Hiruma Berserker "School": Hiruma Berserkers

Reprinted w/out permission from Way of the Crab

Benefit: +1 Stamina

Beginning Honor: 1 + 0 boxes

Outfit

  

None given

Skills

None given

Note

In order to become a berserker, a character must spend points to take the Death Trance advantage. He must further renounce any schools he previously belonged to (giving up their advantages and techniques) and drop his Honor Rank to 1 (unless it was already 1 or lower), reflecting an increased callousness and disregard for social niceties. If he does this, he has achieved enough focus to enter a berserk rage. He may later increase his Honor through Character Points or Experience.

Techniques

There is no berserker school, just instinct and the passion with which one adheres to bushido. When berserkers go into their trance, however, they forget the tenets of other battle philosophies and so cannot use any of the special abilities of their home school. In exchange, they gain an inhuman strength and the ability to absorb incredible amounts of damage. The benefits of being a berserker increases as time goes on: as he gains experience, he learns how to harness his rage more and more effectively, and can thus strike with greater and greater amounts of power. The Ranks of the "Berserker School" reflect this increased effectiveness.
When a berserker enters combat, he ignores wound penalties for a number of rounds equal to his Earth x2 (the wounds are suffered, they just have no effect on him). Furthermore, he may roll and keep an extra die of damage for every Rank he has, reflecting his ability to focus his rage into his attacks. These extra dice are rolled regardless of what the berserker is attacking with, be it a tetsubo, katana, or his bare hands.
There is a price to be paid for such power, however. After a number of rounds equal to his Earth x2, the berserker is spent, and his rage collapses into a semiconscious daze. He is considered Incapacitated for the rest of the combat, and must be protected by his comrades if he wishes to stay alive. Because of this, many berserkers along the Kaiu Wall live short, brutal lives, despite their combat effectiveness.