Living After The Sun Died

[Yair]

The idea is to create an all-psionics world much like dark sun. It will even have a broken, eaten sun shining down upon it. But it will be at the aftermath of an eon without sunlight at all. How would such a world appear as?

Geography
I'm thinking the effect of having no sun for a few centuries will be that virtually all plant-life will perish. The world will be encased in ice. With a new sun hanging in the sky, a band of scorching desert will appear around the equator, slowly expanding and eating at the ice sheets engulfing it.

But I'm not sure if that's a reasonable effect. Which is why I opened up this thread - I'm looking to ideas, especially on what's going on in the border region between the ice and the expanding land, and in how the vegetation and animal life return to the world (or not).

For the recored, the idea is to have an all-psionics campaign in such a world, and I thought a post-apocalyptic world would be appropriate - exploring the aftermath of centuries of living under illithid rule.

The illithids put out the sun (as they're want to do), which I reckon will kill all plant life and with it any surface civilization. Life will remain under their control, in the massive cities they will construct, where they will feed their slaves on psionicly-created food and on underground fungus. All the earth will be covered by ice, and all life will be reduced to carrion living off these centers of life.

Life in the underground will persist much as it always had, although here too the illithids will see their power rise. In the sea life will persist too (ignoring plantkton), but they will slowly freeze out over a few centuries.

Which I reckon will be the source of the illithid's downfall - the aboleth and illithids will wage a war, for the aboleth will require water, not ice. After some centuries, they will succeed in returning the sun to the sky and masterminding a slave rebellion simultanously, which will topple the illithid empire. A short time later the campaign will start, with the PCs exploring the now-visible world around them.

The illithid cities still stand, now controlled by those who led the rebellion - powerful psions, some trained by the illithids, some by the aboleths. Each city populated mainly by its own population of slave races. (So one city will be githzerai, another githyanki, another duergar, another xeph...)

It will be an all-psionics campaign. Only psionic races and classes, lots of aberrations, and monsters from the Frostfell, Avandu, and perhaps Sandstorm supplements. Kind-of like dark sun, but without the defiler/preserver motif, druidic/clerical/arcane magic, and with an actual reason the sun is dark (or, at least, was).

 

[Crothian]

The only plant life that would survive is plants that do not depend on the sun for energy. For instance on our planet their are eco systems around valcanic vents that are so deep in the water no sunlight gets to them.

With the plants gone the higher life forms will soon follow. First the heribivores then the carnivores. I think no plants or animals will return. The land might even be dead at that point unable to grow plants, I don't know exactly what it would take for that to happen though.

Now, if you have magical plants that get a source of nutrition from a ley lines or something like that then I could see life surving. But make it changed. Imagine plants that are attracted to magic for food and that includes spellcasters. I know you are thinking psionics only and you might come up with a way to have that happen. Maybe there are psionic plants that are living just outside the Mind Flayer cities that feed off of psionic energy and they attack anyone with psionic abilities. You can get really wierd brain like plants as the plants adapt and grow more powerful with psionics.

 

[Turanil]

what's going on in the border region between the ice and the expanding land, and in how the vegetation and animal life return to the world (or not).

Graham Hancock wrote an interesting book (forgot the name) on the end of the Ice Age 11,600 years ago. Basically, what you get are huge polar caps miles thick, that melt, creating tidal waves on the land itself, and ocean level rising. So, this is not **post** apocalyptic, as the apocalypse is happeneing right now!

 

[Maldin]

You should dig up Dragon Magazine #150, which had an article on "The Sunset World", a planet that may have been the illithid home world, and possibly a good source of information for what you're trying to do. I believe the article may also have had other illithid, gith, and psionic-related articles. Don't have my library at hand right now.

Denis, aka "Maldin"
============================
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
Loads of edition-independent Greyhawk goodness... mapsi, magic, mysteries, mechanics, and more!

 

[Slife]

It's awfully hard to kill plants off entirely by freezing them. I imagine you'd end up with some dormant seeds sprouting and growing back. Probably there'd be some frozen algae as well, which would thaw out and be reintroduced into the seas.


In addition, there could be some areas that were put into stasis until the sun returned (maybe the last remnants of {some evil race's, maybe the drow's} shadow magic fueled the spells, which are now being destroyed). Or maybe ther are just quintessence-enclosed areas (if you can't retreat, see if you can outwait your enemy.), which are now being quested for because they contain plants and animals...

 

[Nifft]

That's easy.

Illithids are from a 5-dimensional macrosphere which has no stable orbits and thanks to the inverse hyper-cube(5) law their "sun" has continents floating on the fusion ejecta which are cool enough to support life.

Thus they are evil, because they evolved being lit from below.

Also, the Sun makes them nervous. They're sure it's going to fall (remember, no stable orbits in 5D!).

Cheers, -- N

PS: Anyone else read Greg Egan? If not, go do so now. Particularly Diaspora.



PPS: Okay, now for actually reading for comprehension... sounds like a great campaign! The biggest issue I could see would be simple oxygen. With all plant life dead, you're not going to be replenishing your O2 supply, even if you figure out how to melt the frozen "O-flakes" on the ground.

So, some portals to Elemental Air are in order, and perhaps some to Elemental Fire to keep things in the cities from freezing. The Djinn / Efreeti war might have spilled over into a few cites (if you want another pair of factions in the mix).

I'll bet the Githyanki city has a large portal to Elemental Fire in it, with quite a few Red Dragons making their home thereabouts.

 

[DMH]

After several centuries of ice, there will be no mundane plants left. The last time Earth was an iceball was more than 600 million years ago- microbes were the only thing around and survived. So diseases might make the transition. As for magical plants that might be useful, in one of the 2nd ed Dragons (240's) there is a plant uses heat in place of light. It would grow best near volcanos, but since sunlight also produces heat, the plant would be able to colonize the surface.

 

[Ry]

Are there celestials and druids involved? There could be bastions (like magical groves) where sunlight is preserved over time. These could essentially explode outward once real light returned.

 

[Land Outcast]

Well, you'd certainly have a few [Cold] creatures (elementals or outsiders...) around the surface, sorrounding the volcanoes (i.e. sorrounding the cities)...

Any independant city underground would probably have an artificial sun to allow farming...

just ideas...

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm not so sure there'd be a lot of ice.

Or, I guess, I'd expect something a bit more like Greenland and less like Antarctica. Volcanic action and geothermal vents keep the planet from frosting over entirely. Without sunlight, fungi, aglae, and other lightless "plants" sprout up (I'm imagining a HUGE mushroom forest with geothermal mists clinging to it...). Animals survive by growing coats of fur and feathers (immense, feathered dire crocodiles), and maybe even plants develop a way to heat themselves (endothermic plantlife? Sure!).

Either way, where there is ice, the features of the land will be eroded, making vast plains. Big, beefy critters inhabit the planes, vast herds of 'em, keeping the big plants off the terrain.