The Origin of a PoL setting

[DandD]

I'd rather think about Diablo 1. Far better atmosphere and setting, instead of the more D&D-ish world that Diablo 2 showed to be. Diablo 1 was far more "gothic" and disconcerting.

 

[Cirex]

But Diablo 1 was just a dungeon under a town (Tristam). Diablo 2 has Rogue camp, Lut Gholein, Kurast docks, the Heaven's last fortress and then Harrogath, the Barbarian town...all those places totally surrounded by the evil forces.

 

[DandD]

Which would put Diablo 2 in the Paragon Tier, whereas Diablo 1 would therefore be seen in Heroic Tier.

Works nicely.

I still prefer Diablo 1 for its atmosphere.

 

[Cirex]

Diablo 1 atmosphere is more in the scary side, that creepy soundtrack, the sound of skeletons, the arrows flying, yeah, probably better overall.

I got the soundtrack around, I love to play it while dungeon crawling.

 

[3 Man]

I don't have a great deal of detail on how WoTC defines Points of Light, but have used the general idea as a jumping off point for my first 4E campaign. In my campaign the good guys have lost. The world is a dark and corrupt place run by diabolical forces. Think of Terry Goodkind's Order, the former Soviet Union or even Star Wars. In my campaign the players mission is to create Points of Light in this dark and fallen world. Fighting for liberty and justice in world where apahty is as terrible an enemy as the Wizards Council that rules them...

 

[Graf]

The other option is just to say that

1. Unlike the "real world" it's possible for one person to create a apocalyptic event.
2. Like the "real world" some tiny percentage of the population is sociopathic/mentally disturbed in a way that makes them very very hostile to other humans (or sentient beings)

1 + 2 = Eventually someone with the wrong sorts of motivation gets powerful enough to produce an extinction level event.
If you add in elder evil forces prodding people along it just goes much faster.

I don't think you need to be specific about the details if you're speaking generally.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I'd say that there may be an Eberron style explanation where disjunctions between the planes cause occassional unusual stresses that empires find difficult to survive.

Alternately, it's actually weird conjunctions of the planes that make it possible to form empires at all. Then it's just a ticking clock for when the mojo runs out.

 

[Wiman]

Slaadi are the fundemental agents of Chaos in ole AD&D, if you want a mastermind that destroys empires I would say they would be a good fit as a creepy creppy that comes out of the woodwork when a civilization comes too close to laying down the law.

Making them come out of portals from the far realms (think they got rid of Limbo which I believe was their original plane of existance) with a host of other chaotic creatures for a one night toss the world on it's head would be interesting, as it would force the characters to pick something they want to protect while the rest of the world burns down in front of them. The current POL's are places where the heroes of history made a stand against the Chaos.

 

[ObsidianCrane]

Actually the answer is there already - the Primordials aka "Titans" or "Giants"

The Primordials want to destory the world and turn everything into elemental Chaos. An Empire needs to create a certain amount of Order before the Primordials notice it, but once they do they being to whisper secrets to someone to begin the downfall of the Empire.

Bael Turath looks like a good example of this, a prosperous kingdom that was turned to chaos by someone learning how to get access to the 9 Hells. Sure Asmodeus could have whispered the secret, but maybe he didn't

 

[Terramotus]

Well, heck with it. Let's assume that either:
a) There was something MORE behind the fall of those Empires whose falls we do know about; or
b) The reasons behind ALL the lost civilizations are lost to history.

In addition, let's make the following assumption (regardless of a or b, above):
c) The fall of every single one of these empires is LINKED in some way.

Now then, with these assumptions my mind immediately jumps to a third party who is, in effect, purposely keeping the world in its PoL status for some nefarious reason of their own. Here's where I've hit a brick wall.

Who would want to ensure that the peoples of this setting never develop a real degree of civilization? Who would be capable accomplishing this goal? And, perhaps most importantly -- WHY? Why would they want to?

To an extent, this has happened in the real world. Empires rise and fall for a number of reasons - cultures change, and what made an empire successful at one point disappears. Economic resources dwindle or trade is catastrophically broken, plagues cull the population and weaken the ability to respond to crises as well as the existing social fabric. External invasions happen, and an empire is conquered by force. Sometimes a people just get tired. Sometimes this all happens at once.

However, there's got to be more to it, because, in general, the real world has become more populous and more technologically advanced over time. Certainly some powerful deity could be keeping things in check, but I prefer a more mechanistic explanation. Keeping in mind that the existing forces bringing down empires are already at work, what could be causing these failures in our D&D fantasy world?

* Magic: The magical equivalent of global thermonuclear war. High level rituals that cause massive disasters are possible by the highest level people. Genius and madness often go together and, perhaps more importantly, such rituals may be possible by only one person. All it takes is one powerful psycho and nobody to stop him, or people who think this massive power can be controlled. Good for at least one fallen empire - see Netheril in the Forgotten Realms.

* Multiple Intelligent Races: In the real world there were multiple species of proto-humans, but only one survived. Why? Perhaps humans in particular just don't play well with others. For all the death and carnage in our world, there are strong ties that bind us together on a deep level. What would happen against other races where those ties aren't there, particularly the ones that look non-human? Genocidal wars can certainly take down empires, and this jives with what's known about the Bael Turath empire in W&M.

* Monsters: Simple and easy: monsters of all types breed faster than the common races' ability to kill them. It takes constant vigilance to keep them in check. One provincial administrator's idleness can lead to the decay and overrun of his province, potentially causing huge repurcussions across the empire, weakening it fatally against some other threat. Even worse, when the empires fall, things get REALLY bad, because it's up to the locals to keep themselves safe. If they can't do it, they lose and the place becomes a wasteland.

* The Planes: Perhaps the world is swiss-cheesed with portals like Faerun, has planes that move in and out of alignment like Eberron, or perhaps the walls between the planes are just thin in certain places. Heck, maybe there's a plug somewhere that people keep disturbing. This may make certain types of monsters stronger, cause huge natural disasters in the case of the Elemental Chaos, or just let loose some of the big badasses that nobody in the world has the capability to stop. Why do the empires fall every 2000 years? That's when the Elemental Chaos is coterminous and elementals flood the world along with drastic natural disasters. Sounds bad, huh? Well, every 10000 years the Abyss is coterminous and the seas turn to blood, the locusts come, and the demons reap their grim harvest. That's worse.

* Environment: Maybe the world just isn't as nice a place as Earth is. What we consider to be natural disasters could be relatively common occurances in this world. Hurricanes, earthquakes, ice ages... it's only a matter of time before a civilization is torn down. The survivors pick up the pieces afterwards until the next calamity.

* Disease: Many of the diseases humans suffer from started with animals we've domesticated and then jumped over to us after a mutation. Well, what the heck kind of diseases do you get from griffons, displacer beasts, giants, and grells? Maybe the magical ecology of the world is such that the balance of power between us and diseases is different. Heck the Black Plague killed 1/3 of Europe. What if stuff like that happens a lot more often? What if it's let out on purpose by creatures from other planes? Even if it's not enough to bring an empire down (and it would have to be really bad to do that), it could still weaken it so thoroughly that the other external pressures take it down.

* High Level Destruction: Similar to the first option, but a little bit different. Maybe magical apocolypse isn't too easy, but the cumulative effects of lots of high level people running around and at war with each other can have much the same effect, especially if there's no easy counter. Meteors dropping, earthquakes, ruined crops. Alone these are just horrible occurances, but two nations inflicting these on each other constantly would be catastrophic. Sure, there's Mutually Assured Destruction, but that only works until one side thinks they can win...

Personally, I prefer a combination of all of these. Due to the magical influences on the world, is a DANGEROUS place. Heck, maybe the real question is how the empires start overcome all of this in the first place? Maybe the "homelands", the places that have always been populated and rarely get demolished are places where the walls between the planes are thick. It's easy to hold the line there, but it takes constant work elsewhere. No Reapers needed!