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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rappy" data-source="post: 6114203" data-attributes="member: 58456">IntroductionThe EventThe noontime bustle of December 12, 2012, seemed like that of any other Wednesday in the United States. Workers were off to lunch, parents were rushing to find gifts for the upcoming holidays, and life moved at the same rapid pace as always. Of course, that was before the light. At approximately 12:12 PM, Central Standard Time, a blazing red light – since dubbed AG-20121 “Ah K'in” – appeared over the Yucatan Peninsula. Astronomers feared it was an asteroid that somehow managed to slip by the radar, the US military was in a panic over the potential unannounced nuclear warhead just over the horizon, and cult leaders pointed to the great light as proof of their prophecies. The truth, however, was far more baffling. After tearing a path across the sky from Piste, Mexico, to Mexico City itself, AG-20121 burst in a dazzling display of color, bathing much of of the Western Hemisphere in an unsettling red glow. For most of the population, the phenomenon was inexplicable but harmless; for 4 out of 100 people in North and South America alike, however, things would never be the same. These people have since become known as the Changed, for that is exactly what became of them during the first day of red light: some gained abilities beyond that of anything seen in the days before the blast, while others had their physical forms warped and altered to beings spoken of only in myth and legend. Nearly all of the fauna and around half of the flora on the two continents also succumbed to the Change and radically altered their habitats in a matter of days.Before the week was out, similar (albeit smaller) explosions – AG-20122 “Ra” over Egypt, AG-20123 “Dagr” over Norway, AG-20124 “Bielobog” over central Russia, AG-20125 “Amaterasu” over Japan, AG-20126 “Aryaman” over India, and AG-20127 “Wuriunpranilli” over west Australia – created similar effects across the world. Regions that weren't in the radius of at least one of the blasts were few and far between, and even those ended up being invaded by the more expansive examples of the aberrant creatures of the post-Change ecosystem. It can be considered a miracle that seven such anomalous events in a week's time didn't completely shut civilization down, "merely" causing intense chaos and confusion. That all changed, however, on December 21: Blue Friday. As the name implies, Blue Friday was ushered in by an anomalous electric blue explosion unlike any of those before it. This blue-tinged light brought with it untold ruin as the world's sea levels rose, titanic blizzards tore through the far north, typhoons and firestorms buffeted Australasia, and EMP clouds choked mainland Europe.It is now 2018, and the world is still in the ever-evolving process of recovering fro Blue Friday. After the disasters of Blue Friday, the world is a very different place, and a hostile one at that. Nations that were spared the worst of the destruction created pockets of technological and cultural advancement that give fleeting glimpses into what the world was like before the disaster. Most of Earth, though, is a shadow of its former self, coated in ruin and ruled by the strongest survivors...and that's not even mentioning the entities born of the Change. It's a wild world out there.The WorldThe following is a minor status report on how the world has rebuilt itself as of 2018. If you want a deeper look at specific places on the planet, there will be future entries giving a spotlight on areas such as the eastern United States, the British Isles, and India.The United StatesWhat was once the 48 continuous states of the USA has been splintered into five nations and smaller city-states, townships, and dictatorships. In the west is the Arizona Union, a sprawling nation whose fortress-like cities spread across much of what was California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. In the southern midlands is the Greater Texan Republic, a conglomerate of Texas and Oklahoma that sets its eyes to the smaller independent states that surround its lands. In the northern midlands rules the geniocratic nation of Pax Lacus, where the states of the Great Lakes have dominion over citizens that are pushed to expand upon the old sciences. Finally, in the east there are the Appalachian Territories and the United Atlantic States, two nations that long for the old America and loathe each other enough to have been locked in a cold war for the six years that have passed since Blue Friday.CanadaThe fell winds of a blizzard to end all blizzards tore apart much of western Canada on Blue Friday. The Yukon, Northwestern Territories, and Nunavut were left mostly desolate to all but the most dogged survivors and groups of nomadic mutants capable of withstanding the extreme cold that swept across it, northern Quebec and Newfoundland-Labrador were overrun by creatures of ice and snow with magical powers beyond imagining, and the rest of the provinces and territories were weakened and thinned out by the disasters as a whole. Still, with British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario forming a continuous "Old Canada" and Nova Scotia and New Brunswick forming together into a small nation that dubbed itself Vinland, the Canadian existence was maintained in spite of the Changed World. Mexico and Central AmericaMexico: the land where the first red star fell, spreading out the strange winds of the Change. By the time Blue Friday came around several days later, it is safe to say that the Latin American countries have been shaken down and splintered but not defeated, even after the arcane surge that fuel-boosted the great volcanoes of the Trans-Mexican Belt sent forth clouds of fire and ash that burned up much of the rainforests and effectively split Mexico into two nations.South AmericaIt is said that, with time, the jungle always claims her own. The expansion of the Amazon River consumed the lands at its mouth and the magic of the jungle many have called “the green hell” likewise consumed much of northern South America’s cities, while in the plains of the south Argentina rushed to recover from the loss of the lowland city of Buenos Aires to the rising waves. In between, countries such as Uruguay and Bolivia have all had to deal with the increasingly dangerous Changed World. Still, things could be a lot worse than they are in South America.The British IslesThe Change hit the lands of the United Kingdom particularly hard. The influx of the faeries was too much for many humans to bear, especially with the queen herself becoming one of the charmed folk. Scotland and Ireland were cordoned off as “faerie realms” in 2013, the largest cities of England being cut into heavily fortified blocks in the same year. With the Atlantic Ocean wracked with constant storms and surges and the upper atmosphere choked with the dangerous material known as the Entropic Field, England without the rest of the British Isles has effectively become isolationist to an extreme...and the current Prime Minister happens to like it just that way.Western EuropeTo say that western Europe has been pushed back into the dark ages would be putting things lightly. Immense magic-fueled electromagnetic windstorms rolled across the countryside without end from Blue Friday until well into the summer of 2013, wrecking communications and ripping off the upper portions of nearly any building higher than two stories. To make things worse, much of Scandinavia was consumed by the same arcane frost that dealt an unfair hand to western Canada and Alaska, almost the entirety of the Netherlands and at least half of Denmark and Belgium were consumed by the rising waters, and refugees from these countries began to retreat into the already battered and weary countries of France, Spain, and Germany. To make things somehow even worse after all of these events, there was yet another problem. A very big problem. A giant problem, one might say. The titanic human-like figures born of the Changed World plundered and pillaged much of Europe and effectively cut off Italy from the rest of the continent, making an already bad situation turn even worse. As of 2018, western Europe looks like something out of a road warrior’s fantasies: biker gangs, marauding giants, and plenty of needy fortified towns and cities begging for caravans brave enough to traverse the land and sell what is desperately needed.The Middle EastIt turns out that people are slightly more likely to set aside their differences when there are literal monsters clawing at their doorstep. Admittedly, with much of the Middle East now demon-haunted wasteland, the few remaining cities in the desert rarely interact other than through trading caravans, but even formerly bitter rivals have found a strengthened alliance out of the sheer need to survive.AfricaPost-change Africa can effectively be looked at in four chunks. You have northern African nations such as Morocco and Egypt, which are mostly unchanged. Then there is the Congo Basin, which has been consumed by verdant magic and refuses to yield to human hands. Third would be the rift valley nations such as Ethiopia, which now find themselves with an inland sea in the place of what were once separate rift valley lakes. Finally, southern Africa from Zambia down to the country of South Africa itself has been coated in a strange perpetual mist that has expanded the marshlands and transformed the Kalahari Desert into a miniature Congo.RussiaNot content with merely having the icy winds of the far north, the electromagnetic storms of western Europe also swept across Russia, the combined magic of frost, wind, and lightning ravaging the massive country and splintering it. Much of Russia is now governed by warrior-kings known as the bogatyri, individuals who were granted supernatural strength and endurance by the Change and have decided to defend what is left of Russia from the dangers of the new world.India and Central AsiaSpared much of the suffering of the lands to the west, countries such as India and Mongolia managed to make it into the Changed World relatively unscathed, their cities shrunken from the chaos of the Change but nonetheless capable of supporting themselves. Meanwhile, the nation of China has been torn into two nations from intense infighting that occurred from the Change and its aftermath. Northern China is intensely humanocentric and follows the ways of the old world, while Southern China has embraced the supernatural and begun to inch its way toward becoming the first mutant-dominated magocracy of the Changed World.Southeast AsiaLow height coastal regions and a partially watery apocalypse do not go together well – nearly the entirety of Bangladesh as well as large regions around cities such as Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, and Hanoi can attest to that from beneath the waters. The regions of mainland southeast Asia that did remain above water, as well as the surprisingly high-altitude islands of Indonesia and the Philippines, managed to survive relatively intact. Still, these lands are now dangerous with powerful supernatural creatures like so many other places around the globe, and leaving fortified areas can be quite dangerous.AustraliaWhile the great apocalypse itself was born of water, Australia also suffered at the hands of fire. Immense firestorms swirled over the great rock Uluru, spreading out far and wide across the continent. As coastal cities braced themselves for flooding – albeit at a minor rate compared to some extremely low-lying countries – inland Australia’s deserts, scrub, and forests all burned. By the time soothing rains came, the earth had been scorched and life scattered. Australia has since recovered, but as a far different place – one of ash rather than sand, polluted marshes choked with volcanic mud, forests of petrified trees, and scattered coastal city-states that fear the inland empire known as the Blazing Hand.AntarcticaWith the oceans turbulent and wild and the high-flying skies little better, Antarctica might as well be on another planet. A handful of brave (or simply foolish) souls have tried to sail to the great southern mass from capes in Argentina and South Africa, but few have returned. Those that have tell stories of a shroud of endless night, research stations hastily abandoned by people who thought that the sub-zero temperatures were safer than whatever caused them to leave, and strange shadowy figures seen in looming in the distance.The MechanicsThe Dusk of Man, Dawn of Magic setting utilizes a smattering of various rules from the d20 Modern system. The four big Open Game Content books from Wizards of the Coast – the d20 Modern Core Rulebook, d20 Future, d20 Urban Arcana, and d20 Weapons Locker – all play their part in the setting, as does a sizable serving of RPGObjects' Darwin's World 2nd Edition. I've stuck fairly close to standard rules rather than employ some of homebrew rules I tend to personally use: this means that, like standard d20 Modern, you won't be seeing things like spell points over spells per day, magic skills, or animals with feats in this campaign setting. While most of the following refers to the d20 Modern Core Rulebook, Urban Arcana, and d20 Future, all of which have their materials in the Modern SRD, there are also several mentions of the Darwin's World series of books as mentioned previously. If you do not have access to this title, feel free to ignore those noted portions: the alternate mutations system, backgrounds system, species, base class features, and Corium Pieces monetary system from Darwin's World are not considered important for this setting. Only several of its occupations, feats, and advanced classes are used for the purposes of specific archetypes and NPCs beyond those of Wizards of the Coast's offerings (see "The Basics").The Index<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?335870-Dusk-of-Man-Dawn-of-Magic-d20-Modern-post-apocalyptic-occult-setting&p=6114229&viewfull=1#post6114229" target="_blank">The Basics (New content added to post: 4/29/2013)</a>Even More Material<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?335870-Dusk-of-Man-Dawn-of-Magic-d20-Modern-post-apocalyptic-occult-setting&p=6114230&viewfull=1#post6114230" target="_blank">Mutants, Playable or Otherwise (New content added to post: 4/13/2013)</a>New Advanced and Prestige Classes<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?335870-Dusk-of-Man-Dawn-of-Magic-d20-Modern-post-apocalyptic-occult-setting&p=6114316&viewfull=1#post6114316" target="_blank">Atlas Part 1: Eastern North America</a><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?335870-Dusk-of-Man-Dawn-of-Magic-d20-Modern-post-apocalyptic-occult-setting&p=6114854&viewfull=1#post6114854" target="_blank">Atlas Part 2: The Mississippi Bay Region (New content added to post: 4/29/2013)</a><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?335870-Dusk-of-Man-Dawn-of-Magic-d20-Modern-post-apocalyptic-occult-setting&p=6117644&viewfull=1#post6117644" target="_blank">Atlas Part 3: The Texan Republic</a><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?335870-Dusk-of-Man-Dawn-of-Magic-d20-Modern-post-apocalyptic-occult-setting&p=6123937&viewfull=1#post6123937" target="_blank">Atlas Part 4: The Great Lakes Region</a>Atlas Part 5: The Great PlainsAtlas Part 6: The Arizona Union and Western North AmericaAtlas Part 7: Vinland, Old Canada, and the Ice RealmAtlas Part 8: MexicoAtlas Part 9: Central and South AmericaAtlas Part 10: The British IslesAtlas Part 11: Mainland EuropeAtlas Part 12: RussiaAtlas Part 13: Northern Africa and the Middle EastAtlas Part 14: Central and Southern AfricaAtlas Part 15: India, central Asia, and ChinaAtlas Part 16: Southeast AsiaAtlas Part 17: Australia and OceaniaAtlas Part 18: AntarcticaSpecial Atlas: LimboGeneral NPCsWorldwide MonstersNote: While some parts of the setting may be posted in the thread out of order, they can be easily found in order through this index.</blockquote>

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