Adventures in Throntru

Written by David N. Ross

Fixtures and tropes of legends and myths from North America are prominent in Throntru , supporting some traditional adventure RPG stories as well as stories less common in the hobby. 

Recurring Themes

Our team of writers intentionally draws from Native American experiences (in many cases our own) alongside other influences. Although Throntru is very diverse, listed here are major recurring themes to help you understand what is distinctive about this region as an adventure setting.

• Everything has a spirit and intentions. Even animals, plants, and landforms have a spirit. Throntru abounds with intelligent, talking animals, Fey , magical beasts, and elementals. Even monsters and spirits have desires and norms, although they are sometimes counterintuitive and unfamiliar to a mortal humanoid. They have familiar emotions like anger, loneliness, joy, and hunger, but might need a difficult-to-obtain item, secret magic, or a dramatic and cathartic action by other creatures to satisfy their needs.
• Dwimmers (enchanted areas) are common. Magical areas might provide unearthly abundance, spawn monsters, attract falling stars, or allow travel through the sky. Even things that are considered mundane and routine elsewhere are liable to be caused in Throntru by magical beings or forces with desires and vulnerabilities—think storms, blights, famines, droughts, social strife, good hunts, or climate shifts.
• Resources, even magical ones, are conserved. Respect for nature and its needs is vital for a community’s future and is rarely taken lightly. Greedy or oblivious antagonists often threaten these boundaries. Actions that cost resources will attract enemies; finding new resources or learning better ways to access those the community already uses are sure to win friends.
• Magic is rooted in personal relationships with spirits, places, and times. Powerful magical beings often have weaknesses related to breaking these relationships. Powerful spells and magic items likewise tend to be personal and regional.
• Attention and cleverness are keys to major triumphs. Great monsters and spirits have hidden desires and fears. Sometimes heroes can head off a disastrous conflict by figuring out what an antagonist wants. Even if a fight is inevitable, being observant and polite can provide the chance to learn a weakness, to prevent a creature from returning after defeat, or to choose the terms of battle.
• Tight-knit communities with long memories are the heart of Throntruran culture. Adventures often revolve around local heroes helping people they know or defending their homes. The community elders and other locals usually know useful clues about the immediate threats, hazards, and opportunities of their surroundings. They're also liable to have their own strong reactions to the actions of adventurers, recognizing help and resenting meddling. Knowledge discovered and shared by adventurers can help communities grow, change norms, and foster alliances.
• Big actions have big consequences. Even when heroes fight to protect the status quo, thwarting a villain or making peace will change local conditions in other ways. People might learn to better live with a particular dwimmer or spirit, or change their lifestyle with a new resource like a useful metal or magic crop. A settlement’s changes can in turn alter a nearby dwimmer.

Not every adventure will dive into every point on this list, but considering them all will help set expectations for players and GMs alike. A final note on what Throntru is not: It's not a frontier being conquered by colonizers. Its peoples are written assuming they have dealt on relatively equal footing with other peoples.

Connecting Characters and Place

Throntru’s adventure sites often center around opportunities for player characters to interact with a village, base, or other central area during the game. Players and GMs alike can get the most out of these places if they collaborate in deciding why the player characters are together in the location. It also helps for each player character to have a reason to care about this place, whether or not they are from there.

While place is important to many Throntrurans, trade, travel, and emigration are not rare. A character (and perhaps their family) might be emigrants to the setting of the adventure, or they might be traders or travelers passing through for a time,.

Player-Created NPCs

A good way to build player investment in the game is for each player to name and describe a friend, family member, ally, or rival who they would like their character to interact with, then developing that person as a recurring NPC. Here are some starting points that you can choose randomly by rolling a d6:

1. You have a younger friend or relative who idolizes you. What do they admire about you? What mistake of yours do you hope they don’t repeat?
2. You have an older friend or relative who mentors you. What value have they inspired in you? Why do you worry you will disappoint them?
3. You have a friend, sibling, cousin, or rival who views you as a peer. How do they typically challenge you? Why do you enjoy seeing them anyway?
4. You have a strained relationship with your family or community of origin. Do you struggle to reconnect, or have you come to a new place seeking somewhere else to belong?
5. You had close contact with a spirit or magical creature around a settlement important to the adventure. What belief or tradition does the settlement have about this being? What did the spirit do that surprised you?
6. There is a community leader you have crossed paths with frequently. How have they shaped expectations or norms for you and others? How do you express your respect—or antagonism—toward each other?

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GMing in Throntru

When you GM, it’s easiest to get everyone engaged and having fun if you share the basics about Throntru (especially the first half of this article) ahead of time, tell the players what draws you to playing there (elements, themes, or inspirations of the setting), and then invite them to likewise share what they're most interested in. Use the following tips to help execute these themes.

Design Big Challenges for Clever Heroes

Pivotal challenges should not merely be deadly to heroes, but should also challenge them in ways that reward cleverness and attention. Adventurers should have the chance to learn vital clues ahead of time, as well as some opportunity to exploit what they have learned for a major social or strategic advantage—for example, perhaps turning a combat into a tense negotiation. These principles should be applied to the ultimate challenge in every adventure (or for every 1-3 sessions of a longer adventure). Monsters and spirits are often difficult to defeat permanently, especially by using violence; they are likely to return if their secret weakness is not discovered or the magical reason for their unrest is not addressed. Challenges can include extreme and magical hazards as well as creatures and social dynamics.

Clues

Creatures have reasons for behaving the way they do, even monsters and spirits, and they leave signs of their activities. Magic has a logic, even an allegorical or ritualistic logic. Plan ways players can learn important facts, and add new clues as the player characters explore. When it makes sense for a specific character to know something owing to their personal history, just tell the player; a roll isn’t always necessary.

NPCs should possess hints toward useful information, even if they might not know the significance of the information they hold. Anecdotes or scary stories are good ways to introduce antagonists to the plot, and they can establish the stakes of a conflict. Make a point to use NPCs as recurring characters whenever it makes sense for them to build relationships with PCs—especially those NPCs introduced or pursued by players.

The following d8 ideas are examples of the kinds of clues you can use to set a story in motion.

1. The monster has been snatching traders in the wilderness for years. How has the weather or the habits of local hunters been provoking the creature? Who saw it last?
2. A spirit expects yearly offerings, but the tradition was difficult or unpopular and has not been consistently shared or followed. Fewer and fewer people of the older generation are left who honor it. This year, no one made the offering. What did the spirit expect? Why has the tradition faded? How has the spirit made its offense known?
3. Strange happenings and monsters have grown more common after the lure of trade has driven some people to strip the area of a magical plant or mineral. What animal or spirit needed that item to survive and is making trouble in that item's absence? What other unanticipated problems did the imbalance cause?
4. Two neighboring communities, each of a different clan or nation, have a longstanding rivalry. What old wound keeps the tension raw? What mutual relationship supports tolerance and continued connection? What has recently made the situation worse?
5. An ancient monster or spirit ministers to an important natural rhythm in the area, such as the tides, the sun, or regular fluctuations in plant or animal life. When this rhythm goes awry, what can locals say about the creature? How did the creature’s weakness drive its choice of home?
6. An influential monster or spirit makes its lair in an otherworldly dwimmer, like a glittering wondrous underground realm of strange bounty, a road through meadows in the sky peopled by fickle spirits, or a river where everything can breathe underwater and people and animals easily swap shapes. How are the spirit’s wishes or needs reflected by the area’s magic? How does the area’s magic hint at the creature’s own abilities?
7. Mortals have recently been cursed when using an old trade route or when hunting in a forest so dense its game trails are like dungeon corridors. How did they accidentally stumble upon a territorial monster? What pushed the creature into this territory, and what would it take to convince it to depart?
8. Plague or famine has been a perennial problem, and a spirit offers a strange new practice to help fight it. What dreams or other omens does the spirit send? What does it cost to earn the necessary trust from the spirit? Who in the community fears the spirit’s influence?

Prepare to Fail Forward

Your preparations for big challenges should include events that will feel like failure when characters are reckless or oblivious, but which will allow them to progress in an important way despite their losses. An overwhelming monster or spirit could curse, rob, or strand the party rather than wipe them out. That curse might be a clue to the monster’s needs or limitations, and it might trap characters in a place where they can discover an alternative solution or collect useful assets. Sympathetic creatures or spirits might intervene to rescue characters from a death blow in exchange for help with a related situation.

Finding Your Own Inspiration

History books, folktale collections, novels, games, and movies by Native American creators are all excellent sources of inspiration. Avoid copying religious observances. This is insensitive to current practitioners, and the specific ideas underlying observances often don’t line up with fantasy religions or RPG mechanics. It’s also best to avoid copying distinctive local practices. Instead, use them as inspiration to develop your own fictional culture with elements unique to your game.

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Throntru is the continent in Drintera that's inspired by Native American cultures and folklore, developed by our 2026 Kickstarter. If you missed the Kickstarter, you can support our work and get inside access to all the articles in this wiki by supporting our Patreon for only $3 a month.