Campaign Idea

[Zankafen]

Hello all,

Man, it's been a long long time since I hit the forums. A couple of years at least.

I'm not sure if this is the proper sub-forum or not, but, I need some advice on a campaign Idea.

I was thinking something post-apocalyptic. I'm just not sure on how to pull it off. It's for a small group of 4 or 5 with varying levels of experience...

All ideas are greatly appreciated.

 

[taliesin15]

I've seen lots of settings along those lines. I think you need to give us a bit of detail on what the setting was like pre-apocalypse. Magical/medieval (i.e. standard D&D), or something else? Many settings are shaped by an apocalypse that happened centuries ago. Lord of the Rings is one example (the whole thing that led to the Numenoreans settling in Gondor etc); many have entire continents or islands sinking into the sea, Atlantis style. Some have places where demons or other evil outsiders are attacking from, like the rifts in the earth in David Nalle's Ysgarth, or several campaigns I've seen or heard of employing the Chthulhu mythos.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

First, consider the classic DarkSun setting- definitely post-apocalyptic and generally pretty well written. There are D20 "versions" of it to be found in Dragon Magazine and at Athas.org.

Personally, I'm designing a campaign in which Illithids from the future (see WotC's Lords of Madness) precipitated an apocalyptic series of events in order to gain a world of thralls and "cattle." As I've said elswhere on this site, "Think War of the Worlds in which bacteria didn't save us, coupled with the "To Serve Man" episode of the Twilight Zone, stirred with a Mad Max swizzle stick in a JRRT tumbler."

You also might find inspiration in this thread:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=102706

 

[Shin Okada]

Hmm. Post-apocalyptic you say? That usually means the world which the civilization has been destroyed and now people are struggling for survival and only relying on personal abilities.

The problem is, most D&D-like fantasy worlds are not civilized enough from the beginning. So it is rather hard to give post-apocalyptic feel. Monsters are everywhere and people are relying on the abilities of powerful individuals anyway.

In most cases, "civilization" of D&D worlds are relying largely on magics. So, often, "apocalypse" in a fantasy world means the death of magic, or destruction of organizations which are teaching magic. Dragonlance is a kind of post-apocalyptic world. Now mages and divine spellcasters are rare and PC spellcasters are very rare talents. They cannot simply buy magic items in towns, but they can find them in ruin of "civilized age" or create items by themselves. So it does not need to be low-magic by mechanic.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

One of the things I'm doing is lifting an idea from Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall"- the ELE (Extinction Level Event) is so destructive and long lasting that civilization falls to such a pervasive anarchy that city folk- those that survive, anyway- must burn whatever they can to keep warm and cook food after timber stops being delivered to the gates.

First to go is anything of wood that isn't nailed down...and everyone has a pry-bar, of course.

Some houses follow.

Then come things like books...including, eventually, magic ones and scrolls.

Thus, by the time that the PCs are alive, there are virtually no "ancient tomes" or schools of wizardry around- meaning that most of those who want to study magic must recreate the lessons lost in the apocalypse.

 

[AddizAbeba]

One of the things I'm doing is lifting an idea from Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall"- the ELE (Extinction Level Event) is so destructive and long lasting that civilization falls to such a pervasive anarchy that city folk- those that survive, anyway- must burn whatever they can to keep warm and cook food after timber stops being delivered to the gates.

First to go is anything of wood that isn't nailed down...and everyone has a pry-bar, of course.

Some houses follow.

Then come things like books...including, eventually, magic ones and scrolls.

Thus, by the time that the PCs are alive, there are virtually no "ancient tomes" or schools of wizardry around- meaning that most of those who want to study magic must recreate the lessons lost in the apocalypse.

Cool insight. Will use it in my campaign (where the apocalypse is something that happens every n-thousand years, and is about to happen again, with only the PCs able to stop it of course. The apocalypse is BTW a raging war between slaadi and formians, and they choose the same battleground everytime - the PCs homeplane which is or might be the prime material. Homebrew worlds give so much freedom! > )

 

[green slime]

The wizard living in a tower in a temperate zone or warmer isn't likely to go wanting for warmth, and be reduced to burning his own scrolls.

Most civilisation wide collapses that humans have experienced have often depended upon on mismanagement of natural resources. Anasazi seem likely to have suffered from water mismanagement, overfarming, and a burgeoning population. The people of Easter Island removed all the trees from the island, destroying the basis for their own culture in the process (you wonder what the guys were thinking when they chopped down the last tree). It is speculated that the Maya civilisation collapsed when they were unable to withstand an unusually long drought. The Greenland Vikings died out when they were unwilling to adopt local Inuit practices more suitable to their environment.

Of course, with resource scarcity and overpopulation, follows wars which, in general, aren't really good for libraries or universities in any climate. And probably not that healthy for most wizards either, in the long run.

 

[Shin Okada]

I think you still need some kind of "Death of magic" to cause apocalypse in a D&D world. With magic, people in D&D world can survive in almost any environment. A 5th-level cleric can cast Create Food and Water to feed 15 people every day. Higher-level mages can open portals to Elemental Plane of Water to get infinite water supply. Even the 1st-level spell Endure Elements is enough to survive ice age without burning precious magic items. And, as the last resort, high level mages can use Plane Shift or make portals to immigrate to a new world.

Another approach is to make magics something new to that world. Before the apocalypse, people there were just living relying on ordinary technology (of modern level or more primitive level). After the apocalypse, some people start to show the talent of magics.

 

[green slime]

I think you still need some kind of "Death of magic" to cause apocalypse in a D&D world. With magic, people in D&D world can survive in almost any environment. A 5th-level cleric can cast Create Food and Water to feed 15 people every day. Higher-level mages can open portals to Elemental Plane of Water to get infinite water supply. Even the 1st-level spell Endure Elements is enough to survive ice age without burning precious magic items. And, as the last resort, high level mages can use Plane Shift or make portals to immigrate to a new world.

IMC that was obtained by wrenching the entire planet away from it's natural place: the sun was about to be extinguished by the illithid, so, unable to stop them, the epic level cabal decided to risk planeshifting the entire planet away. With dire consequences.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Cool insight.

Thanks, but in all honesty, its just a tweek on Asimov's original idea. If you can find the short story or the novelization of it with Robert Silverberg...or even one of the 2 (less than good) movie versions of it, you'll see what I mean.

(And BTW, your ELE is similar to his in the periodicity.)

Since people are sharing...

My ELE is the Illithids from the far, dark future perturbing asteroids from their usual orbits, dropping them onto the planet like superbombs. The resultant nuclear winter collapses most of the civilizations of the surface world. Their doing so also sparks a godwar (as various deities accuse each other of the Illithid's acts), leaving the planet ripe for their "farming."

Unfortunately, they have an accident on their way down to the surface, and only a few survive- even their Elder Brain is severely damaged. Generations later, they're one of the dominant world powers, but they have no clue as to their actual origins...

To add to the problem, their "Starfall Initiator" is still out there in the asteroid belt, occasionally kicking a few asteroids towards the planet...