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Yora
2014-09-05, 02:31 PM
Primeval Thule is a campaign setting by Richard Baker, David Noonan, and Stephen Schubert for (currently) Pathfinder, D&D 4th Edition, and 13th Age. It has been released at GenCon three weeks ago and from what I've could glimps been described as "Conan vs. Cthulhu". Richard Baker said in an interview it's set in the time of Atlantis and Lemuria, which I assume means the actual world of both Conan and Cthulhu, which both Howard and Lovecraft strongly hinted to be the same alternative version of Earth.

Before the great glaciers covered the northern world for the last time, there was an age of legends now forgotten in modern the world.
Cities of barbaric splendor and brooding ruins from prehuman times were scattered across the great isles of the north. This was the land of Thule, savage and spectacular, a world of wonders and terrors. And it lives now only in the darkest depths of prehistory and half-remembered glimmers of myth.
Thule is an alternate Earth, a world in which legendary places and creatures once existed and magic, dark and mysterious, held power over young and superstitious humankind. Its civilizations arose in a warm and lush northern world, but were erased from history by the ten-thousand year reign of the vast ice sheets. This
is the age of Atlantis and Lemuria, of serpentmen and savage beasts, of star-demons and sorcery. From this mythical time we draw our oldest stories of deadly
monsters and bold heroes.

There's some art (http://www.sasquatchgamestudio.com/products/primeval-thule-concept-art-gallery/) from the books around, and it really looks good. And with Richard Baker and David Noonan I expect the writing to be of a good quality as well.
The pdf is only 15€ (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/133780/Primeval-Thule-Campaign-Setting-for-the-Pathfinder-Roleplaying-Game?manufacturers_id=6416&site=) at 272 pages, and I'm really quite intrigued by it. The only downside is that there doesn't seem to be any introduction or preview material for it around, other than a 30 page Travelers Guide for 2,30€, which sounds a bit dubious to me.

Anyone have and read it?

Ninjadeadbeard
2014-09-05, 04:09 PM
It sounds an awful lot like Blades of the Iron Throne, which I guess is a sequel to Riddle of Steel? It's a nice system.

This interests me very much! Seconding if anyone has read it before?

Yora
2014-09-05, 05:24 PM
I got the Pathfinder version for me now, and it looks really good. Full color with art that easily compares to the best in the industry. The font style and layout reminds me a lot of the Conan RPG.
The first thing I noticed is how very very much it resembles my own Ancient Lands setting, being by far the closest thing to my own ideas I've seen so far.

Already quite late here and I only one browsing through the whole thing, but I think a general outline would be that the continent Atlantis fell 300 years ago and some of the survivor made it to the wild island of Thule, which ranges from tropical to arctic. The Atlanteans are a pretty advanced culture, even though they lost most of their former magic power. The native humans are apprently stone age people who don't use metal.
Nonhuman races exist, but seem to be very rare, even more than usual. Dwarves are regular dwarves, living inside mountains, making steel weapons, and don't allow any visitors. Most of their cities are hidden and all contact with them goes through a single trade city. There are also dwarven mercenaries, however. Elves were once a geat race, but they toyed too much with magic, which was their doom. There are only very few left who don't take an active role in the world anymore and are expected to disappear completely in a few generations. Halflings live in the jungle but are so exceptionally rare and reclusive that many people believe they don't actually exist. This seems to be mostly a world of the Atlanteans and human barbarians.
The main monster races seem to be snakemen and rakshasa, as well as cyclops and some tentacle beasts from space.
There are nine gods, which pretty much all should be familar to fans of the genre. Asura, Mithra, Ishtar, Set, Tiamat, and the like. After all, this is almost certainly meant to be the world of Conan and Kull, just set between the times of these two kings. The other pantheon are the Old Ones, including Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, Hastur, and Yog-Sothoth. I am missing Dagon, though, even though deep ones are mentioned. Interestingly, Shub-Niggurath is CN, which I like.
There is a small section of new monsters, but nothing really unusual there. Mostly variants of old Pathfinder monsters.
Somewhat oddly even the Pathfinder version lists warlocks and warlords, and even elaborates on star pact warlocks. Not sure if this is an oversight, or if they just didn't think it's worth changing in a purely descriptive chapter. Yet no mention of witches and oracles, even though these would be perfect for this setting. I'd at least expected a sidebar mentioning classes from the APG as options in some way. They are available online for free, after all. Also, no paladins.

Palanan
2014-09-06, 04:45 PM
Not too impressed with the art gallery, but it does sound like an interesting setting.

For those of us who don't get to conventions, is this hitting bookstores anytime soon?

Yora
2014-09-06, 05:03 PM
The Kickstarter page mentioned a print version. But other than that, they seem to not make much, if any efforts to put any information online. I only learned about it being out from a few forum posts of people saying they got their kickstarter stuff. Other than that, all announcements and interviews seem to be from back when they promoted the start of the kickstarter. Even the homepage doesn't seem to have any info about how to buy it.
Makes me a have some doubts that the setting will ever get much notice, if any. Even though it's really quite well done and they had been working on it for over a year. I am rather surprised that they don't make any apparent efforts to sell it.

Sartharina
2014-09-07, 12:28 PM
... holy****thisisawesomeIneedtogogetthisandrunagameof itassoonasIcan!

Yora
2014-09-07, 01:28 PM
I've been reading a good amount of it today, and it's really good. This might even push Dark Sun down to second place for settings I want to run a game in.

For example, the last city of the elves is falling into ruin because almost everyone spends nearly all day passed out on black lotus, which was introduced the last population of elves by cultists of Nyarlathotep. The half-elf guards let almost nobody through the gates, and inside the streets are deserted and being prowled by monsters, while winged creatures are soaring between the spires of the towers.
Or a village where all the women are cultists of Shub-Niggurath, with the men being completely unaware of it. One city is ruled by a doppelganger who pretended to be a noble from a surviving family of Atlantis to impress people, but was so good at it that she ended up being made queen and now works hard to make her city a new major power. And the Black Circle was founded just a few decades ago, with the founders original apprentices being currently in power.