Campaign Settings: Primeval Thule

Conan without the Conan, plus all the traditional fantasy standards. This is currently one of my favorite campaign-setting books because of the layout and presentation. Lots of flavorful art and mini-maps the text references in every section - something many setting books miss horribly. Honestly, this is one of my basic criteria for a setting guide; if you are describing an area, please start with a zoomed-in section of the map so I can reference it! I can't tell you how unusable this makes a lot of campaign-setting books to me. This is one book that gets the ease-of-use right.

The setting has been reprinted for several different rules sets, including Pathfinder 1e, 5E, and Savage Worlds. Frankly, I ignore the rules and just play with the world, which I did with Savage Worlds for this setting, and now I am eyeing Castles & Crusades.

Peaceful Fantasy Worlds

One of the things that bother me a lot about any fantasy campaign setting is the tendency to "normalize" everything to a peaceful Western European standard. Sometimes giant walls will completely surround the cities but there will be no mention of armies or threats to the kingdom. If there are no threats, there will be no walls. It feels like the map designer got cute and put walls in because that looks medieval.

Or the game doesn't support army-level play and the kingdom's soldiers and defenses are mysteriously absent from any mention. There are plenty of markets and other points of interest on the map, but no places for the kingdom's defenders? Are there orcs out there that threaten? Can I have a little more detail?

And in other cases, they will present places with "hundreds of dragons in flights" and then give you sleepy farm towns with no protection at all. Even if there are orcs and goblins around? This is a normal D&D-style world, right? Are there monsters out there or not? Why isn't this place a ruin?

I know I am sounding like I am arguing both sides, but I like a little consistency. Especially when you add monsters, undead, demons, dragons, magic, and humanoids to a world, like your typical B/X mix of creatures. I like a world that feels dangerous, and I like for my fantastic locations to reflect the danger a B/X style world would realistically have.

And in some cases, the location is meant for you to come up with the armies and threats yourself, but I like a few thoughts put into the dangers of an area and having those mentioned when I start making a place come alive.

Yes, in a normal world you will have places of less threat and others of a greater threat, but when they present the sleepy farm towns as starter locations and give me giant walled cities with no threats around them nor armies to protect them, my mind wants to be out there on the edge of civilization where the excitement lies. And yes, a little consistency and reason for those castles and defenses other than for show and iconic for the book cover artwork.

Thule: It's All Deadly

In Thule, everything is deadly. Towns without walls are ruins, and sometimes the towns with walls will be ruins too. There is that tendency to focus more on adventurers than armies, which feels like a minor issue, but they can be assumed in easy enough. You get these towns perched against a wall of jagged cliffs on a raging sea, and the world feels huge, epic, and dangerous. People are forced together for protection, and they need to learn to get along for survival. Or not. Or the strongest shall rule.

The Conan flavor? Well, I do have a Conan game, so that is the home of that sort of feeling and style of play. The fantasy standards shoved in here and made to work in a "savage" setting work for me, in a sort of "generic fantasy" way. They do feel kind of extraneous, and that is one of the few things that feel like a drawback of the setting to me.

This could also be a strength if you don't want to pare down your B/X game or cut things out, so I can see it both ways. This setting feels like sort of a mixture of Dark Sun and Mystara to me, you get the dangerous world plus all the theme park cultures and tropes slotted into areas of the world. There are barbarians, horse tribes, Viking-like cultures, elves, dwarves, evil legions, lost civilizations, and room for any idea or B/X style culture or assumption to fit in here.

If you wanted an area to feel modern and more traditionally Renaissance, just put that in with the Atlantians of the City of Katagia and assume that entire culture is your typical Forgotten Realms or Grayhawk style of typical fantasy-folk adventurers. The lost continent of Atlantis was a traditional D&D style place and the Katagians are hell-bent on spreading their generic fantasy culture and tropes everywhere in this world.

This more cosmopolitan world view would cause an instant clash of cultures between the Katagians and the other people here and I like that. I can see several cultures trying to work against and destroy these invaders and outsiders trying to force their ways on others and thinking their technology and ways make them better and destined to rule this world.

Atlantian culture = D&D culture. There, you are done and have that familiar place to start off in. This is also a strong excuse for a nice "clash of worlds" plot between the rest of the savage world and this odd city in the west trying to convince the barbarians and savages of the world that adventuring culture is a "thing." Even the monsters of this area could be slightly different and the local Atlantian goblins would wonder why the other goblins out in the world are such cannibals.

You could also drop in the D&D 4E and later races like dragon-people, warforged, eladrin, or tieflings here if you wanted and make them unique to this part of the world and seen as monsters elsewhere. They came from "Atlantis" for all anyone knows. This is actually a cool idea and one I may use.

Also, given the mostly Bronze Age technology of the world, this would make the Atlantian technology a step higher with the iron and steel tropes found in most Renaissance fantasy, and give you another way to explain things that may appear in your games that would be anachronisms. A set of full plate mail? Yeah, that is clearly Atlantian crafting. Valued highly, visually distinct, but difficult for other cultures to repair and replicate. I like this sort of "easy out" when I play in a setting that assumes D&D normal culture but requires a lot of special theme changes to make work.

Great Setting and B/X Tropes

A lot of the normal D&D settings feel too peaceful to me, and this setting feels like a good model to use for B/X worlds. Keep them dangerous, lock the gates at night, open them during the day to farm the fields and livestock, give reasons for settlements to have armies to watch the towns and fields, and make travel between iconic places a dangerous adventure.

The setting is less useful for the generic Renaissance sort of fantasy we are used to (without the small change mentioned), and that is one of my issues using it as-is with Castles & Crusades. It would work, but it would feel slightly off and like my Conan game would do a better job playing in this world - but then again if I am playing Conan, I am playing in the official REH world and saying bye to the gnomes and halflings here.

Here, with an area of the world covering more traditionally generic fantasy, the setting works better for me. I have a reason for the normal fantasy tropes to enter the world and be logical. The cultures would clash. If something seemed less savage and slightly "off" there is a reason for that.

The book is a joy to flip through and read, the cartography is spot-on, and there are enough deadly wild areas of the world to explore to last many gaming sessions.