Fantasy "Fallout"

[Glade Riven]

So here is an idea inspired by the Fallout videogames, except adapting the basic principle to D&D. So...post-apocalyptic fantasy that isn't Dragonlance.

From the sky came Wurmrot, bathed in fire. As he fell, the sky was sundered by his flames. When Wurmrot struck the ground, he called forth the shroud. Ash fell like snow as the world was consumed by fire. From the flames came the winter of a hundred years. When spring finally came, it brought with it the burning rains. But now the shroud has begun to tear, and with the tearing of the shroud comes hope.

Basic Principle: 1,000 years ago a meteor hit the planet, bringing about nuclear winter. Cloud cover is still thick, but the days are a muddy grey. Sunlight is extremely rare, but the occasional break in the clouds does happen.

A few ideas:

• "Dark" races such as drow, duergar, etc are now the common races, with the common races being rare to died out.
• Wurmwood spawned fowl things like demons, devils, etc.
• Elves survived by magically protecting a few cities, but the magics are waining and they are low on resources
• Gnomes built underground Vaults. Normal dwarves may have survived this way, too.
• Humans are still human, because we're tenatious and adaptable.
• Most magical artifacts have to be found in old ruins, because the techniques to make them are lost when civilization died.
• Vampires, Werewolves, and other creatures of the night run rampent.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I have a homebrew very much like this, conceptually, but with inspiration drawn from other sources.

 

[Nagol]

Take a look at Desolation

 

[thejc]

I like this a lot!

Templates for people slain in heavy areas of "The Shroud" Shroudborn zombie are fast slightly tougher than normal zombies and their most terrifying ability can belch hot ash.

Humans and demi-humans are traded like cattle as a delicacy

Tension with the elves because they will only allow a certain percentage of non elves into their cities wanting to preserve their bloodlines and maintain elvish control

Most "normal" human activity is found underground. The surface is no place for a human.

 

[kitsune9]

Sounds like an interesting concept and the desolation rpg looks interesting too.

 

[Glade Riven]

Desolation looks interesting, and would work as a base-line. For D&D and Pathfinder, it would also be a good chance to play one of the more evil races (Goblins, Hobgoblins, kobolds).

I like the shroud zombie.

Rather than an "underdark," how about massive, continental-spanning fissures that serve as "roadways" and protect villages from blighted winds?

 

[Rel]

I did something similar with my first 4e campaign. The Cataclysm that enveloped the world was that of a poisonous, mutating Mist that swallowed up nearly the entire planet. The surviving area was a sort of "archipelago" of mountain tops that stuck up above the Mist.

Travel and commerce between these plateaus was difficult at best. Most was done using blimp-like airships or flying mounts of various sorts. Each plateau had its own culture that had developed over the 500 years since the Cataclysm.

Down in the Mist lived the Mist Demons, creatures that had once been normal but were now twisted by the warping nature of the Mist. These represented a threat to those who ventured into the Mist (along with the enemy that was the Mist itself of course) but there were valuable artifacts to be salvaged from the depths.

It came to light over the course of the campaign that the Mist was the dispersed essence of, Ryukaar, the "Dragon God of Vengeance" who, when his defeat seemed eminent in the giant war that had raged 500 years before, did a ritual that caused his transformation into the Mist that nearly wiped out the entire planet (now THAT'S some Vengeance for ya!). His high priest, a Dracolich that the PC's accidentally brought back from the dead, attempted to perform a ritual that would reconstitute the Mist back into Ryukaar's physical form. Thus the PC's were faced with the decision of whether to allow that to happen (and thereby have the world freed of the Mist but be facing a God of Vengeance incarnate) or stop the ritual and let the status quo be maintained. They chose the latter.

 

[Glade Riven]

Reminds me of Final Fantasy IX with a bit of Stormhawks.

 

[Rel]

Reminds me of Final Fantasy IX with a bit of Stormhawks.

It's funny that people keep telling me that it is derivative of stuff I've never heard of.

If you care to read more about it then just click the link in my .sig.

 

[Glade Riven]

Meh, happens to me all the time.

FFIX (and other Final Fantasies that touched on it) didn't use it nearly as well. Stormhawks is a Canadian 3D cartoon involving airships, skybikes and crystal-punk on the world of Atmos: land of a thousand mountain top kingdoms. No deadly mist, just a volcanic wasteland filled with deadly critters below a certain elevation.