Perhaps the single most salient feature of Thule is the brooding, primal wilderness that virtually covers the continent. Even the most urban and domesticated city-states lie no more than an easy day’s walk from true wilderness, where terrifying beasts and hostile tribes of savages hold sway. The civilized folk of Thule fear the wilderness and do their best to wall it out, huddling within well-defended cities and other fortified settlements. Barbarians do not fear the jungles and forests the way civilized people do, but they certainly hold a healthy respect for the dangers that surround them, learning from an early age to be keenly aware of their surroundings at all times.
Wilderness Dangers
People unfamiliar with the wilderness assume that death in a dozen different forms waits to pounce the instant one leaves the narrow belt of relative safety around a town or city. Like many fears, this is based more on imagination and inexperience than actual threat. Thule’s wilderness harbors many dangers, but it is also lush, rich with game and forage, and in many cases spectacularly beautiful. Travelers who exercise some very basic precautions—for example, choosing campsites carefully or hiring experienced guides—rarely run into trouble they can’t handle. The problem is that, from time to time, disaster can strike even the largest and best-prepared expeditions. And in Thule’s wilderness, help is rarely close at hand.
As long as one avoids the glaciated regions of the continent, there are few landscapes in Thule that are innately hostile to life; there are no deserts, climates are moderate, and food and water can usually be found. But the terrain of Thule is extremely rugged—forbidding mountains, knife-edged ridges, and sheer gorges seem to conspire to delay and divert travel on foot. Physical exhaustion from marching up and down steep hillsides can leave inexperienced travelers too tired to guard themselves properly against hungry beasts or hostile tribes. Only a fool strikes out into Thule’s jungles or mountains without a trail to follow or a very knowledgeable guide. Getting lost in the forest is no mere inconvenience—it is a situation with potentially lethal consequences. The wild lands of Thule are literally trackless, offering travelers few landmarks or references once a party leaves a known trail.
Thule’s terrain is rarely lethal, but its animals, on the other hand, pose a very significant danger to travelers. The forests and tundra are home to countless large and aggressive beasts, many of which are dangerous to humans. Predators such as dire wolves, cave bears, crested eagles, and saber-tooth cats are obviously threats to life and limb, but many of Thule’s herbivores are equally dangerous. The foul-tempered ground sloth is a monstrous beast the size of an elephant with foot-long claws that can rip a warrior in half, while the Thulean elk sports antlers that stretch a dozen feet tip to tip. Many of Thule’s creatures are simply the most gigantic and fierce examples of their kind to be found in any age, and by quirks of history or climate they happen to be native to this land at this time.
While Thule’s giant beasts are impressive, one creature is still indisputably the most dangerous alive: Man. The wilderness is home to tribes of fierce barbarians and bloodthirsty savages who spend their days in a constant state of war against all other people, rural and urban. Blundering into the territory of a hostile tribe is quite often a fatal mistake. Warnings are rare—the first sign of impending attack may be a volley of poisoned arrows from the shadows, or a wave of screaming berserkers bursting out of the brush. Worse yet, tribes found in especially remote regions are often cannibals, headhunters, or fanatics dedicated to the worship of monstrous or demonic gods, without the cordiality of more well-known nature spirits like the Beastlords. Swift death in battle would be far preferable to the sort of torments that would follow after capture by such degenerates.
A Quick Overview Of Thule's Topography
Thule is a vast, mountainous island-continent that stretches more than fifteen hundred miles end to end. Nearby lie the great islands of Hellumar and Nimoth, with stranger lands yet beyond their shores. All three lie in the northerly reaches of the Atlantean Ocean, but in this age, they are warm and verdant. The deathly ice has only just begun its relentless advance.
The dominant feature of Thule is the rampart of mountains ringing its coasts. The Shields of Sunset guard the high plains of Nar in the west. To the south, the mighty Starcrowns reach elevations of more than 10,000 feet and shelter a maze of fjords and inlets known as the Claws of Imystrahl, where the posthumous influence of Atlantean culture holds strongest. In the east, the volcanic Zinandar Mountains smolder and fume. In northern Thule, the highlands and peaks are covered by the great glacier known as the Pale Death. This ring of mountains forms a gigantic basin or lowland in the center of Thule. A great lake known as the Kalayan Sea lies here, surrounded by deep jungles and trackless wilderness.
As one might expect from a land of such extremes, each region of Thule has its own rugged beauty. The plains of Seraykia are among the tamer realms, its flatlands rich with crop growth and farming villages centered around the city of Katagia. The Claws of Imystrahl are majestic fjordlands, home to Thule’s oldest cities and seaports facing the Atlantean Ocean. The mighty Starcrown Mountains virtually wall off these steep islets and peninsulas from the rest of Thule. The Nar Highlands in western Thule are wide, rolling plains and hills where fierce nomads roam on foot and horseback. Named for the man who conquered this vast region, Kalayan the Golden stretches from the Quosa river valley, across the south bend of the inland sea, past the swamps of Phoor, to the tropical doorstep of Dhar Mesh. It is home and battleground of the richest and most powerful cities on the continent: great powers such as Quodeth and Lomar.
The northern coasts are known as the Thousand Teeth, after the countless rocky islets and spires that dot the Sea of Mists. These are barbarian lands with few cities. Finally, Thule’s northeastern reaches are known as the Lands of the Long Shadow. Vast tundra plains and barren, windswept hills mark the creeping onset of everlasting winter, with the grim expanse of the glaciers looming on the northern horizon. Here the secret of Thule’s wonders and majesty is made plain: this is a doomed land, and its beauty will not last.
A Primeval Landscape
Newcomers visiting Thule for the first time soon learn that this is one of the most rugged and inaccessible lands in the world. Steep mountains virtually ring the island continent, creating a daunting barrier against travel to the interior. The great central plain of Thule is much flatter than the mountains and highlands of the coast, but it presents an even more difficult obstacle: Dense, trackless jungles and swamps that are home to countless large, hungry predators.
Fjordlands
The first part of Thule that greets new arrivals are its spectacular fjordlands. The great majority of the continent’s coastline is mountainous, plunging steeply to meet the sea in a veritable maze of narrow inlets and steep-sided islets. Some of these inlets stretch more than a hundred miles into the interior, ringed by ever-higher peaks.
Fjordlands teem with life. The steep slopes are covered with light forest where game animals abound, while the cold, deep waters are home to dense shoals of fish and beds of shelled critters. Fjordlands also offer easy travel by sea, since these waterways and inlets comprise the best natural roads one could hope for. On the other hand, moving overland from one fjord to another is often impossible. Sometimes two villages on the same island or cape may only be four or five miles apart as the crow lies, but sailing fifty miles around the point is the preferred way to travel from one to the other than trying to climb the mountain ridge separating them.
Given their moderate climate and access to the sea, fjordlands would seem to be ideal for settlement, but they generally lack arable ground. They are anything but flat, and only a few ideal spots can support towns or cities of any size.
Forests
Between the sweltering jungles of the interior and the bare shoulders of Thule’s mountains lie magnificent broadleaf forests. These mixed woodlands are dominated by ancient oaks, beech groves, maples, and silver-trunked birch trees. As one travels north, the beech and oak forests give way to taiga—the pine forests of the boreal world, vast and desolate.
Like the fjordlands of the outer coast, the forests are among Thule’s kinder climes, rich with game and forage for those who know them well. The woodlands are also home to a variety of large and aggressive beasts—Thule’s forests are dangerous places to wander carelessly. Worse yet, they are the hunting grounds of barbarian tribes, some of which are quite fierce. These hardy folk have little use for intruders and are prone to defend their territory with sudden violence. In the wilderness, one should assume that all other people are enemies until proven otherwise.
Inland Seas
The central lowlands of Thule are dominated by a chain of vast freshwater lakes. The largest of these is known as the Kalayan Sea, and it stretches almost seven hundred miles from end to end. The Kalayan is often called Kalayan the Golden, or simply “the Golden Sea,” named for the striking hues of its surface during the long northern dawn and dusk.
The inland seas of Thule offer the best means of traveling any distance across the rugged landscape, but they are far from safe. Storms on the Kalayan can raise waves every bit as large and dangerous as those of the Atlantean Ocean, it is said, and many Lemurian ships have been wrecked in these waters by sudden squalls. Corsair galleys lurk in the Kalayan’s jagged coasts, eager for the opportunity to fall on a passing merchantman. Finally, large and hungry predators swim these waters—the Kalayan (and other sizable lakes) are home to freshwater crocodiles, giant gars and pike, vicious eels, and a few atavistic survivors such as plesiosaurs and mosasaurs. It’s not a good idea to swim unarmed!
Jungles
The jungle is in many ways the single defining landscape of Thule. Dark, deadly, mysterious, and impenetrable, it forms a vast green world within a world, a place where savage beasts and feral barbarian tribes struggle against one another in a never-ending battle for survival. Here, the illusions and pretenses of civilization are stripped away, leaving raw and fierce nature as the ultimate arbiter of whether one lives or dies. Death lurks only a few heartbeats away, ready to claim the careless or unlucky.
While true rainforests tend to have relatively little undergrowth, Thule’s rugged topography and antediluvian soil provides lots of fertile hillsides where dense understory growth can develop—the jungles of this primeval land are dense at all heights, not just the canopy. A fecund collection of life in all forms thrives in this lush environment, including an unbelievable number of venomous or predatory beasts that can kill humans. In fact, Thule’s jungles are often home to creatures that died out ages ago in other parts of the world; more than a few behemoths (dinosaurs) still lurk in these verdant retreats, it is said. Naturally, there are no human cities or civilizations to be found in the interior jungles of Thule. There aren’t all that many barbarians or savages, for that matter; most people look for less hostile places to make their homes. But the tribes that dwell in this fearsome environment are some of the toughest and most fierce warriors in the world.
Giant Caves
In addition to its spectacular vistas of ice-capped mountains and vast forests, Thule is also home to a number of caves and caverns of tremendous extent. The vast interior basin of the island-continent combines limestone hills with heavy rainfall—the perfect recipe for the formation of truly gigantic cavern systems. The hilly reaches in the Land of Long Shadows and the northerly lands of Hellumar and Nimoth are likewise riddled with caves—even if these regions are now too cold and dry for huge caves to form, they were tropical until just a few centuries ago.
There is no true “underworld” system of continent-spanning caves miles below the surface in Thule, but the natural caverns accessible from the surface are quite impressive in their own right. Some of these include huge chambers hundreds of feet across, while others are sprawling networks of passages and chambers dozens of miles in extent. Strange ecologies of cave-dwelling creatures develop in the larger cave systems—and some hold hidden strongholds of monstrous beings, or dark temples dedicated to the worship of forbidden gods. Unspeakable powers were once strong in these lands, and many of their followers—or possibly the Great Old Ones themselves—may lie dormant in the deepest of these caves.
Mountains
The story of Thule’s mountains is written in fire and ice. Mountain ranges in the northerly portions of the continent (and in the great islands of Hellumar and Nimoth) are desolate, inhospitable places mantled in mighty glaciers and snowfields. Huge fields of ice fill the valleys and choke the passes, rendering travel nearly impossible. The mighty Starcrowns of Thule’s southern coast are so lofty that they, too, have fallen into the grip of the Pale Death, even though they are many hundreds of miles south of the creeping glaciation that is conquering the northern lands. But the ranges in eastern Thule smolder and smoke with their own subterranean fires, my King, creating a barrier of volcanic heat against the encroaching ice. Lush and verdant compared to the icy ramparts of the other ranges, they are only marginally less impassable—frequent eruptions, constant tremors, and deadly fumes can close off passes with no warning whatsoever.
Between glaciers, volcanoes, or sheer elevation, the mountain ranges of Thule (and the great islands of Hellumar and Nimoth, which lie close by) form a nearly impassable barrier blocking travel between the coastal fjords and the interior jungles. As one might expect, few people live in these regions. A few hardy tribes of humans make their homes in these high vales, fortifying the narrow passes against intruders, and the easternmost Zinandar Mountains are home to the realm of Kal-Zinan. For centuries, there the nocturnal Wardens of the Dawn have defended their city (and unwittingly, the rest of Thule) from starspawn invaders, earning themselves demigod status among those faithful who shelter in the City of Starry Nights.
There is one thing more that must be said about Thule’s mountains: there are many places in the high peaks where men should not go. Black temples buried in the snows and terrible ruins of antediluvian monsters are often found on the higher slopes, not all of them abandoned.
Swamps
The coastal plains of Thule’s inland seas are home to dense, tangled swamps—huge stretches of flooded forest that can stretch for dozens or hundreds of miles. Gigantic cypress trees mantled with hanging moss loom over the shadowed waterways, and the rare patches of dry ground are overgrown with underbrush covering every hummock or islet. Countless meandering creeks, lakes, and sloughs further impede travel on foot; swamps are almost impossible to navigate without a local guide or an uncanny sense of direction.
Much like jungles, swamps teem with a vast number of large and dangerous beasts. Huge reptiles such as giant vipers, crocodiles, pythons, and monitor lizards seem especially common in these humid areas, and a few behemoths (dinosaurs) that should have gone extinct millions of years ago still lurk in some places. Worse yet, the tribes of the swamps are some of the most primitive and degenerate people to be found anywhere in Thule. The vile headhunters of Phoor are perhaps the best example; masters of stealth, ambush, and poison, these murderous savages are fanatically devoted to the worship of terrible gods and regard all other humans as potential sacrifices.
Tundra
As one travels farther north, the trees grow sparser and more stunted until finally they give out altogether. This is the tundra, a vast arctic plain that lies between the taiga and the advancing glaciers. Sometimes referred to as the Lands of the Long Shadow, the tundra plains of northern Thule are a harsh and forbidding environment—but in summer and fall, they teem with big game. This is the domain of the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, the muskox, and the caribou. Vast herds roam these lands, migrating with the seasons and grass-growth.
Like the taiga forests, the tundra is home to tribes of nomadic hunters who follow the great herds. Hunting mammoths or rhinos is no small feat; these giant beasts have thick hides and fight aggressively, trampling any hunter that gets too close. Taking down a mammoth is a long and dangerous game of luring the beast into charge after charge by hunters who show themselves and suddenly retreat, while dozens of arrows and thrown spears slowly wear down the mighty animal until it can be goaded into a reckless charge against a thicket of grounded spears or lured over a cliff.
Glaciers
A grim and implacable enemy is at the gates of the northern world. Year by year, the summers grow shorter and the northern glaciers creep steadily closer to the lands of humankind. Already the great island of Nimoth lies trapped in the clutches of the Pale Death, the ice thickening over its abandoned cities with each passing winter. In the mountainous spines of Hellumar and Thule, new glaciers are marching on the surrounding lands. Already the Pale Death holds the northeast quarter of Thule in its icy grasp, and lesser ice sheets are slowly spreading too.
As expected, Thule’s glaciers are cold and inhospitable. Nothing grows here, and few animals can find food on the ice. Without grazing or game, there is nothing to eat unless one is near enough to the sea to get by with sealing or fishing. Even that meager existence is impossible during the months when the seas are frozen over. In addition to the lack of food and the bone-chilling cold, glaciers are treacherous terrain to cross. Crevasses, sometimes hundreds of feet deep, can be completely concealed by a thin crust of snow that gives way when an unfortunate traveler unwittingly walks over it. Avalanches, toppling ice boulders, or outbreaks of melt-water can also threaten life and limb. A few bold caravans cross an arm of a glacier when necessary, but no one lingers in these desolate places.
Worst of all, Thule’s glaciers seem to possess an active and malign intelligence capable of harnessing paracausal forces: controlling the wintry weather, or even stranger, necromancy. Here, the frozen dead of the bygone ages do not sleep soundly. Loose snow, frozen flesh, and skeletal bones surge forward to cut off the retreat of trespassers, or change course to traverse mountains, crushing towns that should be out of their reach. The idealized "Pale Death"—who some say is a cold and hateful spirit—animates these titanic masses of ice and long-buried corpses, willing them onward to crush the lands of civilization and blanket the world with nothingness.