how does a culture recover from an apocalyptic event?

[MerakSpielman]

In a D&D world you'd have some continuity because some races live so damn long. 90% of the elves die? You still have hundreds of them around for centuries who can pass on elven lore from before the apocalypse. Just a random thought.

 

[Desdichado]

You'd be talking small communities, spread out. There'd be no travel between them; each would not know of the existence of the others, and even if they did, they'd be too busy eking out a meagre existence in whatever small settlement they'd managed to construct.

Maybe an occasional person (an adventuring group?) would venture from their home and discover another community after months of travel. They'd probably be greeted with bewilderment, supsicion.. probably hostility. These would be the first strangers anybody had seen in decades.

I'd agree up to about 500 or so years after this "apocalypse." After that, I've got to ask what's holding them back still? Thousands of years may sound like a number that you can blithely toss out in a fantasy setting, but look what a different it makes in the real world! A thousand years ago, the Normans had just recently conquered England, and were still struggling to figure out how to incorporate it into their own realm in Normandy. It would bear little (if any) resemblance to what we typically think of as "Merry Olde Englande", which was only a couple of hundred years away. Look at the drastic change in the face of the Americas in just 400 years, for example, to see how quickly a society can move in, exploit a new land, displace the former inhabitants (not even an issue in this case, as the former inhabitants are presumably mostly all dead) and have significant evolution of its own away from its former appearance as colonies of various old world nationalities.

 

[fusangite]

I've re-written this post about a dozen times trying to come up with something helpful to say. Simply put, there are simply too many variables here to make helpful generalizations for you. There are historical events in which there were colossal demographic disasters:
540-570 CE: The "darkening of the sun" followed by Justinian's plague (unknown fatalities)
1345-1355 CE: The Black Death in Europe and West Asia (about 65% fatalities)
1517-1650 CE: The European epidemics in Mesoamerica (about 80% fatalities)

These demographic disasters produced radically different results. So, actually, I think one can make very few generalizations about what tends to happen when lots and lots of people die.

For instance, if the societies store their information orally rather than in writing, demographic disasters have very different effects on knowledge and culture loss. Another huge factor is whether some cultures are hit harder than others; people can often gain the upper hand over their neighbours if their fatality rate is less -- or some might seek to replace their lost population by forcibly "adopting" their neighbours as the Iroquois did.

Also, what is meant by "recover" -- if one looks at science in terms of the engineering and technological advancements it delivers, demographic collapse often accelerates the development of tech even while it retards the development of pure science. Most scholars now acknowledges that the early medieval period was a period of steady improvements in various types of engineering -- ploughs, water mills and other labour-saving technologies appear to have been positively spurred by demographic collapse.

So here is what I recommend: write the history of this world you are doing. Start with the disaster and then describe how it hits the different communities who are affected. Write the history from the disaster onwards in a methodical, systematic way, rather that guessing how things will be after some gap of centuries of millennia.

 

[Mystaros]

It was Ibn Khaldun who first noticed and codified the theory of the rise and fall of civilizations (or rather, one should say, in modern written history, he was the first we know of to have done it). The theory is that all societies pass through the following phases:

Savagery
Barbarism
Civilization
Decadence
Collapse

The collapse point is that which you are asking about. Most collapses, historically, have been due to a society's fall into decadence and its resulting conquest by a more vibrant, younger barbarian society or civilized society. Some, however, experience "cataclysmic" collapse, even at the height of their civilization. In a magical world this is even more likely.

Examples are numerous. The Invoked Devastation and Rain of Colorless Fire which ended the Sueloise and Baklunish empires of Greyhawk, the Great Rain of Fire which ended the Kingdom of Blackmoor, The Destruction of Alphatia, the Doom of Nithia of Mystara, the Cataclysm of Krynn, the War of the Gods of Cerilia, and the Fall of Netheril in the Forgotten Realms are just a few such examples.

These examples show that, given a couple *thousand* years, things return to "normal," or what would be considered the default D&D medieval style setting technology and culture wise. The Dark Sun example, however, shows what happens when the Cataclysm isn't just a cultural phenomenon, but also what is known as an "eco-cide," or the destruction of an entire ecology. In such extreme cases (Gamma World serves as another), there is no telling where things might stand a thousand years hence.

Your example notes a people who not only were ninefold decimated, but also lost all access to all texts (magical or otherwise), was transported to an unsettled land, and lost most of their spellcasters.

Well, immediately, I would say, they revert to Savagery, somewhat less than Stone Age technology. Like survivors of the apocalypse in Gamma World, they would use whatever tools they had at hand, and try to learn to make new ones. Depending on how far removed the culture was originally from the Stone Age, this could take a generation or a thousand generations — "flint knapping" is not a human instinct (though you might rule it was a dwarven instinct). So immediately, their tech level falls to nil.

However, depending on their new location and the nature of the local gods, that might not be that bad a thing. IF they make contact with the local gods,a nd the gods like the idea of civilization in the area, things can be picked up again relatively quickly, as clerics use spells to find ores and other resources to build up civilization... remember, clerics do not need spell books, or even innate spellcasting abilities, they just need a god willing to speak with them and grant them power in return for worship! So if the gods are still around, things will return to "normal" in a relatively small area in a decent amount of time... say, three human generations maybe. Faster if there are still dwarves with smithing skills and elves with other cultural skills.

But let us presume this is not the case. Let us presume that the group is entirely human, without arcane magic, and the local gods are unattentive or non-existent. You are probably looking at, at least, one or two millennia in savagery, before a level of barbarian culture (read, tribal metalworking society for these purposes) evolves. Then another thousand years in barbarism, before a full-fledged civilization (read, urban specialized culture) evolves. So, two to three thousand years or so back from being dropped into nowhere to a fair level of civilization. That's minimally.

As others have mentioend, these people will not care about the old civilization, and will have mixed myths and legends about it, if they even remember it at all. It left no physical remnants (they were in a new, untainted land, remember), no texts, and there were not even any gods left to help them remember. So, at best, it might be remembered in legends as a kind of "Eden that Fell" or "Hell from which We Escaped," but probably has no bearing on the life of a member of the modern culture at all... with one exception. In the case where the gods of the old culture survived, and maintained some presence, the Old Faith will definitely consider it either a Paradise or Hell, depending on their god's interpretation of what went down, and act accordingly based on the mores and events that they can recall. If the cataclysm was caused by wizards, for example, wizardry will be severely frowned upon. If the cataclysm was caused by "the ungodliness of the people," then they will have strong theocratic beliefs. And so forth ( a good example of this is the old Horseclans series by Robert Adams, especially the Dirtman priests and the Ehleenee priests of the Old Faith).

Whoa... late getting back to work. Gotta go. More later...

 

[barsoomcore]

Another aspect to consider is that the way in which magic works in your world will have a big impact on how a culture reacts to a cataclysmic event.

Steven Erikson really shines at this. Traumatic events linger on in the spirit world, torturing those responsible (or those afflicted) over and over, like scars on civilizations. Races unable to contact their gods, ghosts abandoned by those who had created them, entire nations unable to come to grips with a terrible secret...

Barsoom is a world predicated on a number of horrific events, and the existing campaign is really the final working-out of those traumas. I've had secret societies develop to try and preserve dangerous knowledge, nations so consumed with guilt that they commit suicide and then try to right things from the land of the dead... with, let us say, mixed results.

But I'm not sure that the whole "Shine, Collapse, Dark Ages, Rebuild" model is particularly accurate when you consult the historical record. I think it's a very common motif, but I don't know that it's very well-supported by history. People tend to see the reduction in power by an authority they admire as a "collapse" when to the people of the time it probably didn't look anything like that.

Most people on this thread undoubtedly know much more about this than I, so I'll just throw that out and let you clever clogs chew on it.

 

[Victim]

Another thing to consider is who exactly is affected by the cataclysm. 1d4 negative levels to everyone would probably wipe out 90% of the population of the major races, but would probably have a completely different effect than something that killed indiscriminately (of course, given that higher levels also means greater resistance to disease, starvation, etc, very little wouldn't discriminate by level. Except like a 2k damage AoE). If higher level characters survive, than you have some communication, more respect for magic, better food production. Same thing for a massive epidemic since surivors are likely to be clustered around folks who cure disease.

On the other hand, a sorcerer detonating nexuses of magical power is likely to take a big chunk out of the high end casting population (along with everything else) because they'll be the ones who can use and defend the power sources. In this case, magical infrastructure is toast, spellcasters become hated/feared, more emphasis is placed on technology, secondary die offs from disease and starvation are worse because of the lack of magical cleanup, etc.

And what happens to certain monsters that might be resistant or immune to the effects - or weren't there at the time. After this kind of disaster, the world is extremely vulnerable to extraplanar interference.

 

[ThoughtfulOwl]

how does a culture recover from an apocalyptic event?

Likely, it doesn't. If the population is decimated to such an extent, societies and cultures crumble.

Assuming that destruction was spread all over, population density drops and people band together into small groups, extended families and tribes; here and there there could be a few surviving medium-sized cities, but they struggle to maintain control over enough farmland to support the population and repel raiders: such places are likely to be dangerous places ruled with an iron fist by the military. Following this fragmentation into small communities, languages diversify, mesh and change even faster than what they would under an unified culture: after 2k years the discrepancy will be significant (think romance languages vs. latin); some old languages might be lost and forgotten, unless reconstructed through academic research.

Technology and science (in the widest sense, including magic and other esoteric practices) drop as well. As the struggle for survival becomes paramount, any knowledge that doesn't offer an immediate and practical benefit is likely to be forgotten, as well as any technology that requires large scale, coordinated efforts or a wide range of competences.
Practical knowledge that is still too technical will probably devolve into rote learning and empirical applications; depending on the general attitude, it might even take esoteric or religious overtones (if it didn't already: it's D&D after all).

As civilizations rise once again, many lost tech will eventually be recovered or developed again; depending on the setup, the new world might still struggle after 2k years to reach the former glory, or it has already surpassed its predecessor by a long shot.
Of course, science could take a different route, especially if the old one is responsible for the downfall; you may well have a new world that is superior in a given area but has lost much in another.
For example, a fallen D&D world might turn into a modern-like world: people talk through the Internet, but only a few secretive cabals still maintain actual magical knowledge.

We can aim to a more extreme development by assuming that the disaster upset the metaphysical makeup of the world; in that case, what is and isn't possible becomes relative; most old world spells and magic items might be diminished, unreliable or no longer working at all, while wizards struggle to develop new techniques that didn't work until now.

New cultures will spread to fill the gap, probably with a more fatalistic and savage bent; with a 2k years lapse, they can eventually evolve into anything. As new nations rise, struggle and fall again, the old boundaries will be relegated to history books (if they are remembered at all); in fact, pretty much everybody starts back from scratch: it is entirely possible that races and ethnic groups that were a minority in the old world rise to prominence (think about it: if civilization has just gone down the toilet, people who were already primitive raiders before the fall get a jump start).

How much the new civilizations remembers about the old world depends on how much information survived the fall; they might have a reasonably accurate (if romanticized) idea of the old world, or they might tell tales about the Earthly Heaven and how the angry gods punished some Original Sin by condemning mortals to a life of struggling.
Of course, the presence of long lived races like Elves and Dragons foils this thoughts, provided that they spill the beans. Maybe they didn't survive; maybe they have their own shames to cover up and don't want to talk; maybe most people wouldn't believe them anyway. And for a twist: maybe they are spreading and fostering a false conception of the old world, indulging into historical revisionism to the benefit of some secret agenda (think the Immacolates in Exalted).

And now to gods: if the gods are heavily embroiled with mortals, they might act to preserve what they like through their clerics; religions will likely remain stable unless the disaster happens to be a divine war that destroyed the previous pantheon. However, if they are unfathomable and distant like in Eberron, religions may become almost unrecognizable.
If the gods instigated the fall to get rid of an unworthy civilization, they may want to start over with new guises and new names; or maybe the old gods are all but forgotten and replaced by new gods (maybe ascended mortals that reached godhood after the fall): then, if the old gods have a penchant for tentacles and non-euclidean geometry and the stars will soon be right, you'we got a problem.
Or, the previous civilization either was materialistic or worshipped false gods; after the fall, the beleaguered survivors sought and found the true gods, who gladly helped their newfound followers.

 

[ThoughtfulOwl]

More musings...

Some additional thoughts.

If the previous civilization had enough forewarning of the disaster, they may have set up self-sufficient communities in sheltered locales tasked with maintaining their culture and science. Provided they endured the ensuing ages, their relationship with the rest of the world can be an interesting plot device.

If they remained isolate and contacted the new civilizations just recently (like the Shades in Forgotten Realms), their presence could spark a big upheaval; if they stayed all along, they might band into a guild of sort: the only practitioners of an otherwise forgotten science. Think if they maintain the Mage Guilds or if they are the only ones who can become divine spellcasters.

 

[GlassJaw]

Wow, great stuff.

I didn't want to offer too much about my own campaign because I don't want to give away too many spoilers to any of my players that might read the thread but I also wanted to see how close or far off my own ideas were on a post-cataclysmic society. To my surprise, what I have was pretty much in line with a lot of the comments.

I know a few people mentioned that the deities may have some kind of influence. That's easily addressed in my campaign: there are none. Or if there are, the people have forgotten them. So there is no divine magic in the traditional sense.

 

[talinthas]

on reading the topic, two settings came immediately to mind- Dragonlance (during the war of the lance- the first modules were totally a post apoc setting trying to recover) and Wheel of Time, which explains in great detail how the world evolved and changed over the course of years since the grand collapse in the age of legends.

I'd imagine that the pocket enclaves that survived would probably linguistically differentiate significantly because of lack of cross cultural communication, and the different races would evolve different means to survive and adapt. Ancient techs and stuff would probably become indecipherable gobble, like in the aformentioned (and excellent!) Canticle for Lebowitz.