I'm developing a hybrid sword & sorcery/post apocalypse/alien invasion RPG using 5e. Primary influences are Tarzan, Conan, Thundarr the Barbarian, and even Land of the Lost. Below are the seeds of its development. I'm interested in your thoughts in general. Is it interesting? Do you have any suggestions?
The Pitch: you play a human character caught between two alien races fighting for domination of your planet. You might be a resistance fighter, an opportunist, a scavenger, a spy playing both sides off each other, or even a traitor. Your tech level is that of swords & sandals, but you're learning these aliens have some really powerful devices you want to get your hands on...
Deep in the constellation of Cygnus, an alien species adept in the science of arcana called the Eure (YOO-ree) were locked in a war with a militarily superior race, the Aeskeri. The Eure realized the struggle was futile, and abandoned their home planet, fleeing in different directions across the galaxy. After severely damaging an Aeskari pursuing warship, one Eure vessel arrived at a planet they felt was ripe for habitation, and named it Pellucidar. Believing that immediate colonization would draw the attention of their enemies, they left one hundred of their best scientists and soldiers on the planet in a sort of stasis under the earth, kept alive by technology enhanced by their sorcery. Their plan was to awaken in ten years, under the assumption that the enemy would have abandoned any search in the region. Upon awakening, they were to send a coded signal to a small fleet waiting several parsecs away, indicating they were awake and would begin preparations for the arrival of more of their people.
To their ultimate misfortune, the Eure on Pellucidar underestimated the determination and ingenuity of the Aeskari on the damaged enemy ship. Using their jerry-rigged sensors, the warship doggedly tracked the oblivious Eure to Pellucidar. Deciding their hobbled ship could not survive a landing on the planet’s surface, the Aeskari carpet-bombed Pellucidar at the point where they estimated the Eure had settled. The missiles created a tumult in the earth, and all but one of the stasis chambers was destroyed, killing the occupants. Perhaps even worse, the machinery that was to awaken the sleepers was reset by the tumult... to one hundred million years in the future.
While the surviving ten Eure slept, the world changed. New species crawled upon the earth. The planet's temperature grew hotter. Polar ice caps melted. Finally, the alarm went off for the sleeping Eure and they awoke from their repose… and they immediately realized events had gone terribly wrong.
Knowing the original plan was millions of years obsolete, the awakened sent the signal once meant for their own people, hoping it might be received by any nearby intelligent life who might come to rescue them.
Recognizing it might take ages for the beacon to bring any help, the Eure set about learning to survive on the sweltering planet. Their powerful physique, partially enhanced by the planet's lower gravity, afforded them mastery over many native creatures, and they feasted well. They used their powers to build great sprawling structures of stone and bend mighty rivers in channels to wind their machinery and sate their thirst.
One fateful day, two Eure scouts encountered a species similar in form to themselves. These new beings were smaller, weaker, less intelligent, and frightened. Spurred by curiosity, the Eure invited them to their stone city. Seeing the great machines and awed by the Eure’s massive size, the humans saw the giants as gods, and worshipped at their feet. As decades passed, each of the great beings became lord of a different land, gradually adjusting their own traditions to better adapt to what their worshipers responded to. Six Eure became enamored of their own power and lost any desire for rescue. They reveled in their mastery for thousands of years, and taught their thralls to forge iron weapons and wield sorcery. Their worshippers came to know the people of the other “gods.” There was trade. There was a sharing of ideas, food, and artisanship. There was also war, waged in the name of their deities.
The other four Eure grew disillusioned with the bloodshed. They banded together to protect their maturing societies against the growing malice, and moved to lands in the west. These Eure, now self-named the Enik, protected their people with great walls and magic. With the protection of their gods, humans built free settlements, cities, villages, and homes. While disagreement and some strife was not unknown, outright war never broke out.
In lands to the east, many of the enslaved humans fled their Eure masters. Some were betrayed by their own kind, who alerted the Eure to their location. Captured escapees were slaughtered or brought back in chains to become slaves to the very people who had betrayed them. The ones who managed to avoid this fate fled north, further than the Eure were willing to follow.
Differing cultures formed and spread on Pellucidar. People of desert lands developed traditions divergent from those of the mountains, forests, cities, and jungles. Some returned to primitive tribalism, while others aspired to discovery and creation. Escaped people remained hidden from the Eure masters who used them as slaves and playthings by constructing homes under the desert sands or civilizations in the mighty swamp trees where the Eure would not go.
And then, unexpectedly, a Eure known as K’roff’Ta was found dead on the fringes of a mountain range. It had many holes burned through its body, and a look of terror was etched on its face. The death was treated as a miracle by K’roff’Ta’s slaves. The word of the Eure's death spread, but the Enik were secretly alarmed. They knew such wounds could not be caused by anything on their new world. And, soon enough, one of the Enik was found killed. It bore wounds exact in nature to those of K’roff’Ta.
The remaining three Enik took counsel with one another, and arrived at a realization: the signal they had sent ages ago had finally been heard, and the listeners were not the benevolent rescuers once hoped for.
It wasn't long before the Invaders made their presence known. They destroyed much of Pellucidar’s landscape and manmade structures. They plundered the planet’s resources for their own mysterious ends. Enik fought their new foes in concert with their human charges, as did Eure with their slaves and worshippers. Invader vehicles, when struck in their fuel cells by powerful attacks, would often leak radiation in a rusty cloud. The strange fog lingered until blown to another place, but it never dissipated. Any native life encountering it were driven mad or saw their bodies change, growing new appendages or losing existing ones. And so the mutants came to be, a race of hideous aberrations accepted by no one and feared by all humans and animals alike. No two were alike in mien, thought, or purpose.
Still, amidst the madness and death brought by the Invaders and the cruelty of the Eure, many societies survived and even thrived. The three living Enik remained to stave off the Invaders from the lands they protected. Some Eure fled from the attackers, leaving the societies they ruled over to fend for themselves. Others continued to fight the Invaders, and one Eure joined forces with them. Heroic and defiant humans began slaying their alien enemies with knowledge gained by the Enik and their own experience, wielding swords, axes, and even the weapons of their enemies. Opportunity for the brave and clever was great. Many found fortune protecting others, gathering alien technology to sell and bargain with, venturing to unexplored lands to claim, and even forging kingdoms.
A sampling of Cultures:
Ghazal are neolithic cave-dwellers of the northeast mountains. Despite their primitive lifestyle, the Ghazal are not unintelligent. They have elected to eschew any advances taught by the Eure and return to the life they believe their fathers practiced thousands of years prior. They are powerful in body and defiant in spirit. Ghazal have some contact with both the Tuzanian jungle dwellers and the riders of the Fulgolan plains, but most contact comes with the Cruach mountain tribes. They are clannish hunter-gatherers, but also grow crops in the few fertile mountain plateaus nearby, occasionally sharing fields with Cruach farmers. The Ghazal have largely been left alone by the Invaders, but the beginning stages of an Invader plundering operation at the southern heel of the mountain chain has them preparing for attack.
TUZANIANS are tree-dwellers of the jungle swamplands. These lean, athletic people have constructed labyrinthine colonies among the highest trees of Pellucidar’s sweltering jungles. These villages sprawl for miles, and some are even connected to other villages. Below these 200’+ tall natural edifices is a mixture of swampland and thick vegetation. Tuzanians are extraordinary climbers and brachiators. They are experts at spearing fish, snakes, and large beasts of the murky waters. Tuzanian leaders are not elected, nor do they ascend by bloodline; when a leader dies, those desirous of the vacant seat must defeat all comers in combat to either death or accepted defeat. The latter are banished and will be killed if they return. Banished Tuzanians are branded with deep scars to the forehead and will be recognized for their status in other Tuzanian colonies and killed. Tuzanian warriors are thought to be the most savage in all of known Pellucidar. Cruach, Ghazal, and Fulgolans seldom journey into their jungles as a result. Tuzanians tend to wear little or no clothing, although decorative tattoos, bones, and skins are common adornments. Because they dwell so high above ground, they only rarely encounter the mutating radiation of ruptured Invader fuel cells. Those that do often find themselves becoming swamp dwellers, feared and hunted by their own people.
Despite their outwardly uncivilized ways, Tuzanians are not ignorant of the larger world or its threats. They are not averse to joining forces with other cultures to push back Invader encroachment. Some have made a study of the alien technology and utilize its power. A Tuzanian hunter wielding an energy weapon is rare, but not unheard of.
Magic traditions of the swamplands tends toward the illusion and abjuration end of the spectrum, so much the better to hide their villages and cloak their already formidable hunting parties. The most advanced practitioners, called Zangateurs, can control jungle beasts, but the danger is palpable; failure can result in savage attacks on the mage from animals too defiant to be controlled. Zangateurs are usually marked with the scars of their near-death experiences.
Tuzanians do not ride any land beasts, as their environment is too thick with vegetation. They can, however, train winged reptiles to carry them afar. Tuzanians who survive the process of training these creatures develop special relations with their mounts, gaining an ability to communicate on an almost telepathic level. Contact with Ghazal, Fulgola, Cruach, and the city dwellers of the west is carried out by Tuzanian wing riders.
OTHER CULTURES
Cruach high mountain dwellers, closest to the classic barbarians of sword & sorcery tales
Fulgolan: dwellers of the plains and deserts, riding dinosaur-like beasts. They have hidden refuges all over their lands.
City Dwellers of the west, protected by a gigantic wall containing their cities and other dwellings. They have let their supposedly safe confines allow them to descend into laziness, thievery, and corruption.
As yet unnamed people to the south of the jungles. Most people here are slaves, ruled by a class of priests and the brutes who serve them.
Mutants who have been touched by invader radiation. The vast majority are outcasts living in the wilds and avoiding contact with humans. Some have become entirely feral and/or mad.
The Pitch: you play a human character caught between two alien races fighting for domination of your planet. You might be a resistance fighter, an opportunist, a scavenger, a spy playing both sides off each other, or even a traitor. Your tech level is that of swords & sandals, but you're learning these aliens have some really powerful devices you want to get your hands on...
Deep in the constellation of Cygnus, an alien species adept in the science of arcana called the Eure (YOO-ree) were locked in a war with a militarily superior race, the Aeskeri. The Eure realized the struggle was futile, and abandoned their home planet, fleeing in different directions across the galaxy. After severely damaging an Aeskari pursuing warship, one Eure vessel arrived at a planet they felt was ripe for habitation, and named it Pellucidar. Believing that immediate colonization would draw the attention of their enemies, they left one hundred of their best scientists and soldiers on the planet in a sort of stasis under the earth, kept alive by technology enhanced by their sorcery. Their plan was to awaken in ten years, under the assumption that the enemy would have abandoned any search in the region. Upon awakening, they were to send a coded signal to a small fleet waiting several parsecs away, indicating they were awake and would begin preparations for the arrival of more of their people.
To their ultimate misfortune, the Eure on Pellucidar underestimated the determination and ingenuity of the Aeskari on the damaged enemy ship. Using their jerry-rigged sensors, the warship doggedly tracked the oblivious Eure to Pellucidar. Deciding their hobbled ship could not survive a landing on the planet’s surface, the Aeskari carpet-bombed Pellucidar at the point where they estimated the Eure had settled. The missiles created a tumult in the earth, and all but one of the stasis chambers was destroyed, killing the occupants. Perhaps even worse, the machinery that was to awaken the sleepers was reset by the tumult... to one hundred million years in the future.
While the surviving ten Eure slept, the world changed. New species crawled upon the earth. The planet's temperature grew hotter. Polar ice caps melted. Finally, the alarm went off for the sleeping Eure and they awoke from their repose… and they immediately realized events had gone terribly wrong.
Knowing the original plan was millions of years obsolete, the awakened sent the signal once meant for their own people, hoping it might be received by any nearby intelligent life who might come to rescue them.
Recognizing it might take ages for the beacon to bring any help, the Eure set about learning to survive on the sweltering planet. Their powerful physique, partially enhanced by the planet's lower gravity, afforded them mastery over many native creatures, and they feasted well. They used their powers to build great sprawling structures of stone and bend mighty rivers in channels to wind their machinery and sate their thirst.
One fateful day, two Eure scouts encountered a species similar in form to themselves. These new beings were smaller, weaker, less intelligent, and frightened. Spurred by curiosity, the Eure invited them to their stone city. Seeing the great machines and awed by the Eure’s massive size, the humans saw the giants as gods, and worshipped at their feet. As decades passed, each of the great beings became lord of a different land, gradually adjusting their own traditions to better adapt to what their worshipers responded to. Six Eure became enamored of their own power and lost any desire for rescue. They reveled in their mastery for thousands of years, and taught their thralls to forge iron weapons and wield sorcery. Their worshippers came to know the people of the other “gods.” There was trade. There was a sharing of ideas, food, and artisanship. There was also war, waged in the name of their deities.
The other four Eure grew disillusioned with the bloodshed. They banded together to protect their maturing societies against the growing malice, and moved to lands in the west. These Eure, now self-named the Enik, protected their people with great walls and magic. With the protection of their gods, humans built free settlements, cities, villages, and homes. While disagreement and some strife was not unknown, outright war never broke out.
In lands to the east, many of the enslaved humans fled their Eure masters. Some were betrayed by their own kind, who alerted the Eure to their location. Captured escapees were slaughtered or brought back in chains to become slaves to the very people who had betrayed them. The ones who managed to avoid this fate fled north, further than the Eure were willing to follow.
Differing cultures formed and spread on Pellucidar. People of desert lands developed traditions divergent from those of the mountains, forests, cities, and jungles. Some returned to primitive tribalism, while others aspired to discovery and creation. Escaped people remained hidden from the Eure masters who used them as slaves and playthings by constructing homes under the desert sands or civilizations in the mighty swamp trees where the Eure would not go.
And then, unexpectedly, a Eure known as K’roff’Ta was found dead on the fringes of a mountain range. It had many holes burned through its body, and a look of terror was etched on its face. The death was treated as a miracle by K’roff’Ta’s slaves. The word of the Eure's death spread, but the Enik were secretly alarmed. They knew such wounds could not be caused by anything on their new world. And, soon enough, one of the Enik was found killed. It bore wounds exact in nature to those of K’roff’Ta.
The remaining three Enik took counsel with one another, and arrived at a realization: the signal they had sent ages ago had finally been heard, and the listeners were not the benevolent rescuers once hoped for.
It wasn't long before the Invaders made their presence known. They destroyed much of Pellucidar’s landscape and manmade structures. They plundered the planet’s resources for their own mysterious ends. Enik fought their new foes in concert with their human charges, as did Eure with their slaves and worshippers. Invader vehicles, when struck in their fuel cells by powerful attacks, would often leak radiation in a rusty cloud. The strange fog lingered until blown to another place, but it never dissipated. Any native life encountering it were driven mad or saw their bodies change, growing new appendages or losing existing ones. And so the mutants came to be, a race of hideous aberrations accepted by no one and feared by all humans and animals alike. No two were alike in mien, thought, or purpose.
Still, amidst the madness and death brought by the Invaders and the cruelty of the Eure, many societies survived and even thrived. The three living Enik remained to stave off the Invaders from the lands they protected. Some Eure fled from the attackers, leaving the societies they ruled over to fend for themselves. Others continued to fight the Invaders, and one Eure joined forces with them. Heroic and defiant humans began slaying their alien enemies with knowledge gained by the Enik and their own experience, wielding swords, axes, and even the weapons of their enemies. Opportunity for the brave and clever was great. Many found fortune protecting others, gathering alien technology to sell and bargain with, venturing to unexplored lands to claim, and even forging kingdoms.
A sampling of Cultures:
Ghazal are neolithic cave-dwellers of the northeast mountains. Despite their primitive lifestyle, the Ghazal are not unintelligent. They have elected to eschew any advances taught by the Eure and return to the life they believe their fathers practiced thousands of years prior. They are powerful in body and defiant in spirit. Ghazal have some contact with both the Tuzanian jungle dwellers and the riders of the Fulgolan plains, but most contact comes with the Cruach mountain tribes. They are clannish hunter-gatherers, but also grow crops in the few fertile mountain plateaus nearby, occasionally sharing fields with Cruach farmers. The Ghazal have largely been left alone by the Invaders, but the beginning stages of an Invader plundering operation at the southern heel of the mountain chain has them preparing for attack.
TUZANIANS are tree-dwellers of the jungle swamplands. These lean, athletic people have constructed labyrinthine colonies among the highest trees of Pellucidar’s sweltering jungles. These villages sprawl for miles, and some are even connected to other villages. Below these 200’+ tall natural edifices is a mixture of swampland and thick vegetation. Tuzanians are extraordinary climbers and brachiators. They are experts at spearing fish, snakes, and large beasts of the murky waters. Tuzanian leaders are not elected, nor do they ascend by bloodline; when a leader dies, those desirous of the vacant seat must defeat all comers in combat to either death or accepted defeat. The latter are banished and will be killed if they return. Banished Tuzanians are branded with deep scars to the forehead and will be recognized for their status in other Tuzanian colonies and killed. Tuzanian warriors are thought to be the most savage in all of known Pellucidar. Cruach, Ghazal, and Fulgolans seldom journey into their jungles as a result. Tuzanians tend to wear little or no clothing, although decorative tattoos, bones, and skins are common adornments. Because they dwell so high above ground, they only rarely encounter the mutating radiation of ruptured Invader fuel cells. Those that do often find themselves becoming swamp dwellers, feared and hunted by their own people.
Despite their outwardly uncivilized ways, Tuzanians are not ignorant of the larger world or its threats. They are not averse to joining forces with other cultures to push back Invader encroachment. Some have made a study of the alien technology and utilize its power. A Tuzanian hunter wielding an energy weapon is rare, but not unheard of.
Magic traditions of the swamplands tends toward the illusion and abjuration end of the spectrum, so much the better to hide their villages and cloak their already formidable hunting parties. The most advanced practitioners, called Zangateurs, can control jungle beasts, but the danger is palpable; failure can result in savage attacks on the mage from animals too defiant to be controlled. Zangateurs are usually marked with the scars of their near-death experiences.
Tuzanians do not ride any land beasts, as their environment is too thick with vegetation. They can, however, train winged reptiles to carry them afar. Tuzanians who survive the process of training these creatures develop special relations with their mounts, gaining an ability to communicate on an almost telepathic level. Contact with Ghazal, Fulgola, Cruach, and the city dwellers of the west is carried out by Tuzanian wing riders.
OTHER CULTURES
Cruach high mountain dwellers, closest to the classic barbarians of sword & sorcery tales
Fulgolan: dwellers of the plains and deserts, riding dinosaur-like beasts. They have hidden refuges all over their lands.
City Dwellers of the west, protected by a gigantic wall containing their cities and other dwellings. They have let their supposedly safe confines allow them to descend into laziness, thievery, and corruption.
As yet unnamed people to the south of the jungles. Most people here are slaves, ruled by a class of priests and the brutes who serve them.
Mutants who have been touched by invader radiation. The vast majority are outcasts living in the wilds and avoiding contact with humans. Some have become entirely feral and/or mad.
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