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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steampunkette" data-source="post: 9800111" data-attributes="member: 6796468">So I'm in the shower this morning, using a scrubbing towel to abrade all the flesh off my bones in an attempt to feel softer and also because it's absolutely amazing at scratching the heck out of any itches I might have on my back, having setting thoughts. Specifically how a couple paid DMs I know have shifted their campaign settings up in order to include things equivalent to, or straight up named, the "Vestiges of Divergence" or just having a Divergence in general. And it occurred to me how many younger DMs and players have only really been introduced to the idea of truly world-shaking events through Critical Role.After all, if you read the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide you'll find barely any references to massive world-changing events, and certainly none in recent memory. And the core thrust of every single 5e Forgotten Realms Adventure has been to -keep- one of those events from happening. Whether that's keeping Tiamat in Hell, getting Baldur's Gate -out- of Hell, pushing Demogorgon back to Hell... WoW it's really kinda limited in some ways, huh? Or stopping Acererak from using an Atropal to wipe out all life on Toril.These aren't people who "Lived Through" the Time of Troubles dramatically changing their campaign setting between editions, with a powerful and recent major event to step back and explore through adventures. They're not people introduced to a setting through the Spring Dawning dropping them in media res into a continuing war that has a major effect on the world and shapes the story.They're mostly used to "Someone tries to do big evil, the players stop them." when it comes to D&D adventures and setting guides.Don't get me wrong. By most estimates on the timeline of Exandria the Divergence itself happened around 800-1200 years ago, in the canon. But the generation that fell in love with Vox Machina and Bells Hells also watched Exandria Unlimited: Calamity, and essentially experienced the event as much as anyone else did. And the impact of all of the vestiges of divergence and the narrative implications of the Calamity and Divergence spread across the various campaigns were also a big factor in creating a powerful mystique around the imaginary events.But we also can't forget the Chroma Conclave and their impact on the story -while- referencing the Calamity. Because that, itself, was an in-game calamity. The city of Emon was destroyed, places that the party had known and enjoyed being attached to were burned out under Thordak's terrible breath. The Chroma Conclave, themselves, represent a calamity far more than anything the Tyranny of Dragons storyline was able to present because WotC, at the end of the day, wants to keep the important parts of the Remembered Realms mostly intact book to book. They're totally comfortable with massive setting shifting storylines so long as they happen between editions.So let's talk a bit about the importance of calamities within settings, here's the ones I could easily quantify for myself:Abberant InvasionThis is an honestly fairly rare calamity, all things considered. Sure, there were Nautiloid Invasions written about in Planescape, but either you were supposed to stop them, or they were events that happened to dead-worlds completely controlled by the illithid empire and not a part of a single setting or anything. At least until Eberron hit the shelves and went all in on the idea of abberations being an important part of the core conceit of the game, rather than being random monsters in dungeons. The Far Realm really exists as a concept because of Keith Baker.Arcanic DevastationHonestly one of the most iconic forms of a setting calamity is the arcanic devastation. Whether you're talking about Dark Sun's defiling, the Mourning of Cyre, or the death of Mystra (any of them) on Faerun. These kinds of calamities are either widespread in their immediate devastation, speak to the terrible power and distrust of arcane magic, or result in the dominant civilization falling out of the sky to leave a power vacuum for other groups to move into.DragonswarmThe Dungeons and Dragons movie was pretty well trash. With CGI that looked dated even in its time, a wonky storyline, weak characters, and dragons with all the intelligence of your average poodle... But it gave us Jeremy Irons chewing scenery like garlic bread and a potent basis to describe the Dragonswarm calamity... even though they didn't DO an actual Dragonswarm calamity and instead had the dragons mostly just killing each other rather than targeting the civilians or city itself. It stumbled along like a hobbled kobold so the Chroma Conclave could run.GodswarThe Time of Troubles, The Calamity and Divergence, Pharis and Phalaris, etc etc etc. These are the "Here's a bunch of deities battling and the resulting devastation changes the world" at some point in the past. Typically this is a prehistorical event as they tend to be either one-offs within a given setting. Though they're all, always, inevitably, planning to have another one at some point in the future that will, surely, spell the end of the world.HellraisedWhile this one is mostly a "Constant threat of happening" event, there are some settings, like Diablo, where the world has been, sometimes repeatedly, conquered by the forces of Hell itself. And the lingering after-effects of those conquests are still a big deal. Whether thats demonic entities hiding in ruins and being worshipped by cults, or invasion portals that lie dormant until someone is foolish enough to open that Dark Portal. (Yeah, Blizzard loves this one, what can I tell you?)Primordial UprisingMostly introduced through 4th edition's structure, primordial entities of incredible power were imprisoned by the gods at the beginning of time and later became unleashed before they had to be imprisoned, again. Typically because they existed before Death was a thing or they're somehow the parents of the gods ala the Titans, or some other manufactured explanation as to why they can't simply be disposed of permanently.StarfallThis is another one that tends to be much more "Happened in the Distant Past" when it comes to calamities. But whether it's Absalom of Golarion, the Sea of Fallen Stars in Faerun, or the crater at the heart of the Dungeons of Drakkenheim, "Big Rock go BOOM" is always there, waiting. Watching. Often mocking us with a big rictus grin as it hangs in the sky on the dawn of the final day.Villainous ApotheosisNow this one, this one is your -classic- in-story calamity that gets stopped by the heroic party before it becomes fully true. But in the days, weeks, months, or even years before the big ritual that gets disrupted, there's often an extended calamity which hits a peek. Take, for example, the Mythica movie series. In it, the party grows slowly more powerful and capable while learning about the dangers of necromantic power and the return of Matt Mercer as a megalomaniacal villain who wants to be a God. By the end of the series the world has been wracked by wars, zombie plagues, the deaths of all the gods, and Matt Mercer chewing scenery like he's Jeremy Irons along with the rest of the cast.No. Seriously. If you haven't watched Mythica, go watch it. It's perhaps the -best- example of how to have a campaign with a major in-setting Calamity while also stopping the bad guy at too high a cost.Worm that WalksOkay, yes, -technically- the Worm that Walks storyline was a matter of a Villainous Apotheosis being prevented at some point in the distant past heralding an end-times prophecy of his return and the plague of undeath that rolls over the land and wipes out everyone, everywhere, like Matt Mercer's villainous plans in reverse. However I more intend to use it as a generic catch-all for the "Monster of the Story" calamities where a single entiy just existing is enough to create a calamity level event. Like the Tarrasque, for example. These entities tend to be campaign-defining figures that sort of tie into other calamity structures implicitly rather than explicitly. Kyuss fits the traditional characteristics of both the villainous apotheosis and the primordial uprising, for example.With all of that said... Are calamities important?I'm inclined to say they are. That they're very important to have within a setting and possibly within a given adventure. A calamity reshapes your world in a way that can capture the interest of your players, or your readers. The direct and indirect fallout of those events can lend major importance to them, and give a feeling of there being realistic connections and timelines in your world. Sometimes, however, they're just irrelevant.If the only "Calamity" to ever happen in your setting is some prehistoric Godsward that resulted in the creation of the planet, it's not a real calamity it's just a creation myth.Meanwhile if that Godswar happened 15 years ago and people still go to the grave of the goddess of mercy whose body lays in state, 200ft long from scalp to sole, refusing to decay... that's going to have a much bigger impact on the players and their expectations.If your calamity is recent enough that the repercussions of it are still a big part of the world, it will bear a lot more weight and more fervently fire the imagination of your players. Calamities also give you a good anchor point for the timeline and the scale of time as it passes within a setting. Imagine, if you will, the cultural importance WW2 would have for children in the modern day if rather than this being the year 2025 current era it was the year 80 of the armistice.Or only year 5 of the COVID era.Or the 28th year after the End of the Imperial Age, marking the end of the last major international empire of England in what we consider 1997.Japan, after all, does something similar. We're currently 6 years into the Reiwa period. Which was after the 30 year long Heisei period. Before that was the 63 year Showa period which began with the Great Kanto Earthquake that ended the only 14 year Taisho period. And at least America is deeply obsessed with the 44 year Meiji period and the 265 year Edo period that preceded it.If you haven't mathed it out, the Edo period was the rise of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1603 when the capital of Japan was moved to Edo, now Tokyo. The end of that period in 1868 was when the Meiji Restoration and the Boshin War put the Emperor back on the throne, and all the periods Post-Edo are named after the current Emperor of that period. (Well, mostly. Akihito's era was called Heisei because there was no world war under his watch, compared to Showa/Hirohito who witnessed WW1 and participated in WW2)Now you -can- go too far with this sort of thing in either direction. If your timescale reaches 5,000+ years since the last calamity people are going to start wondering why the technology hasn't advanced beyond the occasional blunderbuss. And if your timescale is divided up into 20-40 year periods between acts of incredible violence and devastation, they're going to blend together pretty badly and not really have any kind of narrative weight of their own.Think of how wildly, for example, the power scale of World of Warcraft has swung since it was launched. Every expansion there's another "More powerful than we've ever seen!" enemy ramping up the threat level. We've defeated the Burning Legion, and Arthas, and Kil'Jaeden, and forced Sargeras back to the Titans for imprisonment and presumably re-education, and fought the Jailer who it turns out was puppetmastering Arthas and Sylvanas to absolve them of all their crimes, who was himself just a pawn of the "First Ones" a presumably even MORE POWERFUL entity group beyond the Titans... And now we've fought and beaten Dimensius in the War Within and will be kicking the Void's Butt in Midnight before probably punching out the Titans in The Last Titan.If you made a character in WoW Vanilla who has continued to be a part of the story through the various expansions: Congratulations you are the greatest hero on all of Azeroth in the history of EVER and the story won't/can't acknowledge it even obliquely 'cause you're simultaneously utterly irrelevant to the story. Sorry!The timeline of World of Warcraft is "10,000 years ago was the War of the Ancients. Some stuff happened occasionally in the past 10,000 years. And then 40 years ago EVERYTHING HAPPENED EVERY DAY SINCE" and that's only a mild exaggeration.You can find 6,000 year old stretches with 1-2 things happening across the WoW timeline, then humans come along and it's every few years something happens for about 500 years...And then after the first Orcs vs Humans war, it's just -constant- war crimes and major upheavals and interplanar attacks. ALL of Vanilla WoW was in year 25. ALL of Burning Crusade was in 26. ALL of WotLK was in 27. Even Blizzard realized "This is too much stuff happening too quickly" and installed a 4 year break between Shadowlands and Dragonflight to try and create some semblance of a quasi-reasonable pacing of events...Anyway. I think calamities are important. I think they can shape and change your setting and help people to get a feel of when and where they are within a setting's storyline.Do you agree? Disagree? Have other examples of catastrophes I missed? Lemme know!</blockquote>

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