Nightfall - new campaign

[Master of Monkeys]

A campaign world I am working on, I call it: Nightfall. Its missing all information about the gods, mythology, geography, information about the people, all that stuff. Help is greatly appreciated. Please help!

History of Nightfall

Around the year 2090, Earth discovered wormhole technology and one of the first experiments a space ship. The ship's warp field screwed up and they ended up crashing on a planet they named Nightfall. Nightfall was a harsh desert planet with 3 suns and no night.

Few of the ship's people survived, those that did continued to reproduce and genetically modify their children to create a race that would survive. The AI was given more and more tasks to help the people survive until it had as much freedom as a person.

Because of the harshness of the world they decided to genetically modify themselves to be stronger/smarter, etc. Because of their high technology and the fact they no longer had the laws against certain genetic modifing that they had on earth, they became godlike, and ascended to a higher platform of life than humans. Eventually the AI and humans fought, the human gods forced the AI onto the moon of the planet where they remain, only rarely being able to breach the atmosphere.

The gods decided to make servants, they created beings
almost exactly like humans except in trival ways (some with pointy ears, some much shorter, you get the point). Each god created different beings.

For a time, the human gods lived in peace, until an eclipse with the dark moon of the AI gods caused a night that lasted for 100 years, the Great Darkness. The AI gods came down with dark servants of their own in the night and the Era of the God War started.

The Era of the God Wars

The human gods began to use light as their symbol and drew power from it, the AI gods thrived on the power of the darkness of their moon.

The gods began to make their species stronger than each other. The servant species became very different, the Light began to fight with what they called higher morals, and the Dark fought with almost no morals, their servants were created with an almost love of evil.

The gods began to give their servants powerful nano-technology encoded so that no mortal would ever know where it comes from, it would be a mysterious force. The humans call it magic. When the war began, the gods began to improve magic and give it more and more until a group of powerful wizards began to give technology back to the people of nightfall. The wizards became a threat to the gods themselves, so the gods gave up their struggles and began to fight the wizards with all their power. The wizards left for space. They returned with an army of humans with high-level technology. Thus ended the Era of the God Wars.

The Era of the Science Wars

After long years of fighting, the wizards destroyed the gods in a final magical onslaught. In an instant, the gods were destroyed. It was described as the gods having been alive one moment, then dead the next. The followers of the gods no longer felt the power of their deity at their side.

The wizards never ruled Nightfall, and never wished to. They left for the stars soon after the gods had died. They left behind them vast technology but not a knowledge of its use. They also left behind the power of magic, but it is only a fraction of a wizards power. The technology of the wizards became legendary artifacts, instead of being common to people, like they intended.


Nightfall

Nightfall is probably going to use background feats like Wheel of Time. I haven't decided on the actual geography of the world, mainly just the background. Races are probably all going to be human, or shade of you choose to be evil in the Era of the God Wars.

Nightfall's oceans and water are alive. It was an early experiment of the gods. The ocean is sentient, it moves as if eroding landscape, although quicker than it would on other worlds. Many civilizations have been lost to the water, and the artifacts of the wizards were long ago swallowed. Trees and creatures can subsist on the water, but it is said that to drink to much is dangerous.

I need help with how the gods death changed Nightfall.


In Nightfall you can play in either the Era of the God Wars or the Era of the Science Wars:

Era of the God Wars

The Era of the God Wars is a fight of good versus evil. Players can play during the Great Darkness where they will constantly fight the servants of the dark side. Characters during this time could have to pick from the dark side or the light side.

Era of the Science Wars

The Era of the Science Wars is a fight of medieval versus sci-fi. Players would have to play either a warrior of the wizards or a servant of the gods.

 

[Warchild]

This is a cool premise, MOM.
Well, the lost of the gods would probably have a pretty chaotic effect. Religion and god worship usually has a way of controlling a populace or group of people. But if one's god (especially one who truly interacted with his/her follwers) was wiped out, i could see them cutting loose. Since the gods can be destroyed, than to hell with the rules, right? Why bother. I could also see the followers who no longer hold any divine powers being outcasts, since they can now longer influence others ot threaten them with divine retribution.
Of course, it does depend how how the followers/Gods/local populace dynamic played itself out. Did the churches rule over others because of the divine gifts, or did they work together in a true symbiotic relationship?

 

[Master of Monkeys]

religion

Religion probably ruled the populace as an upper class, considering that the gods lived on the planet, the people probably would have had a closer relationship to their gods than on most planets. So clerics probably would have gone insane, or those who didn't would probably have been killed for fear of the them having gone insane by the commoners.

Should there be clerics in the Wars of Science? If so, where do they get their powers? If not, who takes their place?

 

[Master of Monkeys]

races

Should the only races be human? If so, have they adapted to their environment enough so that, like vikings have the stats of half-orcs and all that.

If we are not just using human, should we just use the normal D&D races? Any other ideas for races? I guess you kind of need the gods to make the races. Then again, it might be easier to make the races first and then make the gods in their image instead of vice versa. What kind of races do you think are needed? One for a plus in strength? One for a plus in dexterity? Elves?

About religion, I imagine that most of the gods would have become greedy and would have had statues and temples built in their honor, and who would say no to building the statue of a god when he asks you to personally?

 

[Warchild]

Re: races

Should there be clerics in the Wars of Science? If so, where do they get their powers? If not, who takes their place[/B]

Well. You could go a couple different ways. Since the ocean is alive an seems like it might eventually take over, i can see some smart priests creating a new religion based of the waters. They may have even developed domains and such. Could be a good baddie group for players to have to worry about.
Something you might think about is replacing Clerical magic with Psionics, which could be developed by Science side to help edge out the churches.
There should definitely be something called the Cyber-Church. I don't know what/why/how, but the basic idea sticks out in my head!!

Originally posted by Master of Monkeys Should the only races be human? If so, have they adapted to their environment enough so that, like vikings have the stats of half-orcs and all that.

If we are not just using human, should we just use the normal D&D races? Any other ideas for races? I guess you kind of need the gods to make the races. Then again, it might be easier to make the races first and then make the gods in their image instead of vice versa. What kind of races do you think are needed? One for a plus in strength? One for a plus in dexterity? Elves?

Well if you are going to go with elves, you should probably stick with the whole regular race group (halflings, gnomes etc). But if you decide to go different, you should definitely make a clean break from the established races and create your own.

 

[Master of Monkeys]

I was postponing work until I got the Deities and Demigods book, but I finally got it. So time to get back to work on Nightfall.

 

[Warchild]

Excellent! Just bring it!!!

 

[Master of Monkeys]

I am going to stat the water god... I am going to have to change the size modifiers a little to reflect how huge the god is.

WATER
The Watchful Protector, The Savior of Ships, The Destroyer of Cities
Greater Diety
Symbol: A wave
Home Plane: Material Plane
Alignment: True neutral
Portfolio: Oceans, seas, rivers, lost civilizations, sea creatures
Worshipers: People who drink water
Cleric Alignments: Any
Domains: Chaos, Earth, Water
Favored Weapon: Trident

Water appears as all the water on the planet Nightfall.

Dogma
Water requires nothing from his followers. It allows people to drink from its body and eat its fish without any complaint. Many societies have been lost below the waves, some say its because they became arrogant. Some say they are there because they lost their faith in the gods.

Water
Colossal Outsider
Divine Rank: 20
Hit Dice: 100d8 + 3300 (3700) (Extra HP like an ooze)
Initiative: -5 (Dex)
Speed: 0 ft. (5 ft. per day)
AC: -90 (-128 size, -5 Dex, 33 Divine)
Attacks: Slam +47 melee
Damage: Slam 16d6+47
Face/Reach: 1000 miles by 1000 miles/200 miles (an estimate, probably a bad one)
Special Attacks: Salient divine abilities.
Special Qualities: Fast healing 40, regeneration 40, divine immunities, DR 195/+11, blindsight 10 miles, SR 232, divine aura (20 miles, DC 110 + CHA MODIFIER).
Saves: Fort +131, Ref +95, Will +115
Abilities: Str 104, Dex 1, Con 72, Int 40, Wis 40, Cha 40
Skills: None
Feats: None

Size Traits: I treated Water as if it was 4 sizes larger than colossal. His 1d6 slam damage became 16d6. AC -128. Str +64, Dex -10, Con +32.
Divine Immunities: Acid, cold, electricity, fire, and sonic.
Salient Divine Abilities: Extra Energy Immunity (acid, cold, electricity, fire, sonic), Increased Damage Reduction (seven times), Increased Energy Resistance (acid, cold, electricity, sonic), Increased Spell Resistance (nine times).
Spell-Like Abilities:


Other Divine Abilities
As a greater diety, Water automatically receives the best possible result on any die roll it makes (including attack rolls, damage, checks, and saves). It is immortal.
Senses: Water can see, hear, touch, and smell at a distance of twenty miles. As a standard action, it can perceive anything within twenty miles of its worshipers, holy sites, objects, or any location where one of its titles or name was spoken in the last hour. It can extend its senses to up to twenty locations at once. It can block the sensing power of deities of its rank or lower at up to two remote locations at once for 20 hours.
Portfolio Sense: Water sense all water use twenty weeks before it happens and retains the sensation for twenty weeks after the event occurs.

Hmm... I hope that looks okay, any comments?

 

[Nightfall]

Hey! I got this name copyrighted! Darn imitators.