PDA

View Full Version : How would the rest of a small world react to the below? (Far Realm Apocalypse thing)



ShadowFireLance
2013-06-15, 05:28 PM
Alright, so in this story I'm writing, this group Of Magi find a plane known as The Far Realms (Ooo, scary) which is basically Lovecraftian horror x10.
They decide to investigate it. (These guys don't know much about other planes)
Being the cliche kinda guy I am, the Portal automatically goes horrifically wrong, and something from the portal eats the Magi.

So, the portal is open, and it's a small city that it opens in. (3,000 Population)

There was a Contigincyed spell for a messenger to go to a large kingdom if it went wrong, and it did.

So how would the rest of the world react?

LokiRagnarok
2013-06-15, 05:46 PM
So, as far as I understood, there is now a portal to the Realm of Eldritch Horrors opened in some god-forgotten town.

Depending on who gets the message first, they will either

* try to abuse the gate somehow (likely spectacularly failing) or
* nuke it from orbit (or the local equivalent).

The 3000 people would be considered collateral damage at that point.

Craft (Cheese)
2013-06-15, 05:48 PM
Alright, so in this story I'm writing, this group Of Magi find a plane known as The Far Realms (Ooo, scary) which is basically Lovecraftian horror x10.
They decide to investigate it. (These guys don't know much about other planes)
Being the cliche kinda guy I am, the Portal automatically goes horrifically wrong, and something from the portal eats the Magi.

So, the portal is open, and it's a small city that it opens in. (3,000 Population)

There was a Contigincyed spell for a messenger to go to a large kingdom if it went wrong, and it did.

So how would the rest of the world react?

I'm going to assume that this portal is enough of a threat such that everyone involved wants to get it closed ASAP. Exactly what level of Totally Screwed is everyone if they don't get it closed, and how much time to they have?

What kind of resources does whoever is in charge of the Large Kingdom have?

What kind of personality do the rulers have? e.g. would they be willing to sacrifice the entire population of Small City with a nuke if it came to that?

What would they need to do to get the portal closed?

Bulhakov
2013-06-15, 06:11 PM
The ruler would likely immediately send in the best magi in the kingdom to seal the portal at whatever cost necessary, hopefully before the news of the portal spreads.

If the news spreads, it probably depends on previous similar disasters/events. There could be a mass panic/exodus with everyone trying to get as far away from the portal as possible. Maybe there would be cults/religions trying to capitalize on the fear. Of course there'd also be some looters and bandits trying to take advantage of the chaos.
If previous disasters were relatively quickly averted/controlled, there could also be a "go about your business" lack of reaction, with people thinking - "the magi and heroes will take care of this, I have my business to run or farm to tend to".

Possibly a few heroes see the portal as a chance to prove themselves and travel towards it (though unlikely, unless they feel especially competent, or there is a chance to get rich).

JusticeZero
2013-06-15, 06:19 PM
Well, if it's a standard historical sort've government?
Once upon a time they came up with better ways to make city walls to keep invaders out. the walls were, however, very expensive. And cities tend to grow. Often times, the city would overflow out of the city walls. In response, the standard policy for preparing for the threat of war included "Immediately send the soldiers outside the walls and burn every structure in sight to the ground in order to deny the attackers shelter and supplies." Letting the people leave the buildings first with any possessions was not necessarily a requirement.

Not only will they not hesitate in nuking the town from orbit, they might quarantine it first and prevent anyone from leaving the area to be nuked just in case. Honestly, I would expect no less from any of the modern democracies, let alone a monarchy or similar fantasy government.

ShadowFireLance
2013-06-16, 05:31 PM
So, as far as I understood, there is now a portal to the Realm of Eldritch Horrors opened in some god-forgotten town.

Depending on who gets the message first, they will either

* try to abuse the gate somehow (likely spectacularly failing) or
* nuke it from orbit (or the local equivalent).

The 3000 people would be considered collateral damage at that point.

Not entirely out of the way, just one of those cities everyone kinda forgets, unless they are in need of healing or such.
Abuse of the gate would require combating what ever is coming through the gate, currently a god eating eldritch horror is the first thing out.
Nuking does have good things, but still, these things are still Intellegent, And inheretly magical.


I'm going to assume that this portal is enough of a threat such that everyone involved wants to get it closed ASAP. Exactly what level of Totally Screwed is everyone if they don't get it closed, and how much time to they have?

What kind of resources does whoever is in charge of the Large Kingdom have?

What kind of personality do the rulers have? e.g. would they be willing to sacrifice the entire population of Small City with a nuke if it came to that?

What would they need to do to get the portal closed?

Level of Screwed; In aproximentally 48 Hours, The Portal will be large enough to allow beings like Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth through, which equals gods packing up.
Resources: This Kingdom, I feel i messed up on explaining, it's a massive empire, ruled by the Godking; Aythetas, Half god son of Yath. (Basically like Zeus or Re, or Odin for those kind of things) He's powerful, but not enough to singlehandedly combat the things coming out of the gate. The Kingdom is quite prosperous, so assume anything below level 19. Aythetas is the only level 20.
He has a Superiority mentality, so if something more powerful then him gets out, and challenges him, It's nukes. (LN)
However, his Empire is full of more then 70% good people, so that would lead to sure problems if he would do that.


The ruler would likely immediately send in the best magi in the kingdom to seal the portal at whatever cost necessary, hopefully before the news of the portal spreads.

If the news spreads, it probably depends on previous similar disasters/events. There could be a mass panic/exodus with everyone trying to get as far away from the portal as possible. Maybe there would be cults/religions trying to capitalize on the fear. Of course there'd also be some looters and bandits trying to take advantage of the chaos.
If previous disasters were relatively quickly averted/controlled, there could also be a "go about your business" lack of reaction, with people thinking - "the magi and heroes will take care of this, I have my business to run or farm to tend to".

Possibly a few heroes see the portal as a chance to prove themselves and travel towards it (though unlikely, unless they feel especially competent, or there is a chance to get rich).

One problem; The Gate Can't be sealed except with Extremely powerful magic, It has to be physically destroyed.
Nothing of this scale has happened, except for one other event, which was a Rogue Great Wyrm Red Dragon, who was killed by Aythetas, with the help of his allies, who died.



Well, if it's a standard historical sort've government?
Once upon a time they came up with better ways to make city walls to keep invaders out. the walls were, however, very expensive. And cities tend to grow. Often times, the city would overflow out of the city walls. In response, the standard policy for preparing for the threat of war included "Immediately send the soldiers outside the walls and burn every structure in sight to the ground in order to deny the attackers shelter and supplies." Letting the people leave the buildings first with any possessions was not necessarily a requirement.

Not only will they not hesitate in nuking the town from orbit, they might quarantine it first and prevent anyone from leaving the area to be nuked just in case. Honestly, I would expect no less from any of the modern democracies, let alone a monarchy or similar fantasy government.

Sounds right, but this is a definitively LN/LG Nation/world, so I doubt they would like that much.

The Glyphstone
2013-06-16, 05:37 PM
The only answer is to call in/send in a group of high-level adventurers (PCs) and hope for the best. No medieval or quasi-medieval army in historical or real existence could mobilize sufficient strength to attack this portal, or even quarantine it, in 48 hours. Heck, a modern 1st-world army would struggle to call up sufficient resources to put a perimeter around it in 48 hours.

All this Godking can do is find the nearest bunch of high-level heroes he can, throw them at the thing, and pray. The common folks do the same, minus the high-level heroes - they just pray, or else ignore it and go about their lives thinking 'another impending apocalypse only a group of 4-6 legendary champions can protect us from? Must be Tuesday'.

ShadowFireLance
2013-06-16, 06:07 PM
Okay then, next part of Question, how long do you guys think they would be able to hold it back?

Erik Vale
2013-06-16, 06:27 PM
Given that the gods would use it as a reason to take a holiday due to the entities being able to easily kill them... As long as the Far Realms creatures decide, and considering the are more insane than the most insane-removed-from-reality human, that could be any time from 5 seconds to forever, because it's busy looking for the roof of the plane, or wondering why it's only on one level because it normally occupies the Squaroot of -50 levels in the far realm. [Because it's broken into layers, for some reason.

SethoMarkus
2013-06-17, 08:27 AM
If these are traditional "end all existence" Lovecraftian horrors, then I can't see why even a Lawful Good nation would have issues with just nuking the portal along with the town it's in. Sure, paladins and clerics involved might fall, but given the circumstances I'm sure the gods wouldn't make their Atonement too difficult or painful.

When the gods themselves have reason to fear the portal opening any further, I don't think the lives of some 3,000 mortals will be of much concern to them. They'd probably rather the innocents die and be whisked away to their deserved afterlife rather than fall to the non-existence of being devoured by the eldritch horrors.

The Glyphstone
2013-06-17, 10:33 AM
And even if the nation is Lawful Stupid/Stupid Good instead of Lawful Good, a truly LG king is going to have the moral character to take the fall (or the Fall, depending on his class) to have it done anyways, because he knows it's what has to be done to save the world.



EDIT: And while I'm thinking about this....did you start an almost-identical thread a few weeks/month back or so, with this exact plot idea/story minus a substitution of a portal to the Abyss instead of the Far Realm? Everything else seems to line up.

Fibinachi
2013-06-17, 10:50 AM
"Okay people, we're dealing with a Class Aleph-One scenario here. You will be sling-shot translocated near the perimeter of what we're deciding to call the "Oh Dear Lord, Your Research Has Doomed Us All, Foolish Hubris" gate, or, "Buggery".

Your mission, and you don't to choose, you've been volunteered is this:

You take this giant cask of alchemist fire and brown mold, and you get it near the gate. Gibbering unthings from beyond the veil of the stars will attempt to devour this cask. You will not let them.

Once you are near the point designated on this map, here - it's the large, red vortex sucking in all material, yes - you will detonate the brown mold bomb and you will pray, pray!, that it works. If not, the detonation will be the signal for every magically inclined person we could scrounge together to rain fire down on your location.

You will be going up against maddening horror-terrors, things from beyond the keen of man, the environment as conjured forth by the fevered imaginations of doomed folk drowning in their own blood and or possibly a few tentacled monstrosities. Good luck!"
---

In short, everyone dies.

If you pull the time line out a little, it could actually be sort of a fun adventure, in an "End of the world" type deal. Have the portal crack open, and the entire empire gradually march to war. PC's are level 1. Have them do unrelated side things and watch as legions are thrown into the meatgrinder, people start starving bit by bit and cults spring up heralding the end of days.

Then at the very end, have them have a fist fight with god to close the portal.

But, well, basically everyone dies. You've designed a scenario they can't really win because their mobilization and threat response will not be on a large enough scale quick enough.

ShadowFireLance
2013-06-17, 12:40 PM
And even if the nation is Lawful Stupid/Stupid Good instead of Lawful Good, a truly LG king is going to have the moral character to take the fall (or the Fall, depending on his class) to have it done anyways, because he knows it's what has to be done to save the world.



EDIT: And while I'm thinking about this....did you start an almost-identical thread a few weeks/month back or so, with this exact plot idea/story minus a substitution of a portal to the Abyss instead of the Far Realm? Everything else seems to line up.


Can't recall doing so....don't think i did though

The Glyphstone
2013-06-17, 01:32 PM
Weird coincidence then, because I very much remember a thread where someone was asking for very similar advice. A portal to the lower planes had opened up in a valley, surrounded by armies of demons, and there was approximately 48 hours before Asmodeous or Demogorgon manifested. It was situated in a lawful good kingdom, and the question was how the kingdom would defend against the threat and how other kingdoms would react. Eerily similar, in fact.

Alleran
2013-06-17, 11:33 PM
Weird coincidence then, because I very much remember a thread where someone was asking for very similar advice. A portal to the lower planes had opened up in a valley, surrounded by armies of demons, and there was approximately 48 hours before Asmodeous or Demogorgon manifested. It was situated in a lawful good kingdom, and the question was how the kingdom would defend against the threat and how other kingdoms would react. Eerily similar, in fact.
I just tried a Google search and came up with nothing. Might I trouble you for a link?

The Glyphstone
2013-06-18, 12:28 AM
The forum search doesn't work, so if you can't get it in Google Site Search, no can do. Maybe it's older than I think it is.

Alleran
2013-06-18, 01:01 AM
The forum search doesn't work, so if you can't get it in Google Site Search, no can do. Maybe it's older than I think it is.
A-ha!

This thread? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=285288)

It didn't come up in any of the keywords I tried at first (Asmodeus, Demogorgon, invading, invasion, portal, Abyss, Hell, lawful good). Most only directed me to this thread. Once I plugged in "valley" and "demons" the above link showed up on the third page.

The Glyphstone
2013-06-18, 01:13 AM
That's it. Looks like my memory was fuzzy - it's a homebrew demon prince instead of a normal one, and 5 days instead of 2...but it's still strangely similar.