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The Vorpal Tribble
2011-02-09, 06:42 PM
In my homebrew campaign, A Dying Ember (see signature if interested), an epic spell was used to capture a comet and bring it down to the world. Its impact triggered a cataclysmic change in the world, making it go from a chill world, to almost an iceball except around the immediate equator.

As most peoples weren't so lucky to live there, within a couple years everything was dying from a permanent winter.

I'm looking for ideas about civilizations and peoples that looked for drastic ways to survive and preserve their societies.

Samples of ideas I'm already utilizing:

The Great Quakes
Druids from all around the world, and clerics of gods of warmth, came together and cast a great spell to pull up magma from below. This brought about many hot springs, reawakened volcanoes and similar. Now earthquakes are common every now and again.

Descension
Humans made peace with the dwarves and formed many symbiotic cities far below the surface.

Embracing the Edge
A race of humans discovered a flower than when specially treated and concentrated turns them into psychotic demi-gods in psionic power. Totally crazy power that destroys them. However, if super-concentrated into a drug it brings about a special coma where their power can be tapped safely. This is now a sort of semi-advanced people who use cold fusion to power their needs. Their society is very strict, removing all the unfirm and mentally weak from their gene pool. Their goal is to finally have a people that have the self control and mental stability to handle the drug while conscious. They will then imbibe it en masse and alter the entire world's orbit in space. This is still thousands of years in the future before they'll be ready.

Croakine Colonies
Peoples purposely 'sacrificed' heads of the community to Genius Loci. They bonded with it, becoming joint entities that increased the temperature in a large area. However, everything beyond it is the frostfell where little exists that humans can gather or hunt (or survive hunting).

Werefell
Another druid spell, they put a curse, or as they called it, a blessing on certain lands. Many born there became lycanthropes, able to resist the cold in their forms. This is what spawned a large population of shifters. However, a small percentage are nothing more than bestial humans with fur. Think of them as hairy yahoos.

Great City
An epic cleric decided to try an experiment within an unpopulated range of mountains. He cast a spell for creatures to start building and excavating a grand city deep into the mountains and crust to hold the human race. They would self-replicate and self-repair, drawing power from the earth energies released by the druids. He was however only partially successful. The spell drained his mind into the constructs who continue to work and replicate. They have been building for two-thousand years and the city is growing larger and larger, and they were commanded to protect it from intruders. Since the wizard is dead and can't adjust his orders after the experiment, they attack anyone new to the city. Therefore while it has a small population, it is one in constant threat of death.

The Dead Fear No Cold
This I'm still debating on, but thinking of having a people who in desperation gave themselves to death, become necropolitans so as to survive within the cold. Not wanting them to be necessarily evil however.

The Whale Dream
Darfellan have a philosophy known as the Whale Dream that tells them that one day they must learn to leave the world and live amongst the stars. I'm thinking of making it so they can exist in phlogiston, and become a spelljammer race.

Lord_Gareth
2011-02-09, 06:53 PM
The Dead Fear No Cold
First, you can finish what Eberron started and either remove or alter alignment subtypes and/or assumptions about Negative Energy and evil, which WotC waffles on in an epic fashion anyway. You might do what I did in the mountain village of Nocturne; include ancestor-worship based around twin temples of death and healing (in this case, Pelor and Nerull), where upon death a citizen is brought back from the dead in order to share their wisdom with new generations. Other ideas include rituals to create undead without hunger/spawning capability.

It's Always Warm in Hell
How much do you want to bet that demon and devil cults got a lot more popular when they could promise warmth and fair harvest in exchange for a few sacrifices monthly or yearly? Societies like that might develop [Evil] traits, but it may be more interesting if you can make them [Lawful], maybe even expansionist; the theme of such a society might be, "There can be no order without punishment."

Forum Explorer
2011-02-09, 06:59 PM
Binding the Flame

Epic wizard binds an elemental prince of Fire to a city to create a heat source for an entire city/region. Along with a bunch of other fire elementals as well.

The Vorpal Tribble
2011-02-09, 07:10 PM
The Dead Fear No Cold
First, you can finish what Eberron started and either remove or alter alignment subtypes and/or assumptions about Negative Energy and evil, which WotC waffles on in an epic fashion anyway. You might do what I did in the mountain village of Nocturne; include ancestor-worship based around twin temples of death and healing (in this case, Pelor and Nerull), where upon death a citizen is brought back from the dead in order to share their wisdom with new generations. Other ideas include rituals to create undead without hunger/spawning capability.
Well, in this realm, there is the spirit world where ghosts and many incorporeal creatures come from. They are not necessarily evil, nor powered by negative energy.
However, Hell is powered by negative energy. I'm basically lumping the negative energy plane and the hells together in a unique fashion. So it usually is 'evil' because it is an energy of ruin, pain and despair dredged up from Below.
Equally are the positive plane and Heavens bound up.

I suppose I could make them deathless, but usually those are only spirits that have been to heaven and are given a brief chance to return, but never stay except in certain special cases.

All in all think I may need to have them tied in some way to the Spirit World.


It's Always Warm in Hell
How much do you want to bet that demon and devil cults got a lot more popular when they could promise warmth and fair harvest in exchange for a few sacrifices monthly or yearly? Societies like that might develop [Evil] traits, but it may be more interesting if you can make them [Lawful], maybe even expansionist; the theme of such a society might be, "There can be no order without punishment."
I do like this though, very apropos. Those who devoted themselves to the god freed from his frozen prison by the impact of the comet however became the Winterhaunt from the Frostburn book. Not dead, just lifeless and immune to cold.

Just as a note, am steering more towards the elements and fey than the demons and angels, but they do have their part.



Binding the Flame
Epic wizard binds an elemental prince of Fire to a city to create a heat source for an entire city/region. Along with a bunch of other fire elementals as well.
While I am dealing more with elementals, not certain I want to go this kind of direction. I'm steering clear of anything alike to Eberron.

Epsilon Rose
2011-02-09, 07:24 PM
I hear it's nice in Sigil this time of year.
Powerful wizards uses precipitate planar breach to evacuate towns to more habitable planes.

Our very own sun.
Similar to a previously proposed plan, but a cabal of mages create a modified gate to the plane of fire and place it above their lands to create a mini artificial sun.
This could easily be combined with an underground city to provide a more comfortable climate and better agricalture.

That's what magic is for.
A community where everyone receives at-least some magical training and endure elements is used extensively to allow them to survive in the colder areas with a very close approximation of what life was like before.


On a slightly unrelated note, have you looked at Elder Evils? There's a sign that causes a world to freeze over.

The Vorpal Tribble
2011-02-09, 07:41 PM
That's what magic is for.
A community where everyone receives at-least some magical training and endure elements is used extensively to allow them to survive in the colder areas with a very close approximation of what life was like before.
Perhaps, but it doesn't work on plants unfortunately.



On a slightly unrelated note, have you looked at Elder Evils? There's a sign that causes a world to freeze over.
More related than you think. I'm thinking of altering a few things to make it more unique, and instead of releasing a god, I'm considering it being an elder evil that the combined will of all the gods were able to trap.

Both the heavens and hells are at war with them as in this setting the multiverse was once a primeval plane of creatures now considered aberrations and elder evils. The entire plane gained sentience and rose to a new stage of evolution, creating the material. The only creatures to have survived the transition were special evils who were formed of the more intelligent nodes of the primeval plane and left it for the Empty Places (where the vestiges live) and the Far Realm. Then then returned to what was once their home and Were. Not. Pleased. They spawned their children, the aberrations we now know, but these children were weak and sickly, barely able to survive in this place that was not of them.

This eternal winter may well be a sign.

However, there is another Elder Evil, the Queen of Thousand Roots, a sort of quasi-fungal mass-mind that is also trying to take over the world. Probably going to have the two of them fighting for dominion over it.

Vknight
2011-02-09, 08:14 PM
World of Stone

Using magics a group of casters move the earth into massive walls on all sides then created a dome made of glass or something else that could concentrate heat (Think Giant Magnyfing Glass) this keeps the cold out and concentrates what little heat there is to keep the city temprate.

dsmiles
2011-02-09, 08:40 PM
Exactly how magical does it need to be?

The Mad Scientist
Coal was once only used in metalsmiths' fires, but a madman has harnessed the power of this long-burning fuel to bring warmth to his community. He noticed the rising seam coming off of a bucket of water that had been placed close to a fire. If that steam could be contained, it could be piped uphill to buildings, and as it cooled and condensed, it would flow back down the pipes in his closed system towards the waiting coal-fired furnace, where it re-heats and travels back up the pipes. There have been only a few deaths resulting from overpressure in the pipes, but people are getting concerned that this 'steam-heat' could be dangerous. If only there were a way to regulate the pressure...

pffh
2011-02-09, 08:49 PM
Smoke on the water

The merfolk of a great lake have enslaved a large number of fire elementals spawned by the druids spell and use them to heat the waters. Unfortunately the process sacrifices the elementals and it's getting harder and harder to find new ones.

Fire in the sky

The shamans of a nomad tribe summoned several flying fire creatures to pull their wagons to the heavens. These wagons have since then been connected into one large flying town pulled across the sky by hundreds of phoenixes (or other flying fire creatures) and surrounded by fire elementals, that provide the city it's heat, claiming every scrap of resource they can find.

TurtleKing
2011-02-09, 09:05 PM
One problem is that fire creatures take alot of damage from cold, and with the environment as it is how long will they survive?

Such as for Fire in the Sky it would probably be better to have a cold flying creature to pull the wagons/ city, while fire based creatures are contained in the city so they provide warmth with out their fire going out.

Vknight
2011-02-09, 09:08 PM
Floating islands with cities within the height lets them be closer to the sun, next they make it hard to enter so the heat stays in along with fire magic the rock keeps warm. All year long

smasher0404
2011-02-09, 09:28 PM
Maximized Fever Spell
The wizards of the town takes a few remaining people and inflict disease on them keeping them barely alive, then they harness the increase of body heat to warm the town to barely suitable temperatures.

Fireball Nuke
They constantly nuke the surrounding area with fireballs warming the town while not killing anybody in it.

Lord_Gareth
2011-02-09, 09:38 PM
Autumn is Coming
The disenfranchised Lord of the Setting Sun isn't enjoying life quite like he used to; the quasi-deific Fae lord found his power reduced significantly by the coming of endless Winter and the death of his chosen season, Autumn. But he is not without power, and supports a small city with a simple deal; they uphold his rituals, honor his sacrifices, and serve his will, and in exchange he provides the rich harvests and wines of his season, as well as extending his power over twilight to infuse the denizens of his chosen city with power (warlocks, maybe?). But the Lord is far from satisfied, and he turns greedy eyes on his neighbors; they, too, have blood for the spilling and wine for the pouring.

Godskook
2011-02-09, 11:56 PM
The Steam-Punk Technocracy
Built by the hands of those most skilled in artifice, these hot, semi-mobile, steamed.........city-tanks are populated primarily by gnomish citizens, with humans, changlings and other highly versatile or item-based races mixed in.

faceroll
2011-02-10, 12:10 AM
You call this cold?
A race immune to cold. They harvest what lies frozen under the snow, serve as traders, raiders, and live wherever they please.

Ertwin
2011-02-10, 12:27 AM
You call this cold?
A race immune to cold. They harvest what lies frozen under the snow, serve as traders, raiders, and live wherever they please.


I was gonna suggest something like that. They don't have to be immune to the cold, just resistant. Sort of like the Inuit living up north. Just give them enough cold resistance that they can go about without endurance checks/fort saves in all but the harshest weather so long as they are bundled up.

The Vorpal Tribble
2011-02-10, 12:44 AM
Some of these ideas are wildly impractical or don't really fit with the campaign's theme, but I'm definitely enjoying reading them, and they have inspired a few ideas, so please, keep them up.

Btw, take into consideration that I'm not just talking surviving the temperatures, but also their lifestock, crops, sources of water and everything that a people would need to maintain a civilization.

Such as my consideration for necropolitans makes it so they don't need to eat or drink.

Lord_Gareth
2011-02-10, 12:52 AM
Some of these ideas are wildly impractical or don't really fit with the campaign's theme, but I'm definitely enjoying reading them, and they have inspired a few ideas, so please, keep them up.

Btw, take into consideration that I'm not just talking surviving the temperatures, but also their lifestock, crops, sources of water and everything that a people would need to maintain a civilization.

Such as my consideration for necropolitans makes it so they don't need to eat or drink.

You know you like the Lord of the Setting Sun :p

BobVosh
2011-02-10, 01:26 AM
The Emerald City
Epic level druid familiar with botany in locations that don't normally plants he found useful decided to make a larger form of a green house. Made of clear crystal from an epic version of stone shape/wall of stone created a dome.

If that isn't practical just add in a few heat rock. (There is a heat metal, heat rock shouldn't be hard to do)

I dunno why but I like the idea of a bio-dome fantasy style.

*edit* Also they can cut ice and snow for water which will easily melt inside the dome, herds will be much safer from raiders, the only issues beyond simple maintenance would be mass irrigation and expansion.

Randel
2011-02-10, 01:50 AM
Rise of the Cybermen

As eternal winter sets in and it becomes apparent that their weak organic (and watery) bodies will be unable to survive the new environment, a group or artificers or wizards begin replacing their body parts with more durable parts of metal and stone. Eventually they become living constructs who want to turn all organic life into constructs for their own good.


Stones waiting for the coming spring

While the spell may have frozen the world, the winter may eventually fall either by natural or magical means. A group of Medusas have taken it upon themselves to preserve the living people of today so that they may rise again once the winter ends. Basically, they have large tomb-like caverns with enough heat or supplies to sustain the Medusas themselves. Then, they bring in humans or other people who are then petrified and stored in the caverns. The enchantment to restore them (stone to flesh) is carved into the walls numerous times and various stone to flesh magic items are placed all over the complex.

Thus, anyone petrified by the Medusas and properly stored will be preserved for the ages. If the winter lasts for a century then the people will wait a century. If it takes several tens of thousands of years then they can wait that long as well. But once the promised spring arrives (by whatever means) then the petrified people can be restored to life to awaken in the new world. Various plants and animals are similarly preserved.

The trick is getting people to the Medusas, keeping the Medusas alive, building and maintaining the storage facility, and having a system to revive people once the winter ends.

The Medusas themselves might live a frugal existance using a Permanant wall of fire for heat and eating meat created by a Stone to Flesh spell. Or they could charge people for petrifying them (after all, if your plan is to be petrified for a thousand years until Global Warming makes the planed habitable again then you're not going to need all your food and supples, are you?).

So there could be a big dungeon thing that people travel to, carrying whatever stuff they can find. They pay the Medusas in treasure and supplies and get petrified to survive till the end of the winter. The dungeon is thus full of food, treasure, artwork and stuff along with thousands of thousands of statues of people kept in clean preserved rooms. Wandering adventurers might see big treasure rooms and rooms of statues guarded and maintained by Medusas.

faceroll
2011-02-10, 02:16 AM
Some of these ideas are wildly impractical or don't really fit with the campaign's theme, but I'm definitely enjoying reading them, and they have inspired a few ideas, so please, keep them up.

Btw, take into consideration that I'm not just talking surviving the temperatures, but also their lifestock, crops, sources of water and everything that a people would need to maintain a civilization.

Such as my consideration for necropolitans makes it so they don't need to eat or drink.

How much previous campaign world is now buried beneath ice? It now may be adventuring is finding a dungeon under 20 feet of ice and going down there to collect the gps.

PS
I'm a big fan of your work and your handstand pushups tittilate me.

Hida Reju
2011-02-10, 02:17 AM
Mortal Races are nothing if not prone to adapting to their surroundings.

1. Elves - Call upon thier gods to change some of them into a new subrace of elves IE many of them become arctic elves. Elves would rely on magic and druidism to survive.

2. Dwarves live underground to begin with, they would in all honesty become a much more important race since thier major cities would be mostly intact.

3. Humans interesting split some turn to religion to save them the others turn to technology to save them. Have them turn into factions with one against the others.

Walk without rhythm and you won't attract the worm

Endless snow drifts and dunes scour the deep frostland, only a few cities protected in deep valleys and warmed by magic thrive. Life would be impossible without the frostsuits that magnify and trap the bodies own heat while keeping the bodies water unfrozen for drinking.

Travel is dangerous due to both weather and the great Frost Wyrms that roam the wastes looking for food.

But rumors persist of the Frostlings that wander the wastes and somehow survive even to command the great Frost Wyrms.

Think Dune by Frank Herbert only with endless snow instead of sand.

faceroll
2011-02-10, 02:21 AM
Walk without rhythm and you won't attract the worm



UGGGGGH SO GOOD

Zangano Athyran
2011-02-10, 02:26 AM
A (Frost)Fell Omen
A group of evil drow got a wizard to cast an epic spell on them that gives them the cold subtype and the ability to change into snow flurries (like gaseous form only snow instead of gas).

Zen Master
2011-02-10, 05:12 AM
Um .... maybe I'm just a party-pooper here, but as far as I can see most suggestions miss the most important point.

Sure you can do all sorts of things to keep warm. But warmth will not feed you.

So if there are no plants growing, and no animals breeding - then what you need most of all is some source of food. Vampirism or ghoulery fixes that with available resources - for a while. Some sort of fleshcrafting could do the same.

Failing that, you need an available food source. My inner eye envisions troops of hunters going to the Beastlands to bring back prey. There might also be food beneath the frozen surface of the seas - divers and submariners are an option.

Otherwise, what sort of wildlife would survive the cold? Yetis, behirs, dragons - basically, monsters. So again, troops of monsterhunters spring to mind.

Quite another thing is vegetable matter.

And of course, magic can render problems irrelevant.

Zen Master
2011-02-10, 05:23 AM
EDIT: Gah ... I got a server error, and when I tried again - apparently it double-posted =(

Ossian
2011-02-10, 05:27 AM
We should not have used the burning steel
Uranium or other fissile material powers and heats the inside of a huge underground complex. Mutations will ensue. Managing the ore becomes the work of a new caste of priests

If only it were a little closer
A bunch of epic wizards decides to pull the planet a couple hundred thousand miles closer to the sun. Unfortunately, they screw up the math and the planet, orbit after orbit, is now spiralling towards the star. Thing is, it might take years, and for a while things might seem too get better, only to get worse in the end, and everyone who adapted to the bitter cold gradually realises that it was all in vain. Worse, at some point it gets too hot, and the planet gets charred. Might alter the system equilibrium and start a pinball of planets too.

Complications: the wizards died a-la-roland emmerich. That is, minutes before breaking the bad news to the population, they either choke on a bunch of crisps, get attacked by hobos and bums, or just die in the fantasy equivalent of a car-crash (you know, the scientist knows it all, is an overweight/very skinny nerd, is driving through some unspecified winding road at night in some kind of Canadian forest , he s in a pick-up truck, goes to go alert the authorities because yes, he has the Hubble and the JSW telescope but not a mobile to save his life, a deer crosses the road and crash!).

Only many years later (when it is almost too late) a sexy californian girl scientist (or fantasy equivalent of a PhD in astronomy who ONLY wear tank tops and shorts and does not take s**t from any guy minus the hopeless everyday man-hero of the day) finds out about it from the ramblings of her old and beloved war veteran / discredited college prof with bizarre theories grandpa who has gone a touch senile etc etc you know the drilll etc etc...

Complication: the PC fix it , in an epic quest. Now the planet is slowly reverting to the original orbital path. But they screwed up too. The planet spirals AWAY from the sun. Arrivederci life.

pasko77
2011-02-10, 05:34 AM
It's Always Warm in Hell
How much do you want to bet that demon and devil cults got a lot more popular when they could promise warmth and fair harvest in exchange for a few sacrifices monthly or yearly? Societies like that might develop [Evil] traits, but it may be more interesting if you can make them [Lawful], maybe even expansionist; the theme of such a society might be, "There can be no order without punishment."

You know, this is EXACTLY the plot of a couple tales/adventures in Call of Chtulhu, I can't remember the titles, though.

Fizban
2011-02-10, 05:47 AM
There've been plenty of Druid suggestions, why don't the Druids round up all the plants that can live in a frozen environment and spread them around? Okay, so if we're talking Antarctica then there aren't any real world plants I know of that work, but this is DnD. There's a whole Paraelemental Plane of Cold with it's own ecosystems that have to be based on something. It's a longer term project, but anyone that can Plane Shift could start bringing back samples. If most of the world is frozen then whatever it is people eat on the plane of Cold ought to grow pretty well on the material now.

Ravens_cry
2011-02-10, 06:11 AM
"I have discovered a most rare miracle. When a specific arrangement of wire and lodestone are turned, a small gout of lightning is produced. Most curious."
"Success, I have taken a decanter of endless water and set its flow against a waterwheel. By its eternal turning, I can turn the lightning maker and create and endless supply of it. My back thanks me, the endless turning of the crank grew tiresome."
"I have found that lightning can be made to flow through materials, metal mostly. Some, like copper, are good at it, some, like cast iron, are worse, and some, like horn, do not do it at all. Some in fact grow as hot as iron in the forge."
"Most intriguing, by passing lightning through an evacuated tube with a stretch of charcoaled fluff, one can make a light as bright as any torch, brighter in fact. Alas, I must soon stop my research for the day, my liege summons me, Something about this winter is lasting far too long. I thought the beer had been getting a little thin of late. I hope he doesn't keep me too long."
From the journal of Chief Artificer Fitz "Sparky" Spengles to the Underking of Khazhold.

Eldan
2011-02-10, 06:11 AM
To expand on the druid thing:

Tree-hugging Hippies

Plants, like all living things, produce body heat. Not as much as animals, of course, but forests are notably warmer than their environments, and they keep of the wind and snow.
A sect of druids is enviously, and zealously, protecting the last big forest, busy tending to the trees and casting spells on them that protect them from the cold. They don't cast it on the humanoids, they cast it on the trees, mind you.

FelixG
2011-02-10, 06:25 AM
The Empire Strikes Back

An Empire which ruled a fair chunk of the land had sages who foretold of the coming disaster.

They commissioned wizards and clerics to create below surface bases that were self replenishing with food and heat (a simple magic trap that auto resets to create food and water can last a population indefinitely) as well as create new weapons and defenses against the cold.

Once the worst is over and people are starting to calm down from the tragedy their bases unseal and their armies, unaffected by the disaster start a war of conquest and enslavement to ensure that their empire controls this new frozen world.

tonberrian
2011-02-10, 11:39 AM
Denial of Self

In the far reaches of the north, there is a mountain which cannot be climbed, and somewhere on it is a monastery that cannot be found. In that monastery initiates are taught in secrecy to deny the needs of the flesh, like food, water, or shelter.

But intrepid explorers stole those techniques and are now spreading them across the land to help a people dying in the frost. Now the monks are setting out to reclaim what is theirs. Those who know the hidden arts given a choice: come to the monastery to train willingly, or be taken there by force.

TalonDemonKing
2011-02-10, 12:53 PM
Carry on my wayward... Beast?
Not all animals are adverse to harsh colds and barren landscapes. Some -Large- animals actually thrive in such zones, and being living (And hopefully warmblooded), they're a good source of heat. If the beast is large enough to support a small eco-system on its skin, then you could actually have a small town that is carried by the beast. The body provides warmth, which they can live on and grow things to eat. And the beast doesn't mind them as much, cause it's just like a small parasite (Or a symbyote, if the town protects the beast from others.

Smaller people means smaller goods

Shrinking a town could be a good idea too -- Less food needed, less resoruces needed, and its easier to protect and care for. Might cause new problems (Defending against house cats, as if it wasn't bad enouh), but ultimately might just work out.

Brock Samson
2011-02-10, 01:26 PM
Good God I do think this is the best thread EVER. I especially liked the ideas of the Crystalline Greenhouses, the nomadic-mortal races who basically become Mammoth (Dragon/other cold-tolerant-beasts) Hunters, and anything that involves either human sacrifice or fire-elemental sacrifice (as that has the fun conclusion of the PCs either allowing these murders to continue as they are best for the Common Good, or dooming the town by undoing their eeeeevilness. Or they have to try to find the town an alternate method of heating it, striking a temporary agreement that they have x period of time to find it before they begin the killings again.

Also, I feel like you'd get a lot out of magic being extremely rare for any NPCs, as magic solves problems too easily (I'm looking at you endure elements + food/water trap).

Another_Poet
2011-02-10, 01:30 PM
Slightly Off-Topic:
One piece of (unsolicited) worldbuilding advice, which I feel is very important. Consider shrinking your timeline down. The wizard's creatures have been excavating their city for 2,000 years? That means the disaster happened more than 2,000 years ago. That is standard fantasy fare, but it makes everything harder to believe.

In 2,000 years most of the these plans would either have already worked (disaster over) or failed (no need to write them up). For example, the creatures excavating the city. They attack intruders. So this is meant to be something the PCs can do as an adventure: try to get into this city.... but watch out for the monsters! Which means the creatures are defeatable and have a CR somewhere between 2 and 20.

You're telling me in 2,000 years no group of 4 of more level-appropriate adventurers ever tried to get into the place? Ever?

Cuz if they did, the creatures would be dead.

Consider setting your timeline 60 to 150 years after the disaster. Everything is more interesting. People don't know how to cope. Everything is still in flux. These plans are all crazy experiments, none of them are tried and true yet. The PCs can feel like they are the first to try something, the first to think of it - they could change the world. You don't get that excitement if 2,000 years of adventurers before you tried and failed. Any success you get at that point just feels like GM handout.

That's my personal opinion. Some may disagree. I feel that crunching the timeline adds a sense of urgency, newness and excitement.

On Topic:

One suggestion I have - items of unlimited-charge, continuous-use 0th level spells are (relatively) cheap to make. Prestidigitation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/prestidigitation.htm) can "chill, warm, or flavor 1 pound of nonliving material." On its own, a Prest spell will never help you survive. But a wondrous item that fires off 1 Prest per round, forever, to warm a coil? Is a free-energy heating coil. Reflavor as needed for bedwarmer, emergency tent, coat liner, etc.

Master_Rahl22
2011-02-10, 01:34 PM
Despite the fact that the OP already mentioned the "Let's move the planet closer to the sun!" angle and that it won't happen for thousands of years, I like that idea. For more on that particular angle, check out the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson. Not only are they excellent books, this idea comes up.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

The gnomes from the city of Clankbrazzle have developed extremely large, entirely self contained ships. These submersibles can stay underwater for long periods of time, and they have almost perfected a means of refreshing their air so that will no longer be a limited factor. One of them claims to have found a way to create a dome under the ocean that would withstand the pressure of the water, thus allowing an underwater city. They have begun developing plans for something called airlocks to allow people to enter and leave without flooding the city, and harvest their food from the bounty of the ocean.

Vknight
2011-02-10, 02:04 PM
-Stone Henge-
Psionics placed there minds with massive stones with runes of heat on them. These stones fly around an area at an amazing pace. The energy generated from there flight keeps the temperature from being deadly. Everyone within is psionic and once every 25years a stone or 2needs a replacement.
The rocks also act as a good defense mechanism because of there speed and height no low flying creature can enter. But ground travel and high air travel is possible.

-Do what the Eskimos Do-
An Island group that makes igloo's snow and ice keeps the heat in. The village is igloo's on the surface and under the snow is a complex of caverns. They have heavy clothes made from hunting dangerous ice creatures.

-Grand Palace-
What better way to survive then to capture a group of 5red dragons. These dragons are stored under the fortress city of stone. There hot bodies and breath heating the air thus heating the city. Through stone channels which cause vents of hot air. An AMG field is in effect across the entire city so the dragons cannot do any magic to escape. It also keeps magical crime at zero precent. The inhabitents know of these Dragons and some worship them. Others see them as there very survival. It can be a very uppercrust society strong superiorty beliefs and what not.

The Vorpal Tribble
2011-02-10, 02:12 PM
Slightly Off-Topic:
One piece of (unsolicited) worldbuilding advice, which I feel is very important. Consider shrinking your timeline down. The wizard's creatures have been excavating their city for 2,000 years? That means the disaster happened more than 2,000 years ago. That is standard fantasy fare, but it makes everything harder to believe.

In 2,000 years most of the these plans would either have already worked (disaster over) or failed (no need to write them up). For example, the creatures excavating the city. They attack intruders. So this is meant to be something the PCs can do as an adventure: try to get into this city.... but watch out for the monsters! Which means the creatures are defeatable and have a CR somewhere between 2 and 20.
This is a post-apocalyptic world where, yes, I want this stuff to have succeeded. I'm designing a world with these societies are intact and working already. That's why I want to know what you would do, so that it WAS done, and the original act that saved them expanded and built upon. It's called adding history and depth to a campaign world.

And please, we've had societies that lasted a long, long time, but slowly self destructed.


You're telling me in 2,000 years no group of 4 of more level-appropriate adventurers ever tried to get into the place? Ever?

Cuz if they did, the creatures would be dead.
#1. This world is twice the size of Earth (low comparative metal density, gravity is only slightly increased allowing for a slightly more muscular human, yes, I've already thought this through and it is added to the campaign world already). We haven't even discovered everything that's to be found on this planet, and we're technologically advanced, have satellites and radar.

#2. This is 'post' apocalyptic. Most people DIED. Even if they didn't the population around medieval times in our own world without a world-wide catastrophe was only in the hundreds of millions, if that.

#3. If these things have been building for thousands of years, this place is going to be enormous, though much of it it will be underground. We've to this day not explored all of Mammoth Caves and they run a measly couple hundred miles. This is a blip on the world in general, and less than that on a world twice as big as ours.

#4. You really expect a single adventuring party, or even dozens of adventuring parties to kill millions of creatures spread over many square miles that can replicate and repair themselves?


Consider setting your timeline 60 to 150 years after the disaster. Everything is more interesting. People don't know how to cope. Everything is still in flux. These plans are all crazy experiments, none of them are tried and true yet. The PCs can feel like they are the first to try something, the first to think of it - they could change the world. You don't get that excitement if 2,000 years of adventurers before you tried and failed. Any success you get at that point just feels like GM handout.
...bull crap. I suggest you look at the campaign setting link before making such assumptions. I have a post-apocalyptic setting worthy of some considerably epic adventuring.

Not to mention the disaster isn't over. The world is continuing to get colder. Folks have simply learned ways to survive.


That's my personal opinion. Some may disagree. I feel that crunching the timeline adds a sense of urgency, newness and excitement.
You could possibly set it then, sure, but they way I've done it shows a sense of continuing, inexorable decline into death. It's not something that's going to happen quick. The world is dying, and you with it. The players are still going to have to try to survive, but there is a sort of base of operations they can come back to.

All in all you are thinking of a measly adventure. I consider that too small. I'm making a world. A setting. A campaign that has the potential for thousands of adventures.

Fhaolan
2011-02-10, 02:23 PM
There's also the temporal shift a la:

Brigadoon [or the original German version: Germelshausen]

A village/city is enchanted so as to shift forward in time and exist only one day every hundred years. The idea is to basically move the entire village to a point after the world has recovered from the disaster, but since they don't know how long the aftereffects are going to last they 'check' on a regular basis. To the villagers, this will take only a couple of days, to everyone else it takes several hundred years.

At least that was the plan. Now, almost a month later of 'days' things are still getting worse.

I'm thinking this is based on the idea that not all the methods tried to escape worked. And in this case, it is currently in the process of failing.

Another_Poet
2011-02-10, 02:51 PM
...bull crap. I suggest you look at the campaign setting link before making such assumptions. I have a post-apocalyptic setting worthy of some considerably epic adventuring.

<snip>

All in all you are thinking of a measly adventure. I consider that too small. I'm making a world. A setting. A campaign that has the potential for thousands of adventures.

No, I'm thinking of world building and doing it in a way that feels strong to me. I meant it as helpful advice. If you really want it to be set long after the disaster to show how the world has continued but is declining, then I would set it 300 or 400 years after, again for believability reasons. But that's me. It's your world.

It seems you're pretty attached to the way you have it already, so I understand that you're not taking my advice. It was just meant as a suggestion. No insult intended.

The Vorpal Tribble
2011-02-10, 03:25 PM
I'm not insulted, I'm in disagreement. I'm challenging your assessment.

Just saying that there isn't much of a campaign world 300-400 years later. By this time almost every bit of past civilization would be gone, and nothing had a chance to be built. It'd take longer than that just to walk to warmer climes.

The world's population would be around it's lowest ebb. What exactly were you going to do in such a world? At this point most everyone is wandering in small groups, barely surviving.

There is a campaign I suppose to such as this, but you have no reason in building a world or adding any depth to it. Everyone is the same, starving and hanging on. Considering there's barely any people period, the fact that all of you in the party have a class, much less to such a degree of making any change worthy of note, is pretty unlikely.

Within 2000 years you have at least a background to the world besides 'everyone died'.

If you do it directly 'after' the impact, it's just going to be your normal, every day campaign with everything going to pot. In my campaign it's the past cataclysm what triggered the distinct change to environment, people and thought processes.
I could throw a comet down on almost any published already existing world and run it from there with the same suggested scenario. Nothing in the world has to be unique for this to happen. In the end it's still only an adventure, not a world. And nothing the players would do could win it.

I'm making a unique world where a unique thing happened producing unique effects.

Again, not insulted, but nor do I understand how your suggestion makes for stronger or more appealing play.

J-H
2011-02-10, 06:46 PM
The Light is Brighter Here
Your scenario is essentially a protracted nuclear winter caused by too much crud in the atmosphere. Erect a force-field of some type in a circle around an area that goes all the way up to low orbit. The field is set to allow normal air through, but only at a very low speed (to prevent wind issues), and to filter out 90% of the particulates and droplets that are in the air. This keeps the sun shining bright, and reduces the heat loss to surrounding areas. To further reduce heat loss, put mountain ranges around it.

If the area gets too dry, mine a nearby glacier.

This can be done by druids, clerics (control weather), or arcanists.

Rainbow Servant
2011-02-10, 07:03 PM
Man's Best Friend
A small society that (magically, scientifically, whatever) bred/engineered/altered their dog/wolf/carnivorous pet of choice to be bigger, meaner and furrier.
The skins can be worn to protect against the cold, and they can be trained to hunt out in the wilds to provide food.
Trainers and breeders are highly respected by society, but the people themselves are no more capable of survival in the cold on their own than before.
Also maybe every now and then the beasties go crazy, and the responsile trainer/breeder is shamed and/or exiled.

Vknight
2011-02-10, 07:21 PM
A variation of J-H's idea.

Permancied Wall's of Force in the sky if it is infact the dust keeping the planet cool. The wall's of Force open up an area to sunlight.

Here is one more idea.

-The Temple-
High level monks founded this temple adorned with marking to protect against the cold. They then got wizards and had them bind A powerful Fire Elemental or Devil or Demon. It's heat lets those that are weaker live within the temple.
It should be large with were the people without the markings living within only 20% of the temple. But that 20% should still be large enough to support 500-750 people. The final 80% is were the gifted can live. It is massive spiraling architecture with the outer temple guarded by more bound Elementals and Exiled individuals.

-The Ring-
This is a city. The inner ring a prosperous warm metropolis, the middle ring a temperate area with many merchants, and finally the outer ring barely warmer then outside the walls the slums of the city.
The City is kept warm by Demonic pacts the Original 5rulers made, they became the nobles of this town living in comfort. Every month or so a citizen must be sacrificed to the Demon. The Nobles keep this secret often justing taking a person from the slums.

-Nature Adapts-
The Frozen Tarrasque as a location on the map it is not well known and half way to the South Pole on the East side of the planet. The beast is immobile frozen but the pure energy of nature is exudes has caused life to spring unfortunatly it was on a Lich's tomb. The evil has created a massive maze of twisted black vines snow and deadly undead. There are amazing treasures to be found here if you can survive the journey there and back along with the threats.

The_Werebear
2011-02-10, 07:36 PM
It's all gone South

A prosperous city built on the equatorial belt has thrived in the new conditions. Being in the only naturally livable area in the new conditions, and more opportunistic than some of their other neighbors, they welcomed those fleeing the cold. The only condition was perpetual service, a reasonable trade when most other cities turned refugees away by force. Now, they are a huge perpetual underclass that feeds a massive military machine which has conquered much of the livable belt. Of course, none of the original inhabitants thought too much about the dangers in giving all the military training to their slaves.


Your Job is to keep your brain warm.

A cabal of mind flayers, seeing their chosen prey flee their area due to the cold, has captured a large group of humans, and perpetually Clones them to provide a steady food source. Of course, the same human brain in ten thousand variations has led to something like...inbreeding... in the mind flayer populace, especially their Elder Brain, who is now 70% composed of the same 10 people, endlessly recycled.

Bibliomancer
2011-02-10, 08:03 PM
The Children of the Forest
The balance of the world shattered beyond repair, the killoren [RoW] saw that it was their time to act. Seeking out the hardiest, most cold resistant trees, they gathered their seeds for a decade as the snows fell then headed north. Once they reached the barren lands far from any other survivors, these neo-fae created the Frost Forest, mixing the essence of winter with the seeds they carried. Now, two thousand years later, the Frost Forest is still expanding, spreading the uttercold that it feeds on with it...

Fear is for the Winter...
The inhabitants of a remote human kingdom, too far from the remaining safe zones, indentured themselves to the Fihrg [MMII]. In exchange for protection and warmth, half of their population (every second child born) is trapped in waking nightmares for every single day of their prolonged lives. The remaining society is centred around acquiring status and wealth, because with it a substitute can be purchased when a tribute child is born.

...When the Snows Fall a Hundred Feet Deep
In a deep mountain valley, a group of gnomes clings to survival using an ingenious application of snow's heat-trapping properties. They've filled their entire valley with snow to keep their settlement warm (just below freezing) and use mirrors through channels carved into the rock to maintain a precarious form of agriculture by directing sunlight to their carefully hoarded plants.

Winter is Coming
Members of the Arcane Order of this world were puzzled by the contravention of the laws of nature seemingly imposed by this never-ending winter. Delving deeper in their research, they discovered what was fueling it: the opposite of heat: anti-heat. They were able to use their new knowledge to invert their metabolisms and those of their livestock and plants so that they fed on the expanding anti-heat. Now the climate has stabilized and their crops are struggling in the comparative heat, so they are planning to bring the true winter down on this rock to save themselves from the warmth.

Brock Samson
2011-02-10, 09:35 PM
Just a thought. The scenario mentioned earlier about the Medusa's "stoning" multiple creatures/animals is an awesome thought. Perhaps this DID happen for a few dozen/hundred/thousand people, but the Medusas all died somehow, and the location of the caves is lost. Now, with times getting harder, the population of mortals is dwindling ever further, inbreeding seems to be almost inevitable, if they could only find some fresh stock to liven up this world, fresh blood! Enter the PCs on a quest.

Or they stumble into the caves one blizzarding adventuring day and start figuring things out. Do they unleash the new wave of mortals? Will they wait hoping the climate gets better? And what if they do unleash the mortals, and suddenly what barely manageable agriculture/hunting was sustaining the surrounding populations becomes extraordinarily taxed, starvation growing more rampant!

Randel
2011-02-10, 09:56 PM
Just a thought. The scenario mentioned earlier about the Medusa's "stoning" multiple creatures/animals is an awesome thought. Perhaps this DID happen for a few dozen/hundred/thousand people, but the Medusas all died somehow, and the location of the caves is lost. Now, with times getting harder, the population of mortals is dwindling ever further, inbreeding seems to be almost inevitable, if they could only find some fresh stock to liven up this world, fresh blood! Enter the PCs on a quest.

Or they stumble into the caves one blizzarding adventuring day and start figuring things out. Do they unleash the new wave of mortals? Will they wait hoping the climate gets better? And what if they do unleash the mortals, and suddenly what barely manageable agriculture/hunting was sustaining the surrounding populations becomes extraordinarily taxed, starvation growing more rampant!

Or maybe some vampires or other human-eating creatures came across the tombs, killed the medusas, and have been reviving and devouring the stored people? Maybe they harvest energy from them to power things that help other mortals? Like there are mindflayers who devour the brains of people and unleash the energy to keep other people warm.

The PCs could find a kingdom of good aligned people who fell on hard times until Mind Flayers came and used their powers to help the city. The kingdom thinks this is great but the PCs discover that the Mindflayers got the energy by reviving the petrified people and devouring them. The people who gave up everything to survive till the coming spring are being used up like fossil fuels to power the kingdom!

Do the PCs stop the mindflayers and potentially doom (or just weaken) the kingdom or do they let this act continue?

Randel
2011-02-10, 11:33 PM
Actually, in a frozen world then most of the worlds resources would still exist. They would just be frozen and need someone to thaw them out.


Cities of the frozen dead

In those first few days or weeks after the great ice fell, the millions of inhabitants around the world were desperate to stay warm. But not all were sucessful. Fortunatly (depending on how you look at it) those creatures who died from the cold had their corpses and posessions preserved in ice. People well-equiped for traveling the wasteland can enter huge cities and countrysides full of frozen trees, people, buildings, and animals.

Adventurers often stay in the isolated settlements that have access to heating and venture out into the wastes to gather resources. Sometimes they chop down frozen trees to bring back the wood for the fires. Other times they gather the corpses of animals (or people) so the meat can be thawed and cooked. They might even scour through the buildings looking for books, magic items, tools, or other valuables to bring back for the settlements. Those items that are not of immediate use are often sent to unheated storage areas to be preserved for a later date.

However, over the years and ages, the frozen areas nearest to settlements have been picked clean and adventurers must venture farther out to gather things. This has resulted in wandering nomads who travel the world along trade routes to gather things from the ancient ruins and bring them to the still-living settlements. This has helped the settlements keep warm and running but every year the forests get smaller (since no new trees can grow in the frozen wastes) and the ruins picked clean of anything even romotely valuable or useful.

Every once in a while, adventurers may come across a settlement that has died. A bounty of gems, gold, and magic items may lay there for the taking... but all the fuel is gone. The frozen corpses of the settlements inhabitants stiff and blue, all of them huddled together for warmth after they burned the last stick of wood or book. Feel free to gather all the gold you want... but don't be surprised if if weighs you down while you scrounge for fuel for the fire.


Salty seas never freeze

While the land may be frozen, the ocean is still liquid and fish may be bountiful. Granted, the ocean is freezing cold... but only to creatures used to fresh water. While the cold may have frozen some of the oceans water into pure ice, the rest of the ocean became saltier and thus got a lower freezing point and thus doesn't freeze. Th heat from geothermic vents helps keep the ocean from freezing altogether and provides energy for the ecosystem.

Anyway, fish are rather common in the ocean and creatures like penguines, whales, and walruses can be found anywhere. Their blubber keeping them safe from the cold of the world. Fishermen and hunters can hunt these beasts for their meat and fat.


Under the sea...

A race of aquatic creatures lives far beneith the surface of the ocean and they live in huge cities. While the freezing of the world has affected them, it has been less devastating overall. There may be fewer fish in the sea and they have to stay closer to the hot geothermal vents to stay warm but the ocean civilizations are still about as powerful as they were before.

People from the surface with enough magic might be able to travel to the underwater cities and speak with the people there. The greatest minds of the surface world plan to travel to the ocean cities to help their wizards study the curse that ended the world and devise a way to counter it.

However, some of the ocean dwellers believe that the great freeze has made their civilization stronger (at least relative to those of the surface) and enjoy a world where surface folk don't dump arcane toxic waste into the ocean or overfish or otherwise cause trouble. They might try to sabotage attempts to end the Winter or only devise methods to benefit themselves.


Don't throw fire at an ice worm

Similar to how salt water freezes at a lower temperture than fresh water, alchohol freezes at a lower temp than water. This chemical fact has resulted in the evolution of several alchohol-based lifeforms.

Some oozes have their chemistry composed of alchohol-based liquids which let them flow uninhibited across the icy wastes. They are just as cold as everything else, they simply aren't bothered by the cold. These oozes can thus flow across the land and start eating the frozen remains of the former world. Whole frozen forests have been devoured by roaming frost oozes.

The flipside of this is that these alcohol-based oozes are highly flammable. Tossing a lit torch at one causes it to burst into flames. This makes them less of a danger (well they can still engulf you and dissolve your skin) and more of a resource! People who can track down frost oozes, carefully slay them, and bring back the remains to a settlement can expect great rewards as the oozes high energy slime is used as fuel for the furnace or in great engines.

Similar creatures like ice worms exist but they all share the properties of having flammable blood and being unable to survive sub freezing temperatures. If a frost ooze ever tried to invade a settlement it would recoil in pain as its liquid body would start to vaporize upon entering a room temperature building. Alcohol based lifeforms can only survive in the frozen wasteland and they would all surely die if the Winter was ever lifted. (There might be a few people who partook of strange rituals to become alcohol-based, but these folks share the weakness to above-freezing temperatures and additionally never get drunk from consuming alcohol).

pasko77
2011-02-11, 09:03 AM
I'm not insulted, I'm in disagreement. I'm challenging your assessment.

I'm making a unique world where a unique thing happened producing unique effects.

Again, not insulted, but nor do I understand how your suggestion makes for stronger or more appealing play.

Well, your answer was a bit rude, if I may.

Anyway, no offense intended, but it's not _so_ original... it's dark sun, just with cold instead of warm. You can fetch some ideas from there.

The Vorpal Tribble
2011-02-11, 09:47 AM
Well, your answer was a bit rude, if I may.
You may, but may I say it was an appropriate response to someone telling me that no one on the planet can achieve any victory of note because the immediate disaster has past.

Most settings don't have an apocalypse that defines their history and changed the world drastically, or if it did it was so long ago it recovered and everything has healed up for the most part. How do they manage a campaign? This world suffered a fatal wound, now we're dealing with the death throes and trying to find ways of stabilizing it. Hearth is in minus hit points and failing.

Save the patient.


Anyway, no offense intended, but it's not _so_ original... it's dark sun, just with cold instead of warm. You can fetch some ideas from there.
I know almost nothing about Dark Sun, but those that read through it have mentioned it, saying that the only resemblance between the two is that both are post-apocalyptic and both have strong psionic influences. Have you read through the setting material, Pasko?

pasko77
2011-02-11, 10:50 AM
Yes, I did.

Toliudar
2011-02-11, 11:03 AM
Hole In the Ozone

In one region, a group of druids have used a combination of weather magics to clear away the clouds of dust blocking the sun, and have instead formed a kind of lens that intensify's the sun's light as it reaches the earth. In the centre of this area, there is warmth and peace and good land for growing crops. At the periphery, there are violent storms as the warmth interacts with the intense cold. The community is thriving, and works to expand the circle of warmth - but at the expense of destroying everything that is within the current band of storms. Naturally, tensions arise with neighbouring areas which have found other strategies to survive.

The Vorpal Tribble
2011-02-11, 11:20 AM
Yes, I did.
Ah, good. That's no small undertaking. Then would you mind sharing with me the similarities? Want to make sure I'm not cribbing off of anything.

Sebastrd
2011-02-11, 12:38 PM
Your Job is to keep your brain warm.

A cabal of mind flayers, seeing their chosen prey flee their area due to the cold, has captured a large group of humans, and perpetually Clones them to provide a steady food source. Of course, the same human brain in ten thousand variations has led to something like...inbreeding... in the mind flayer populace, especially their Elder Brain, who is now 70% composed of the same 10 people, endlessly recycled.

This is a hilariously awesome idea.

Vknight
2011-02-11, 12:52 PM
-The Forge-
An old Forge for Warforged has it's energy converted to keep a town warm. The forge still creates Warforged which are used to expand the town slowly because the cold damage the warforged slowly destroying them well they build new walls. Once a wall is complete the peopl begin building, buildings adding pipes to transfer heat out and grow fungi that produce heat.

-The Mine-
An old mine that was next to a volcano and had hotsprings within it. Flooding some areas. Has been turned into a city. With only 1entrance it is easily defended and a prosperous sight. The Hotsprings keep the place warm along with it being underground. The many cavarens hold the city.

Sebastrd
2011-02-11, 12:53 PM
Slightly Off-Topic: Consider setting your timeline 60 to 150 years after the disaster. Everything is more interesting. People don't know how to cope. Everything is still in flux. These plans are all crazy experiments, none of them are tried and true yet. The PCs can feel like they are the first to try something, the first to think of it - they could change the world. You don't get that excitement if 2,000 years of adventurers before you tried and failed. Any success you get at that point just feels like GM handout.

That's my personal opinion. Some may disagree. I feel that crunching the timeline adds a sense of urgency, newness and excitement.

No! No, no, not 6! I said 7. Nobody's comin' up with 6. Who works out in 6 minutes? You won't even get your heart goin, not even a mouse on a wheel.

lol

Vknight
2011-02-11, 01:09 PM
The whole point of the large amount of time having passed is to show how people have adpated what exactly have they done. Some things are tried and true others are much more new.

The newness to the timeline forces the hero's to be either opportunists or saviors. Were in the long amount of time passing I'd say 500-1000years, people are set in there ways. They do what works even if it is evil. This is a world were they have found how to survive not were there trying to carve out places to survive; sure some peoples may be like that, but it does not mean the whole world should be as such. If the world was like that then the adventures within in it would be deeply limited.

-The Storm-
'Control Weather' to create a Thunder Storm. The Lightning is channeled from the surface into a underground city, electricty to heat metal keeping the city warm. The people who can use 'Control weather' are the most respected individuals. Below them are the merchants and nobles, and below them are everyone else.
This makes the city warm lighted safe. Topside is dangerous and its difficult to get to the city being the only entrance is at the eye of the storm. The storm drops hail and freezing rain, the surface is all ice, with areas were frozen ponds have formed. It's violent and dangerous to be in.

Jewel Thief
2011-02-11, 03:46 PM
Denial of Self

In the far reaches of the north, there is a mountain which cannot be climbed, and somewhere on it is a monastery that cannot be found. In that monastery initiates are taught in secrecy to deny the needs of the flesh, like food, water, or shelter.

But intrepid explorers stole those techniques and are now spreading them across the land to help a people dying in the frost. Now the monks are setting out to reclaim what is theirs. Those who know the hidden arts given a choice: come to the monastery to train willingly, or be taken there by force.

To add to that, maybe these Adventuring Entrepreneurs sell drugs called Denial that're highly addictive but allow the user the benefits of this mysterious order.