D&D General The dark lord is dead! What happens in his former lands?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Let's assume a Lord of the Rings-style "all the nations of good come together and end the dark lord's threat once and for all" scenario.

What happens in the former dark lord's lands? What would you expect things to look like a year later?

Have you run a scenario or created a setting like this?

(And yes, I've seen Escape the Bloodkeep, and it's excellent, but I'm looking for something a bit further out from that moment.)

 

[aco175]

Wasn't Mordor a crappy wasteland of poison nobody would want to live in? Even so, I could see several monster clans fighting over the nothing and scraps to see who leads over the rot.

If the Dark Lord ruled over someplace worth having I could see several of the neighboring kingdoms fighting over it within the year. Everyone wants to expand their kingdom and have more subjects if they are worth having- or can be pushed to someplace else.

 

[Scribe]

What happens in the former dark lord's lands? What would you expect things to look like a year later?

 

[bsss]

There always being a next in line is the classic, I think. Annexation, conquest, and possibly even a new war between the victors is another strong candidate. An option I took, as a transition between tiers in the game: the dark lord was actually holding back something worse, and now there's a vacuum where there used to be a stopper. Nice job breaking it, hero.

 

[sevenbastard]

So many of mine campaign start with the evil conquering wizard is dead but the lands he conquered are now filled with lost treasure, ruins, and marauding humanoids.

Maybe 15 years ago the wizard was slain but the kingdom lost so many soldiers in the war that the lands under his command were not resettled and some of his apprentices still control large groups of humanoids but also fight against themselves.

 

[JamesLFlowers]

As Aco175 said, a Dark Lord holds all the disparate monsters together by the force of his will, the might of his hand. His death will lead to fracturing and warfare. The lands bordering the dark lord's will be forced to either continue to fortify their border or begin a campaign to restore freedom to the land (ie conquest with good PR). It is also the best scenerio possible for an adventuring party since work is always available

 

[VashVet]

How about a circle of druids return to the land and attempt to rehabilitate the blighted area (assuming there’s some Mordor-ish wasteland stuff going on here?) Maybe it had originally been a Druid grove or stone circle in ages past that they are trying to rebuild or rediscover, but there’s an ongoing corruption still in place. Maybe the head of the circle finds that they are being corrupted too by whatever power was left over by the Dark Lord?

 

[Reynard]

There would be a final Council of the Free People, where the Dwarves argue for its exploitation, the Elves argue for its desolation and Men argue for its annexation (while the halflings and gnomes quietly point out that no one but orcs wants to live there anyway). In the end, the Good Wizards or Druids or whatever declare the land verboten and say none chall pass there for 1000 generations of men.

This, of course, all leads to the rise of the Second Dark Lord (or Third, whatever) as Evil is allowed to gestate in darkness. It is not until some random adventurers looking for legendary lost loot accidentally discover the rise of the New Evil does the rest of the world learn, too late, of this imminent threat.

Then all the Free People point fingers at one another and declare if only their plan had been followed this would not be happening while the halflings and gnomes quietly point out that the real bad guys are the Jedi.

Or something like that.

 

[delericho]

What happens in the former dark lord's lands?

The newly liberated victims of the Dark Lord have a huge party. And then...

What would you expect things to look like a year later?

Almost exactly the same as before. Because the Dark Lord may have been the face of the system of exploitation, but he almost certainly wasn't micro-managing every aspect. So almost everything will basically just keep running.

I'd be more worried about the fate of the Alliance of Good. They managed to put aside their deeply-held differences for just long enough to assemble their grand armies and win the day, but those differences didn't go away... and now they have their armies mobilized and can see the weaknesses in their rivals...

 

[Swanosaurus]

I totally want this as a boardgame!