It's now a desert

Infiniti2000 · Feb 27, 2010

Any ideas on what could cause a whole sea to disappear? This is D&D. I'm thinking more of a cataclysmic event or at least one that can't be reverted. This place has been a desert for a thousand years. I just want the event that made it so to have been sudden.

Gilladian · Feb 27, 2010

When I wanted to create a devastated area of my campaign world, I developed a historic event in which an insane high priest realized his army was losing the war. He tried to perform a ritual in which the whole world would be destroyed ("If I can't have it, no one shall"). The Good Cleric leading the other army realized what was happening, and cast a counter ritual, sacrificing her own life, to contain the destruction to one area. Thus came into being Umade's Barrens, and Saint Ilyria was born.

Perhaps some sea-dwelling race had an ultimate enemy who decided to rid the world of them. His method of doing so might be to cast a spell, or use an artifact, that would destroy the ocean. Notice that I don't care exactly how it happened. "A ritual" or "an artifact" is enough for me. If my PCs ever try to delve into the question more deeply, then they'll discover that such magic is no longer achievable; or that the only way to learn the ritual is to visit hell itself, or somesuch...

fba827 · Feb 27, 2010

a few random ideas... the possibilities of which really depend on how big of a 'sea' you're talking about ...

long ago, a cult of sun/fire somhow destroyed the water to create an expanse to use as their domain. that cult has since either fallen or lives out in the desert, somewhere...

a mage living on the coast was trying experimental magic to more easily traverse the water .... and it went very very wrong ...

while trying to banish some gi-normous water elementals that had taken roost in the sea, they took the sea with them...

overnight, an enormous volcano sprouted out from the ocean floor. the heat from it evaoporated the water...and the area immediately around the volcano is covered in soot/ash from an eventual eruption

in order to bend an ancient civilization to its will, an elder red dragon (or brood of red dragons) showed his might be breathing fire on the sea and evaporating it.

(okay some of those ideas are weak, but still including them in case they spark a better idea for someone else).

if i think of more later, i'll come back and add it...

aco175 · Feb 28, 2010

what about a natural event, such as an earthquake. It could have been brought about by something or someone. Look at what FR did with the whole of the underdark colapsing in an area, what if that was underwater. Dragon lance had the making of a sea with the cataclism and all.

Elementals could have also influenced the creation. Like the earlier post said, you can leave it vague with the details being a magic item or spell. Another FR example is the creation of the desert around Calimshan, with the genie armies fighting, and bringing slaves that turn into one of the races of man.

Dannyalcatraz · Feb 28, 2010

This is the sea that supplied all of the salt water that flows from Decanters of Endless Waters...and someone caused them all to open at once.

All of them...in every land, on every plane, all throughout reality.

fba827 · Feb 28, 2010

someone/something pulled the drain plug

-- though that would imply all the water is now trapped just beneath the earth's surface... or did the water go elsewhere? raising the water level of another sea/ocean? creating a sea/ocean where one did not exist before?)

But more seriously,
Perhaps there is a myth (replace the gods with whatever): Hermes, the trickster god, as a joke had just stolen one of Apollo (god of sun)'s treasures in the Astral Sea and hid it on the Earth. In (mock-)anger/retaliation, Apollo fired the sun's rays upon Hermes, catching the Trickster God on fire with solar intensity. To douse the flames, he jumped into the nearby sea... causing all the water to evaporate. Hermes returned Apollo's treasure and to this day, they still share a laugh about the incident ...

Andrew D. Gable · Feb 28, 2010

What had happened in the Malazan series to turn Raraku into a desert? Didn't it have something to do with the ice created by the Jaghut?

Animal · Mar 1, 2010

dimensional shift? a magical catastrophe forced two planes to exchange terrains. so the sea is now somewhere else while a barren desert appeared in its place.

Michael Silverbane · Mar 5, 2010

A demon lord stole it to watch its inhabitants flop around sucking air?
The god that represented (was) the sea was killed?
It was destroyed in some sort of water / anti-water reaction?