Aron Times
2014-10-11, 06:19 AM
Edit: Posting this here because it's not really D&D 5e-specific; I'm asking for advice on how to run the world.
I am currently in the recruitment stage of a D&D 5e campaign which I pitched as Columbus's Voyage, Inverted. Basically, the Columbus of my campaign world was born and raised in America, and he is leading an expedition to the Europe to discover why it fell and went dark and how the same thing will be prevented in the New World. Here's the campaign's backstory.
Note: I'm using the names of the seven continents in real-world Earth for the sake of convenience, and to keep things from being too obvious from any of my players stumbling into this thread. The continents and empires are named differently in the actual game.
Over 3,000 years ago, there existed a legendary empire which we'll refer to as Fantasy Asia. Fantasy Asia reached the pinnacle of military, economic, and magical development and managed to unite and bring peace to an entire continent. It even managed to send explorers to the other continents and give them their names, which are still used in the present. About a thousand years after it was established, the outside world lost all contact with Fantasy Asia. Nothing came out of the empire continent, and no one is known to have entered and come back to tell the tale. Complicating matters was the Fantasy Great Wall, a series of impossibly-high walls that completely encircled the continent empire.
About a century after the fall of Fantasy Asia, the empire of Fantasy Europe was established by Fantasy Asian colonists. It, too, reached the heights of power, but after a thousand years, it fell to civil war and general anarchy due to a variety of natural and supernatural disasters, e.g. crop failures and famine due to the decline of agricultural magic that resulted in perfect yields, epidemics brought on by over-reliance on magical healing, etc. Due to the absence of a Fantasy Great Wall, the fall of Fantasy Europe was well-documented, though the inhabitants of other lands avoided the continent due to the violence.
About a century (are you seeing a pattern here?) after the fall of Fantasy Europe, the empire of Fantasy America was established. This is where the PCs and the Christopher Columbus analogue come from. It is the year 990, and the empire is fast reaching its Millennium. The Empress is concerned about the cycle repeating itself, and sponsored Columbus's voyage to the Old World to find out what threat, if any, the Empire will face in its thousand-year anniversary. The PCs are members of the expedition, each one handpicked by Columbus for their complementary skill sets.
I've decided that the reason why Asia and Europe fell is due to the overuse of magic. Specifically, the overuse of permanent magic items. I'm not talking about your typical +1 sword or bag of holding. I'm talking about magical civil engineering and public works, or as some people call it, magitech. However, the exact mechanics of the fall is what I need help with. Here's what I came up with:
1. The source of all magic is the Far Realm. Magic basically breaks the laws of physics by its very nature, and what plane of existence breaks reality more than the Far Realm? Too much magic concentrated in one area opens a rift to Cthulhuland, leading to a massive alien invasion. This is how Fantasy Asia fell, and why the Fantasy Great Wall exists; in its last days, its greatest mages erected the Great Wall not to keep the enemy out, but to keep the enemy trapped within.
2. Same as #1, but instead of physical creatures spilling forth from the Realm of Madness, it is the madness itself that spills forth. People went bat**** insane and ganked each other. This explains the anarchy and civil war in Fantasy Europe. It might also explain the Fantasy Great Wall around Fantasy Asia, an epic ritual that seals off the infected area since it was the best they could do.
3. Same as #2, but the rifts also warp the flesh. The alien invasion isn't; they're actually just mutated material plane denizens.
4. All of the above? Grimdark...
Regardless, I do have another concern. Over half my PCs have some spellcasting ability (a paladin, an arcane trickster, a warlock, and a possible ranger joining), how should their spellcasting affect or be affected by the Fantasy Europe rifts?
1. Spellcasting makes the rifts worse, causing more madness/mutations/aberrations, etc. Cue the horde of magic-hungry mutants and aberrations bum-rushing the first one unlucky enough to cast a cantrip. I was leaning towards this until I saw that the majority of applicants wanted to play full or partial spellcasters.
2. Spellcasting actually drains the rifts, allowing them to cast spells without expending spell slots and with enough spellcasting, allow an area to return to normal. Basically, permanent magic is the problem, not one-shot spells.
Now, there would probably be survivors, or rather, descendants of survivors in Fantasy Europe. I was wondering how they'd react to a party of mostly spellcasters wearing weird clothes and armor and wielding strange weapons:
1. BURN THE WITCH! The survivor societies have a spellcasting taboo due to misremembered tales about magic ending the world.
2. The expedition is hailed as gods and saviors of Fantasy Europe due to a prophecy about those who can heal the land (by draining the rifts) or maybe smite the unbelievers (by summoning more trouble from the rifts). Either way, the powerful survivor factions will do stupid things to prove their worth to the "gods," maybe even resulting in a civil war between those who believe and those who reject them as their gods.
3. Or both?
Thanks in advance for your replies. :smallcool:
I am currently in the recruitment stage of a D&D 5e campaign which I pitched as Columbus's Voyage, Inverted. Basically, the Columbus of my campaign world was born and raised in America, and he is leading an expedition to the Europe to discover why it fell and went dark and how the same thing will be prevented in the New World. Here's the campaign's backstory.
Note: I'm using the names of the seven continents in real-world Earth for the sake of convenience, and to keep things from being too obvious from any of my players stumbling into this thread. The continents and empires are named differently in the actual game.
Over 3,000 years ago, there existed a legendary empire which we'll refer to as Fantasy Asia. Fantasy Asia reached the pinnacle of military, economic, and magical development and managed to unite and bring peace to an entire continent. It even managed to send explorers to the other continents and give them their names, which are still used in the present. About a thousand years after it was established, the outside world lost all contact with Fantasy Asia. Nothing came out of the empire continent, and no one is known to have entered and come back to tell the tale. Complicating matters was the Fantasy Great Wall, a series of impossibly-high walls that completely encircled the continent empire.
About a century after the fall of Fantasy Asia, the empire of Fantasy Europe was established by Fantasy Asian colonists. It, too, reached the heights of power, but after a thousand years, it fell to civil war and general anarchy due to a variety of natural and supernatural disasters, e.g. crop failures and famine due to the decline of agricultural magic that resulted in perfect yields, epidemics brought on by over-reliance on magical healing, etc. Due to the absence of a Fantasy Great Wall, the fall of Fantasy Europe was well-documented, though the inhabitants of other lands avoided the continent due to the violence.
About a century (are you seeing a pattern here?) after the fall of Fantasy Europe, the empire of Fantasy America was established. This is where the PCs and the Christopher Columbus analogue come from. It is the year 990, and the empire is fast reaching its Millennium. The Empress is concerned about the cycle repeating itself, and sponsored Columbus's voyage to the Old World to find out what threat, if any, the Empire will face in its thousand-year anniversary. The PCs are members of the expedition, each one handpicked by Columbus for their complementary skill sets.
I've decided that the reason why Asia and Europe fell is due to the overuse of magic. Specifically, the overuse of permanent magic items. I'm not talking about your typical +1 sword or bag of holding. I'm talking about magical civil engineering and public works, or as some people call it, magitech. However, the exact mechanics of the fall is what I need help with. Here's what I came up with:
1. The source of all magic is the Far Realm. Magic basically breaks the laws of physics by its very nature, and what plane of existence breaks reality more than the Far Realm? Too much magic concentrated in one area opens a rift to Cthulhuland, leading to a massive alien invasion. This is how Fantasy Asia fell, and why the Fantasy Great Wall exists; in its last days, its greatest mages erected the Great Wall not to keep the enemy out, but to keep the enemy trapped within.
2. Same as #1, but instead of physical creatures spilling forth from the Realm of Madness, it is the madness itself that spills forth. People went bat**** insane and ganked each other. This explains the anarchy and civil war in Fantasy Europe. It might also explain the Fantasy Great Wall around Fantasy Asia, an epic ritual that seals off the infected area since it was the best they could do.
3. Same as #2, but the rifts also warp the flesh. The alien invasion isn't; they're actually just mutated material plane denizens.
4. All of the above? Grimdark...
Regardless, I do have another concern. Over half my PCs have some spellcasting ability (a paladin, an arcane trickster, a warlock, and a possible ranger joining), how should their spellcasting affect or be affected by the Fantasy Europe rifts?
1. Spellcasting makes the rifts worse, causing more madness/mutations/aberrations, etc. Cue the horde of magic-hungry mutants and aberrations bum-rushing the first one unlucky enough to cast a cantrip. I was leaning towards this until I saw that the majority of applicants wanted to play full or partial spellcasters.
2. Spellcasting actually drains the rifts, allowing them to cast spells without expending spell slots and with enough spellcasting, allow an area to return to normal. Basically, permanent magic is the problem, not one-shot spells.
Now, there would probably be survivors, or rather, descendants of survivors in Fantasy Europe. I was wondering how they'd react to a party of mostly spellcasters wearing weird clothes and armor and wielding strange weapons:
1. BURN THE WITCH! The survivor societies have a spellcasting taboo due to misremembered tales about magic ending the world.
2. The expedition is hailed as gods and saviors of Fantasy Europe due to a prophecy about those who can heal the land (by draining the rifts) or maybe smite the unbelievers (by summoning more trouble from the rifts). Either way, the powerful survivor factions will do stupid things to prove their worth to the "gods," maybe even resulting in a civil war between those who believe and those who reject them as their gods.
3. Or both?
Thanks in advance for your replies. :smallcool: