My Top 10 Favorite Imaginary Settings (Part II)

As I prepared the second part of this list, what struck me is that three of the top five entries are roleplaying game settings. Thinking on it, I suppose that only makes sense. I spend a lot more time exploring imaginative settings through roleplaying than I do through simply reading stories set in them. In any case, this was a useful exercise for me, since it helped me to understand better the things I find most attractive in imaginary settings. Readers will notice certain commonalities between my favorites, though I think there's also a fair degree of diversity too.

Part I can be found here.

5. Zothique

Of all the settings created by Clark Ashton Smith, Zothique is by far my favorite. I was first introduced to Zothique through his short story, "The Empire of the Necromancers" and it very rapidly became one of my favorite imaginary settings. Evoking melancholy and ennui, as well as making ample use of mordant humor, one might call it the Clark Ashton Smith-iest of all his imaginary settings. I've derived a great deal of pleasure from reading stories that take place on the Last Continent; several of them are regular reads that I return to year after year.

In some respects, Zothique is quite similar to Vance's Dying Earth, in that it's really our Earth in the impossibly far future, when sorcery and congress with extra-terrene entities are now facets of everyday existence. However, it lacks the technology-as-magic (or is that magic-as-technology?) conceit of the Dying Earth, focusing instead on the return of black magic and alien gods as a consequence of mankind's enervating boredom as it awaits the end of all things. Zothique drips with a decadence that is equal parts repulsive and enchanting – heady stuff, especially for someone whose life is as staid as mine.

4. Lankhmar

You can be forgiven for thinking I meant Nehwon, but I can assure you that I mean Lankhmar, the City of the Black Toga and home base of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. The truth is that, for the most part, I don't find the world of Nehwon all that interesting. Indeed, I'm not even certain that Leiber found it all that interesting himself. Lankhmar, on the other hand, is endlessly fascinating and is practically a world in itself, with its dark, winding streets, remarkable locales, and even more remarkable inhabitants. It's not for nothing that Leiber's best stories all take place within the city's walls.

Lankhmar is the setting that first taught me the potential a single well-described place could hold. Leiber ably demonstrated that there's absolutely no need to create an exhaustive fantasy world to tell amazing stories. Bring a single city to life and you have everything you need to present many tales of adventure. Lankhmar is also probably why I've long had a fascination with cities and city-states in fantasy, as well as why I hope one day to referee a campaign set entirely within a city. I haven't done it yet, but, if I do, you can be sure there will be more than a little Lankhmar in the proceedings.

3. Glorantha

Even a few years ago, I doubt Greg Stafford's Glorantha would have made it onto my top 10 favorite imaginary settings, never mind my top 5. For a long time, my early experiences with the setting made it difficult for me to recognize its brilliance. Recently, though, Glorantha has risen considerably in my estimation, thanks in no small part to my having had the chance to play in a couple of RuneQuest campaigns that allowed me to experience the setting on its own terms. The result was a re-evaluation of both the setting itself and what Stafford was attempting to do with it.

If D&D's default idiom is pulp fantasy, then RuneQuest's is mythology. Glorantha has a mythic feel, like the world of Greco-Roman myth but with numerous unique and, dare I say, modern twists on them that make it feel genuinely unique. Stafford was a keen student of myth, religion, and spirituality of all kinds and that shows in the cultures, societies, and beliefs of Glorantha. It's a thoroughly engaging place, all the more so, I think, because that seems to have been the intention. Through their characters, players are supposed to grapple with the meaning of myth and legend, even to the point of potentially rewriting them through their characters' actions. And to think I once dismissed it as too "Californian."

2. Tékumel

Some of you will no doubt have expected that Tékumel would take the top spot on this list and I can't blame you for thinking so (though those who know me well will not be surprised by my actual top choice). I was a relative latecomer to Tékumel, only really discovering it in the early '90s, through a Usenet newsgroup dedicated to the setting of Empire of the Petal Throne. Once I discovered, I was hooked and became a lifelong devotee. Recent revelations have not dimmed my love for the setting nor weakened the enthusiasm of myself or the players of my ongoing House of Worms campaign, which barrels on toward its eighth year of continuous play.

My fondness for Tékumel is based on several factors, the chief being that it's not a vanilla setting. Instead, it's a complex, detailed world whose main inspirations are a variety of non-European historical cultures. Despite this, it's not nearly as difficult to understand as some have claimed and can, in fact, be enjoyed by roleplayers of all stripes. I also love Tékumel for its blending of science fiction and fantasy, something that you'll see in many of the settings on this list. And despite the claim that the setting is so detailed that there is no room for individual creativity, I have found just the opposite. Rather than being an impediment to my own creativity, the detail has served to inspire me, often in unexpected ways. I've had more fun refereeing my Tékumel campaigns than I have almost any other – high praise from a gamer who's been playing for more than four decades.

1. Third Imperium

If you correctly guessed that the Third Imperium would be at the top of this list, congratulations, you know me and my tastes well. I regularly tell people that, when it comes to RPGs, "D&D is my first love, but Traveller is my true love." A big part of the reason why I feel that way is because of the game's "official" setting. Players older than I remember a time when Traveller, like Dungeons & Dragons, was simply a rules set without a setting of its own. For them, Traveller remained a game of "science fiction adventure in the far future," while, for me, it's always been "science fiction adventure in the Third Imperium."

My fondness for the setting is born of several factors. The first is the deft way that Miller and his colleagues at GDW borrowed and riffed off elements of the great sci-fi writers of the '40s through '70s to create a setting that was simultaneously familiar and original. The second is that I've spent more time playing and refereeing in the Third Imperium than I have in any other imaginary setting. In many ways, the Third Imperium is home and I know it like the back of my hand. Finally, my first professional writing credits were for Traveller in the 1990s, which, in turn, introduced me to a number of others who subsequently became some of my oldest and dearest friends. I can think of no better marker of excellence than that.