Thundarr the Barbarian as a D&D setting

[Thomas Bowman]

With a liberal sprinkling of D20 Modern and Future, do you think this could be a viable setting?

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Just as soon as I figure out what a Mok is.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

I have done that very thing, actually. Thundarr was one inspiration among many, but the setting was post-apocalyptic Earth and featured orc motorcycle gangs prowling what's left of the highways and ruined cities infested with aberrations and undead.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Just as soon as I figure out what a Mok is.

It's a Wookiee

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It's a Wookiee

That’s a Goonie Goo Goo, Gus!

 

[Thomas Bowman]

I think I would like to reimagine it a bit, keep the basic idea, but make it more serious, less Saturday morning cartoonish perhaps. The sorceress looks like a member of the Fantastic Four, I'd say get rid of the spandex, it just doesn't belong in a Post-Apocalyptic setting, don't you think? How about using a weren from D20 Future, bugger tusks, but basically the same thing. A weren is basically a bigfoot or a sasquatch. Might have been the result of a genetic experiment, this is 500 years in the future after all. If you saw the cartoon, the "comet" which did this was as big as a planet, maybe a plutonid for something. Basically its Dungeons and Dragons, with cities of ruined sky scrappers replacing dungeons and castles, some of the old tech works as well. There are three main characters: Thundarr, Ookla, and Princess Ariel. Ariel is a sorceress, Thundarr and Ookla are Barbarians. There are lots of barbarians in this setting, and also rogues, monks exist, as do rangers, fighters, paladins, I would throw in Druids and clerics, not because they are in the cartoon, but because there is no reason not to have them, its pretty much anything goes. The setting is basically there to introduce anachronistic technological gadgets into the setting, and basically anything could exist up to and including spaceships, if they have a Mok, then some aliens must have been visiting, perhaps they came from the rogue planet which caused the cataclysm in the first place.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The answer is yes, you could do this with those supplements.

Bugbears would make a decent Mok stand in, but the other D20 products do stat out Yetis and Sasquatches. I believe there’s a race in the D20 version of the Alternity setting called the Weren, which could also work.

 

[Thomas Bowman]

The answer is yes, you could do this with those supplements.

Bugbears would make a decent Mok stand in, but the other D20 products do stat out Yetis and Sasquatches. I believe there’s a race in the D20 version of the Alternity setting called the Weren, which could also work.

This is a hex map of Europe which could be used in such a campaign, it is a 12th century map, but the terrain the hexes show would be the same, forests that were clear cut would grow back in 500 years after all.

And this is a Hex map of North America, Thundarr I believe lives in North America, so this would be his turf:

All that remains is the place the city ruins in all the proper places, and of course there are the active settlements as well. Remember the intro to the show? A giant comet passed close to the Earth, more like a rogue planet to show the tidal effects in the opening sequence. My guess is, for the purposes of this campaign, the "comet" was no ordinary comet, the disasters shown were only the tip of the ice berg, the comet opened up a rift with other dimensions, and when that rift opened, some other creatures stepped through and magic was unleashed unto the world, this also had a detrimental effect on technology, and for a while this technology ceased to operate, this caused the death of billions of people, from which only a few survived, because without the technology and the transportation networks, most people starved to death, some of whom survived by cannibalism, and the descendants of those people still live today. Some people, such as Ariel's people learned to use magic. After a decade or two technology became functional again, but by that time it was too late, the damage was done, the World had reverted to savagery.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

I have been looking for something like those maps for years! Thank you so much for posting them!

 

[Thomas Bowman]

I have been looking for something like those maps for years! Thank you so much for posting them!

It was easy enough to find. I am working on improving the map.