Your Setting Evolved

[Stormborn]

In the Pathfinder blog James Jacobs talks about taking something that happened as the results of PCs actions (or failed saving throws) and how it altered the setting and how, eventually, it led to the one in Pathfinder. Which got me thinking about how settings evolve, and can evolve, through player action. So, here is your challnage for the day: take your current campaing (or a favorite long running one from the past) and evolve the setting 10 years or more. If neccesary make assumptions about what player actions might result in such a possible future setting.

I will post one of my own later.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Always in motion, the future is.

 

[Crothian]

I had a small kobold nation that was at civil war. I was fully expecting it to basically implode as the players were adventuring in the area and had stated their desire to kill some kobolds. Well, they changed their minds. They made peace with the kobolds and even helped them get past their civil war though not on purpose. They eventually got the country recognized and on peace treaties with other nations.

I also have the War beneath the Waves. It has been hinted at for seven campaign now and no one has taken an interest.

 

[Tonguez]

The PCs started off as explorers and went on to help establish a new colony. That colony has expanded and the PCs have put down most of the major threats that were limiting growth (even the Sahuagin and their god 'Sekola' have been quiet of late).

The native gnome and giant populations are on friendly terms, goblins are tolerated and peace has been made with the god of flies (Half-fiend insectile goblin) and his insectile goblin 'children'. Trade relationships have been set up with the 'old world' and other surrounding populations.

Nonetheless the Zealots of Hiva are still undertaking their aggressive conquest of the islands and the PCs are considering taking the fight to them directly. The newest threat has arisen from the PCs acquring an Artifact from their raid on the Sahuagin lair. The artifact is now wanted by The Nightwing (there is only one) who has sent his kenku ninja to recover it.

and the Gates to the Underworld shake as Darkness rises....

 

[Infernal Teddy]

During my last "great campaign", my setting evolved over a in game time period of ten years I'm just now rewriting my notes for a soon to begin game that is set after that

 

[howandwhy99]

In 10 years for our OD&D game: 100% different than it is currently. Maybe even 2 or 3 times over.

 

[paradox42]

I ran my now-Epic party through Bastion of Broken Souls as their last sub-Epic adventure, and at the end of it they requested as their reward that the beings in the Bastion release extra souls into the universe to save as many of the babies that had been born without as could be saved. They were therefore responsible for a sudden influx of soul energy into the multiverse, which lasted a full week before the beings shut off the extra flow.

I'm using that event as the basis for introducing Incarnum into my campaign world- it didn't exist before that event, but after that event some people are learning to make use of that extra soul-energy that's floating around. There are plenty of souls, see, whose intended bodies died of starvation or thirst due to lack of their original souls before the PCs got the extra flow started. So now that soul-energy is bodiless- and it needs to go somewhere.

I also run time travel plots now and again, and there are two big ones currently in progress.

The first involves a complex situation wherein a sentient demiplane tries to destroy the world because of a prophecy that beings from this world will someday destroy it, and the PCs are gradually being set up to eventually confront this entity. The thing is, beings from the future wherein the PCs fail to kill the entity can and do travel into the present multiverse, and sooner or later the PCs may end up in their home realm- one way or another. That would be a fairly major evolution of the world.

The second is my second group of PCs, who due to the intervention of a godlike entity from the Far Realm have been transported into the world of the distant past, from their perspective. They are now almost 1900 years in the past, and have already seen numerous changed things from the time they came from (the most major probably being the presence of a lot less gods, since many of the demigods of their time actually arose from mortal heroes of the time they're now in themselves). They have the opportunity to make some fairly dramatic changes to the world now, and I have no doubt that they will do so if they can agree on what to do. It should be interesting to watch and play along with, in any case.

 

[Ry]

My players really, really screwed up in the last session of my old Staunwark game.

As a result, the Gargantuan Black Dragon Zolanderos was resurrected.

The new campaign is set 10 years later. Zolanderos is just about ready to marshall his forces.

Which basically means it's the Black Hand of Doom campaign.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

The world has been in suspended animation for the past three years, since the day the heroes vanished. Despite their low level, the world did in fact revolve around them. Prophecy (ok, wishful thinking) says that one day the heroes will return and the world will once again be in motion.

Or, as is more likely, the heroes will never return to that world and a new world will be created instead.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I'm planning on doing this for my campaign world. Advance it 50 years or so each time I restart. Haven't actually done it yet, but thats the plan.