Where did all the plastic go?

[Hecabus]

Plastic

Why get rid of plastic. Even if they find it, what can they do with it? Are you not telling the characters that they are in the future as a big campaign surprise (I am doing something similar in my campaign.....come level 20 and I am blowing the lid off and completely changing the campaign)?

What about using plastic as a fun game device. I am envisioning plastic zombies. Fun little animated golem/undead creatures. Burn them and they keep coming, just a little bit melted.

 

[WizarDru]

Re: Plastic

Why get rid of plastic. Even if they find it, what can they do with it? Are you not telling the characters that they are in the future as a big campaign surprise (I am doing something similar in my campaign.....come level 20 and I am blowing the lid off and completely changing the campaign)?

Well, if the issue is making it a big campaign secret to be revealed to the players, then having some of those items still remaining is no problem...merely rename the materials.

Mithral, for example, might in reality be an aluminum alloy...but no one knows what aluminum is any longer, just that this a magic metal from the ancient days. A rubber raft could be misconstrued as the skin of some strange beast no longer seen and so on. Many of the plastics of today could easily be mistaken for other substances or unique ones, such as wood, ceramics and rare organic materials.

Fiberglass, for example, might be 'elf-wood' or 'flake-wood'. Thick solid plastic might be called 'flow-stone' due to it's properties of melting and reshaping or 'godswax' and so forth. That many of the ancient materials can kill you if handled improperly would make them dangerous and less used.

"Aye, well, me father knew that stuff. 'Fairy ore', he calls it. Tried to melt it down, and it made a foul smoke what nearly killed 'im and the 'prentices, too. I'll nae go near it, and you won't if ya got any sense left in ya. Leave it fer the damnable wizards, lad."

 

[Barcode]

Re: Plastic

Why get rid of plastic. Even if they find it, what can they do with it? Are you not telling the characters that they are in the future as a big campaign surprise (I am doing something similar in my campaign.....come level 20 and I am blowing the lid off and completely changing the campaign)?

What about using plastic as a fun game device. I am envisioning plastic zombies. Fun little animated golem/undead creatures. Burn them and they keep coming, just a little bit melted.

That is pretty much it. They know where and when they are now, since the first season (Dark Age) ended with a big battle by an eroded Mt. Rushmore, but it was a secret up until that point. The current season (Crusade) grants a smattering of exposure to past artifacts, but I am still keeping the feel medieval. The Big Bad for the third and final season is a Technomancer. Plastic is the big anti-magic material, so I need it to be rare.

Thanks for all the great ideas! I am thinking that the biomagic-engineered plastic eating organism is the way to go, and an ooze beats microbes every day of the week. Finally a use for the Oozemaster prestige class!

 

[the Jester]

Sounds like a cool campaign.

You should make a Plastic Lord prestige class or something...

 

[Caliban]

Well,

Plastic is made from oil, which is made from the compressed bodies of prehistoric plants and animals.

Sounds like it would be full of necromantic energy, waiting to be tapped.

Perhaps plastic is used to fuel necromantic rituals or magic items, perhaps a ghoul variant can feed on it.

 

[Sixchan]

Well, most stuff from 10,000 years ago is buried under a LOT of rock today, right? Unless it's been excavated, of course, but if we're at Middle Ages technology, who's excavating? Most of the cities could have been destroyed, so all the rubble is under 10,000 years of rock. And down beside the rubble is all the plastic, or its even deeper because its in a landfill, which was already underground 10,000 years ago.