Choco
2010-01-11, 10:08 AM
I had this idea after reading a bit of the "why the Tippyverse doesn't happen" thread, and thought it would be an interesting one to develop further:
We all know of the many settings and homebrew campaigns that take place long after the fall of some utopian empire (Dark Sun, for instance), where the world is just a barren wasteland, not even doing justice to it's former self. But how about playing a campaign during the actual fall of the utopian empire?
The entire world will be united under one utopian empire, which will basically be the Tippyverse made manifest. There is no hunger because magic creates infinite food, no disease because magic cures everything, no wars because everyone has everything they want via magic (not to say there wont be rival individuals or organizations fighting, but no all-out war). The intelligent races don't have to do much of anything because they have magical constructs to do all the work for them, so all they need to do is learn magic. Basically magic fixes all problems and does everything.
And then the world starts crumbling. Turns out the source of magic is from the fabric that makes up the world itself (haven't decided yet if anyone will know this), and it has almost all been used up. Now the world is falling apart, and the all-powerful magic that has been used for centuries to solve all problems is not only powerless to stop it, but is speeding up the destruction. Holes start popping up all over the world, with chunks of it breaking off and crumbling into oblivion. Magic can be use to stop the destruction of one particular area, but at the cost of having the destruction happen elsewhere at an accelerated pace. Note that if other planes exist and are known of, this will likely lead to a multiverse-wide war should the residents of the material plane try to rape another plane of it's magic to save themselves and maintain their standard of living. Well, not so much a war as every other plane of existance ganging up on them.
The campaign would take place after a good deal of destruction has happened already, with everyone freaking out about the destruction and their complete inability to stop it. There would of course be a faction that is dedicated to developing a powerful enough magic to stop the destruction, a rebel faction that realizes magic is the problem and resorts to terrorist attacks against anyone who attempts to use it carelessly, another faction actually trying to learn the nature of magic and if the destruction is reversible in any way, etc. Then there are the PC's, either thrown in there on their own or working for one of the major factions.
A good chunk of the campaign would probably be the PC's learning why the world is crumbling, which would be followed by them realizing the only way to stop it is to stop using magic, and perhaps they can try to find a way to heal the damage that has been done (or maybe discover the world will slowly regenerate itself if allowed to). There will lie the major problem: The PC's have to convince or force everyone in the world to give up magic. This is akin to us in the modern world giving up all our technology and going back to a middle ages quality of life, or cave men even. Not easy to convince people to do that, as I am sure you are realizing :smallbiggrin:.
So yeah, now that the intro is done, what are your thoughts on this? I hope to build up this setting/campaign using your input, because no matter how long I work on this myself there will always be plenty of good ideas I will miss. Some ideas for villains, adventures, factions, challenges, world fluff, etc. is what I am looking for. If this goes well maybe I will get un-lazy and write up a homebrew setting in the Homebrew section.
We all know of the many settings and homebrew campaigns that take place long after the fall of some utopian empire (Dark Sun, for instance), where the world is just a barren wasteland, not even doing justice to it's former self. But how about playing a campaign during the actual fall of the utopian empire?
The entire world will be united under one utopian empire, which will basically be the Tippyverse made manifest. There is no hunger because magic creates infinite food, no disease because magic cures everything, no wars because everyone has everything they want via magic (not to say there wont be rival individuals or organizations fighting, but no all-out war). The intelligent races don't have to do much of anything because they have magical constructs to do all the work for them, so all they need to do is learn magic. Basically magic fixes all problems and does everything.
And then the world starts crumbling. Turns out the source of magic is from the fabric that makes up the world itself (haven't decided yet if anyone will know this), and it has almost all been used up. Now the world is falling apart, and the all-powerful magic that has been used for centuries to solve all problems is not only powerless to stop it, but is speeding up the destruction. Holes start popping up all over the world, with chunks of it breaking off and crumbling into oblivion. Magic can be use to stop the destruction of one particular area, but at the cost of having the destruction happen elsewhere at an accelerated pace. Note that if other planes exist and are known of, this will likely lead to a multiverse-wide war should the residents of the material plane try to rape another plane of it's magic to save themselves and maintain their standard of living. Well, not so much a war as every other plane of existance ganging up on them.
The campaign would take place after a good deal of destruction has happened already, with everyone freaking out about the destruction and their complete inability to stop it. There would of course be a faction that is dedicated to developing a powerful enough magic to stop the destruction, a rebel faction that realizes magic is the problem and resorts to terrorist attacks against anyone who attempts to use it carelessly, another faction actually trying to learn the nature of magic and if the destruction is reversible in any way, etc. Then there are the PC's, either thrown in there on their own or working for one of the major factions.
A good chunk of the campaign would probably be the PC's learning why the world is crumbling, which would be followed by them realizing the only way to stop it is to stop using magic, and perhaps they can try to find a way to heal the damage that has been done (or maybe discover the world will slowly regenerate itself if allowed to). There will lie the major problem: The PC's have to convince or force everyone in the world to give up magic. This is akin to us in the modern world giving up all our technology and going back to a middle ages quality of life, or cave men even. Not easy to convince people to do that, as I am sure you are realizing :smallbiggrin:.
So yeah, now that the intro is done, what are your thoughts on this? I hope to build up this setting/campaign using your input, because no matter how long I work on this myself there will always be plenty of good ideas I will miss. Some ideas for villains, adventures, factions, challenges, world fluff, etc. is what I am looking for. If this goes well maybe I will get un-lazy and write up a homebrew setting in the Homebrew section.