Setting Conversions: Svilland

https://drspublishing.com/pages/svilland

When converting a 5E setting to GURPS, Svilland is a straightforward and fantastic choice. While Nordland from Gaming Ballistic is also a viable option, especially for Dungeon Fantasy and default GURPS settings, Svilland's Norse-themed content makes it an excellent choice for a GURPS game.

But why Svilland? Why not just go Nordlond and ignore this 5E setting book? Well, for one, every 5E setting book can be a GURPS book.

For one, the art of Svilland is not just fantastic; it's also inspirational. It gives you that epic Norse feeling, a feeling that you won't find in other settings. Also, you get a complete world map with locations, cities, NPCs, plot hooks, and different holds and kingdoms. So there is a lot here, from a basic gazetteer level of information. Half of the 200+ page book is setting info, while the other is 5E-specific (that can be used for conversion bases).

One of the key advantages of Svilland is its flexibility. While the book includes 'races,' they can be easily swapped out or supplemented with your favorites. For instance, the setting features blue dwarves as its 'dark elves,' aligning with the Norse themes. However, if you prefer traditional dark elves and light elves, you're free to incorporate them. In Svilland, you have the freedom to shape the game as you see fit.

Regarding GURPS conversions, the rule is simple: make it your own. In Svilland, you can bring in traditional 'Vanir' elves, the 'Aesir' humans, dwarves, giants, and dark elves to create a unique and exciting campaign setting that's entirely yours. You could put warlike Blizzard WoW-style orcs in this world and they would fit well.

They would fit nicely if you wanted the Nordlond races, with the raven-folk, tiefling-like demons, and all the others. Again, if you are talking Norse, you need the Gaming Ballistic Nordlond books in this conversation, too; all of these work so well together. The Monsters book for Nordlond is a natural fit and is a huge time saver.

I like Svilland because it has the epic feeling of towering mountains, deep haunted forests, jagged coasts, towering cliffs, and stormy seas. The setting and art capture a sense of grandeur and make you feel incredibly small in a vast, rugged, and inhospitable world. I don't get this epic feeling from many GURPS products, and the world here is vivid and amazing, along with providing page after page of specifics and locations.

The art here screams epic, and it also feels more GURPS than 5E by far. This stuff just gets me in the mood to play and play now. it is epic, towering, inspirational, moody, evocative Norse eye-candy and it drives me. Also, none of this looks like your typical "planar candy" style 5E setting, this is all very basic in reality, grounded, and serious style art.

All of this begs for GURPS and realism.

There were books and settings early in 5E's life that were more of this realistic style. Wizards undercut these settings by going "full planar" like they did in 4E, and it trashes anything based on realism, low magic, or low fantasy. The game shifted towards zany anime tropes (101 silly species options) and anything-goes planar whacko-verse settings and classes, and the realistic simulation-style settings (like Primeval Thule) were left in the dust. Another aspect of current-year 5E is the low-powered settings (Brancelonia), which are also left in the dust as the power level increases.

GURPS has a flatter power curve, making all these settings magically "work" again.

Nordlond can be a small setting, while Svilland could be the world around it. Or the world could be Nordlond and use Svilland for inspiration. Both of them work so well together that they are like distant cousins. They work apart or together well. You could run all the Nordlond adventures in Svilland and even drop these lands somewhere in this vast world.

Also, you could run this as a dungeon-crawler with Dungeon Fantasy, or a full GURPS setting with the main rulebooks. Note the omissions in Dungeon Fantasy if you do this, as that game is a subset of the full GURPS rules, so just be aware of the differences in skill, advantage, and disadvantage lists so you can run the type of game you want to run.

No, you don't need Svilland to run a Norse game. I could use GURPS Basic for all of this. The Gaming Ballistic books are a great time-saver, if you choose to get those. But the epic feeling, maps, art, and world development improve everything. It feels as grand an epic as a World of Warcraft-style world. You could paint the world in a time of war, with orcs, dark elves, undead kingdoms, and the alliance of light all locked in grand battles.

This place could be cool - if you just make it happen.

This is a setting that does not deserve to slowly fade as the old 5E rules sunset. Using this as a "mega setting" alongside the Gaming Ballistic Norse-themed content makes for a perfect match of a 5E world that is epic and amazing, and books that give you GURPS stats and adventures that perfectly fit the theme.