fury.

While experienced berserkers are expected to be able to control Fury both in resisting and initiating it, some also have "Fury triggers", or that which will almost always result in them falling into the Fury state whether they mean to or not. Rhys, for example, will Fury involuntarily if he witnesses an ally in mortal peril. ("Allies" can and have been strangers walking down the street because Rhys.)

Fury is physically exhausting to maintain, and if left alone long enough without meeting their goals or being defeated themselves, a berserker might drop Fury naturally and be left drained and vulnerable. In gameplay terms, I tend to think of Fury as buffing all offensive stats significantly while lowering defensive ones, preventing flinching, and making mana-based skills have a negligable cost. But once Fury ends, HP damage is taken and mana drops to 0, not regening for a time period (even if you had a Spellsword's help).

Skills
Dragon's Blood: offensive, strike weapon with such force that it generates sparks of fire, fire-element.
 * Unlocked to all skill builds at level 75
 * Quest-based

Hurricane Fury: offensive, channel energy into a physical outburst that damages all targets in close range.

Whirlwind Blade: offensive, cut the air in front of you with both weapon and energy.

Blood Strength: passive, and a path only some berserkers take. All things being equal, a berserker without Blood Strength is stronger when healthy, but a berserker with Blood Strength will be more powerful when significantly injured like working under superpowered adrenaline. These berserkers gain more power the more beat up they get, essentially becoming stronger the longer a battle goes on as long as they continue to sustain blows.

It's still subject to physical limitations: a limb too injured to work won't, but that injury feeds power into attacks of the limbs that DO work. Despite the name, the injury need not draw blood. Anything that might bring the body closer to collapse, such as poisons, can feed Blood Strength.

Rending Earth: A strike into the ground that spits it in a straight line toward the target, forcing the terrain to come up out of the ground in jagged spikes. Physical, but can be elemental depending on the area. (Ice spikes if in deep snow, for example.)

Earth Breaker: Stomp/smash attack at a single point that causes spikes of terrain to jut up around the berserker in an AoE radius. Physical, but can be elemental depending on the area.

Lion's Strike: A weapon blow that is "sped up" with a burst of red light behind the swing. When the ability is activated, it tends to be accompanied by an animal's roar (hence the name).