“....It is a land of deep jungles and golden seas, mysterious and unexplored.

It is a land of knife-edged mountains and deadly glaciers, trackless and forbidding.

It is an age when human civilization is young, newly arisen on an ancient and haunted Earth. Mighty city-states and sprawling empires rise and fall, weaving a tale of great deeds and epic tragedies that will be lost and forgotten by the peoples who come later. Even the land itself is fated to fall beneath the numbing cloak of endless winter, burying the triumphs and defeats of this vanished age under leagues of ice. 

But for this glittering moment in the slow dream of time, Thule lives—and it is a cruel, fierce, marvelous moment indeed….”

The Primeval Continent

Salutations, master! As you have commanded, so have I done; within this codex lies all that I could discover of the lost land of north, the primeval continent of Thule. This manuscript is but a summation of the Atlantean scrolls that still remain to be read, the scryings and divinations of Vrilerinnen seers, the Lemurian sagas of conquest and trade, and tales from a variety of foreigners from as far as Hyperborea. I must tell you that much that was once known is now forgotten. The libraries of Atlantis lie under the waves, and we live in a darker and more ignorant world than our noble ancestors. I have done what I can; may my unworthy writings prove illuminating and sate your noble curiosity.

At your instruction, I begin with what all know, assuming nothing.

Thule lies far in the northern reaches of the Earth, but these lands are still kissed by the long centuries of summer. It is a wide and wild land, stretching more than two thousand miles from the Shields of Sunset in distant Nar to the shores of the Boreal Sea. North and West from this untamed continent lie the mighty islands of Hellumar and frozen Nimoth, and beyond those lay Hyperborea at the rim of the world, where few men go. To the south lies the great Atlantean Ocean, whose distant shores touch on scores of unknown lands.

It is also a land of mysterious cities, wicked and decadent, home to proud warriors and sly thieves. It is a land of savagery and splendor, grim heroes and prehuman monsters, wonders and terrors enough to ill the ebon scrolls of Free Katagia or the council-fires of the Narthan tribes with a thousand incredible tales. This is Thule, beautiful and deadly, primal and untamed. And, whatever else it may be, it is above all a land of adventure. Click here for your character brainstorming needs...

Bold Heroes, Deadly Dangers

In Thule, deadly peril and glittering opportunity walk hand-in-hand. A brave hunter from a savage tribe goes single-handed to face an evil from beyond the stars that threatens their people; a sly thief from the teeming markets of Quodeth hatches a scheme to pillage the tower of a dread sorcerer; a wandering sellsword stumbles upon the ruins of a lost city and battles brutal beastmen for a ruby the size of a man’s fist. It is a land of mystery, wonder, and danger, a place where anyone with nerves of crucible steel and a strong sword-hand—or perhaps another unyielding talent—can carve their name in the annals of fate.

In this grim and brutal setting, some heroes fight for tribe or city, and some fight simply to survive. But it must be said, that most adventurers are sellswords and freebooters with no higher ambition than to carve out their fortunes however they can. The prospect of gold and glory is all they need to draw them on, and even though most will die terrible deaths in far-off places, a few may make themselves chiefs or princes... or even kings!

Deadly wilderness and wicked foes are only part of what makes Thule savage. The heroes who call this primeval land home are just as distinctive—and dangerous—as the land they live in. This is not a world of chivalrous knights, scholarly wizards, and noble quests. Thule’s champions are made of different stuff, and they often have more self-serving motivations that the shining heroes of less savage lands. The typical warrior in Thule is a hot-tempered barbarian roaming the world in search of loot and glory, or perhaps a steely-eyed mercenary constantly searching for a prize worthy of their ambitions; the rare magus is a master of forbidden lore for whom commoners and nobles alike step aside, shaking in dread.

The cruel cities and the deadly wilderness have a thousand tales to tell, but they all begin with a character driven to attempt great things. Thule’s heroes, like those of any land, are unique individuals who have the right combination of fighting skill, a powerful drive or motivation, and the opportunity to excel.

Savage Wilderness

To find deadly adventure, all a native of Thule need do is strike out into the continent’s untamed wilderness. Civilization clings to the edges of the continent in tiny pockets and footholds surrounded by vast unexplored lands. The great majority of Thule is unsettled, with roads or trails few and far between. A few highways link some of the larger cities in and around the Kalayan Sea, and swift merchant galleys create tenuous lines of communication across these uncharted waters, but most of Thule’s civilized folk never leave the safety of their walled cities. Even the hardiest barbarian tribes are hesitant to wander far from their familiar territory.

You must understand that the sheer ruggedness of Thule’s wild landscape is a daunting obstacle in its own right. The coasts are ringed by towering mountain ranges with few passes. The interior is a steaming basin of jungles and swamps, trackless and home to countless dangerous beasts. And the northern marches of this primeval land are under assault by a deadly and terrible foe, the implacable glaciers that every year creep closer to the verdant jungles and opulent cities of Thule’s heartland. A quarter of the continent already lies in the grasp of unending winter, and an ever-widening band of dying forest and windswept tundra marks the merciless influence of the Pale Death. Mountains, jungles, swamps, tundra, glaciers—these are hard and dangerous lands, and they swallow many a traveler without a trace.

Terrain and weather are certainly dangerous enough, but the true peril of Thule’s wilderness lies in the strangeness or savagery of the monsters that roam the wild. The megafauna—long since vanished from the gentler lands of the world—still linger in Thule. Nature alone is red in tooth and claw... and if those dire beasts are not enough, the wilderness is also home to many warlike tribes and antediluvian monstrosities. Outside the dubious safety of the city walls, a traveler can expect to find the rage of all manner of people and things turned against them—along with ancient or aberrant horrors, and accursed half-human savages known as the beastmen. Click here to learn more about Thule's wildernesses...

Ruined Cities, Lost Lands

Because Thule is both ancient and largely unexplored, many strange and forgotten things lie hidden in the depths of its wilderness. Dozens of cities have risen in its green hills or deep valleys, flourished and prospered, then fallen into ruin through ages of decay or sudden horrible catastrophe. Remote jungles or isolated mountain valleys are home to all sorts of wonders—and evils—whose existence is not even guessed at in the wider world. A stretch of trackless jungle might be home to terrible beasts such as chimeras, hydras, or lamias that are supposed to exist only in legends and fables; an unscaled plateau might harbor the ruins of a city whose people died in a plague of vampirism; a forbidden gorge might be the homeland of a degenerate tribe of cannibals ruled over by the bloated spawn of Tsathoggua.

Most people are happy to let Thule's lost cities remain lost, but every now and then a bold barbarian or arrogant sorcerer stumbles across fantastic wealth in the depths of black peril. Treasuries filled with ancient gold, scrolls holding secrets of power, artifacts of magical might—many such things have been recovered from the world’s forgotten lands. The most adventurous heroes seek out these places, risking life, limb, and sanity for the chance to strike it rich.

Corrupt Societies

Given the many dangers and dark secrets of Thule’s wilderness, you would doubtless deem it wise to remain well within the shelter of the continent’s civilized regions. Unfortunately, Thule’s cities are all too often wicked places indeed. Decadence, cruelty, tyranny, corruption, slavery, oppression... the ills of civilization are too many to easily number. At best, Thule’s cities are hard, heartless places where the poor lead lives of desperation and want. More often, cities are built on oppression, injustice, and wanton cruelty, celebrating social evils of one sort or another.

Warfare is commonplace—most city-states are intense rivals, and open fighting is never far from breaking out. The sheer distances involved and the difficulty of marching through Thule’s wilderness means that conflicts tend to devolve into years of raiding and counter-raiding, with relatively few decisive battles. No great conquering power has arisen to take the place of Atlantis, destroyed centuries ago, although influential city-states such as Katagia and Lomar harbor aspirations of conquest. Thule’s cities are also beset by numerous Thulean tribes that resent the city’s efforts to control territory they regard as their own, or that see the people of the cities as rich, soft, and ripe for plunder.

While cities are rife with intrigue and murder, they also offer individuals with ambition and talent the opportunity to go far indeed. Politics and power are in constant play in most Thulean cities; one’s station is usually determined by personal wealth and influence, not the accident of high birth. Many high lords and merchant princes began their days as slaves or street thieves—and more than a few monarchs were once wandering sellswords themselves. Click here to learn more about Thule's cities...

Inhuman Evils

Humankind is a young and brash race; the oldest human civilizations rose only a few thousand years ago. But some civilizations in Thule are vastly older, predating man’s appearance on the planet. Before the first humans found their way to Thule from ice bridges or shores, rude kingdoms of strange folk sprawled over the wild continent, once perpetually at war with each other and with the decadent realms of the ancient Atlanteans. They in turn found empires of swarming Myrmidons, mighty Cyclopeans, and other ferocious oddities who dominated much of the continent when they arrived. And before their time, the primordial races of alien Starspawn and the Great Old Ones ruled over this ancient land. Each of these inhuman, sometimes alien, cultures left their own abandoned cities or forgotten strongholds for human scholars to puzzle over in the next age.

In general, these survivors of ancient civilizations are slowly passing from the world. The prehuman races are in decline, withdrawing to deeper and more remote sanctuaries or dreaming away the ages in deathlike slumber. They often resent the presence of humankind in their old places of power, and a few scheme to bring ruin to the human race by whatever means are necessary. Even those that are unconcerned with human encroachment in Thule represent an age-old baleful influence that still poisons the world today, leaving behind terrible ruins haunted by creatures older and stronger than humankind, dreadful secrets of magic and power that harbor the potential for untold destruction, and vile cults worshiping things that should not be.

Life By Circumstance

Thule may be a cruel and hard land of many dangers, but it is not a hell on earth. Many people lead somewhat decent lives and enjoy their share of ordinary pleasures in their due season—feasts and revels, family and children, the satisfaction of work well done—whether they are illiterate barbarians, simple craftsmen, or great nobles.

Adventurers, on the other hand, are far from ordinary. The stories of their lives are written on a broader canvas, for good or for ill. But they arise from the same common clay as all other people in Thule, and grew up amid the same traditions and ways as the people around them. The ordinary details of life in Thule are part of who they are. Click here to learn more about life in Thule...

Gods and Cults

There are countless gods in Thule: protectors of cities, patrons of merchants, spirits of beasts and leaf, and dark things remembered only by a few savage tribes or vile cults. This is a superstitious age, and humankind is surrounded by mysterious powers. In such a world, people naturally seek to understand the forces around them by giving them names and seeking to win their favor or avert their displeasure. And because most individuals do not wish to offend any gods, even those they do not worship, strict monotheism is rare if not nonexistent; the people of Thule tend to be polytheistic or henotheistic. Whether the divine take note of such things or not, few indeed could say, for the gods of Thule can be mysterious and fickle. Click here to learn more about Thule's divine...

Untold Lore

The great majority of Thule’s people, both barbarian and civilized, go about their lives in blissful ignorance of the world’s vast, bygone ages and darkest secrets. For them, human prehistory is little more than a handful of garbled stories handed down over several centuries from their savage ancestors who had barely mastered the making of fire, and the world is as it has always been.

Most barbarians and lower-class city folk know only the most basic facts about things they haven’t personally experienced—for example, “there was once an empire called Atlantis,” or “shamans gain magic powers from the spirits of nature.” Well-educated people such as the officials or nobles of a city can trace the broad outlines of events or “big picture” truths, such as, “Atlantis reigned for centuries before the Great Flood, when they colonized many lands around the Atlantean Ocean,” or “sages say there are five kinds of magic, including animism, the magic of shamans.” Only the most dedicated scholars would be able to create a detailed history of Atlantis, or describe each form of magic and its practitioners. Getting them to share that knowledge—and ensuring that it’s not colored by a scholarly or sinister agenda—is no easy task.

While there are many things that are forgotten or misunderstood in this superstitious age, the biggest and most important secrets fall into a few broad categories: history, magic, cosmology, and the existence of the Great Old Ones. Click here to learn about Thule's history...