What man and god hath wrought

[herrhauptmann]

Got an odd question for the playground.

I'm trying to make a list of disasters created by magic (stupidity, arrogance, ignorance, whatever), either intentionally or accidentally. And yes, actions of both mortals and gods do count.

I'm trying to focus mostly on the actions of Faerun entities, and could've sworn that Lathander once was involved in one (maybe from an old AD&D sourcebook)


Forgotten Realms. Death of Mystryl and Netheril. Karsus attempting apotheosis.
Forgotten Realms. Spell plague Cyric+Shar kill Mystra.
Forgotten Realms. Avatar Crisis. Ao exiles gods to the prime material, magic goes nuts.
Eberron. The Day of Mourning. End of war of 5nations.
Greyhawk. Rain of Colorless Fire. Suel ending war with Baklunish empire.
Ravenloft. Someone (Azalin?) tried to mess with whatever forces cause the realms of dread to coalesce around a core, and instead screwed it up. (Think it happened during the shift to 3.0 rules)
Forgotten Realms. The Sundering. Entire supercontinent is shattered, Evermeet/maztica/faerun etc continents created.
Forgotten Realms. Drowning of Jaamdath. Done by elves in revenge for destroyed forests.
Forgotten Realms. Killing storms.
Forgotten Realms. Dracorages. Ancient elves made a mythal that causes dragons to go insane every few millennia.
Dragonlance. 1st and 2nd shattering. Kingpriest of Ishtar being a jerk, and what else?
Forgotten Realms. Dawn Cataclysm. Lathander attempted to reshape the world and pantheon. Also kills a number of other deities.

[hamishspence]

There are a LOT of Faerun disasters, often elf-related.

"The Sundering" where the entire supercontinent is shattered- and Evermeet is created.

The drowning of Jaamdath- by elven high mages.

The killing storms that created the High Moor and obliterated an elven kingdom, during the Crown Wars.

Pretty much every Rage of Dragons- thanks to the Dracorage Mythal.

[Kelb_Panthera]

What about The Cataclysm and The Second Cataclysm, on the world of krynn, in the Dragonlance Campaign Setting. Bonus point: the first one was the gods' response to man, the second one was precipitated by the gods themselves.

[herrhauptmann]

There are a LOT of Faerun disasters, often elf-related.

"The Sundering" where the entire supercontinent is shattered- and Evermeet is created.

The drowning of Jaamdath- by elven high mages.

The killing storms that created the High Moor and obliterated an elven kingdom, during the Crown Wars.

Pretty much every Rage of Dragons- thanks to the Dracorage Mythal.

How much of the land was actually devastated each Dracorage? I know the resulting fights tended to take big chunks out of the dragon populations, both good and evil. (So I guess that counts)

The Sundering, was that part of what made the dark elves into Drow like Drizzit?

[hamishspence]

It was before then- the supercontinent is "sundered" resulting in Faerun, Maztica, etc.

The Crown Wars took place some time later- they lasted several thousand years, and ended a few centuries after the Descent of the Drow. The main villains of the era were in fact a dynasty of sun elves called the Vyshann- corrupted by the archdevil Malkizid- but the drow were almost as bad.

Jaamdath was destroyed by the elves of the region, who'd had their forest chopped down and brought in the sea in revenge. Evermeet wasn't involved there.

[Prime32]

Don't forget Die Vecna Die!, the Greyhawk/Ravenloft/Planescape crossover that created 3e.

[herrhauptmann]

Don't forget Die Vecna Die!, the Greyhawk/Ravenloft/Planescape crossover that created 3e.

Don't have that adventure.
Is that the one I was thinking of with the above Ravenloft entry? I'm rather lacking in ravenloft books.

[Prime32]

All I know is that it had Vecna escaping from Ravenloft, forcing his way into Sigil past the Lady of Pain's defenses, and attempting to use its power to make himself omnipotent/rewrite the universe in his image/something like that.

[Kol Korran]

Eberron also has throwing Dal Quor out of orbit by the giant civilization, (1) and once they tried that high magic again- wiping out their entire civilization by the dragons. (2)

you might consider wiping out Sharn in it's previous incarnations before (though i don't remember the exact reason... Aberrant dragonmakrs i think?)

i'm not sure if there is an exact account to the fall of the Dhakanni Empire after the fight with the Daelkyr... so i'm not sure it would fall under your definitions. i think the Empire was just so strung out as to have lost control and dissolved.

[Alleran]

Try looking up the Dawn Cataclysm. Basically, Lathander got it into his head to reshape the pantheon and world in his own image and as a result he broke the world. He wound up causing the deaths of several deities, making some long-standing enemies (Helm, for example), and the problems of the Cataclysm meant that it happened outside of time (arguably it can be placed around 250 DR or so, but not perfectly).

Lathander really is something of an ADHD deity. He's fascinated with starting things, but never thinks them through or carries them through to completion.

[avr]

The Rain of Colourless Fire in Greyhawk was the Suel ending the war with the Baklunish, a sort of Arabic power to their south.

Sharn in Eberron was destroyed during the War of the Mark, when the dragonmarked houses and their allies sought to eradicate aberrant dragonmarks. Their leaders had power over plagues and earthquakes & unleashed them when they lost.

Eberron has a whole bunch of magical wars in its backstory. Dragons vs demons led by the Lords of Dust, the realm of madness vs. the Dhakaani goblins, the giants who fought against the realm of dreams (Dal Quor) & forced the whole plane away, destroying one of the moons and cursing their own continent with weirdly mutable geography.

[Andvare]

The Day of Mourning from Eberron is also a magical disaster, though precisely what happened is unknown (except it obviously have been inspired by an atomic bomb explosion, with magic "radiation" and mutation).

Edit: And Faerun is one long magical disaster. :smallwink:

[Thespianus]

All these events, where can I read about them?

I would love to read good Faerun books, but all Ive read so far is the Rool of Radiance-series and some of the Drizzt books.

[Prime32]

The leShay (Epic Level Handbook) suffered some kind of disaster which destroyed their empire retroactively, though they don't explain the details.

[Eldan]

The Illithid empire is technically psionic,but they conquered the prime material plane, built a ringworld, started extinguishing suns and got powerful enough that the Blood War stopped. Then they were attacked by something else that defeated them, so they had to sacrifice their Elder Brains to travel back in time to the beginning of the multiverse, to escape. (Lords of Madness)

Hm. Indirectly, but: Rowan Darkwood tried casting the Sigil Spell, so the Lady of Pain mazed all the Factols, banned the forming of Factions in Sigil and cut Sigil off from the multiverse by cutting of all portals, then scrambling them randomly, thereby starving much of the population. Rowan Darkwood himself is theorized to have been sent back in time to before the Upheaval. He might have even written the Sigil Spell himself.The entire event is called the Portal Storm. (Planescape, specifically Faction War).

In Something Wild (a Planescape adventure) a mysterious event on the Beastlands turns random creatures into frenzied madmen.

What else, what else...

[Lord Haart]

Every major event in history of Athas (the world of Dark Sun campaign setting). Big time.

[herrhauptmann]

Ok, some additions made to the list. More coming.

Thespianus,
Some of the stuff comes from sourcebooks, some from adventures/modules. Some are from novels.
A lot I think ended up being either A)Fluff to make something cool, or B)Fluff to explain a massive change brought about by edition/rule changes (spellplague for the shift to 4E).

I'd suggest the Erevis Cale trilogy and Twilight War trilogies by Paul S. Kemp. Few authors can write 'dark' stories and still keep it PG/PG13.


Thanks for your help everyone.
Dawn Cataclysm was the one I was thinking of.

[Khantin]

Every major event in history of Athas (the world of Dark Sun campaign setting). Big time.

I was about to say... pretty much this.