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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Clawhound" data-source="post: 4142699" data-attributes="member: 63041">Civilization did get ruined. How did it get ruined? Monsters. Threats. All those ruins exist because so many cities and town fell against the threat of monsters. The places that survived did so because of multiple factors. In some places, it is luck. In some place, good defenses. In other place, the humans figured out how to deal with the deadly creatures around them. Just like character in WoW, they learned how to cooperate and fight creature far more powerful than themselves. They may make offerings to nearby powers to help them. Think about all the respect that the fey had in the British Isles. They could be your enemies, so better to stay on their good side by giving them lots of respect and offerings.Assume that 90% of all places can make do without heroes. They get by. You now have the basis for a scattered civilization.Adventurers do not spend their time in the 90% quiet places. They go to the 10% hotspots. Thus, most adventurers will only see places threatened by excessively dangerous forces. For a classic example, read "Beowulf". Knowing only the hotspots skews your view of the world. Think about the old west. I bet you thought of a desert town like "Boot Hill." I bet that you did not think of a Montana town where the Ingols lived. "Boot Hill" is where the adventures are at. For every "Boot Hill", there are a thousand quiet towns.There's no guarantee that a settlement will survive. A party will find a recently fallen or conquered town. They will find ruins where they expect friends. At the scale of a game, that all falls under plot device.Hope is also part of the PoL setting. A party may also help clear and area to set up a new town. The heroes bring hope and the dream that civilization can fight off the terrible foes and rise again.</blockquote>

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