Heat Wave/Cold Snap Adventure Ideas

[DDK]

It's currently 44 C (111 F) with only 9% humidity and a moderate north-westerly breeze (that means the wind is coming from central Australia, ie. the desert) here and I'm about to turn over and baste my other side.

But before I do that, I had an idea that adventures could be created around sudden and intense fluctuations in temperature. Mystical origins or no, what kind of things could your heroes do in such a situation?

My thoughts were along the lines of spells mostly, like Remove Fear, Create Water, Endure Elements, etc. Fires could break out and the local druid could request aid or a town could be under threat. Higher level druids with access to Quench would be indispensible. Rescuing children from burning buildings, etc.

Just thought I'd try and turn this disgustingly hot heatwave to my advantage. Any thoughts?

 

[Kilmore]

Well, my first thought is that we'd gladly trade you some of this American cold for a little of that Aussie heat right now. It's colder than a polar mermaid with aluminum valkyrie cups up here right now, and I'm just in St. Louis. I feel for those up north.

But back to gaming, I'm sure you can get plenty of ideas from the disasterous heat in Australia right now, with all the fires and all that.

One idea... a magical seal has been marked in a special wax. A horrendous heat wave rolls through and the wax softens...

 

[s/LaSH]

What first came to my mind was the Antipode effect from Chrono Trigger. By simultaneously casting Fire and Ice on a target, it got, well, munted. By similar thinking... what happens to a country where the temperature fluctuates between winter and summer and back again in a single day? Now that gets my brain juices flowing.

I imagine that thermal stress would crack buildings, and 'false spring' effects would wreak environmental havoc. It's a pretty vicious situation, actually, and it doesn't involve changing anything major about the world expect the speed at which things operate... I think that's rather interesting, but I'm strange.

 

[dave_o]

Muhaha.

I feel enough for the poor heros in your comic, dude.

Don't go springing something like this on them!

(BTW, I LOVE the comic. So much. If I had any talent at all in freehand drawing I'd so be all over that.)

 

[DDK]

I just had a thought based on a couple of the other poster's postings.

Perhaps a cold snap followed by a heatwave causes an ancient burial ground seal of stone to crack open, thus allowing spirits to leak out. First of all the adventurers have to find the place and once they do, figure out a way to reseal it.

 

[fusangite]

Climate and local environmental change, it can be argued, forms the basis of the fantasy genre. If an adjacent region has been rendered uninhabitable or unsuitable by these kinds of changes, not only will characters have to face local problems but there will be escalating raiding, plundering and invasions. The Viking phenomenon was largely caused by a cooling trend which reduced the food production in Scandinavia, causing raiding and escalating militarism. This was then followed by a warming trend which increased productivity and birth rates, allowing the Vikings to really take off.

The story of local environmental change by mystical forces is best exemplified by the Grail stories from which fantasy literature originates. The story of the Fisher King (the terms is a pun as the medieval French words for sinner and fisher are virtually identical) is about a king who offends God in some way whose land is therefore cursed and turned into a wasteland. Parzifal, Bors, Gawain, etc. quest for the grail so as to heal the king and thereby heal the land.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Weather is the the greatest foe and one the characters should not to allow to beat. Weather can also be used as warning of something happening.

Flash floods, freakish ice/snow storms, heat waves, all happen in a cycle, you have 100 year flood plains, every decade a heat wave. All can be used to change your game, game world and build your world myth.

History has shown us that wars happen also because of weather changes. A race moves from one area because it is so bad only to move into someone elses, trouble happens.

Movies have shown us it could be trouble: Predator, hot summer meant it was coming.

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

By similar thinking... what happens to a country where the temperature fluctuates between winter and summer and back again in a single day?

Oh, you mean the American Midwest? One of the few places in the world where you will end up using the AC and the heater in the same day.

 

[Crothian]

If you want to read about interesting weather, I suggest looking up the summer of 1816, or as it is most commonly known for "The year with no Summer."

"Some account was given . . . of the unparalleled severity of the weather. It continued, without any essential amelioration, from the 6th to the 10th instant -- freezing as hard five nights in succession as it usually does in December. On the night of the 6th, water froze an inch thick -- and on the night of the 7th and morning of the 8th, a kind of sleet or exceeding cold snow fell, attended with high wind, which measured in places where it was drifted, 18 to 20 inches in depth. Saturday morning the weather was more severe than it generally is during the storms of winter.

-- North Star, Danville, VT, June 15, 1816

 

[Buttercup]

A severe cold period might drive nomadic creatures from their normal territory, and make them desparate enough to raid the fertile, warmer areas that normally they would avoid.

And I like the idea of the extremely cold weather causing frost heave. Maybe a bunch of corpses would pop out of shallow graves, and some nasty necromancer would find entertainment raising all of them.

So what if all these undead were one of the main reasons that the nomadic goblinoids decided to raid the peaceful kingdom of Shmuck? And this kingdom has only a tiny and ill prepared standing army, so they put out the call for adventurers.