Storycraft: this world is dying

[rot42]

For story reasons, my PCs are going to visit a plane in a few months that has had much of its vital force leeched from it. It still supports life for now, but its doom has been written. They will then start finding similar issues emerging on their home plane, putting them in a race against time to identify and correct the problem. I have a few ideas listed below, but I feel that I am missing some depth of "realism" here. I want things that will strike the players with a fundamental wrongness more than the mechanical effects of planar traits.

* The sun rises late and small, shedding a wan reddish light before falling once more into the night. (side question: are there any divination spells that let the caster know when the sun rises or when would be the best time to plant the crops or similar that could be made to render obviously false results on this dying plane?)
* Dead leaves carpet the forest floor in annual layers, with the oldest and deepest only gradually returning to the soil.
* The air here feels thin and flat and you continually catch yourself remembering to breathe.
* Your sword catches the marble pillar, biting a ragged gash that shows the stone is rotten to the core.
* The guards seem too few for such a large station, and their mail shirts show obvious spots of rust. They issue a desultory challenge before waving you through without a second glance.

TL;DR - how do I make a plane feel like a lonely and dying place?

[Demonic_Spoon]

The Signs of Apocalypse from the Elder Evils book might be a good place to start.

Worlds stop rotating, the sun is blotted out, creatures are transformed into horrible abberations, the seas dry up, the world is slowly starting to freeze over completely. The sea levels are constantly rising, slowly flooding the world, the world is becoming warmer until it becomes a desert wasteland, etc.

Or you could have something like space and time not working properly, for a weird experience, signalling the collapse of the space time continuum. Strange clouds that are actually flocks of skybleeders concealed by their mists fill the sky, weeping acid rain on the earth. As I recall there's a 9th-level spell that could be useful to blot out the sun permanently as well.

My handbook on the subject (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=227513) may spark some ideas

EDIT: Some additional thoughts, the incursions from Xenotheurgy (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6756629&postcount=17), but on a global scale could give a nice feel to things. Have fundemental things stop working, like it no longer being possible to make fire, or fire not burning.

[Amoren]

Darnit, had a post for this but 503 error kept eating it. Forums seem to be working for me again though.

Anyway, I had a rather similar project for a DnD campaign I might ever DM, although there the plane was dying simply of old age. Some of the ideas that might help you, despite likely having different causes;

The sun is red and perhaps larger than average, casting a pale, red light over the world.

Aberrations, particularly mindflayers, take advantage of the weak sun and start to wander the surface world, even during the day light.

The soil is dry and lifeless, taking on a dust-like aspect which makes it easy to blow with the wind, creating regular dust storms across the kingdom.

[MukkTB]

I don't have so much to add to this but let me see if I can paraphrase the rules you're implying.
#1 Life processes are slowing. Decay, growth, ect.
#2 Physical processes are slowing. Less/weaker sun ect.
#3 People are apathetic/tired.
#4 Physical things are decaying in an unnatural way.

Sounds good.

[whibla]

Partly it's going to depend on how much description you usually give to players, and how much that can be changed, but a few ideas might be:

Lack of birdsong, buzzing of insects. In general all wildlife the pc's see looks scrawny, underfed, and ill.
The pc's themselves feel continually lethargic. The effect becomes more pronounced the longer they stay there.
Magic spells and items start to have their effects diminished. While a 19' radius burst fireball might not really be noticable when happens when it gets down to 15', or less?
All food grown (or conjured) on the plane tastes flat and flavourless. Water has a nasty tang to it that you (the players) can't quite identify.
Connections to a deity feel tenuous. Learning (praying for) divine spells might take a little more time - not so much that it severely hampers the priest(s) in comparison to the rest of the party ofc.
Everything looks washed out, drab. The colour seems to be leaching out of everything. Again, the effect could become more pronounced the longer the pc's are there.
Bodies start to decompose as soon as they are killed, but not in a 'natural' fashion, but as if the rules governing the structure of materials seem to be breaking down.

Sounds like an interesting, and fairly epic plot to me. Hope it goes well.

[JoshuaZ]

Magic can leech away, so that the effective caster level goes down over time, or require increasingly difficult caster level checks to cast successfully.

The light might diminish- the stars are a sickly red, and even the full moon provides little light.

Fire is not quite as warm as you'd expect it to be, so that even in a cold environment a campfire doesn't provide quite enough heat.

Wounds take longer to heal even when aided by magic. This might not have any mechanical effect, but merely have the cuts form scabs and the like rather than heal outright. Severe wounds might still form scars even when healing magic is used.

[ahenobarbi]

Many "mad man" proclaiming that the world is ending... only they don't stand in town centers shouting about it (like in your regular world), they sit tired, holding their signs.

There is no wind.

No one seems to care about anything.

Everybody seems to age faster.

Reading "The Magician's Nephew" by C. S. Lewis (there is a visit to a dying world in the beginning of the book) and "The Colour Out of Space" by H. P. Lovecraft could give you some inspiration.

[dspeyer]

You happen upon a sleeping bear being eaten alive by mice. It stirs a little, but takes no action. The mice drift off to sleep before finishing their meal.

Bread doesn't rise. The people who can be bothered bake flatbreads. They're tasteless. Likewise, no beer, wine or cheese.

[Mikeavelli]

I think my favorite "End of the world" quote is a Simple one from Arthur C. Clarke:
(http://downlode.org/Etext/nine_billion_names_of_god.html)
Real the whole story for context. It's not long, and quite good, or skip ahead for...


“Look,” whispered Chuck, and George lifted his eyes to heaven. (There is always a last time for everything.)

Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.

[Unusual Muse]

You happen upon a sleeping bear being eaten alive by mice. It stirs a little, but takes no action. The mice drift off to sleep before finishing their meal.

Ooooh, that's creepy! :smallsmile:

[limejuicepowder]

You could also do a "time slow" effect: the plane is literally running out of gas, and things are moving slower. Things fall slowly (this would be especially cool if it was raining), food takes hours or days to cook, that sort of thing. Combat doesn't actually have to be changed since everyone would be slow. Eventually, everything stops, and the people there are trapped forever, unable to move.

Man that would suck.

[Andorax]

The leaching out of color is a good approach, in my opinion.

Actually, there was a high-level Dungeon adventure that fits somewhat into this theme. Gates of Oblivion (issue 136) for...18th level characters I think...


An intrusive shadow realm (not sure if it was part of the Plane of Shadows or its own separate thing) is, by means of a ritual, starting to overlap your home plane, gaining ground at the rate of a mile a day in radius or somesuch. PCs have to go into the realm and destroy the three monoliths powering the transformation.


If you have access, it might be worth reviewing.

[Tyndmyr]

Things start just...slowing down. At extreme levels, light can be visibly slow.

Alternatively, have the force of gravity slowly fail.

[rot42]

The Signs of Apocalypse from the Elder Evils book might be a good place to start.

<snip>

My handbook on the subject (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=227513) may spark some ideas

EDIT: Some additional thoughts, the incursions from Xenotheurgy (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6756629&postcount=17), but on a global scale could give a nice feel to things. Have fundemental things stop working, like it no longer being possible to make fire, or fire not burning.

I have been meaning to sit down with that book at some point, looks like this will provide a good excuse.

You might enjoy http://qntm.org/destroy]How to Destroy the Earth (http://qntm.org/destroy). It has much the same sense of humor as your handbook.

Good stuff at that Xenotheurgy link. And I do love the word incursion.


Darnit, had a post for this but 503 error kept eating it.

<snip>

Aberrations, particularly mindflayers, take advantage of the weak sun and start to wander the surface world, even during the day light.


Sorry about the 503 :(. Messing with the light and soil is definitely on the agenda. Bringing up creatures from the Underdark is an excellent idea; perhaps could be extended to daywalker vampires and the like (not enough sunlight to sparkle).


I don't have so much to add to this but let me see if I can paraphrase the rules you're implying.
#1 Life processes are slowing. Decay, growth, ect.
#2 Physical processes are slowing. Less/weaker sun ect.
#3 People are apathetic/tired.
#4 Physical things are decaying in an unnatural way.

Sounds good.

Yup. The mainspring of the world is winding down.



Partly it's going to depend on how much description you usually give to players, and how much that can be changed, but a few ideas might be:

<great ideas snipped for length>

Sounds like an interesting, and fairly epic plot to me. Hope it goes well.

I try to give a pretty good amount of detail while I am narrating. Mostly because I enjoy it and they seem to, but every now and then they pick up on an irrelevant bit of fluff and speculate on its importance, which ends up taking the story in a direction I did not expect; love it when that happens.

A 19' fireball would be a very nice way to let the PCs know that things are Not Right on the home plane without screwing over a character concept. Consider the idea stolen.




<snip for length>

Wounds take longer to heal even when aided by magic. This might not have any mechanical effect, but merely have the cuts form scabs and the like rather than heal outright. Severe wounds might still form scars even when healing magic is used.

An NPC cleric of the local healing deity is shamed by his visible scars and is on a quest to right the world.



Many "mad man" proclaiming that the world is ending... only they don't stand in town centers shouting about it (like in your regular world), they sit tired, holding their signs.

<snip>

Reading "The Magician's Nephew" by C. S. Lewis (there is a visit to a dying world in the beginning of the book) and "The Colour Out of Space" by H. P. Lovecraft could give you some inspiration.

The doomsayers feel no exultation of being right, only weariness.

I have read both, but it has been a while. Will definitely be digging up copies.


You happen upon a sleeping bear being eaten alive by mice. It stirs a little, but takes no action. The mice drift off to sleep before finishing their meal.

Bread doesn't rise. The people who can be bothered bake flatbreads. They're tasteless. Likewise, no beer, wine or cheese.

That is delightfully creepy.


I think my favorite "End of the world" quote is a simple one from Arthur C. Clarke


One of my favorites :). A pseudo-Buddhist monastery opposing any action the PCs take to reinvigorate the world would fit nicely.

Thank you for the great ideas, one and all. This is a great help.