Questions and a post apocalyptic fantasy setting

[Hopeless]

I ran a game using Mongoose Legend game system and was looking at establishing more of the background history and flavour.

What I'd like to discuss is what would you keep and what would you discard if you were planning a campaign set at least a millennia from the present?

One specific point I've been planning involves revealing a small group of people have the ability to travel from more or less the present to that future being able to carry supplies, knowledge and even assist others to make the trip but I've been wondering just how far I can go with that.

How would you handle it?

My storyline would reveal London has replaced the myth of Atlantis except it can be seen under the waves as the Thames has grown into an ocean in its own right sundering the lower part of the UK leaving the small remaining Southern part as an island of which little is known whilst the northern part is far from peaceful and safe.

What would you change in the present day world for a post apocalyptic fantasy setting?

[Yora]

I'd say drown the Netherlands and Bangladesh. Without maintainance work to keep the dikes in shape and the water out, those regions would be extremely vulnerable to regular mass floodings and large parts are already lower than the sea surface.

Another major issue are nuclear power plants. Those things require constant maintainance even long after they are shut down. If the old world collapses quickly enough, many of them won't be properly decommissioned and lots of nuclear fuel be left lying around where it is. First all water used to cool the fuel rods would evaporate and then the stuff would heat up enough to melt into a hot and radioactive goo. Real problems happen if it is stored in sealed containers. In that case pressure would continue to rise until the container bursts, and if the container is very sturdy, that will be a rather big bang that shots radioactive steam and dirt everywhere and possibly high into the atmosphere. I am not exactly sure about the safety system in nuclear power plants and usually there are ways to build containers with emergency pressure valves that open when the pressure gets dangerously high, but that means releasing the stuff that is inside them in a slow process rather than a bang. You'd still get radioactive waste everywhere, nearby, but it might at least stay in the area.

The same thing is the case about lots of stored liquid chemicals. If the cooling fails, the pressure will rise and the safeties kick in by venting the content of the tanks. If nobody closes them and restores the cooling, you'll end up with a major chemical spill. And chemical storage is way more common than nuclear material and way less carefully monitored. With these things, there will be hundreds of local chemical disasters all over the world without doubt.

However, after a thousand years, the effects might no longer be very noticable. Maybe just some locations being considered cursed, as every settlement that is build there tends to succumb do disease after some time.

Which reminds me. I completely forgott about hydroelectric dams. :smallbiggrin:
Unlike stone, concrete doesn't really cope well with water. If cracks are not fixed in a short time, they will get a lot worse quite soon. I would guess after just a hundred years, all major dams will have collapsed. And there are some incredibly huge ones all over the world, that would release immense amounts of water to crush anything in their path for dozens or hundreds of kilometers downstream.
But again, after 1000 years, there would be barely any traces of that left.

Actually, unlike ancient egyptian and greek buildings which were made from solid stone, modern constructions really don't have a long life time once maintainance on them stops. After 100 years, almost everything made from concrete will have collapsed into rubble, which is almost anything we have. Brick might do a bit better, but after a thousand years, I don't really think there would be much left but some piles that are still somewhat recognizable as walls.

If you want to have 21st centuries remains that are still useable to some degree, it probably shouldn't be more than 100 or 200 years in the future.

[Hopeless]

I hadn't even considered those!

Will have to check, since it would be at least 1500 years most of that will have disappeared well constructions, the waste might be worth double checking could even use as potential bad guy hideouts given their bad reputation.

And i was wondering about train and train tracks!

Hmm shipping, then there's of course the Eurotunnel... would that survive that length of time if abandoned or would it by then be submerged or perhaps there's still a way through to the mainland...

[DigoDragon]

After 100 years, almost everything made from concrete will have collapsed into rubble, which is almost anything we have.

Yeah, a depressing fact in my mind. In my setting, I repurposed golems as automations that kept the maintenance of some structures just so something survived long enough to be seen.

Though I suppose Mount Rushmore could last the ages since it's carved out of some very solid rock. The weather would have to be kind to it though.

[Hopeless]

Part of my idea was that an artefact is found that allowed travel to what was thought another world.

They discovered it was Earth of the future but in the present their discovery brought it to the attention of American interests who raided the compund stealing the artefact trapping the travellers in the future and they reestablished the artefact back in the States only to discover travel to the future where they were now located was extremely hazardous.

I guess i really ought to try and pick up a copy of that tv series of life after people for more details on the effects of erosion if noone is around to maintain technology.

[LibraryOgre]

Part of my idea was that an artefact is found that allowed travel to what was thought another world.

They discovered it was Earth of the future but in the present their discovery brought it to the attention of American interests who raided the compund stealing the artefact trapping the travellers in the future and they reestablished the artefact back in the States only to discover travel to the future where they were now located was extremely hazardous.

I guess i really ought to try and pick up a copy of that tv series of life after people for more details on the effects of erosion if noone is around to maintain technology.

There is also a book, The World Without Us, that may be at your local library.

[Hopeless]

Thanks will look into that!

So assuming a bronze age society, part of britain is submerged the reason it starts there is because a bunker was built in time and used albeit by those more wealthy and politically powerful over the more useful.

These survivors created the first regime in the new era but fell back on hard times because they lacked the stability needed to persist but a shadow of their former selves functions as the main stay of the villains, not the main villain but good enough for a few seasons until the players are ready to face the true enemy.

The games I've run have indicated the presence of helicopters and present day tech but as far as that group is concerned all they could get access to was the dining room and kitchen area utensils as well as some forgotten ipads and grimoires of a sort recognisable ala pokemon although elemental based.

(Well it was amusing don't know if I'll ever go back to them but if I do it should be an interesting change of pace since their power i derived from Tarmsen and might persuade them to stay close to home... for once!)

[LibraryOgre]

A couple other books to consider, both by SM Stirling.

Island in the Sea of time takes the island of Nantucket and a Coast Guard cutter and shoots is back 5000 years. They have the infrastructure of the island, but the rest of the world is in the 3000bce range.

The other side if Dies the Fire, where the world Nantucket left behind suddenly has no electricity or high-pressure chemistry (i.e. guns, internal combustion, etc.). They simply do not work. So people wind up struggling to find alternatives, based on ancient technologies.

I understand Eric Flint has a series about West Virginia, but I don't know much about it.

[Hopeless]

Wasn't there a book series about a world wide cataclysm and those who survived used underground bunkers and in one case use of a suspended animation drug so they woke up a century or so later after the world reasserted itself so it was inhabitable outside?

Been thinking about using bunkers as a reason for some of the survivors and those that didn't fundamentally changed as in since I was using Legend explaining the presence of elves, dwarves, etc...

Even included Historia Rodentia under the idea that they replaced humanity on the mainland when humanity died out over there...

Had a couple of meercats running a Valkyr along with a steam powered chariot so they could transport it so there would a reason it was still operational, at the end of the last session before I ran the Tarmsen version the Pcs found out the anima have access to zeppelins.:smallsmile:

Had a group of refugees over in the Northern UK looking to settle down but told they needed to locate a long lost heir which was just diplomatic talk for no chance, two of the PCs are playing nobles and one has come into possession of a blue gem which she donned in a headband unknown to her its part of group of items that confirm the wearer as the duke/duchess that the anima are looking for and equally unknown to her when they accepted the help of the meercats she unknowingly accepted the allegiance of them and the refugee band which makes up quite an army once they use those zeppelins to reach where she is...:smallbiggrin:

Sorry thought it was about time I ran a game where if you run a noble character expect to be surprised!

[Thrudd]

I think an important question to ask about your post-apocalypse future is: what has happened in the 1000 intervening years? You will want to lay out a timeline to make sense of what sort of things they will find there, in addition to what the geography is like. How far into our future did the apocalypse happen? What caused it? What level of technology had been achieved up to that point? If the cataclysm is in 2013, then there will be little left of our technology after 1000 years. Maybe some plastic stuff here and there, and some things that might be underground away from exposure the sun. If the apocalypse happens in 2100 or 2200, who knows what technological advancement may have been made, you could decide that new materials were manufactured that are better than the concrete and steel we use for everything now. There could be relics left behind here and there. Did time travel technology improve or spread at all after the initial trial? Will they run into more time travelers at some point, from another period in the past/future? Was the apocalypse caused by a cataclysmic war? Nuclear weapons, or a biological cause, or a combination of those things? Extraterrestrial (meaning something like an asteroid or comet strike, or cosmic radiation/sun flare, but advanced alien civilization is not out of the question). Has the climate changed significantly?

How devastating was the "apocalypse"? Did some areas of the planet escape total devastation? Why don't people remember their history?
If you want to erase all memory of the past/modern civilization, you may want to jump ahead 5-10 thousand years instead. You have a lot more to work with, there, and there is enough time that the city of London could have passed into myth.

Check out the Maurai stories and "Orion Shall Rise" of Poul Anderson for ideas on a post apocalypse world set around the timespan you have in mind. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurai.

[Hopeless]

Much obliged have placed an order for that book you mentioned and will post what I'd thought up so far once I've properly read through your reply!

[Hopeless]

I think an important question to ask about your post-apocalypse future is: what has happened in the 1000 intervening years?
You will want to lay out a timeline to make sense of what sort of things they will find there, in addition to what the geography is like. How far into our future did the apocalypse happen?

If I ever get to run a modern day version of this I can't help wondering if it gets compared to the dungeons and dragons cartoon!

Okay you're at a convention in London and whilst inbetween games you hear a commotion as a pair of what you think are cosplayers in steampunk-like outfits rush through the hall heading for the back with one of them yelling at everyone to clear the hall.

They're chased by armed men dressed like they're out of a Men in Black movie, when they start shooting the people present dive for cover as one of the two they're chasing is shot and drops what looks like an obsidian slate encrusted with blue stones in full view of you.

The woman accompanying dives after him yelling for everyone to hold their breath...

The dropped slate hits the floor and breaks causing a blinding light...

The next moment its now pitch black and you're underwater... a glimmer of light catches you eye as you see someone swimming illuminated by the string of lights on the floor that caught your eye which ascends to the upper part of one corner of the hall.

You barely manage to hold your breath as you follow her up into what appears to be a small airfilled chamber, gasping for breath you look around but can only see the woman from the convention leaning over her fallen comrade and as you watch she closes his eyes making it very clear that he's dead.

Turning she sees you looking at her.

"I really hate London!" she rasps looking seriously disgusted as well as very scared.

"Whats going on where are we?" you ask her looking around wondering where the others are.

"About a mile down," she replies.

"A mile... where?" you persist.

"You're standing in the upper chambers of the convention hall you were sitting within moments ago, London is now a mile below the sea level and unless we can find a way back to the surface we'll start running out of air in a few hours..." she shrugs back.

[Hopeless]

I think an important question to ask about your post-apocalypse future is: what has happened in the 1000 intervening years?
You will want to lay out a timeline to make sense of what sort of things they will find there, in addition to what the geography is like.

Working on that will post when I'm ready.

How far into our future did the apocalypse happen?

Was looking at around 2065 but now wondering if 2025 might work better

What caused it?

An unexplained event sunk London whilst Yellowstone in the US erupts rendering most of the nation uninhabitable the rest is the aftershock with the rest of the world failing to cope with an epidemic they don't have the resources to cope with and the subequent wars and civil unrest effectively nearly wipes out humanity in all but certain isolated areas of the planet.

What level of technology had been achieved up to that point?

Improved space technology but not enough to survive without aid from Earth otherwise as present era.

If the cataclysm is in 2013, then there will be little left of our technology after 1000 years. Maybe some plastic stuff here and there, and some things that might be underground away from exposure the sun. If the apocalypse happens in 2100 or 2200, who knows what technological advancement may have been made, you could decide that new materials were manufactured that are better than the concrete and steel we use for everything now. There could be relics left behind here and there.

Yes there are but most was picked clean over the intervening centuries the one exception were survival shelters but they need to be rediscovered.

Did time travel technology improve or spread at all after the initial trial?
Using the original artefact allowed travel to and from a point in the future but when it was stolen and moved to the US they inadvertedly caused the Yellowstone eruption.


Will they run into more time travelers at some point, from another period in the past/future?

Very possibly since noone knows why the original artefact nor the other four artefacts were where they were found suggesting they had been used before but were sealed away for some reason (Atlantis?)

Has the climate changed significantly?
The Uk is now closer to the equator and Scandinavia has moved south enough that its far warmer than previously known by current standards.

Haven't even considered the effect this has on Australia possibly both it and South America are now the new Arctic/Antarctica!

How devastating was the "apocalypse"? Did some areas of the planet escape total devastation?

Isolated areas especially island chains certainly did, but areas linked to the mainland didn't as the now untreatable epidemics made short work of any survivors without the means to fend off the various diseases and illnesses with the bare medical expertise that survived the inital cataclysm and subsequent wars.
Why don't people remember their history?

Mostly they died and there was few means to perpetuate that knowledge, whats books that survived was lost over the intervening centuries and those that kept an oral tradition or tried to restore an education system were overwhelmed by the subsequent change of people in power who were threatened by those whose education made them rivals to their grasp of power.

Great ideas need to think a bit more on these!

[Thrudd]

I see where you're going, that's pretty cool. The time travel device is a magical artifact, not something that was built by modern scientists. Or is it technology so advanced that it appears to be magic? Why magic and magical creatures are now everywhere will be something to think about, too, presuming you are sticking to the standard fantasy setting of Legend. Converging parallel dimensions? A RIFTS-like or shadowrun-like situation? There is precedence for this in other games and literature, I realize the stories I recommended earlier are science fiction rather than fantasy, although the post-apocalyptic world in them was regressed to a more medieval state. Actually, Terry Brooks' prequels to the Shannara books describe a situation where our modern world transforms into the fantasy world of Shannara. Chronologically it starts with "The Word and the Void" trilogy, then "Genesis of Shannara" and "Legends of Shannara" link it to the original trilogy.

Is the intent that the PC's be native inhabitants of the future fantasy world, so the players will discover over the course of the campaign that it is actually a post-apocalyptic version of the present world, with the time-travelers being a plot device that comes along at some point? Or are the PC's meant to be the time travelers, and they must discover just where they've gone and what happened to the world they once knew? Is this a part of a normal cycle, or did the original Atlantis-destroying event lock away access to the magical realms, which have now been released by the recovery of the artifacts? Deciding the cosmology will also be important, I realize, since we are not talking about a strictly science-based scenario. You'll want to know how magic works, where it comes from, if there are other planes of existence, etc. The changes which occur after the event will partly be described by how the spiritual or magical interacts and influences the post apocalyptic world.

[Hopeless]

I see where you're going, that's pretty cool. The time travel device is a magical artifact, not something that was built by modern scientists. Or is it technology so advanced that it appears to be magic?

I’m leaving that a mystery since the PCs unless they’re from the present day won’t know anything about the original artefact, but will have a chance to learn about the others should they look into learning about magic in the setting.


Why magic and magical creatures are now everywhere will be something to think about, too, presuming you are sticking to the standard fantasy setting of Legend. Converging parallel dimensions? A RIFTS-like or shadowrun-like situation? There is precedence for this in other games and literature, I realize the stories I recommended earlier are science fiction rather than fantasy, although the post-apocalyptic world in them was regressed to a more medieval state. Actually, Terry Brooks' prequels to the Shannara books describe a situation where our modern world transforms into the fantasy world of Shannara. Chronologically it starts with "The Word and the Void" trilogy, then "Genesis of Shannara" and "Legends of Shannara" link it to the original trilogy.

Shannara had a big hand in the cataclysm, regarding the various races and creatures ala Monsters of Legend (1, 2 and so on) these would be explained as the results of people or creatures coping with the changes of surviving in the new era whilst humans would be survivors who hid in the shelters returning to the surface once they were sure it was safe to do so.


Is the intent that the PC's be native inhabitants of the future fantasy world, so the players will discover over the course of the campaign that it is actually a post-apocalyptic version of the present world, with the time-travelers being a plot device that comes along at some point? Or are the PC's meant to be the time travelers, and they must discover just where they've gone and what happened to the world they once knew?

Depends which side they start from, I’ve run two separate games in the future setting giving the players the chance to run evil characters’ once they realise what’s going on.
I’d love to run a modern era transplanted to the future but that’s a long way off at the present.


Is this a part of a normal cycle, or did the original Atlantis-destroying event lock away access to the magical realms, which have now been released by the recovery of the artifacts? Deciding the cosmology will also be important, I realize, since we are not talking about a strictly science-based scenario. You'll want to know how magic works, where it comes from, if there are other planes of existence, etc. The changes which occur after the event will partly be described by how the spiritual or magical interacts and influences the post apocalyptic world.

Undecided I was thinking the artefact may have caused the sundering of Pangaia and was moved to Scandinavia due to the need for a stable area to contain it with the others separated from it and eventually brought to the UK as per the Holy Grail legend.

When the artefact was brought to the US the mid-atlantic rift slammed shut creating what will be my version of Monster Island and that set off Yellowstone with London assumed sunk at the same time.

More later!

[Beleriphon]

I understand Eric Flint has a series about West Virginia, but I don't know much about it.

That is 1633, and is more about a West Virginia town getting dumped into the 30 Years War somewhere in what is now central Germany. They make allies with Gustav Adolphus and using an M-60 machine gun on a few squares of pikemen.

There are some sequels to the book that move into them running out of modern supplies, but using the the town's advanced knowledge found the in high school library to build simple engines, repeating rifles and a few biplanes.

Also, Survival Shelters? Like Vaults? Like Vault-Tec Vaults?

[Hopeless]

Also, Survival Shelters? Like Vaults? Like Vault-Tec Vaults?

Inspired by Fallout, yes indeed.

The original idea is that when the three survivors of the Light Bringer expedition made it back to the present they separated the artefacts primarily to prevent them being stolen but also hid them within the survival shelters the leader of the trio realised had to be built even before the United States refused to return the original artefact they had stolen.

She attempted to get the help of the various world nations and their business industries to start building those shelters as soon as possible but the sinking of London and the devastation of the United States meant maybe a few dozen where even in the planning stages when the cataclysm occurred.

I picture mainland Europe and pretty much all of the Far East, Russia and even Australia was effected but only the UK had three operational shelters by that point.

The United States efforts in that regard had to rebuilt once they managed to set up a supply route beyond the uninhabitable areas within which is the new landing location for the artefact they stole from Scandinavia.