You should talk about Berserkers more <333
Aw, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to ignore the ask. I was super fixated on finishing that thing I was working on and wanted to finish it first for two reasons. I was super fixated and that would answer part of this ask. Sorta. I'll post that later.
Also I'm sorry if I sound incoherent I took some Benadryl and everything's fuzzy right now.
So. Berserkers.
Okay so I basically love the idea of the berserker and all that but found it lacked a little...panache. At least to me anyway.
Berserkers are essentially a long lived type of humanoid warrior. While out of berserker mode they look identical to regular humans in every way. In fact, there is no way to tell if what you're looking at is a human or a berserker. However, when they shift into their berserker mode they turn into hulking, muscular humanoids that stand somewhere between 8 feet and 9.5 feet tall and weigh anywhere between 350 to 490 pounds. That's without armors and their weapons. Aside from getting really freaking big they conjure up armors and weapons, adults conjure up two weapons. The look and style of the armors and weapons differ from individual to individual but each armor and weapon depends solely on the culture of the berserker.
Let's use Loke for an example. He's Norwegian so his armor and weapons will reflect that. He's a Nordic or Norse whichever you wanna use berserker so that'll reflect on the style of his gear.
Aside from hulking out and conjuring weapons these fuckers are strong and I mean S T R O N G! They're one of the few non-humans that can and dare to go up against the divine in a head to head battle and make them sweat and work for their victory. They're not mindless in this state but they are super quick to start fighting and once a berserker picks a target there's not much that'll stand in the way of them defeating their target.
Also their armor can sustain damage and even break but the amount of force that has to be used in order to break their armor is fucking mental. Now, just because the armor breaks it doesn't mean it's permanent, if the armor breaks the berserker shifts back into their human form until it regenerates which can take a few hours depending on the severity of the damage. However, their weapons will never break or dull or rust. Speaking of, a berserker doesn't need to shift into berserker mode in order to conjure their weapons, they can do so at any time they need. Like so.
Another change I forgot to mention is that while in berserker mode their eyes tend to glow in whatever color their eyes are and that also happens when only conjuring a weapon. Yeah, Loke has green eyes but the red comes from when he was resurrected so Loke's kind of a special case. The electricity surging through the axe isn't normal either. We'll get to that.
Now, berserkers may have their roots and origins in magic but they cannot use magic, not in human form and much less in berserker mode. It's not that they aren't permitted, it's just that they cannot actually understand magic so they can't really learn it. I had to nerf them somewhere lol
Yeah, I know, the doodle is contradicting everything I'm saying but again, Loke's kind of a special case.
If a berserker should ever decide to try and learn magic it would be one hell of a gargantuan task as like I said, they don't actually understand it so they don't bother, besides, with their raw power they don't need magic. Hell, they don't need a rocket launcher either...
When they're young berserkers can conjure a range of weapons to try out and practice with them to sort of get a feeling as to which two they feel most comfortable with, then iirc by their late teens they've already made up their minds as to which two weapons they feel comfortable with and stick to those two only. Since they specialize in two weapons they become like an extension to them, they pretty much master that weapon and become devastating with them.
In the case of Loke he chose a two headed axe like his dad has and the bow and arrow like his mom has.
Like I said, these guys are long lived but they seldom get to fully enjoy that because they're a warrior species. Fighting is in their blood so most die in battle. And these fuckers are extremely tough to kill which means that they tend to die brutally and bloody.
They don't have some jacked up healing like other species have, they'll scar and aren't immune to diseases both inherited and catching.
Loke for example has asthma, hemophilia (which is crazy when you really think about it and what he is), astigmatism, can't see well up close I forgot what that one's called...you get the idea.
Now! Magic and Loke. Okay, so he's idolized his mom for as long as he can remember and always wanted to be like her. Since he was a little boy he asked his mom to teach him how to use magic and while Sanaa knew it was damn near impossible she humored. This took a very long time, we're talking 30+ years for him to get but Sanaa taught him a small trick she often used that can turn one arrow into thousands of arrows that rain on the enemy. She also taught him to conjure an element, in his case it's lightning, to wrap itself around his conjured weapon. These are things that would take a child a few months to get but since Loke's a berserker it took that long. This was kind of a pretty big deal as vommon berserkers just can't really do that but he persevered until he got it. Then it took him some 20 odd years or so to be able to consistently pull it off. Now he can do it in his sleep like it's nothing and it serves to intimidate others and impress others like his mom's side of the family. When they first saw it their minds were blown to hell and back and those people don't get surprised by anything.
So if the berserker is based on the person's culture, what about those who's parents are from two different cultures? Easy. The armor and weapons take aspects of both parents.
That pretty much cover the common berserker. Then there are arcane berserkers of which ONLY AND ONLY the Nyota people can be arcane berserkers. However, if a common berserker and an arcane berserker have a child that child will also be an arcane berserker and be considered a Nyota descendant.
More on arcane berserkers will be on another post I'll post later.