Wilderness Warrior

Classes Allowed	Barbarian, Fighter, Ranger
Ability Score Requirements	Strength 9 Constitution 13
Prime Requisites	Strength
Races Allowed	Any
Alignments Allowed	Any

This hero represents some tribe (either civilized or barbarian) living in a dangerous, threatening, or unusual wilderness environment such as the desert, deep in swamp territory, in the frozen North, tucked away in the jungle or tropical rain forest, or in distant mountains.
The Wilderness Warrior is different from the Barbarian. He's not automatically a menacing figure when traveling around in the campaign's normal society; he's just exotic and unusual. He can be very cultured and civilized, but, coming as he does from a different culture, will have different attitudes from the other player-characters on many subjects.
For example, a desert nomad character may be merely offended at the theft of his property but be outraged by (and demand the death penalty for) theft of his water; he may believe that women should stay in camp and leave fighting to the men (an opinion he will find himself quickly disabused from when in the outer world he may feel the need to prostrate himself whenever he passes the church or temple of the deity he worships; and so on.
The player decides (with DM's permission) what sort of tribe and environment the Wilderness Warrior comes from. Then, working with the DM, he must determine what sort of unusual beliefs and customs the character and his tribe possess. He may later abandon a few of these beliefs in the outer world, but should not abandon most of them; they are part of what makes him unique in the campaign.

Role

In a campaign, like the Barbarian and Savage, the Wilderness Warrior is the "outsider's voice" who questions all the strange quirks and discrepancies in the player-characters' culture. He's also an opportunity for some comic-relief adventures, when he misinterprets some aspect of the society and it leads him into confusion and trouble. More importantly, the DM should arrange for the occasional adventure to take place in lands like those of his birth, so that he can demonstrate his skills in that environment.

Advantages

• Wilderness warriors are extremely proficient in lands like their homelands, gaining a -5 bonus on ability checks made for surviving in lands like their homelands (such as finding water in the desert, surviving/trekking through a blizzard, finding paths through jungles, etc.).
• Wilderness warriors gain a +1 to attack rolls with one weapon appropriate to their culture, as determined with the DM.

Disadvantages

• The Wilderness warrior may only spend his starting gold on items appropriate to his culture. For example, the desert nomad couldn't buy any armor at all with his starting gold, while the arctic warrior could only have leather or hide armor. (Of course, if the DM determines that his is a trading culture, he could have access to goods from all over the world.) Wilderness warriors begin play with no more than three gold pieces.
• Wilderness warriors start with one less weapon proficiency slot than normal, and must choose all weapons from those available to their homeland culture.
• The Wilderness Warrior, in his early years, is occasionally hindered by his unfamiliarity with the player-characters' society, but this is a role-playing consideration; the DM must occasionally enforce it until he believes the character is sufficiently familiar with the usual culture.

Notable Wilderness Warriors