Thunder Rift was a well-developed campaign setting for D&D of the early Nineties. This was the time of the large black box edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Thunder Rift was an isolated valley bordered on all sides by nearly-impassable mountains. It was a “points of light” setting, just a few settlements amid untamed wilderness for low-level characters to explore.

Thunder Rift deserved its own box set, but it was not to be. Dungeons & Dragons never got the bounty of fancy campaign setting boxes like its brother AD&D (Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Spelljammer, Planescape, and plenty more).

The Thunder Rift setting was well-supported, with a number of modules (and, yes, box sets… just not a “setting box set”).

Thunder Rift items in the shop

Thunder Rift product line in description and photos at my RPG reference

Thunder Rift

1992 … Colin McComb … 32 pages + poster map … TSR 9350 … ISBN 1560763817

Check Wayne’s Books Inventory

DriveThruRPG ( PDF – $5 )

Cover

Booklet

Credits and Table of Contents

Thunder Rift is a full sourcebook to the setting. Just enough info to work from, without burying the DM in minutae.

Map

Map scale is 1″ = 1 mile

Thunder Rift with locations of the official adventures

Big Image! Save it to your computer and zoom in

See The Piazza’s list of official adventures for Thunder Rift. Note there is a full Thunderrift forum there, with lots of info and user-created content!

See Also:

HOLLOW WORLD: A D&D Pulp Fantasy Campaign Setting (1990)
One of the few campaign sets for D&D!
D&D Challenger Series DM Screen and Adventure: Escape From Thunder Rift (1993)
The mini-adventure with the DM screen is set in TR of course
BECMI Dungeons & Dragons (1983-90): Basic & Expert Sets fully revised by Frank Mentzer
The D&D edition before the black box