Magical Apocalypse: destroying the Forgotten Realms

[Tom Cashel]

So I've been thinking about the next campaign, starting afresh with 3.5 and Unapproachable East. I was thinking low magic, and having all the PCs start out as slaves or employees of a Red Wizard, or monsters living near the enclave. But then I had a more ambitious idea.

The crux is this: magical apocalypse.

The Weave and the Shadow Weave cancel each other like matter and anti-matter. A bright flash, and the shockwaves roll through all the planes, slaying gods and Chosen alike.

On Toril, nations fall. The Empire of Shade tumbles into the sands of Anauroch. Most magic items cease functioning. Wizards become a dying breed--most lose their powers altogether, and many are hunted down and killed for "causing" the apocalypse. The sharn and the phaerimm withdraw into the shadows of the earth's deeps. Magical organizations are disbanded. Fey creatures (including elves) withdraw to other worlds. Magic becomes a precious commodity. CRs are downgraded. No wizard or sorceror PCs are allowed.

In Thay, the PCs will have to deal with sudden freedom from the reign of the Red Wizards. Rashemi flood over the border to conquer, while civil war sunders the remaining Red Wizards' holdings and cities. Regions become isolated; trade routes dwindle and vanish.

The PCs can do lots of things: establish a holding of their own, join with any of the new warlords of Thay, set out into the unknown, try to survive in a war-torn land.

So...has anyone else done anything so destructive to the FR? Or tried a similar campaign? I know this is the old "low magic" question, but alternatively (for all you FR fans), what are some other consequences of the shattering of magic in such a magical world?

Should the campaign start, say, twenty years after the Fall? Or would it be more compelling to just have it happen on Day 1 of the new campaign?

All right, let's brainstorm.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Well, you gave me an idea.

Tell everyone you're going to run a new FR game, but don't tell them the real plot.

Then, tell them to think of vague character ideas, but all you really need at this point is race and gender - oh, and a name, of course. Tell them to think of the character twenty years before he's ready to adventure. This means that some characters will be children, of course.

Run one game night's worth of the characters at Day 1 of the new age. Let them role-play the six-year-old child who watched as the city of Waterdeep was consumed by fire. Let them play the half-elven girl whose family fled into the desert of Calimshan. Let them play the boy whose family was taken by the priests of Shar to bring about the apocalypse. Let them play the child who saw his mother, the priestess of Mystra, consumed in holy annihilation.

THEN have them write up their characters.

 

[Mythtify]

Sounds very much like the backstory of Dragonlance. Can we manage to have a certain drow not survive?

Realy though, FR is meant to be high magic. If you change that, you aren't realy playing FR any more. Though you are playing your own campign, which is cool. Sounds a bit bleak, but I say go for it.

 

[blackshirt5]

I'm all for the destruction of the Forgotten Realms.

 

[Tom Cashel]

Can we manage to have a certain drow not survive?

All FR iconics will be obliterated.

Wombat, I like that idea a lot.

Mythify...sure we are! When you consider how much Ed Greenwood stole from Tolkien, we're actually getting back to the source material.

 

[Trickstergod]

Wow, that idea sounds at least vaguely familiar like a one-off game I did involving the destruction of the Forgotten Realms.

One of Shar's shadow-weave users discovered a way to link the Weave and Shadow Weave together, thus removing any restrictions on his spellcasting, only to have it backfire when the two opposing parts of creation began destroying one another. Being that it was a one shot, I only ran it in the last days of Toril, where Mystra and Shar had since died, along with all their Chosen, with the exception of the Shadow-Weaver caster and Blackstaff, who'd separated himself from the direct contact with the planes and fraying Weave. The PC's needed to kill the both of them to halt the apocalypse, as their deaths would have dispersed the last direct ties to the Weave and Shadow Weave. The set up for what had been going on was that arcane casters, and those faithful to Mystra and Shar, began inexplicably losing their powers or just dying right after they prepared their spells, and their Chosen had begun dying under mundane or mysterious circumstances. Folk began popping off to the planes (because the Weave and Shadow Weave are specific to the Realms, in my opinion, and their two patrons, as opposed to any planar fabric), and the less magically inclined races began going to war with the rest of the world, now that they had the upper hand.

While I was running it with just the idea of "Heh. I get to blow up the Forgotten Realms" for a one-shot, it did occur to me, after I was finished running it, that I actually had liked the set-up for it, and would have liked to run it from the beginning, without the characters really knowing what was going on at first. So, personally, if I were going to run a game like that, I think I'd start it just right when, or right before, things start really getting bad.

 

[Mercule]

I'm all for the destruction of the Forgotten Realms.

Yeah. Sign me up!

If possible, have Elminster do something stupid (yeah, there's the plot hole) to have caused it. Being at the epicenter, he is transformed into an immortal, indestructible gelatinous cube with no digestive enzymes and a huge appetite (and a 27 intelligence). (So warm and fuzzy just thinking about it.)


Okay, seriously, no, I've never done anything quite so destructive. It sounds like fun, though.

As far as character creation goes, it depends on how much shock you want to level on A) the players and B) the characters.

To shock the players, do what was suggested above and just have them work up their characters without telling them anything special is going to happen. Okay, depending on the players, you may want to tell them, "I'm going to hose over half your assumptions in the first five minutes of play, so stay flexible."

To shock the characters, start the campaign around the time of the apocalypse (either before or after).

Personally, I think doing both would be the most fun for the players and DM alike. You'd have the opportunity to discover whether it was just a "hiccup" and everything is fine besides the initial damage, or if it was a long term shift.

The politics of watching those propped up by magic fall would be interesting, especially if those falling were benevolent. Imagine kindly, but newly powerless, old wizards drug into the street and lynched because of "all the damage they've done".

I think the first six months of such a game would be the most interesting. 20 years after the fact, you've pretty much got Dark Sun with better climate and geography. Sure, there'd be all sorts of great dungeons to delve, but seems a waste to focus on spelunking when civilization as we know it is collapsing.

 

[Ysgarran]

The Weave and the Shadow Weave cancel each other like matter and anti-matter. A bright flash, and the shockwaves roll through all the planes, slaying gods and Chosen alike.

How many gods are left? Do clerics still have their connection to their god? Do Clerics lose power also?

Demons do not obtain their power from worship (assuming you follow that model about why gods want to be worshipped), they would be more than happy to rush to fill the power vacumm.

Perhaps the worshippers of Gond with their penchance for technology might do exceptionally well under the circumstances you mention.

If you want to introduce a power point magic system (ala Midnight) then the shadow weave/weave conflaguration does not result in complete cancellation...something new and different is left over.

With all the gods gone perhaps Ao? Arachne Solar? (the overgod, can't remember the name exactly) starts playing a more direct role in the affairs of faerun.

I have visions of magic-less a Elminster running around ala Sharky. He is now basically a commoner with with d4 hit dice...
I wonder what extremes he might go to regain his power?

In a dark age the Golden Horde could be resurgent, enough time would pass for a new generation to grow up.

I'll post more ideas as they come to me...

Ysgarran.

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

I'd start it out as a "normal" FR campaign and have calamity strike around 2nd level or so. Magic using characters would feel a growing "surge" and the only reason they survive is simply because their attunement to the weave is currently low.

I'd also tell my group in advance that you were going to put a twist on the FR and to expect the unexpected. Someone could get a character idea that hinged around something you wipe out. That's kind of a downer.

 

[Tom Cashel]

I'm really liking the idea of having the campaign start just before the event, and then see what happens as things get worse. I'm also thinking about having a new neutral goddess of magic born from the destruction/merging of Mystra and Shar. Most other gods will remain intact, although their power may be lessened.

I will ban wizards and sorcerors, so the PCs don't get hosed. I think removing clerics from the PCs' menu of options would seriously hamper a party (even more), so I don't want to do that.

Picture this:

An isolated farming enclave in the northern reaches of Thay. This is a large, walled compound that is owned by Rauchdenzir, aka "The Eviscerator," a Red Necromancer notorious for his mistreatment of slaves. The enclave has a small cadre of zombies guarding it. The Eviscerator, however, owns many enclaves, and seldom visits this one.

The PCs are slaves, guards, seneschals, friars, or even members of nearby gnoll or taer tribes. Perhaps they are wandering spirit folk or volodni who frequent the region. (Even without wizards and sorcerors, there will be plenty of options.)

Then one day...the supply wagons fail to arrive. And all the zombies drop to the ground like sacks of cabbages, without explanation.

A week passes...no word from the Eviscerator's agents, no supplies.

Word begins to trickle in of terrible happenings on Thaymount and in the city of Eltabbar. (If I remember correctly, the streets of Eltabbar actually form a huge sigil that keeps a pit fiend or similar horror trapped...not any more!) A few refugees might arrive, telling tales of Rashemite atrocities in the east.

Now the PCs may choose to fortify their compound, or set out in search of answers. No doubt marauding tribes of orcs and other goblinoids would descend like angry locusts upon a civilization suddenly bereft of magic.

Imagine the PCs trying to hold on against an orcish siege, while former slave PCs and former guard PCs try to come to terms with the new situation. Inject a few monstrous PCs into the mix (their people slain by the orcs) and you've got some serious role-playing and drama!