Path of the Beast | Barbarian Primal Path, and on nonmagical characters in Dungeons & Dragons

My sister actually inspires a lot of my homebrew. Like the Way of the Water Lily, the Path of the Beast came about on account of wanting to make a present based on a show she enjoys. In this case, that show was Demon Slayer. The Path of the Beast provides what I hope is a fitting tribute to the character Inosuke, the inventor and sole practitioner of Beast Breathing, which I'll admit I still don't fully understand, but people tell me the homebrew captures the spirit of things even if I don't get it.

Homebrewing for Demon Slayer raises interesting questions. Despite all the screenshots I've seen of demon slayers turning their swords into fire and supernaturally contorting their bodies, friends and family assure me that demon slaying is completely nonmagical. Demon slayers' beyond-the-normal abilities are merely a matter of nearly superhuman training and ability, rather than literally superhuman mysticism.

The barbarian seemed like a good fit in that light. Inosuke's style seemed to fit the self-taught, informal nature of the barbarian class, and the barbarian's nonmagical chassis allowed the path to be exceptional without being technically magical.

Nonmagical player options have an intersting role in Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons. There are actually astonishingly few truly nonmagical options. Only the barbarian, fighter, monk, and rogue function without spell slots, and even then the monk's ki abilities are hard to call nonmagical. And even within the barbarian, fighter, and rogue there are the totem warrior, eldritch knight, and arcane trickster archetypes that introduce magic to the nonmagical. Thus, only a scant five subclasses in the Player's Handbook are completely devoid of magical abilities.

Why is magic so omnipresent in Fifth Edition? In some ways, magic and spells simplify class and subclass design a lot. Spellcasters like the wizard and cleric have comparatively fewer features than the fighter and rogue because so much of the class power and identity are caught up in spellcasting. The barbarian, fighter, and rogue classes need to bring more to the table to "compensate" (and arguably the fighter has additional Ability Score Increases to make up for the gap!). 

Another question: with magic being so ubiquitous in Dungeons & Dragons, why do people still want nonmagical options? I think the simplest answer is that that's a fantasy in itself. Sometimes it's fun to be "normal." Obviously, normal is a little relative as a term, because the Path of the Beast isn't magical but does let you stretch your limbs. But there's still something to be said of the idea that my character doesn't need to cast spells or tap into the Weave or deal with devils to do something; rather, they do it all of themselves. And that can be a great feeling and a great "fantasy!"

So in that light, I understand why demon slayers are portrayed as nonmagical. Thinking that this is something a person trained their mind and body to do of themselves is fun (not that magic wouldn't require training).