World is dominated by wilderness and monster. The only civilizations are city states which fight for survival.
Actually I wanted to add demons and undead. But I hesitate now but because I fear it harmonizes not good with a "primal world". Should I remove the demons and undead?
>>46572588
You could still have "natural undead". Skellies controlled by vines, "zombies" controlled by parasites.
Shit like that.
Natural predators would probably sort out the undead problem real quick. Don't know about demons and shit
Just make Demons and Undead a "natural" threat. Demons are no longer invaders from a demonic plane of existence but instead a race of incredibly powerful but still mortal bestial race; if the setting is magical enough, they might still be literal manifestations of the world's evils. Undead are no longer minions of vile wizards but instead the natural product of improper burial – and considering how brutal most of the world is, anyone that dies outside the cities is not likely to receive their proper rites.
If they still don't seem to mesh well, then yeah maybe they should be cut. I think natural Undead could fit though.
>>46572631
This guy gets it.
>>46572588
You could have areas where the dead rise there for some reason, could be magic, or parasites, or some other kind of thing, you don't need to explain it unless the players will have a way to identify it.
As for demons, you could have places where the terrain has been adapted to sustain creatures from the hells, perhaps their own plane collapsed forcing them into the other one, and they had to basicaly terraform places, but with the natural world being very strong it has been difficult, leading them to develop their own biomes and losing much of their old hierarchy and culture from being split up for many many generations.
>>46572588
Your game sounds fun, like a slightly more extreme form of a game I would have run.
in a world filled wih apex predators, demons are just another one, which is redundant.
if you are looking for the uncanny/mindless variety of enemy you can go with fungus/parasite zombies, if you are just looking for an enemy who is just a raised dead, i guess it would be a bit out of place.
Your "Demons" could be humans that have willingly become corrupted by the wild or some shit like that. Thematic difference with other monsters while still keeping the same flavor.
>>46572588
The Conan series is kinda like this, and manages to pull off the very rare singular scary-powerful demon occasionally. Basically, the world was completely toppled in ages long passed, due to man's hubris (manifested by extremely powerful individual demons), and they're all but gone now in the current age of wilderness.
But very rarely, players may stumble upon an ancient ruin that speaks of the former human glory, and deep within that ruin there may still dwell something so foul that nature can't reclaim the innermost chambers.
I'd say stick with wilderness/monsters 99%, and very rarely throw them a powerful and fucked up demonic entity. Maybe even link the entities in very subtle ways to hint about the world's past?
>>46572588
In the wilderness who knows what dwells there? Nigh ageless monstrosities that have accrued or been imbued with some sort of mysterious power, both shaped by the environment around them and shaping said environment. Some seem mindless, others have a deep predatory cunning, and still others occasionally communicate with those who wander close, but can you trust them?
>>46572588
This sounds like the sort of game I would like to play in... I wish someone but my mechanically brilliant but creatively unimaginative friend GM'd in my group...
His games are always so predictable and never have a good long running theme for the world
This "Primal" world interests me though, I hope you get to run it OP
Some cool ideas I had which could mesh with your setting:
1. The demons you add could be "violent nature spirits" which represent the most primal and violent tendencies of nature. Perhaps most of the world used to be inhabited, but civilization pissed these guys off so much that a wave of them crashed over the land and "reclaimed" it for nature, and now in some places they still haunt and stalk the landscape, looking for "unnatural interlopers"
2. Those races which survived the great wave of the primal death either hunkered down and had a huge defense/hid underground/had strong magic/etc. Those groups who did not have this but still survived somehow may have devolved either due to a long time out in the wilderness or due to coming into contact with the "deep primal" for too long. These folks have now devolved into the beast races and mad/crazy/cannibalistic versions of the old races (pic related, cannibal dwarf)
3. Collecting the ideas about the dead from above, the primal magic caused by the onslaught of the primal powers has caused something to happen when the dead die out in the wilderness, they now rise back up, controlled by plants, becoming shambling mounds of plant matter and bone and flesh which are angry for not receiving proper burials and being cursed with primal energy
4. Some groups which survived either strive to live at one with the primal powers to appease them (and learn to adapt to this new world), while others seek to utterly destroy the primal powers/conquer them and return the old world. Obviously, some groups don't care about the ideological point of this and are more in favor of just generally surviving.
>>46572588
Demons are primal, just make the super evil malevolent forces and not relatable in any way
>>46572588
One idea is that places of "demonic" influence are treated as if it's contaminated with some sort of hallucinogenic substance/organism, which not only makes living beings "see" what's there as unfathomable monstrosities; but also can permanently infect/mutate them into horrific mindless (read: corrupted and possessed) carriers of said "curse".
Of course, the characters in the game world wouldn't understand it this way. To them it's just fucking dark magic.
