When The Sky Falls!
Greetings!
Well, if you can pick up this supplement by Malhavoc Press, authored by Bruce R. Cordell, it's an excellent source book on how to integrate the fall of meteors to earth in the campaign world. In this instance, you could decide to have a huge, mile-wide meteor fall from the dark sky and strike the city of Waterdeep in the deep of the night.
The huge meteor would strike with the power of an enormous nuclear weapon, totally annihilating everything in the city, and having say a 75% chance of killing everything else within a 50-mile square radius of the city. Potentially, millions of people could be slaughtered!
Now, as a subsection of this, a smaller meteor storm could fall and strike most of the cities say two-five hundred miles north of Waterdeep, and two-five hundred miles south of Waterdeep. These meteors, being smaller, but more numerous, could slaughter say a base 50% of all living creatures in their respective areas of impact, plus a radius of 50 miles or so from each impact area.
That's just from the explosive force of the initial impact. Then, you could consider the toxic gasses emitted from the shattering of the meteors--these meteors come from deep space, and the dust is heavily contaminated with toxic bacteria. This could cover the areas under the impact with clouds of poisonous gasses that kill of even more people and creatures. Breathing this stuff in could cause people's lungs to explode into postules that burn and savage someone in a swift, but agonizing death that takes two to three days to run its course, before the subject dies in agony. Next, there could be strange, mutant fungus or plants that were growing on the deep-space meteorites, that, when impacting, didn't die, but instead, accellerated their growth, and mutated into airborne seedling spores that spread about in strange clouds of purplish-coloured mist, mutating and warping anything that comes into contact with it--whether by breathing it, or by skin contact. These horrific effects could have an immediate mutational effect--like giving anyone effected a random mutation of some kind, but also, more insideously, and deeper, it effects them on the genetic level, and all children born through them will have say 1d6 mutations, and develop an additional mutation 1/5 years as they mature. This strange biological bacteria, coming from the deeper space of an alien world, is resistant or immune to magic healing or magic effects in general. Don't let the players--or anyone really--find a way to "erase" the effects. Tough! Let them deal with the harsh reality of a world gone to hell in a handbasket, and they are swallowed up for the ride too! In that sense, don't make it so that with merely a flick of a spell, they can somehow rise above these effects. Make them deal with growing mutations like a third eye, blue fur, and a three-foot long tongue. Whatever. Make it bigger than anything they have imagined, and make it so that it is bigger, more powerful, and alien than anything their knowledge or magic can comprehend.
Next, there might also be additional biological material on the meteorites that as the meteors strike the earth, they are blown sky-high into the air as the impact literally throws air, dust, dirt, and other debris miles into the air, even blocking out the sun, and so on. But these biological materials could be thrown high into the air, where they are caught by the regional jetstream, and taken to far parts of the region or world. These then could develop an entirely new alien landscape and flora, developing even new fauna. The very air could change as the alien bacteria changes plants, animal, soil, everything on a genetic level. Entirely new diseases could also be introduced through this manner, as well as new kinds of plants, animals, and monsters. The radiation effects from the impact in other areas could cause them accellerated growth and maturity as well, as they hatch from strange eggs or mutated spores of DNA. A strain of mutant animal from some other world is heated up by the explosion, and as the clouds disperse, a Dire Bear breathes in the strange air, and the alien animal DNA, merely a fragment of it, is still activated. The Dire Bear changes into some kind of mutated monstrosity, with horrendous effects on the local environment. Meanwhile, new, devastating diseases that are heavily resistant to magic healing or curing, sweep through local populations. Some of these new diseases can be highly infectious, and even those who are not killed by the deadly viruses, carry the seeds of doom into new populations as they seek to flee and find safety. Of course, as more and more people die and millions more suffer the transition of being mutated, the people will lose faith in the gods, or at least become angry with the clerics and priests who will seem virtually powerless to stop anything, or help them in any significant manner. As people and crops are mutated and undergo sweeping changes, there is chaos and anarchy breaking out under the strain. Serfs and peasants rebel, or die and are unable to tend to the farms. This soon causes mass starvation to sweep through the region, and as more and more people die from these developments, basic services and cleanliness in the areas suffer, and more epidemics rise up. With all of this death and chaos going on, people will gather in a dozen cities and dozens of towns to riot and fight for basic food and resources. Alignment will devolve into a quaint thought as people struggle desperately for survival. New leaders will arise, as old leaders are strung up and hung or cut down in their palatial estates for being ineffective, or as the screaming mobs rose up and took advantage of the circumstances to extract their revenge for years of arrogance and oppression!
Now, with disease sweeping through whole regions, famine, rioting, rebellion, and so on, as well as mutant animals, plants, and even the air begins to change--war can break out, too. The states that haven't as yet been effected by the disaster marshal their armies, and seek to protect their boundaries, or invade and crush an old enemy who is suffering from the current disaster. Thus, there may be armies on the march, seeking to secure an unassailable position of strength over a neighbor or a rival while the weaker nation or kingdom is reeling from the disaster, swept with confusion and chaos. Now is the time to strike!
Next, in addition to all of this going on, the meteor impact could also unleash the magical force and energy to open up gates to entirely new realms and worlds. These gates can have huge openings--from the huge magical energies involved--say, they are several miles wide, or even dozens of miles wide, and high. These gates then attract minions and creatures from these other worlds to come throught he gates and explore this new world.
Next, the meteors themselves, many of them, or just the largest one, had a strange tower or fortress on it. This magical fortress survives the impact, and may be damaged or wholly intact, as you see fit. None the less, the inhabitants of this strange, alien fortress survive the impact. They emerge from their special vaults that they entered before landfall. These beings could be several dozen, or several hundred. Make them horrific, alien humanoids the size of ogres, with purple skin, a huge maw of teeth, six luminous eyes, and four arms. Three toes on their feet, and an alien biology of course. They then proceed to repair or build a new fortress, and secure and strengthen their area. They build huge towers of alien synthetic glass and some kind of strange fibrous material. The towers pulse with magical energy, and the alien humanoids begin to dominate the areas they have set themselves up in, and they grow stronger as they subjugate local populations and enslave them and experiment on them, molding whole populations to suit their needs. Or, alternatively, maybe the meteor held some kind of colossal, epic Force Dragon, or a Infernal that has been locked away for thousands of years; now, he is set free. Forget about a 40-Hit Dice Infernal. Make him a 72-Hit Dice horror, or make him a 50-Hit Dice one, with the addition of 30 levels of Wizard. That should do nicely. Imagine when he marches into the shattered ruins of Waterdeep, and summons minions, demons, elementals, enslaves others, and begins to build his new fortress? Elminster would be thrashed nine ways to Sunday! The beginnings of a whole new order begin to take shape as an unbelievable holocaust of epic proportions sweeps through the world of Faerun!
All kinds of possibilities there!
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
