D&D 5E Pick Thy Apocalypse

[Zardnaar]

So upcoming game. I've got the start figured out but thinking of the ancient past.

Post apocalyptic.

Just thinking of the nature of yhat Apocalypse. Magic go boom or wrecking the environment are traditional ones along with nukes, gods, or environmental cataclysm.

Any ideas? I'm thinking ancient halfling biomages who created the various magical races. Something goes wrong and yeah.

Maybe even two apocalyptic events.
Any thought bit of writers block.

 

[Richards]

One apocalypse I just used in a 5-part excursion into Gamma World (from a D&D 3.5 campaign) involved transgenetics - DNA bombs mixing in animal bits, so the humans and animals all started mutating. (It was kind of like retromutagen from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, only in my Gamma World it was an unseen virus that escaped from a lab.) In your 5E campaign, the halfling biomages might have accidentally let the magic virus/living spell/whatever escape and it eventually ran rampant over the planet. (That explains your mix-and-match creatures like owlbears and hippogriffs, and your humanoid animal races like tabaxi, dragonborn, and owlins - creatures mutated in similar ways were able to crossbreed true, forming these new species/races.) The virus/whatever might even still be active in whatever lands the halflings were working on it, so PCs exploring those areas would be susceptible to sudden transformations into hybrid creatures.

Just tossing out the first idea that sprang to mind.

Johnathan

 

[Zardnaar]

One apocalypse I just used in a 5-part excursion into Gamma World (from a D&D 3.5 campaign) involved transgenetics - DNA bombs mixing in animal bits, so the humans and animals all started mutating. (It was kind of like retromutagen from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, only in my Gamma World it was an unseen virus that escaped from a lab.) In your 5E campaign, the halfling biomages might have accidentally let the magic virus/living spell/whatever escape and it eventually ran rampant over the planet. (That explains your mix-and-match creatures like owlbears and hippogriffs, and your humanoid animal races like tabaxi, dragonborn, and owlins - creatures mutated in similar ways were able to crossbreed true, forming these new species/races.) The virus/whatever might even still be active in whatever lands the halflings were working on it, so PCs exploring those areas would be susceptible to sudden transformations into hybrid creatures.

Just tossing out the first idea that sprang to mind.

Johnathan

Yeah that's the ancient biomages whoever they may be.

 

[Count_Zero]

In Magic: The Gathering - Dominaria had a magical nuclear apocalypse in the form of Urza detonating the Golgothian Sylex at the conclusion of The Brothers' War, complete with a magical nuclear winter.

 

[Zardnaar]

In Magic: The Gathering - Dominaria had a magical nuclear apocalypse in the form of Urza detonating the Golgothian Sylex at the conclusion of The Brothers' War, complete with a magical nuclear winter.

Vaguely remember that. Artificer in pre apocalypse are definitely a thing.

Day of 1000 suns is the even. Just figuring out what that means. Maginukes is obvious.

 

[Distracted DM]

The Dark Sun-inspired game I started running recently is post-apocalyptic... basically it's my home setting, darkest-timeline sort of thing where all the bad guys from all the different adventures I've run had won over the course of many, many ages. Now it's the end, the world's doomed, they rule over what's left.
So if you're stuck, maybe think about what the bad guys would want, and how that'd turn out if they ALL got what they wanted... obviously there'd be conflicts, but only think about that to the extent that it'll help you. Push things to the extreme, and don't worry about it all making sense right now- think of the ends first, and you can work out the how and why of things making sense later.

 

[Zardnaar]

The Dark Sun-inspired game I started running recently is post-apocalyptic... basically it's my home setting, darkest-timeline sort of thing where all the bad guys from all the different adventures I've run had won over the course of many, many ages. Now it's the end, the world's doomed, they rule over what's left.
So if you're stuck, maybe think about what the bad guys would want, and how that'd turn out if they ALL got what they wanted... obviously there'd be conflicts, but only think about that to the extent that it'll help you. Push things to the extreme, and don't worry about it all making sense right now- think of the ends first, and you can work out the how and why of things making sense later.

Thinking of having the halflings as the precursors.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Steal from Mystara...with the Nucleus of Spheres
Magic is slowly being drained or has been drained from the world (this affects magical creatures)

 

[Mind of tempest]

you can always have had multiple happen at the same time

 

[MarkB]

A massive ritual used by a nation's top mages with the intention of bringing in a massive quantity of planar energy for them to use. Instead, it brought in the planes themselves, creating massive portals tears and manifest zones worldwide, with creatures flooding in en masse from the feywild, shadowfell, and all the outer and elemental planes.

In some regions they acted as invasive species, crashing the local ecology. In others, disparate groups immediately came into conflict with each other and with those who were already there. One whole continent became a new front in the Blood War.

When the dust finally mostly settled, populations were way down but diversity of species was way up, and while most of the world's civilisations are gone, it's also an unofficial crossroads for small groups of planar travellers who use its still-existing portals as shortcuts between realms.