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View Full Version : DM Help Greatest Multiverse-shattering disasters in DnD and other tabletops



Dark_Ansem
2015-05-31, 07:44 AM
I'd like to know which are, in your opinion, the greatest disasters in the D&D world that caused reality-shattering events, with pieces of other realities pouring and mixing with each other. If you do post an example, also an explanation if possible! I'm building an epic campaign and I would like a solid start.

all tabletops welcome, even sci-fi! Moderator, if appropriate move to another section.

Bard1cKnowledge
2015-05-31, 01:36 PM
Everything in the Mulmaster campaign of 5e, that place is lousy with elemental portals (especially fire, my char has a well justified fear of it)

Dark_Ansem
2015-05-31, 01:51 PM
thanks, I'll check that, but I am hoping for something with a lot of Background information on why such a thing could happen.

Hawkstar
2015-05-31, 02:41 PM
Is it bad that the only thing that I can really think of is the Forgotten Realm's Spellplague? The catastrophe so bad that it not only destroyed the setting, but also the edition it heralded? And, of course, it happened because of forces greater than the entire cosmos willed it so.

Dark_Ansem
2015-05-31, 04:09 PM
it's not bad, but there is not that strong element of multiverse tearing I'm trying to emphasize :D

Honest Tiefling
2015-05-31, 04:24 PM
I think the Spellplague should go back on the list so I am renominating it. I mean, among a list of very strange effects, you have continents deciding to wander off and other ones leaping in to replace them. I mean, it is literally world shattering stuff here!

As for your original query, wouldn't that be a great start to a campaign? Start off lowish with dealing with massive tsunami and earthquakes and cleaning up after such only to realize that a continent with very important stuff has disappeared (Could include the holy land, a portal to the underwold, valuable natural resources or a center of magical item crafting) and is replaced with angry dragonmen who don't speak the same language, use different magic, and might find you delicious and easily conquerable.

Or you can go with ilithids, who were previously thought to have been sealed away and now they've returned via this strange new continent. Tentacley goodness for everyone!

Dark_Ansem
2015-05-31, 04:31 PM
Illithids.. I actually was trying to avoid them, as time-travel is confusing for me :P unless you have a better idea?

Zaydos
2015-05-31, 04:39 PM
Might could look into Die, Vecna, Die! and the surrounding storyline since it was the excuse for the edition change between 2e and 3e and involves Vecna messing with a planar keystone (Sigil) and remaking reality in the process.

Honest Tiefling
2015-05-31, 04:41 PM
Illithids.. I actually was trying to avoid them, as time-travel is confusing for me :P unless you have a better idea?

Ditch it and have them or another race of aberrations (Aboleths are popular nowadays) popping in because a new continent decided to show up and say hi. No time travel needed in this case, but you will need to ditch their established fluff. Since I hate time travel, I'm rather okay with this plan of action.

AvatarVecna
2015-05-31, 04:44 PM
Multiverse shattering disasters? Exalted. Just...everything. Everything is multiverse shattering.

Dark_Ansem
2015-05-31, 04:45 PM
I actually was thinking of Die Vecna Die :P as a first choice... Exalted seems promising tho

Brookshw
2015-05-31, 06:37 PM
Not sure if you mean "present" time or anywhere in a setting. For example Athas' cleansing wars and Boris' transformation are both pretty monumental in Dark Sun (or just Rajaat's rise to power) but all happens prior to the current day and age, similar to Shadowrun's ghost dance perhaps. I doubt either is considered multiverse shattering but by way of example. I suppose the start of the law between law/chaos is one that exists in the past of D&D. There's little shortage of such examples in just about any setting really.

Dark_Ansem
2015-06-01, 12:48 AM
I mean "anywhere in a setting."

TheCountAlucard
2015-06-01, 02:10 AM
How about the Exalted setting and the "Time of Cascading Years?"

Essentially, something happened of such significance that it caused a Creation-wide breakdown of reality. The problem was eventually solved, but all the survivors experienced how much time passed during the crisis differently. For some it was a very weird day or hour, but for others it was a week or a year or a thousand years or more.
There was also, thousands of years later, the dual terror of the Great Contagion and the Balorian Crusade.

A mysterious disease spread out of the eastern edges of Creation; it rolled over the world like a tidal wave, killing nine-tenths of the world's population in a very short time. It was so virulent that using the Loom of Fate to examine the destiny of someone infected was a vector for contamination. The gods of heaven sealed the portals to the Celestial City, and hoped against all hope that the world would survive.

At the same time, a force of chaotic outsiders from beyond the borders of the world looked across the gulf into shaped existence, seething with hatred for this blemish on their perfect chaos. They invaded by the billions, eroding reality itself with their passage, until the ordered world began to unravel. Creation itself eroded away as the edges dissolved into chaos, until the woman who would be the Scarlet Empress activated the defense system of the long-dead ancients, turning back the tide of chaos and slaying the armies. From this ruined world, she built her glorious empire.
Of course, thousands of years before, there was the Primordial War...

It was a turning point of history. The gods grew tired under the yoke of their great and terrible makers, but were unable to directly fight their makers. Seeing that humanity shared their plight, they empowered the best of humanity to fight for their cause and cast down the powerful Primordials.

It was nigh-unbelievable in scope. The armies of mankind versus the titans themselves, and surprisingly, the Exalted won. They slew many among the makers of the world, and turned their general-king inside-out, casting his brother- and sister-titans inside his body, casting it out beyond Creation, where it became the Demon City. Thus began the First Age of Man.
Or the Usurpation!

The Solar Exalted raised Creation up, and built on it a glorious and beautiful First Age. But in the fullness of time they grew mad with their power, and threatened the stability of the world itself. Their viziers, the Sidereal Exalted, cast a great prophecy into the Loom of Fate, and a number of them determined that the best course of action was to overthrow the Solar overlords. The Dragon-Blooded lieutenants of the Solar Exalted were folded into the conspiracy, and on one portentious night, they rose up and slew their rulers. The Sidereals disappeared from the world as the Dragon-Blooded set themselves up as the new masters of Creation.
Exalted has a lot of tumultuous events in its backstory; in fact, the game starts with a pretty tumultuous thing happening (the Solars begin reincarnating anew), so I guess that's to be expected. :smallwink:

EDIT: Yes, I know Exalted had already been mentioned, but I was providing details like the OP asked.

Dark_Ansem
2015-06-01, 02:28 AM
How about the Exalted setting and the "Time of Cascading Years?"

Essentially, something happened of such significance that it caused a Creation-wide breakdown of reality. The problem was eventually solved, but all the survivors experienced how much time passed during the crisis differently. For some it was a very weird day or hour, but for others it was a week or a year or a thousand years or more.
There was also, thousands of years later, the dual terror of the Great Contagion and the Balorian Crusade.

A mysterious disease spread out of the eastern edges of Creation; it rolled over the world like a tidal wave, killing nine-tenths of the world's population in a very short time. It was so virulent that using the Loom of Fate to examine the destiny of someone infected was a vector for contamination. The gods of heaven sealed the portals to the Celestial City, and hoped against all hope that the world would survive.

At the same time, a force of chaotic outsiders from beyond the borders of the world looked across the gulf into shaped existence, seething with hatred for this blemish on their perfect chaos. They invaded by the billions, eroding reality itself with their passage, until the ordered world began to unravel. Creation itself eroded away as the edges dissolved into chaos, until the woman who would be the Scarlet Empress activated the defense system of the long-dead ancients, turning back the tide of chaos and slaying the armies. From this ruined world, she built her glorious empire.
Of course, thousands of years before, there was the Primordial War...

It was a turning point of history. The gods grew tired under the yoke of their great and terrible makers, but were unable to directly fight their makers. Seeing that humanity shared their plight, they empowered the best of humanity to fight for their cause and cast down the powerful Primordials.

It was nigh-unbelievable in scope. The armies of mankind versus the titans themselves, and surprisingly, the Exalted won. They slew many among the makers of the world, and turned their general-king inside-out, casting his brother- and sister-titans inside his body, casting it out beyond Creation, where it became the Demon City. Thus began the First Age of Man.
Or the Usurpation!

The Solar Exalted raised Creation up, and built on it a glorious and beautiful First Age. But in the fullness of time they grew mad with their power, and threatened the stability of the world itself. Their viziers, the Sidereal Exalted, cast a great prophecy into the Loom of Fate, and a number of them determined that the best course of action was to overthrow the Solar overlords. The Dragon-Blooded lieutenants of the Solar Exalted were folded into the conspiracy, and on one portentious night, they rose up and slew their rulers. The Sidereals disappeared from the world as the Dragon-Blooded set themselves up as the new masters of Creation.
Exalted has a lot of tumultuous events in its backstory; in fact, the game starts with a pretty tumultuous thing happening (the Solars begin reincarnating anew), so I guess that's to be expected. :smallwink:

EDIT: Yes, I know Exalted had already been mentioned, but I was providing details like the OP asked.

and for this detail, I thank you very much :)

TheCountAlucard
2015-06-01, 03:53 AM
If you want another example of worlds colliding in Exalted, albeit on a less grand scale, there's shadowlands and bordermarches.

The Underworld is a dead world, created from the dreams of those who made the world as they lay dying. It is the lands of the living, reflected through a blackened, shattered mirror. Beneath its skin writhes a bizarre labyinth, like worms infesting a corpse, and at its center is the hungry mouth of Oblivion. Ghosts and shadows reside in the Underworld, living off the prayers and offerings of the living, and plasmic beasts stalk its forests. It is a strange, beautiful place, but few among the living ever see it, for it is a world apart from ours.

Except, of course, where shadowlands are concerned.

Few are certain as to what is sufficient to make a shadowland, but it's generally accepted that most shadowlands are the sites of atrocities committed on a grand scale, or places where many deaths took place over a short time: the viciousness of the Battle of Futile Blood resulted in a shadowland forming; the city of Chiaroscuro is pockmarked with many small shadowlands in neighborhoods where the Great Contagion struck particularly hard; when the armies of Lookshy set off a First Age artifact that destroyed the souls of an entire Realm Legion, the battlefield became a shadowland; the sudden invasion of the ghost-king known as the Mask of Winters, and the great necromantic works he set in motion, plunged all of Thorns into a shadowland; in the years after the Usurpation, a mad and cruel Dragon-Blooded created a death-camp for the glorious living creations of the Solar Exalted, for fear of where their loyalties might lie, and in its wake, a shadowland spread.

A shadowland is a place where the lands of the living and the lands of the dead intersect - it effectively exists in both worlds simultaneously. Ghosts walk the streets at night, and ancestor-worship is common. Those crossing the borders of a shadowland must take care - during the day, the watchful eye of the sun keeps the dead in their place and keeps the Underworld from dragging the living into the world of the dead, but at night, they are afforded no such protection, and ghosts may slip into Creation.
The Wyld is a churning cauldron of myth and chaos. It is a vast, perhaps infinite world, a fantastical place where dreams and nightmares can be found. It is inhabited by raksha and other lords of chaos, called "Fair Folk" by the people of Creation. Entire worlds are birthed or destroyed in the Wyld, for its chaos lacks permanence; the Fair Folk play at games with one another amidst the chaos, and take notice of the stable, ordered nature of our world.

Once the realms of Creation and the Wyld were separate from each other, marked by discrete borders; in the time since the Balorian Crusade, though, the Wyld has eroded the borders of Creation, and washed away at its order like sand on a beach. The resulting "Bordermarches" are, to the people of Creation, strange places where the world behaves a little differently. The energies of the Wyld make the locale unstable and warp its flora and fauna. Bordermarches are also subject to predation from deeper in the Wyld, as Fair Folk steal out from their realms to devour the dreams and souls of mortals, a most nourishing meal for these rapacious fey creatures.

Kriton
2015-06-01, 10:08 AM
I don't know if this helps or not, since it's not published or anything.

An old DM of mine, used to run the same world shattering campaign over and over with slight variations. His system of choice was 3.5 DnD probably because it was the system he was most familiar with.

The basic idea was that for reasons(usually due to the actions of a certain Mary Sue mortal npc, that wants to "liberate" the cosmos from the influence of the gods), every outsider of the wheel ends up some how on the prime material(ok maybe not everyone, but quite more than enough).

The result of this is that the blood-war spills on the material plane, the various angels and archons do their thing, and the PCs get to murderhobo all over the place versus things with SR and at will teleport.

cesius
2015-06-01, 09:24 PM
Demon: The Fallen has a big one but the nature of it is one of the great mysteries of the setting. Reality previous had multiple layers which allowed for paradox and other mythic aspects of existence. When the Fallen get out of the pit all but one layer of reality is left, the afterlife is missing, the loyalists and god are missing, and there are these weird new demi-dimensions like Arcadia.

Maglubiyet
2015-06-01, 09:47 PM
Since no one has mentioned it yet, I'll throw out the Time of Troubles (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Time_of_Troubles) from the Forgotten Realms. It was pretty devastating, though I don't know if it qualifies as other realities mixing. The gods were forced to walk the world in mortal form and several of them were killed and/or replaced. Predates the Spellplague.

Honest Tiefling
2015-06-01, 09:57 PM
Since no one has mentioned it yet, I'll throw out the Time of Troubles (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Time_of_Troubles) from the Forgotten Realms. It was pretty devastating, though I don't know if it qualifies as other realities mixing. The gods were forced to walk the world in mortal form and several of them were killed and/or replaced. Predates the Spellplague.

I don't know if the time of troubles is a great example. Gods walking the earth and an epic plot to off as many of the ones you don't like before they ascend again? Great plot! But...No one seems to really mention it all that much aside from hating Helm. I think there's more information regarding how people dislike Helm then there is on the events that actually caused people to dislike him. Sure, the weave was disrupted, but...How? What did it do? Make Wild Magic areas? This is so rarely mentioned I am not even sure that a whole lot of these really exist. Not a lot of mention of any political or trade upheaval that might have gone on during this. Kinda felt like people just went back to their own business after that whole affair. I mean, people hate Helm...But never stop to think that maybe, this might all happen again, so let's be a bit more careful with magic? Or ask, hey, wait, HOW did this happen? Apparently no one knows or bothers to find out what caused the gods to all try to sleep on the couch of Faerun all at once.

Through there's an idea, something world shattering happens...And everyone but the party thinks it is completely and utterly natural. Those crazy vampires and their death cult? Been there for generations! Those fashionable scarves that are revealed to be grafted parasitic lifeforms? Nothing to worry about, you ol' worry wort! Been like that for decades, hasn't gotten worse, so why worry? Bottomless chasm in the middle of the sea? Eh, sea god would say something if it was a big deal, but he's been pretty quiet. Probably nothing to worry about.

Dark_Ansem
2015-06-01, 11:42 PM
All great ideas :) please continue to share!

Khedrac
2015-06-02, 06:42 AM
Some of Glorantha's history counts I think:

Prehistory:
The Greater Darkness (war of the gods versus chaos) ending with the "I fought we won" battle and the start of time.

History:
The destruction of Jrustela and the closing of the oceans coupled with the Dragonkill War.

Near Future/Current:
The Hero Wars.

Segev
2015-06-02, 11:04 AM
Tenebrous's plot to ressurect himself as Orcus led to some pretty multiverse-damaging effects. Multiple gods of secrets slain, the modrons operating off-schedule, the creation of undead outsiders...

xroads
2015-06-02, 11:25 AM
all tabletops welcome, even sci-fi!

Well, in that case, how about Gamma World (the version that uses D&D 4ed rules)? The setting is an apocalyptical wasteland that exist because the Hadron Collider somehow tore numerous dimensional rifts in the universe. These rifts allow for the creatures (and the laws of physics), from these dimensions to pour into ours.

In the same vein, you could try RIFTS as well. If memory serves, it has a similar problem with dimensional rifts.

GungHo
2015-06-02, 12:56 PM
I enjoyed Dragonlance's Cataclysm, both in the after effects of the "initial" Dragons of Autumn Twilight setup and in the later Majere Twins/Legends series as a "current event" with the time travel chicanery.

Unfortunately, despite it being all cute to begin with, like with the Forgotten Realms, they just couldn't stop poking it with a stick and eventually it got sepsis.