Neal Litherland

Berserk, as both a manga and an anime series, is a dark, brooding, brutal journey. While it has light hearted moments, they only succeed in rendering the darker parts of the story into pitch black pools. The protagonist of this series is Guts, a hulking warrior with a mysterious, violent past, and an indomitable spirit that pushes him through any and all obstacles. From abuse that should have crippled him, to betrayal at the hands of his closest friend, nothing will stop him from achieving his goals. If you want to try and re-create Guts, this guide will help you bring the Black Swordsman era of the character to your Pathfinder table.

Whenever you watch an action hero on the silver screen, the camera tends to focus on them winning fights. In fact, between expert technique, a rock hard physique, and an iron jaw there's no possibility the hero could ever lose; foes fall with broken faces and shattered spirits under the hammer blows of their fists, but when the bad guys get a solid blow in the hero just keeps on coming. On the one hand this could be blatant abuse of main character powers... on the other hand it's entirely possible that our lead has simply learned the most important skill any fighter needs to have in his or her arsenal.

Will Simpson is a simple man; deep down, all he wants to be is a hero. Unfortunately, his willingness to do anything to achieve his goals twists what would otherwise be a noble, even heroic, soul into a caricature of heroism. A secondary character in Marvel's Jessica Jones series, Will is something of a a combination of two older characters named Nuke and U.S. Agent. Both of these characters attempted to be the Captain America a modern U.S. needed, but their flaws were magnified rather than erased by their power. Capable of great deeds, they did terrible things just as often as they accomplished heroic feats. If you're looking for a starter guide to bring this sort of character to your table, here's a place to get you started.

Dolph Lundgren is famous for playing a wide variety of roles since his acting career began in the mid-1980s. While sometimes ridiculed for the sheer number of direct-to-DVD movies he's starred in, his career saw a major resurgence with the films The Expendables and its sequel The Expendables 2. The character Lundgren plays in these films, Gunnar Jensen, really takes center stage in the sequel where he displays his vast knowledge of physics, his hand-to-hand combat prowess, advanced understanding of chemistry, and even talks about his time as a bodyguard for a beautiful, famous actress. Fortunately for Lundgren, he was just playing himself at that point.

The Winter Soldier is an old spook story in the world of international espionage. A vicious killer who comes out of the shadows, destroys his target, and then vanishes without a trace. The man behind the mystique is, of course, Sergeant James Barnes. Captured by the enemy, and experimented on during the reign of the Nazis, Bucky fell back into the hands of Hydra's Soviet branch after the war was over. His mind and body were altered, turning him into a brainwashed, cybernetic killing machine who, when he wasn't in the field, was kept in suspended animation as little more than a weapon in cold storage. If that's the sort of character you'd like to bring to your Pathfinder table, then this handy guide should get you started.

If you've been throwing funny-shaped dice around a table for any length of time, then you've heard the term rules lawyer before. Generally speaking it refers to a player (though it can apply to dungeon masters as well) who in a rules-based environment will attempt to use the letter of the rules rather than the spirit of them in order to leverage advantage for themselves. This term is most commonly in tabletop RPGs and wargames, but if you've ever worked in a corporate environment you may have met a real-life rules lawyer in the break room.