TIME-LOST ADVENTURER

The pulp traditions that inspire Primeval Thule are replete with examples of “modern” protagonists who are transported—often against their will—into the past, or to a strange, savage world. hus the time-lost adventurer, a character from the modern world. Perhaps you stood too close to an experimental supercollider, or found an ancient temple at an archaeological site. Maybe your bloodline stretches back to the people of Thule, and esoteric meditation enabled you to make a journey across space and time. Whatever impelled you to Thule doesn’t allow for an easy return home. But you intend to tame this strange land and make Thule your own. More so than other narratives, this is one you’ll want to discuss with the rest of the gaming table beforehand. he story of your character’s attempts to get back home—or to build a new civilization in Thule with modern sensibilities—is important, but it’s not more important than the stories of the hule natives you’re adventuring with. You’ll want to come to terms with how much “real world” knowledge your character can usefully employ. Bringing modern scientiic and engineering principles to bear in a primitive world can be fun, but it can also be overdone. Talk to your GM before you “invent” the printing press, the lateen sail, or the suspension bridge, for example. Also, there’s no guarantee that physics and chemistry work in hule as they do in our world. It’s possible that in hule, mixing sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter doesn’t give you gunpowder. Maybe it just makes a really great jeweler’s rouge.
Key Identity: Human, fighter, ranger, rogue
TIME-LOST ADVENTURER BENEFITS As a time-lost adventurer, your biggest edge is a modern education. Your advantages came with you when you stepped across time and space, and so did your disadvantages. You don’t necessarily know the basics of history and geography that hule natives take for granted.
Skill Training (1st Level): Parts of modern schooling (like all those history and geography lessons) aren’t useful in Thule, but other parts of your education give you a decided advantage. You are trained in Medicine (based on your modern understanding of anatomy and disease) and Investigation (based on either formal training or a lifetime reading mystery novels).
Skeptic (1st Level): Few Thuleans realize it, but the power of magic is largely based in belief . . . which you don’t share. When you fail a saving throw against a spell or magic effect, you can use a combat reaction to reroll your saving throw. You must abide by the results of the second roll. You can use this ability once, and then must rest to regain it.
Business Acumen (6th Level): Whenever you sell a gem, art object, or magic item for gold, you obtain 10% more than the standard price.
A Modern Army (10th Level): You’ve always attracted those curious about your homeland, but now you’re attracting followers so fascinated by your tales that they want you to re-create modern society here in Thule. You can assemble these followers into an elite company of berserkers or legionaries (described in the Primeval Thule Campaign Setting). When you reach 15th level, they improve to veterans.
In general, Thule is not a cosmopolitan place, and telling NPCs that you’re from “Kentucky” isn’t much different than telling them you’re from “Katagia.” You’re considered a foreigner, but you’re lumped in with foreigners from the far ends of the continent of Thule. That blasé attitude about foreigners changes when your real-world knowledge starts to impact the world of Thule. If you introduce scientiic, political, or economic innovations to the world, you’ll start to attract more attention, and everyone will want to hear about this “modern world” you keep talking about.
PERSONALIZING THE TIME-LOST ADVENTURER While the default Time-Lost Adventurer comes from the here and now, it’s easy to adapt the narrative for characters who came from elsewhere. Another Fantasy World: Instead of 21st-century Earth, consider making your character “time-lost” from another RPG campaign world. his character is still very much a fish out of water, having to contend with strange geography, gods, and history. (Your resistance to Thulean spells might simply be derived from your origins on a different planet.)
One Past to Another: Your Time-Lost Adventurer need not be from modernity. Perhaps you were a philosopher in Enlightenment-era France, or a Roman soldier, or a sailor from any era who washed up on the most distant shore of all. It’s a challenge to balance two exotic backgrounds, but the pay off is a narrative that’s authentically pulpy and fun to play. Two-Way Transposition: Rather than a one-way trip to Thule, what if your modern character’s consciousness found its way into a native Thulean body? his option opens up nonhuman races . . . and it raises the possibility that while you’re in Thule, there’s the consciousness of a Thulean barbarian running around the modern world, wreaking all sorts of havoc.