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Balor01
2011-12-28, 11:09 AM
So, I would like a few ideas on how to further develop this setting:
- there was a great arcane conflict, which turned most of Central continent into boiling lava/dead magic zones/wild magic zones/epic living spell areas, etc. Most importantly, during their short war, casters summoned/awakened a large bunch of abominations (3.5 epic monsters).

Now, all that is left of civilization is The Southern peninsula (size of Arab peninsula) with four major points of civilization:
- Western city, which is a small surviving remnant of the Empire. Most of this region is also fiercely ghoul-infested. They have a few thousand soldiers and a few dozen mid-lvl casters
- Small island trading city which is now ruled by a blue dragon. Formerly just a trading outpost between Empire and Free cities. They have a few hundred troops and small number of low lvl casters
- Large Southern city. Secretly (he is polymorphed into a priest most of the time) led by adult gold dragon. They have a decent army of several thousand troops plus several dozen mid to high-lvl full casters
- Eastern pirate city ruled by adult black dragon. They have a few hundred troops and very few casters but are quite competent at surviving

Eventually, some abominations will undoubtfully enter The peninsula and my question is ... how do you think that these four cities would react to current situation?

Yora
2011-12-28, 12:22 PM
The main problem is supplies. Apparently agriculture is pretty much entirely gone, so unless there are large food stores inside the cities, they will starve soon. If they have food, they will starve some months later.
Cities live on trade, which would be pretty much non-existant now. So even if all monsters are defeated, most survivors would still die and the remaining once be nothing more than small farms growing their own food. Getting access to any kinds of luxury goods would be mostly out of the question. But even that might be a problem, since the scale of the destruction would have completely altered the planets climate. Growing anything might be almost impossible.

My most likely prediction would be that the people in the cities try to hole up and then one by one they get picked off by the abominations eventually.

Best solution might be to task the high level spellcasters with finding a new world and creating portals to evacuate the remaining population and leave the planet to the monsters.

Balor01
2011-12-28, 01:31 PM
Tnx Yora :smallsmile:

Lack of food and water supply was mainly balanced with food and water traps. Golden dragon is also a lvl 0 diety (serves the Bahamut) and has some decent capabilities to provide for his people.

Soon after the end of war and creation of food and water traps, magic also failed. Not entirely, but no spell stronger then lvl 5 could be cast. Stronger spells would start to dissipate.

ZeroGear
2011-12-29, 07:25 PM
Maybe the cities would start building special ships/artificial islands and push out into the sea? Or maybe they would try to go underground (literally) and try to rebuild there?

Personally (and that's just me so feel free to disregard this) I would petition for someone to create a Demi-plane to serve as a shelter until everything settles down, but good luck with that.

Balor01
2011-12-30, 06:24 AM
Tnx Zero Gear.

I am surprised regarding conclusions in this thread. So situation is really that bad? But I like this setting development. I like it a lot.

Radar
2011-12-30, 08:27 AM
Well, if you have food and water covered through traps, then societies are sustainable. You can even craft more of them, since those are simple spells. Trapmaking technology will most likely developed further and adopted to other utility and even combat spells (think buff machines and spell turrets). It might take some time though.

Dealing with an abomination is a throughoutly different matter. It really depends on the nature of those creatures. A Tarrasque is an epic monster, but is hilariously easy to subdue for example. If you are talking about the abominations as per SRD entries, then some of them would wipe most of opposition (a large number of low-level casters won't be as effective as a single high-level one). It largely depends on the capabilities of those three dragons.

Jack of Spades
2011-12-30, 09:35 AM
I imagine that the Western city would experience quite a few attempts at diaspora, culminating in a military-protected migration to whichever f the other cities seems friendliest (probably the Southern one). Also, I would expect the raiders in the east to start sending high-risk, high-reward looting runs into both the region including the western city and the wastelands. That would add to the pressure to move for the Imperials, as looters tend to do.

With the trading town's main source of income gone belly-up, I would assume they either join or go to war with the looters and pirates in the east. Which of those they go for would depend on the relationship those two dragons have with one another. Should they go to war, I would expect the easterners to win, given that by this point they will have more resources and will not be in the state of recovery that the death of the Empire will have caused the trading town to enter.

The southerners will probably spend all of this time attempting to help the island (should it choose the war option) and using its deific leader and advanced magic to attempt to either lock off the wastelands from the remaining world or find a way to escape and find new, virgin lands (probably working both of these plans at the same time). I could see this city becoming heavily religious, as their priest continues to create miracles and lead them to salvation.