So the sun shrinks to half its size...

[Jolly Giant]

In a longrunning campaign, now well into epic levels, a frostgiant sorcerer has developed an epic spell that will shrink anything to half it's size. What he means to shrink the sun. The point of this is to change the world's climate so that it better suits him and his kin a whole lot better.

This has unexpected side-effects. It leaves the God of the Sun (major deity)significantly weaker, which in turn causes the God of Undeath to muster up all his allies and launch a massive attack against his hated enemy.

What I'd love to get some ideas on exactly how to weaken the God of the Sun? Here's what I'm thinking so far:

1) The Greater Turning ability granted to clerics with the sun domain no longer works, or maybe only works 1/week instead of 1/day. Or maybe I'll just say that all clerics lose access to that domain?

2) Should all turn undead attempts be done at some sort of penalty? It doesn't say anywhere (not that I've seen anyway) that the sun has anything to do with turning undead, but since the sun-domain grants Greater Turning, maybe the sun does have something to do with it after all? A lot of undeads are vulnerable to sunlight and spells that mimic sunlight...

3) Spells like Daylight, Searing Light etc. is weakened somehow. Maybe they should only function at half the caster's level? Maybe their range/duration/area of effect/damage should be halved?

4) The God himself becomes weaker in some way. I'm thinking about reducing his divine rank with 25 or 50%. Maybe a lot of worshippers lose their faith in him or believes him to be dead once they see what's happened to the sun? Not too sure how to handle this one...

5) Clerics of this God lose some of their power. They will lose quite a bit under points 1, 2 and 3, but should I punish them more? And what about paladins devoted to the God of the Sun? (Isn't it every DM's duty to make things difficult for paladins whenever possible? ) Any ideas on how to weaken clerics and/or paladins of this God under these special circumstances?

Any ideas or input to any of these points would be most welcome. If you have ideas I havn't touched upon at all, well, then that's even better!

EDIT: The sun-god also have other, non-sun related domains, so he won't be completely stripped of power. He is a major deity, after all! Think something like Pelor...

 

[Scion]

This probably doesnt matter at all but still

For the earth (where most of us currently live) if the sun was to suddenly shrink to half of its 'size' (as in mass) then the earth would fly off into space. Only barely, but it would.

That would definately change some climates! Suddenly huge and powerful magics would be needed to have light at all, to have any heat, to protect any sort of population. This is a huge, world changing event. The ice age has nothing on the hostile cold environment.

This may even be one of the few ways to kill a god, or at least move them to a remote zone of uselessness. The sun god is tied to the sun, that is left far behind, his power is effectively nil. At the same time thousands of other minor 'sun gods' appear, they all combine in one pantheon as the 'star gods'. Altogether they are still weaker than any other god, but have access to all of the domains or something similar. I would suggest making a new clericy type class just for them Weak but vast.

The world however would change dramatically. Survival would be the one and only goal for a long, long time. And it would be very difficult. Very high calibur magic, on the order of epic proportions as well just to have a chance.. perhaps hundreds of spellcasters working together, thousands even.

 

[Hypersmurf]

For the earth (where most of us currently live) if the sun was to suddenly lose shrink to half of its 'size' (as in mass) then the earth would fly off into space. Only barely, but it would.

Wow - like if you set off an explosion in a stockpile of nuclear waste on the moon!

-Hyp.

 

[Jolly Giant]

Thanks for posting Scion!

I didn't mean for the world to fly out of orbit... It's my world, it'll stay in orbit if I say it does!

Cool idea about lots of minor star-deities poping up! I might very well use that.

The idea is that the (evil) PCs will eventually be instrumental in killing the sun god and "stealing" his divine ranks. I'm slowly working my way towards ending the campaign. Either they'll become deities or die trying!

 

[exempt]

If they PC's are evil, maybe they don't have the sun god as a patron, but if they do, you could assign an increasing percent chance that any spell or turning they do fails. You could start at a 10% rate to begin with, and then increase that as the sun shrinks. This would let you add some story-worthy anxiety to the game, as players saw their powers diminish.

 

[bensei]

For the earth (where most of us currently live) if the sun was to suddenly shrink to half of its 'size' (as in mass) then the earth would fly off into space. Only barely, but it would.

That is true if the spell works like e.g. Reduce Person, which assumes the density to stay constant when changing size. There is no nessessity for the density to stay constant in the new epic spell. It could very well work in the way that the sun is made smaller and more dense, keeping its mass constant. Then there would be no influence on any planet orbits, but some very interesting other effects could occur.

I am no expert in solar physics, but there are lots of pages on the www on the development of stars. Perhaps the sun being half size could become instable and slowly crush into a newtron star or even a black hole. IIRC, this only semi-correct in terms of physics, but in an RPG setting it sounds interesting to have a developing black hole in the sky where there used to be a sun. This also would have a nice moral like: Even epic casters can only trick nature's law, in the end, nature's laws win.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

That is true if the spell works like e.g. Reduce Person, which assumes the density to stay constant when changing size. There is no nessessity for the density to stay constant in the new epic spell. It could very well work in the way that the sun is made smaller and more dense, keeping its mass constant. Then there would be no influence on any planet orbits, but some very interesting other effects could occur.

I am no expert in solar physics, but there are lots of pages on the www on the development of stars. Perhaps the sun being half size could become instable and slowly crush into a newtron star or even a black hole. IIRC, this only semi-correct in terms of physics, but in an RPG setting it sounds interesting to have a developing black hole in the sky where there used to be a sun. This also would have a nice moral like: Even epic casters can only trick nature's law, in the end, nature's laws win.

Well, I think we shouldn`t think to much about real-world-physics and applying them on Jolly Giant´s game world - he already decided what will happen on the world physically (it becomes a "cool place to live" ). The metaphysical changes are of interest here.

Unfortunately, I have little ideas what to do with the clerics powers. I don`t think the WotC never exactly correlate god power and cleric power.

It might be possible that the Sun god becomes more powerful in the real world for a short time, because the inhabitants want to please him. Once they figure out that someone else weakened the Sun, and/or their prayers don`t work, they will turn to another god (possible the sorceror that shrunk the sun.)

If you want to show the weakness by the clerics, I would weaken some of the special divine magic spells - The sun god doesn`t answer to miracles, resourections fail, healing magic becomes weaker.
Maybe it`s also a question of "strategy" - the sun god sees he becomes weaker and he cannot grant power to everyone, so he might have a choice: granting only weaker powers, or granting full powers, but not to everyone. The first could be represented by capping the highest spell levels, the last by reducing effective caster levels (for purposes of duration, spell resistance and so on, leaving low-level clerics with no effective caster level...)

Considering the fact that the Sun god might wish to attack the Sorceror that shrunk the sun, he will prefer strong clerics that could stand up against the Sorceror, using the most powerful magic available to crush him (and dispel the epic spell)

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[Vlos]

Few thoughts how this could happen, a greater diety having is presence removed by a Epic Giant? I would think first the Diety would be aware of it, if nothing else he would have protections against such a thing.

Now possibly the evil diety was involved cloaking the giant or what ever because he knew that he would gain power.

In anycase it happens.

Did the sun god have protections/measures in place if something like this happened. For example in the FR, Mystara secreted away some of her power in the prime.

If yes, then maybe the priests need to find it, and somehow restore it.

What about other gods.

As for losing powers. Depends on how the powers work in your world. Is it based on the number of worshippers or is it based on his symbol (the sun).

If its based on the Symbol, then reduction of that would be an immediate effect on reducing most everything to do with the god.

If its based on the number of worshipers, then it would probably reduce over time (more slowly).

Things that would/could be reduced:
- Turning
--- If the gods power is reduced his ability to channel this power through his clerics would be reduced as well.

- Spells (Higher levels first).
--- With this you could now have a spell failure chance. If its a slow loss, then the numbers grow over time as the gods powers diminish. This would give the PCs a chance to retore power.



Also some other thoughts. Is there another god (or gods) that offer similar domains/spells. If so then spells would/could possibly be granted by them in some type of agreement via the gods. Help me until I recover, and I will reward you (greater to lesser god).

If a god is destroyed, is all of his magic gone or is there a lingering trace of it? Will this trace fade over time? If yes to these, then the clerics coudl still cast these spells, though with less and less power. Eventually they would lose all power and become "book-ends".