Adept
Explorer: Due to their own somewhat primitive approach to magic, adepts are a rarity amongst explorers. Those who are found in exploring parties are usually serving as schol-ars of primitive magic. As such, the adept may be quite useful in handling diplomacy and relations between the explorers and the tribal mystics.
Advantages: Adepts have a natural insight and under-standing of the ways of primitive tribal magic and beliefs.
Disadvantages: Adepts lack the full arsenal of a good wizard, druid, or cleric.
Native: Native adepts often enjoy a prestigious rank within their tribe. Unless their particular tribe or civilization has a sorcerer or have developed the more advanced magics and practices of a wizard or cleric, the adept is the forerunning expert of the supernatural. Most primitive cultures, how-ever, have little to no ability or knowledge in regards to the more powerful paths to mystic art. As such, adepts make up the bulk of primitive mystics. Though these individuals may be found occasionally out gathering needed supplies mostly they are typically encountered within the perimeter of the tribal villages.
The tribes generally regard primitive adepts as being wise women, medicine men, witch doctors, and shaman.
Advantages: A native adept typically enjoys a position of political power and respect within their tribe.
Disadvantages: Tribal adepts lack the power of wizards, sorcerers, druids, and clerics. In fact, most have never wit-nessed such concentrations of power and would possibly consider anyone possessing such might to be “one of the gods”.
Aristocrat
Explorer: Though tasting the adventure of the lost lands may seem like a novel getaway, the discovery of life or death situations tend to take their toll quickly on a pam-pered member of the aristocracy or royal lineage. While fancy swordplay is always welcome within the courtyard, such gentlemanly skills hardly do much good against the jaws of an overgrown lizard.
Still, despite the obvious hazards of the lost lands, it is not entirely rare to see an aristocrat or two tagging along with a party of explorers. To these individuals there is often the thrill of seeing lost ruins or participating in “expedition hunts”, where big game is taken down for the sheer glory of bragging rights and new additions to the trophy room.
Likewise, an aristocrat who has heard tales of gems and other natural resources may lead a party of explorers and laborers to the lands in an effort to secure a king’s treasury of wealth or establish a possible trade route.
Advantages: Aristocratic explorers seem to have a natu-ral instinct for exploiting the potential value and resources of the lost lands.
Disadvantages: Careless aristocrats tend to become well-dressed meals for cannibals and savage beasts.
Native: The status of an aristocrat is somewhat uncommon in many primitive tribes. Though these tribes do recognize chiefs, kings, and their princes, these individuals tend to be skilled warriors, adepts, or so forth. As such, the chief tends to lead just as much an adventurous (if not danger-ous) life as the rest of the tribe, and usually has to earn the respect of their people rather than gain or manipulate it through political speech.
Native aristocrats, when such a class exists, consist of the wealthy and influential rulers or advisors within the civilization’s structure. They tend to enjoy a greater degree of both influence and luxury than the rest of their tribe or nation. However, they also harbor a greater danger in the fact that they are prime targets for the attacks of hostile tribes. It is common that once a leader is slain the rest of the tribe scatters or surrenders in defeat. As such, the leaders are usually the first targets to eliminate in any tribe related battle or village raid.
Advantages: Native aristocrats usually “have it made”
in comparison to the rest of the tribe.
Disadvantages: These aristocrats are choice targets for rival tribes.
Commoner
Explorer: Commoners appear in exploration parties for a few different reasons. Most of these individuals are simply hirelings who have decided that risking the dangers of the
lost lands at least offers a better life than the day-to-day misery back home. Others may be sailors or even pirates whose daring captains have made land (or even ship-wrecked) upon the beaches of the strange environment that is so harsh and unforgiving. Still a third group may be colonists or even transplanted debtors and prisoners who have been sent across the waters to form villages or labor camps in order to exploit the natural resources and establish a new trade route.
Though there is the potential to gain treasure from the lost lands, most commoners hate being in the area and long for the journey back home. The environment is a deadly place for an individual with very little combative skill.
Advantages: If a commoner can survive the ordeals of the lost lands and make it back home there is a good chance that the individual will be a great deal richer and gain an instant, approving audience who will want to hear plenty of stories.
Disadvantages: Several living creatures in the lost lands find such explorers to be quite nourishing and easy to kill.
Native: Native commoners consist of a wide variety of in-dividuals that include slaves, gatherers, laborers, and tribe members that otherwise lack in the advanced trades of an expert or the combativeness of a warrior. These people toil about in order to do their best at ensuring the survival of their tribe and their children.
Advantages: Native commoners are usually excluded from the hunting parties, thus avoiding the dangers on such missions.
Disadvantages: There are usually plenty of hazards near the village to wipe out the simple commoner. Likewise, be-ing a simple commoner is usually the lowest notch on the pecking order.
Expert
Explorer: Due to their concentration on skills and profes-sions, these individuals are reasonably common in explora-tion parties. Experts tan items, catalog exotic creatures and plants, and assist with various needed skills. The lost lands can be a dream come true or a nightmare for an expert.
On one hand, the expert is capable of making discoveries that are unavailable to other members in their field. On the other hand, the expedition is extremely dangerous and may lead into harsh, unforgiving climates.
Advantages: Experts are useful for knowledge and ad-vice. Likewise their skills and crafts may mean a difference between life and death.
Disadvantages: Lacking the normal hardiness of an adventurer, the expedition can be particularly rough on the average expert class character.
Native: Native experts are tribal artisans and scholars of their surroundings. These individuals make weapons, study plants and fungi for valuable properties, and construct a wide manner of clothing, crafts, and tools. In addition, the native experts also include sculptors and architects.
Advantages: Experts serve important functions within the tribe and as such are considered to be valuable indi-viduals.
Disadvantages: Concentrated in their skills and profes-sions, these individuals do not have the combative training that a warrior possesses. As such, experts tend to remain in the safety of their village unless their duties or trade demands otherwise.
Warrior
Explorer: Warriors are commonly found in exploration parties. Possessing a reasonably decent degree of combat-ive skills these individuals provide backup for the explorers and also stand guard over the encampment and goods of the rest of the party.
While it would seem only natural to stock the hirelings of the exploration party with nothing but warrior class non-player characters, these individuals often become haughty in nature in regards to their position. They be-lieve that manual labor is something for the commoners and experts, and likewise the warriors may begin to itch for an opportunity to “get a piece of the action” for their own selves. There are big creatures to take down in the lost lands, and the typical warrior might just want to claim a trophy of their own.
Advantages: Having a hireling around with levels in the warrior class can be quite beneficial in the matters of defense and survival.
Disadvantages: Warriors become edgy when they are not allowed to participate in the entire dinosaur slaying.
Native: Native warriors are extremely common as these individuals serve the tribe by being both defenders and hunters. Usually these warriors are poorly equipped, most having a primitive weapon of sorts and little to no armor.
While the warrior might appear to be a wee bit inferior, these individuals are great survivalists and seem to know every nook and cranny in the lost lands. Likewise, the na-tive warrior is usually a master when it comes to taking down creatures that are larger than the warrior him- or herself.
Advantages: Warriors are properly trained to ensure their own survival, as well as that of the tribe overall.
Disadvantages: Though combat-ready these individu-als do not have the same advantages as a fighter, barbarian, or ranger.
PC Classes
Barbarian
Explorer: Barbarian explorers tend to find that they feel at home in the lost lands. Though the environment is brutal, it is so in a natural way and can be conquered by mundane means. The monsters of the lands are big, very big, and often go down with a pleasant flavor when cooked over an open fire.
Advantages: Barbarians feel right at home in the lost lands.
Disadvantages: Barbarians may feel too right at home in the lost lands, turn completely savage, and slay their friends or refuse to leave.
Native: Native barbarians are quite at home with the savage ways of the lost lands. Such an environment is only natural for the barbarian.
Advantages: Native barbarians find the lost lands to be quite suitable to their tastes and are probably at somewhat of an advantage compared to many members of the adven-turing party.
Disadvantages: Native barbarians can often be rather single minded in such surroundings. Living in a world that revolves around strength and hardship gives the barbar-ian little desire to respect the more educated approach of others.
Bard
Explorer: An expedition to the lost lands would certainly provide plenty of stories about heroic feats, exotic environ-ments, and savage beasts. As such, any bard worth his salt would naturally jump at the chance to make the journey to the lost lands in hopes of playing a part of worthy legends.
Advantages: Bards and the lost lands go well together, in regards to recording the details concerning the greatest of expeditions.
Disadvantages: Bards with more pampered lifestyles might find the savage nature of the lost lands less than pleasant.
Native: Though it would seem odd to find a native bard in the lost lands, these individuals do in fact exist. The native bards, much in the same manner of other native spell cast-ers, are keepers of the sacred ways. While the manner of dress and the instruments employed might vary from the more civilized bard, the attitudes of the native bard are still very much the same in many respects.
Advantages: Native bards, like the bards of more cul-tured lands, are well rounded and have access to powerful and useful abilities.
Disadvantages: Though native bards gain access to spell craft and other forms of bardic magic, they lack the combativeness and survival techniques of classes such as fighters, barbarians, and rangers.
Cleric
Explorer: Though a journey to the lost lands gives the cleric an opportunity to spread the influence of his or her deity, such a trip may be somewhat trying in many aspects.
There are probably no signs of temple, knowledge, or in-fluence of the cleric’s deity in the lost lands, and as such the cleric may feel the signs of homesickness and abandon even more than other explorers.
Still, the healing capabilities, spell craft, and combative-ness of the cleric will be considered quite useful in the lost
lands. Also, since these places often seem to have their own share of foul, undead creatures thanks to dark, primitive magic, the turning abilities of the cleric may come in quite handy.
Advantages: The well-rounded abilities of the cleric will probably be quite useful on an expedition to the lost lands.
Disadvantages: Cleric explorers may suffer from feel-ings of homesickness, isolation, and abandonment in the lost lands.
Native: As the lost lands have their own pantheon of primitive deities, there are naturally native clerics that ex-ist in this environment. The role of the clerical native is no different than the cleric of the more cultured parts of the world, though the primitive cleric may have less access to the suitable forms of weapons and armor.
Advantages: Native clerics, among many other things, have access to spells and abilities that the other members of the tribe do not have. Likewise, having a few native heal-ers around never hurts.
Disadvantages: None, other than a native cleric may be hard fit to find heavy maces and metal armor.
Druid
Explorer: In some ways an exploring druid could only feel at home in an environment clearly dominated by nature.
On the other hand, however, this is not the exploring druid’s “nature”. While the lands are indeed bizarre to a visiting druid, these individuals still have somewhat of an advantage in regards to adjusting and adapting. While not exactly as combative as the barbarian, a druid explorer’s spell craft and survival skills are nonetheless quite useful.
Advantages: A druid’s assortment of abilities and sur-vival skills prove quite useful in the lost lands.
Disadvantages: The nature surrounding the druid ex-plorer may be quite different than what they are used to.
Native: Druids in the lost lands are fairly common and probably make up the majority of the more powerful spell casters that are found native to these areas. The wilderness survival skills are a benefit to these individuals, along with their other abilities.
Advantages: Native druids are able to wield great power and influence in the lost lands, making them potentially important characters.
Disadvantages: There are no real disadvantages for druids in the lost lands, other than they are not quite as combative as some of the other classes.
Fighter
Explorer: As the lost lands consist of savage environments where quite often might means right, the fighter is at an advantage with their skillful combativeness. Exploring fighters, however, may find that their more cultured en-vironment has “pampered” them a bit and given them a sense of dependence on the more sophisticated varieties of weapons and armor. If a fighter can overcome his or her
need for such finer things then they will surely discover that they have what it takes to survive in the lost lands.
Advantages: The fighter’s combative nature is a great asset in the lost lands.
Disadvantages: Keeping one’s armor and weapons oiled and repaired may be a bit difficult.
Native: Though lacking in the sophisticated forms of weapons and armor that the more cultured fighter has ac-cess to, native fighters still wield a strong advantage due to their skilled combativeness. Likewise, the hides of di-nosaurs can make for worthy armor and the natives of the lost lands have long since developed their own varieties of formidable weaponry.
Advantages: Native fighters are used to using the forms of weapons and armor that are commonly available at hand, and their trained combativeness gives them a keen edge.
Disadvantages: There are no real disadvantages for a native fighter in the lost lands.
Monk
Explorer: While the challenges are really no different for an exploring monk than at home, the lost lands give the monk a new battlefield to master unarmed. While the dinosaurs and other beasts may cause the monk to constantly find themselves in situations where they must fight opponents who hold an edge in size, such disadvantages are really not that much different than the struggles that the monk faces in their home land. Likewise, the monk has less of a need to worry about sophisticated weapons and armor, and is used to traveling light.
Advantages: The naturally simple lifestyle of a monk allows this type of individual to have less material needs to some degree than with other explorers.
Disadvantages: There are no real disadvantages for an exploring monk.
Native: While the savage world can often be quite distract-ing, the native monk holds a personal advantage over the rest of their surrounding world. Their lack of need for weapons and armor allows these individuals a certain edge that other natives do not have. While this class would seem perfect for such an environment, there are probably not as many native monks as one would think. The lost lands are quite savage, and most natives spend their time search-ing for an outer source that would give them a sense of dominance over their environment rather than spending the time to perfect their own selves.
Advantages: The native monk’s use of their inner ability gives them a particular edge over others.
Disadvantages: There are no real disadvantages for a native monk other than the fact that they are somewhat rare to the lost lands.
Paladin
Explorer: Paladin explorers, like clerics, are often quite out of place in regards to traveling to the lost lands. These
in-dividuals are usually more driven towards quests that hold a direct bearing on their deity and the enemies of their clergy, and a trip to the lost lands, other than to establish new followers, would seem rather pointless. Still, there is the possibility that the paladin could play some role of particular importance on such a journey, and it is possible that the exploration could in fact be a quest in itself.
Advantages: The paladin explorer has a fine back-ground of combativeness and special abilities, which could be quite useful in the lost lands.
Disadvantages: The typical paladin is quite out of place in such an environment, and the individual’s exact purpose for being in such an area other than for pure adventuring reasons could be rather questionable.
Native: Paladins are perhaps the most rare of all character races to be found in the lost lands. While it is not to say that these individuals could not exist, the likelihood of their presence as natives of the lost lands would be quite questionable and slim.
While it would be quite unlikely to have a native paladin, the story behind one’s appearance could prove extremely
While it would be quite unlikely to have a native paladin, the story behind one’s appearance could prove extremely