"What Are YOUR Favorite Lost World Settings???" Topic

These are some of mine:

Tarzan's Darkest Africa (Opar)
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Hollow Earth (Pellucidar)
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Lost Prehistoric Island (Caspak/Caprona)
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And they all happen to be dreamed up by the same author too.

What are YOUR favorite lost world settings?

CC
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Journey to the Center of the Earth – Not the hollow Earth but close.

Skull Island!

Mulligan

Land of the Lost

Jungles with abandoned buildings / Temples with subterranean tombs or passages.

Indiana Jones Stuff.

mjc

I'm with Mulligan, Skull Island.

ERB wins -- flawless victory.

I like Pellucidar. It has it all. intelligent dino's Strong women. God I love that place.

I also like the hollow world from the Warlord comics by DC. What was it called?

Cheers
GeorgeD

Opar for me,
though I'm usually pretty happy with
any as long as there beautiful girl
leading a tribe of degenerate apeish Romans.

A combo of all of the above. In deepest Africa you find a gateway through the Center of the World that leads to the Unknown Island with the Lost Temple

GeorgeD, that would be Skartaris: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skartaris

Thanks for that jpattern, and for the link.

Cheers
GeorgeD

The Mountains of Madness, lost cities buried beneath the (ant)arctic waste

how about H Rider Haggard's version…but I'm only mentioning that 'cause no one else has--really, ERB hands down.

Rob

How about Maple White Land?

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Another one that has not been mentioned: Dinosaur Island

toonopedia.com/starspan.htm
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For those who voted for Opar:

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For gaming? Maple White Land, followed by every Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movie ever made.

Joe Jusko's paintings are so pretty, I'd marry one if I wasn't already.

Barsoom!!!

Some of the books out of the Gor series are pretty out of the way and intresting in an adult point of view…

Gor creeps me out. This was a guy with a philosophical axe to grind.

The Mountains of Madness are good… but it's hard to wargame a setting where one side goes insane as soon as the other side's pieces are fielded…

At the Mountains of Madness, in my mind, the Martians retreated to the (germ free) South Pole after their failed attempt to invade.
They are fighting tentacle to tentacle with the Cthulhoids (??) beneath the ice.
Along come the Nazis, pursued by, well, everyone.

Crimson

>>>Some of the books out of the Gor series are pretty out of the way
>>>Gor creeps me out.

Iv'e read a few, there all the same with different titles.

I like anything to do with the hollow earth.

Although the one I've used the most is TSRs Isle of Dread.

I like the emormous prehistoric plateau jutting up out of the jungle like the tepuis in South America (Roraima). It's a great locale for dinosaurs, rope bridges, and lost civilizations.

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rutahsa.com/roraima.html

Oh yeah, that region is also known for its 1000ft plus deep sink-holes. Who knows what's down there.

Wow. People are still using Isle of Dread? I'm running that one right now!

For a Tarzan chronology/timeline of all Tarzan's lost world adventures (not just Opar):

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Here are the Tarzan online texts:

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burroughs.thefreelibrary.com

More, like some of the ERB Pellucidar novels, are available online from sources outside of the US:

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CC

>>>Some of the books out of the Gor series are pretty out of the way
>>>Gor creeps me out.

Iv'e read a few, there all the same with different titles.

As a gamer, you read them for the cultures of the city-states being visited, not for the, er, "action".

The settings, cultures, locations, etc., will be what changes from novel to novel.

The main character(s) will remain basically the same (same personality, prejudices, strengths, etc., with little or no change, except to skills).

For example, about ERB's Tarzan . . .

* The Tarzan character
Burroughs has created in Tarzan an extreme example of a hero figure unalloyed with character flaws or faults. Tarzan is described by Burroughs as being Caucasian, extremely athletic, tall, handsome, and tanned. He has grey eyes. Emotionally, he is courageous, loyal and steady. He is intelligent and learns new languages easily. He is presented as always behaving ethically in all situations, according to Burroughs' definitions. He is deeply in love with his wife and totally devoted to her. Always the gentleman, in numerous situations where other women express their attraction to Tarzan, he politely and as kindly as possible declines their attentions. If presented with a situation where a weaker individual or party is being preyed upon by a stronger foe, Tarzan will invariably take the part of the weaker party (and invariably win). In dealing with other men Tarzan is firm and forceful. With male friends he is reserved but deeply loyal and generous. As a host he is likewise generous and gracious. As a leader he commands devoted loyalty.

In contrast to all these urbane and sophisticated capabilities and characteristics, Tarzan's philosophy embraces an extreme form of "return to nature". His preferred dress is a knife and a loincloth made from uncured animal hide. His preferred abode is a convenient tree branch which happens to be nearby when he desires to sleep. His preferred food is raw meat, killed by himself; even better if he is able to bury it a week so that putrefaction has had a chance to tenderize it a bit. Although Tarzan is able to pass within society as a civilized individual, he prefers to "strip off the thin veneer of civilization", as Burroughs often puts it.

This philosophy was absorbed by countless fans, amongst whom was Jane Goodall, who describes the Tarzan series as having a major influence on her childhood. She states that she felt she would be a much better spouse for Tarzan than his fictional wife, Jane, and that when she first began to live among and study the chimpanzees she was fulfilling her childhood dream of living among the great apes just as Tarzan did.[5]

* Skills and abilities
In many ways, Tarzan's jungle upbringing gave him abilities above and beyond those of ordinary humans. These abilities include climbing, clinging, and leaping as well as any great ape, as well as walking on all fours exceptionally well, despite his human frame. His senses are enhanced; he is able to smell food or poachers at least two thirds of a mile away, and hear approaching stampedes from two. He can read body language exceptionally well. He is an excellent judge of character.

His strength, speed, agility, reflexes, balance, flexibility, reaction time, and swimming abilities are much better than normal. He has wrestled full grown bull apes and gorillas, rhinos, crocodiles, anacondas, sharks, big cats and even dinosaurs, when he visited Pellucidar. He has bent iron bars in his bare hands and easily lifted large treasure chests one-handed that four burly sailors had trouble with. His aim never fails.

He is capable of communicating with every species of animal in the jungle, short of predators. He can recover from wounds that would kill normal men, such as gunshot wounds to the head. He was trained as a soldier in WWI and possesses advanced learning skills which enabled him to teach himself how to read with nothing but a few books. He is attacked by a sorcerer who is using a magic rock for mind control, only to discover Tarzan is immune to mental probing. Eventually, Tarzan becomes immortal due to a witch doctor's potion.
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CC

>>>Wow. People are still using Isle of Dread? I'm running that one right now!

IMHO the best module TSR produced.

As a teen, I thought the first two or three Gor novels weren't bad, although the whole "slave girl" thing left me scratching my head – How did *that* make it into the books.

For some reason, my local library had *all* of the Gor paperbacks, something like 30 of them by the late 80s, so I was able to skim the whole series. What a yawn they were! I can't believe *anyone* could read more than half a dozen of them without giving up fantasy fiction and/or erotica for life.

The weirdest one was written in first-person from the point of view of an Earth woman, transported to Gor and made a slave, who comes to love her chains. Oooooookay.

I'm here to tell you, John Norman seems to have some *serious* relationship issues . . .

"an Earth woman, transported to Gor and made a slave, who comes to love her chains. Oooooookay."

Hmmm. I've never read any of the Gor novels. Maybe that one is the one I should start with. :)

CC
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I'm with evilmike on this one.

Barsoom!!!!

Something about being able to leap about the landscape is appealing to me.

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landofthelost.com/theme.htm

Peter's favorite also link

Holy crap…I was overseas and missed this one, thankfully? imdb.com/title/tt0101130

…filling in for the actors lines (read first then open..
Holly "Dad why do you always stick your hands in the charcoal pit?"
Will "I think I sharted"
Marshal "…oohooh almost there…mmm hot rocks.."
picture

Hmmm. I've never read any of the Gor novels. Maybe that one is the one I should start with.

CC, trust me, that is one road you do *not* want to walk down. I'd be a much happier man today if I'd never read beyond the first Gor novel.

:)

LOL.

CC

The first six Gor books are, cultural mysogyny aside, quite readable. The main character still has his "honor", the adventure is appropriately pulpy, and the settings are interesting.

Then the main character loses his "honor" and the pulp flavor vanishes, along with most of the reasons to touch another one of these books. I got another two books in before giving up. Book seven is, IIRC, the "slave girl" story, and book eight is a tired retelling of several old war/pulp cliches with a lot of self-loathing mixed in. Never bothered again after that.

Would Mayberry and Pleasantville count as lost worlds? My favorite future world to be lost would be the postapocalyptic Gamma Worldish setting of Sterling Lanier's novels Hiero's Journey and the Unforsaken Hiero.*

Mulligan

*Still need to get around to sculpting that saddlebred war moose.

I guess these guys are writing about a lost world then?

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CC

My favorite "Lost World" is a combo of the book, several movies and the TV show sort of melted together. Bits extracted from all of them find a way onto my game table. As I am still very much into an Egyptian groove, "Last Camel Died at Noon" by Elizabeth Peters is at center stage right now. It is her homage to Haggard, and remains my favorite story from the 20 plus Peabody adventures I've read so far.

Oh, also the mention of Skull Island reminded me of another old-time favorite, The Phantom.( Skull Cave!) I was an avid reader of that series. Another early impression on me was a Big Little book with an adventure to El Dorado with Scrooge,Donald Duck and his nephews. Of course the Beagle boys had to show up to provide the "danger".

I must admit, Kong's Skull Island is also one of my favorites.

CC
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Gilligan's Island? [dodges tomatoes]

Seriously though, I think my fav will always be the original lost world, H. Rider Haggard's Kukuanaland.

Also, what about sf stuff like Vance's Tschai: Planet of Adventure? No, it is not VSF, but an earthman lands on it to find lost earthmen living alongside alien races.

By formula and style, Tschai is at least somewhat pulpy and all about the Lost World shtick.

Not mentioned so far would be Alan Burt Akers' Scorpio series, at least half of which were published with the authorial credit changed to reflect the Lost World "transcribed by the Hero before he dives back in" gag. IIRC, Akers is *also* a pen name…