📖 Let's Read! [Let's Read] GURPS Banestorm

[LoneWolf23]

Hello, I had fun with my Let's Read the Complete Villains Handbook for AD&D, so I decided to do a new Let's Read. For this one, I'm going with one of my favorite Fantasy RPG settings, GURPS Banestorm.

I'll try to do a more abridged look this time around, covering the basics and really going into my thoughts on the contents of the book, rather than give as much of a blow-by-blow. I'll also be giving my thoughts on what custom changes I'd make to my own version of the setting if I were to run a campaign in it.

So, without further ado, let us look at GURPS Banestorm.

 

[LoneWolf23]

Well, I wanted to show off the cover of GURPS Banestorm, but for some reason the site won't let me post images. So, I'll skip ahead to the book's own introduction, which quickly explains the premise of the setting.

"Welcome to Yrth - the world of the Banestorm. Here humanity and a dozen other races, orphans and authors of the storm alike, wield swords and spells in a struggle for survival and glory. Although trolls and dragons lurk in the dark places, the worst dangers of all may be found in the verdant forests and great palaces..."

So says the first paragraph of the introduction. Outdated "races" text aside, it sums up the setting in a nice elevator pitch. So as you can see, this is a guidebook to fantasy RPG adventures on the world of Yrth, specifically the continent of Ytarria. A world mostly similar to Earth, except that magic works and none of its original sapient intelligent people are human. But the magical dimensional vortex known as the Banestorm brought Humans and others to Ytarria from Earth, as well as other worlds.

This is the Fourth Edition version of this setting, which was first introduced in 1985 as the setting for Orcslayer, an adventure focusing on the region of Caithness. This was later expanded in the first edition of GURPS Fantasy, which outlined the setting of Yrth outside of Caithness. Later supplements focused on regions such as Harkwood and Tredroy, which we'll look at later, and later on a new edition was made in 1990 titled GURPS Fantasy: the Magical World of Yrth, which fleshed out the setting even further.

Yrth has been GURPS's "Default" fantasy setting for a while, and in 2005 we got this new book, which not only brought it in line with the 4th edition of GURPS, but also changed some things in the setting, and updated its history.

As stated above, this book, like its predecessors, focuses on the continent of Ytarria, located in Yrth's Northern Hemisphere, and spanning roughly 3000 miles. It's climate ranges from parched deserts and subtropical forests in the south to chilly subarctic regions in the north. And humans have even settled a number of outlying islands, while maintaining contact with the mainland. And some nonhumans even dwell under the seas themselves.

There's other continents on Yrth, but ocean travel is very difficult due to powerful currents, wild storms, monsters and supernatural strangeness, but this leaves enterprising GMs with plenty of room to expand the world of Yrth as they see fit. Although there's already plenty to do on Ytarria.

Next time, we'll look at the History of Yrth.

 

[DMH]

Cool. Banestorm is one of the books I have considered buying for ages but never got around to. I like settings like this, probably influenced by Land of the Lost (the first two seasons of the original and the 90's version), Ravenloft, and a little known TSR setting called Chanak.

I have one question- is it high fantasy or are there any science fiction elements?

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

I'm interested in what someone else has to say: I bounced off its serious take on medieval fantasy.

 

[AbjectQuestioner]

Cool. Banestorm is one of the books I have considered buying for ages but never got around to. I like settings like this, probably influenced by Land of the Lost (the first two seasons of the original and the 90's version), Ravenloft, and a little known TSR setting called Chanak.

I have one question- is it high fantasy or are there any science fiction elements?

I think it leans more to the science-fictional than high fantasy, actually, despite being pretty much a D&D-type fantasy setting. A big premise is that Yrth is a planet - it may be in another dimension, but it's an actual alien world with its own indigenous species, the elves - and other standard fantasy races - goblins, lizard men, centaurs, and, of course, humans - all originate from their different, respective planets themselves. Moreover, since the medieval society of Yrth is based on Earth's directly, it doesn't focus so much on that high fantasy conceit of an already established, secondary world . . . Yrthan society is very much influenced by the "real" world.

Looking forward to this read.

 

[LoneWolf23]

As AbjectQuestioner pointed out, Yrth definitely has a more "science-fiction" feel than high fantasy, although the campaign chapter does cover the topic of High Fantasy, so I won't go into too great detail here. But it definitely feels more like a "Planetary Romance" setting where the technology is replaced with functional magic.

One thing that definitely sets Yrth apart from some other fantasy settings is how "secular" the world feels, in that there are no active gods or celestial beings, and what demons exist might just as well come from alternate universes rather than "Hell".

 

[LoneWolf23]

Chapter 1 - The History of Yrth

Every chapter begins with a nice short narrative, the part of a character's story in the world of Yrth. This first one focuses on a ship arriving in an Ytarrian port after emerging from the Banestorm, originally hailing from London. From the way both sides still speak English, I assume this is still relatively early in Yrth's post-Banestorm history. The most dramatic moment is when the crew of the sailing ship is shocked to discover the local priest is a Goblin, who tells them that they aren't on Earth anymore.

So, the history chapter takes 11 pages to cover the history of Yrth, from prehistory through the year 2005 A.D., which was present times when the book first came out. Again, it focuses on Ytarria, and all dates, including pre-Banestorm ones, use the modern calender, and for game purposes all G.M.s should assume Yrth dates work the same as ours.

Pre-Human Yrth was populated by elves, dwarves, orcs, and a few related races. And while dwarves and elves had sporadic conflicts, both sides were usually at war with the orcs for as far back as any historical record can tell. The dwarves settled in the mountain ranges of Ytarria, the elves spread across the forests of the continents, and the orcs roamed the surrounding lands, occasionally raiding elf villages and dwarf caverns.

Around 350 A.D., some orc tribes engaged in a campaign of extermination against a group of elves in a region that would eventually become the Great Desert, using weapons stolen from the dwarves. The survives resolved to eliminate the bandits... ...and decided to punish the dwarves as well, blaming them for the weapons the orcs used. This group, calling itself “Defenders of the Shaded Woodlands” eventually evolved into a cult that rejected the finer points of elven culture, to dedicate themselves on waging war against the orcs.

Then, around 400A.D, some Defenders persuaded other elven leaders to wage war against the dwarves of Zarak. This war, which remains the main reason dwarves still mistrust elves, ended after a Zarak peace delegation faced down the Defender's spokesmen at the elves' High Council, a humiliation that discredited the Defenders for many generations. They ended their conflict against the dwarves, but rededicated themselves towards fighting orcs, to the point of becoming firmly dedicated towards genocide. Which was complicated by the high birthrate of orcs, who could replenish their numbers within decades of being nearly wiped out by Defender attacks.

So around 1000 A.D., the Defenders decided they needed a solution. A Final Solution.


One thing I like about GURPS Books are the fun side-boxes that contain supplemental information, and we get our first one here, involving Yrth Astronomy and Geography. Here we confirm that Yrth is in a parallel universe with a solar system closely resembling our own, complete with the same stars, planets and sun, although it's moon shines more brightly and with a more silvery color, and a different pattern of craters on it. But Yrth has the same day, year and lunar cycles as Earth.

This is mostly common knowledge, although most Ytarrians don't think of such things. One major difference exists though, and that's the presence of numerous mana-rich* asteroids in eccentric orbits, which have routinely hit Yrth and its moon over the eons, and have altered the planet's geography and mana levels ** as a result. So it's entirely possible that Yrth IS just an alternate Earth that was radically altered by mana-rich asteroids over billions of years. This is actually a speculation of Ytarrian scholars, some of which even speculate about long-extinct intelligent races.

* and ** GURPS' standard magic system uses “mana” as its default term for the ambient energy that empowers magic, and uses mana levels to determine how strong said magical energies are, ranging from Very High Mana to No Mana. Anyone can cast spells in Very High Mana level areas, but any spell failures become critical failures (and critical failures turn into disasters), while no magic at all can function in a No Mana area. Yrth, as we'll see, has a default mana level of Normal (only wizards can use spells, which work normally), but also has regions of varied mana levels.

If the use of the term 'mana' bothers you, feel free to use alternate terms (Aether, Magicka, Essence) in your games. I will continue to use the term 'mana' for simplicity of reference.


So with the next Entry, we'll look at what the Defenders' “Final Solution” ended up being.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

This is mostly common knowledge, although most Ytarrians don't think of such things. One major difference exists though, and that's the presence of numerous mana-rich* asteroids in eccentric orbits, which have routinely hit Yrth and its moon over the eons, and have altered the planet's geography and mana levels ** as a result. So it's entirely possible that Yrth IS just an alternate Earth that was radically altered by mana-rich asteroids over billions of years. This is actually a speculation of Ytarrian scholars, some of which even speculate about long-extinct intelligent races.

Yrth gets its own section in GURPS Infinite Worlds, but we'd probably wait a bit before discussing those tie-ins.

 

[Scurrilous]

I think part of the reason Yrth feels a bit more science fictiony is that it's not mythic at all, it's cut and dried and even a bit humdrum. I've often described it as a medieval theme park where magic and some basic scientific knowledge like the germ theory of disease eliminates much of the nastiness.

 

[Bira]

Cool, a Banestorm Let's Read! This is one of the parts of GURPS I never quite got into, so it will be interesting to get a bit more familiar with it.