Geographica is the setting book for Atlantis: The Second Age and is the jewel in its crown. It presents a vast wealth of detail and story hooks that cover the four corners of the antediluvian world including its oceans.

The RPG is a trilogy and consists of three books – a rulebook, a setting book and a monster book. All of which provide a comprehensive and detailed look at an antediluvian world filled with heroes, dangers, wonders and adventure. This review covers the Geographica, which is the setting book, and other two books in the trilogy will be covered by separate reviews.



History

As with the rulebook, the detail in Geographica is based on the previous incarnations of Atlantis and its setting. It equally revises that material in a significant way to ensure that it has added sword and sorcery genre focus and broader cultural coverage.  

Physical Product

Like the rulebook, Geographica is gorgeous. It is also a weighty tome, being a 250 page sturdy full colour hardcover, which uses the same heavy glossy page stock. Each chapter is started with a full two page spread of a breath taking painted landscape of the continent in question, taking the reader directly into that part of the world about to be described.

As with the rulebook, there are typographical errors and the like. However, there are less glaring in this book as it contains less mechanics.

Inside the Book

As with the island of Atlantis chapter in the rulebook, the presentation of the setting material in Geographica can be summarised as being detailed, but without being burdensome or restrictive. Rather than attempting to be exhaustive, it leaves plenty of spaces for the GM to fill with the kinds of places and civilisations that often appear as if from nowhere in the tales of Conan or Elric.

Instead, the book devotes much space to plot hooks. Every continent has about a page of such hooks, each capable of becoming a full adventure on a moment's notice. These plot hooks are also placed on a map of the region.
In my experience, this makes the book a pleasure to use as a GM. Rather than trying to memorise details that may well never see use, Geographica inspires and encourages adventure after adventure and never appears to be exhausted. This is even truer when combined with the life path system on the rulebook, weaving character events with regional detail into a tapestry from which to tell stories.

Every continent of the antediluvian world is covered in detail, along with the Anostos and the Nether Realms in the far north and south, and a section on Oceans and Seas which include an array of mysterious and dangerous islands and other phenomena. The world is diverse with rough analogues to every culture and region in the real world. You can run African sword and sorcery as easily as South American. Or you can have the PCs travel to lands that seem strange and foreign to them.

In addition to the chapters which cover every region by continent, the book contains material on the flora for each continent. The flora is presented with rules for their use and effects and, along with the alchemy section in the rulebook, assists the portrayal of PCs and NPCs who have an aptitude with science, medicine and the like.

The book also contains sections of the calendar, travelling rules, and a section on the mysterious obelisks (think Howard's green stone cities) that dot the landscape.

Geographica contains almost no mechanics. It presents a rich and deep sword and sorcery setting which spans almost any land that has been seen in that genre. It would be an equally good sourcebook for a system other than Atlantis, if that was desired. It even includes the island of Atlantis chapter from the rulebook, ensuring that it is complete.

Conclusion

It is difficult to review the setting material in Geographica specifically. There is just so much of it and without knowledge of the setting it would be hard to make sense of it. My two favourite setting books before Geographica were World of Greyhawk for AD&D1e and Scavenger Sons for Exalted. Both covered a massive setting but rather than getting bogged down with detail, they freed my imagination with inspiration, blank spaces and plot hooks. Geographica does exactly the same for me for the world of Atlantis.