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Kingscourt
2015-07-13, 09:20 AM
Hey playground! I'm looking to start a new campaign, with one of the main features being that night has permanently fallen upon the world (The moon rises through the sky, and then instead of the sun coming up it's just more darkness) and I'm looking for any ideas for more of the practical implications this would have. I'm talking about just general fluff, how the day-to-day of people's lives would change, as well as big DnD implications (looking your way vampires) this kind of event would have upon the world. I'd love to hear them, thanks!

comicshorse
2015-07-13, 09:39 AM
The first thing that occurs to me is what are plants going to do with no sunlight. Unless some serious magic can be worked to provide Sunlight type spells then crops are going to die and there will be waves of mass famine.
Assuming a DnD type set up he only way I can think to fix this would be for edible fungus to be imported from the Underdark, as they can clearly grow without sunlight. This could have many effects on your game world ; perhaps the surface races had to invade the Underdark to secure the fungi they needed to survive triggering a huge war, or a more peaceful solution was found with trade now at previously unprecedented levels, or perhaps the races of the Underdark seized the opportunity of the surface world being weakened by mass starvation to invade the now sunless world and conquer it

JellyPooga
2015-07-13, 09:41 AM
Without the sun, plants wither and die, crops fail and forests defoliate. Herbivorous animals and insects starve and in turn, carnivorous ones run out of prey. Famine ravages the land, people turn to in-fighting and cannibalism to survive and civilisation as we know it falls into savagery and turmoil...

...in the mean-time, without the warming heat of the sun, the land is plunged into a new ice-age, accelerating the burgeoning famine and frost kills off those life-forms that can survive without the light of the sun. The ice-giants ride their glaciers across the land, laying waste to the cities of man and eventually come to the gates of the home of the gods and lay siege. With their worshippers having abandoned their faith because of the fall of civilisation, the gods are powerless before the raw might of the ice-giants and swiftly fall to their mighty axes and hammers. The king of the ice-giants sits in the Throne of Olympus and a new era begins in the annals of [insert world-name here]; a frozen wasteland populated by death and anarchy...

...With the advent of the new era, the nether Hells see an opportunity; the gods have fallen and chaos rules. The demon lords and archdevils muster their forces and strike a truce and open the gateways to the mortal realm, spilling their numberless legions across the land, spreading chaos and death to the last few pockets of warmth and life in the world...

...with the massive influx of the dead, the forces of undeath swell and their bloated hordes cannot be contained by mere cold; rather, they thrive without the need for sustenance. A new kingdom of the dead arises, building bastions against the legions of the damned, their tireless troops working and fighting endlessly; no need for rest or recuperation...

tl;dr You're talking about a bona fide apocalypse, dude!

Reltzik
2015-07-13, 09:44 AM
Hey playground! I'm looking to start a new campaign, with one of the main features being that night has permanently fallen upon the world (The moon rises through the sky, and then instead of the sun coming up it's just more darkness) and I'm looking for any ideas for more of the practical implications this would have. I'm talking about just general fluff, how the day-to-day of people's lives would change, as well as big DnD implications (looking your way vampires) this kind of event would have upon the world. I'd love to hear them, thanks!

You can start by perusing this (http://what-if.xkcd.com/49/) article.

The first major challenge for a planet anything like Earth will be, how to keep from turning into a giant ball of water ice and frozen atmosphere. ... yes, atmosphere can freeze. Nitrogen freezes at -210 celsius, oxygen at -218, and yes, things would get THAT COLD without the sun. If we want a civilization that has air to breathe, crops to irrigate, and a desire to avoid cryostasis, this is not a good thing.

One possible solution is to say that the sun exists, but that the planet is tidally locked with it. One point on the planet always faces the sun and another always faces away. As a bonus, this would explain why the moon is visible rather than just a pitch-black rock in a pitch-black night. This is... slightly better, but not much. The side facing away from the sun would still freeze something bad, though the atmosphere would probably stay gaseous or at least liquid. The side facing towards the sun would become a parched, even molten, dessert. But in between the two, caught between fire and ice, would be a strip of relative habitability. This might be just over the horizon from the sun.

... I did say "relative" habitability. The katabatic winds would be awful and probably average somewhere around hurricane force. They'd also be terribly cold and dry. Almost all moisture would be locked into the ice half of the planet. Maybe some glaciers could be thawed or tapped for irrigation or would calve naturally into rivers.

Some other possible solutions might be geothermal energy creating habitable zones through outventing, hot springs, and vulcanism, technological (or magitek) creation of heat, or some sort of naturally magic process. All of these would have to be extremely large-scale.

This brings us to the second problem: Light, and in particular the need for every plant on Earth to photosynthesize. Without light, you don't have plants. Without plants you don't have food, medicine, fodder for animals, building materials, or oxygen recycling.

How to solve this? Perhaps the moon is bright enough to reflect enough light to allow for some photosynthesis... in which case, it functions almost like a sun, rendering the question meaningless. Other than that, you'd either have to populate the world entirely with fantasy low-light plants capable of growing entirely in moonlight, or introduce some magical element (like artificial lighting from, well, magic) to make the plants grow. Artificial lighting to make plants grow would, coincidentally, mean that there's no such thing as a wild forest.

All this is if the planet is relatively Earth-like and mostly follows laws of physics. In a fantasy setting you can handwave most of this away. But you'd be getting into the whole "it's just magic" explanation a lot.

goto124
2015-07-13, 09:49 AM
Or... I dunno... maybe it's been a week/month/blah after the sun disappeared, enough time for people to live in some sort of apocalypse, but not enough time for all resources to run out yet? Citizens go around scavenging for firewood, food, etc?

And it's up to the adventurers to bring the sun back!

Though, you'll have to check that your players would want an apocalypse-style setting, and also find a system that supports it.

Kingscourt
2015-07-13, 10:13 AM
Yeah, you guys definitely make a lot of good points about the temperature/plants haha. This is a magical event, which is why the moon is still visible and the world doesn't just freeze over with everyone dying, although I want to make the temperature more volatile.

The point about needing to raid/trade the under dark for fungi is a great point I'll have to incorporate into the setting, and adding low-moonlight vegetation sounds really like a great way to give the campaign world a unique feel.

I know it'd have to affect people psychologically too, I want to create a pretty grim atmosphere. Like not quite apocalyptic, but on the verge of becoming so real fast. Anyways these are great, would love to hear more! :smallbiggrin:

EDIT: The undead/forces of hell are going to play a big part in this campaign as well. They definitely see this as an opportunity to wreak havoc, and I kind of want to use them as a big enough threat to make living races band together just to survive (I want to create a weird Drow/Dwarf kingdom born out of necessity and so on).

comicshorse
2015-07-13, 10:41 AM
This is definitely going to be a bad time to be a Cleric of Pelor ( or any other sun god). I could see all sorts of nasty limitations on their powers, not to mention them being blamed for the sun disappearing and being hunted down by people looking to blame someone for this disaster
Which also sets things up for a lone group of Pelor Clerics (its always cool to be the last of your kind) desperately questing for the power to return their god to his former glory while being persecuted by the general populace and hunted down by Pelor's enemies seeking to extinguish the last of his worshipers

Honest Tiefling
2015-07-13, 10:54 AM
If there's a food source available in terms of the underdark or low moonlight plants, someone is taking advantage of it. In the terms of a plant that grows in low moonlight, someone has to probably grow it and distrubute it. It it is a religion, they might suddenly gain a crap ton of followers either simply by being the god of the moon and having food, or by forcing people to follow it in return for the food. If a wizard did it, then they stand to make a good deal of coin from hungry, desperate people. If druids are behind it, then they might only distribute it to people that work with their beliefs, so they don't have to worry about people who don't listen to them and log too much if the sun ever comes back.

Also, the livestock are probably dead as it would be impossible to keep them alive in the initial chaos and they would be slaughtered quickly. This would have problems, because in many societies rely on them for food and other resources. With the already limited food and now a lack of milk combined with a lack of sunlight, rickets would be extremely common among other diseases. Mortality rates would be astronomical among young children, most of which would probably die. Depending on how long it has lasted, giving birth for at least human women would be a near death sentence as the previously mentioned rickets sets in. You can forget about sex being a thing, as the lack of protein being present would kill sex drives. Also, producing a child would mean a hungry mouth that is likely to die anyway, and if it survived, would have to be abandoned, killed or sold anyway.

I assume some sort of DnDish world, but I don't get why there would be a dwarf/drow civilization. To me, it makes little sense. The elves already have -2 constitution, and a lack of food isn't helping that. So I would imagine that the drow are too busy murdering the crap out of elves now that they have the advantage. Why would a lack of sunlight bother the drow? They aren't desperate, so they have no reason to ally with the dwarves. If anything, they might become more xenophobic because a lack of sun means they see perfectly fine and can use their normal food to survive and should use this to eradicate all non-drow.

I would also imagine that the other underdark races would jealously guard this food, and probably enslave anyone willing to come down to the underdark to get it. There is also the matter that this food would have to be exported in large quantities, especially if it cannot grow outside of the underdark. Which means large, vulnerable caravans with little chance of getting back out due to the massive number of people, carts, and little mobility.

There would also be the problem of fuel. Even if the world is not plunged into freezing temperatures, it is still cold. Fuel would also be needed for light to accomplish anything for races without dark vision or low-light vision. Which would probably lead to over-logging, especially since the plants are going to die anyway. And regardless of how they die, erosion will be a factor as dead plants clog up waterways filled with dirt, drastically reducing clean water supplies. Not to mention things that live in the forest, without any food coming and raiding settlements. I imagine even dangerous herbivores like elephants and hippopotamuses would raid villages, possibly killing a lot of commoners to get at this underdark fungus. Add in more dangerous RPG ones with possible magic, and well, now both herbivores and carnivores are attacking settlements and each other closer to these settlements.

As mentioned, religions revolving around the sun are probably going to collapse. Any region without sufficient food will also collapse as powerful people kill (or even eat) less strong people to survive. This would be a prime time to assassinate anyone, especially for religions and other practitioners of magic involving darkness, moon, suffering or cold. Religions would probably fight each other, especially as temples in remote areas probably have stockpiles of food and other resources unavailable currently. The armies might seize upon this opportunity, slaughtering any unpopular religions or smaller nations to get their food for their own people.

Racial tensions would be extremely high, as races would probably turn to killing and eating each other before venturing into the underdark. In the underdark, you might only have a 20% chance of getting out alive at best, so why not raid the village of strange looking people first? Even if the races do not resort to cannibalism (is it even cannibalism? I don't know.) they will be more then willing to raid these villages for resources, leaving them to die of starvation, thirst, and cold. Elves, being both druidy and having that -2 constitution might be the first victims if their arcane magical power isn't strong enough to deter invaders on the fringes. Any race with a justification to not be fully sentient might get eaten if people can justify it. I imagine a lot of plant races would fall to this, as it would be easier to justify.

I imagine the whole oxygen problem is being ignored, however.

goto124
2015-07-13, 10:57 AM
What do drows and dwarves eat anyway?

Honest Tiefling
2015-07-13, 11:17 AM
Oh, I nearly forgot: Winter is a death sentence for any unprepared community that lacks fuel, warm clothing/blankets, and food. This is assuming a more temperate climate like that of Europe, however. But if they do not have a way to get warm and keep warm, large numbers of people will die to hypothermia and illness. As food would be especially scarce and needed in winter, it would not be surprising if remote villages and towns all died in bad winters.

In other regions, overly hot seasons or rainy seasons might kill off large swathes of the population. Hot seasons would rely on water which is now fouled due to the lack of plants keeping the river banks tidy, and rainy seasons would destroy buildings that cannot be replaced easily.

Any industry relying on wood is probably halted. Which would mean that obvious contenders like blacksmithing and building probably end completely except where remaining infrastructure and order prevail, but only in limited amounts. Mining probably needs wood for both smelting and supports, so is likewise halted. The Underdark probably has an equivalent to wood, but given that missions going there are dangerous enough, people are probably more focused on food then wood.

Also, with large amounts of dead come large amounts of disease. Predators would likely fight over these corpses, bringing them even closer to civilization. If any get into water supplies or are left to rot, then plague will strike. Admittedly, the lower temperatures will help keep bodies from rotting too quickly, but will still be a problem in warmer climes.

ZeroGear
2015-07-13, 08:29 PM
There are a few ways around the "horrible death by plant freezing" phenomenon:

1) Instead of the sun just going out, it is instead a permanent eclipse. Simply have a second moon, which is conveniently large enough, distant enough, and moving at the correct angle to cover the entire planet in it's penumbra.
Thinking logically, the reason the moon shines is because it reflects the rays of the sun, right? Therefore it is possible that while there is reduced amount of sunlight, the planet would still exist in a permanent state of dim twilight. If just enough light gets to the surface, then plants may be able to survive, but would drastically change. Corps would most likely have large leaves to soak up as much sunlight as possible, creating large, leafy canopies that covered anything below in swaths of shadow. Fungi would abound, as they are quite well adapted to living in darkness, and fauna would adapt to deal with these changes.

2) Rather than having no sun, have the planet covered in a thick cloud covering that only lets a very small amount of light through. Similar to option 1, but just at a lower altitude.

3) Have a dim, artificial sun closer to the planet. Take a look at Tagami Bashi (known as the manga/anime "Letter Bee") for examples of this.

Hope this helps.

Steampunkette
2015-07-13, 09:14 PM
Another option: The Sun Goes out, plants still grow normally.

Because freaking MAGIC that's why.

Just because the Sun went out doesn't mean the God of the Harvest and the god of Plants and the God of "Putting Food on the freaking table" up and quit. They keep their stuff going rain or shine and allow the world to continue on.

Meanwhile the Fire God or Demons or whatever at the heart of the world pump out enough Geothermal Energy to keep Apocalypse winter at bay.

Because MAGIC.

DataNinja
2015-07-13, 10:50 PM
Another option is to have the riskier (read: foolish) Mages open portals to (the warm regions only of) Hell. Hey there, devils! Yeah, as long as we regularly sacrifice souls to you we can get heat, light and warmth through these flaming portals? Sounds Great!

Kitten Champion
2015-07-13, 11:34 PM
There's a high fantasy series by David Arenson called The Moth Saga (http://www.danielarenson.com/Moth1-3.aspx) in which half the world is eternal daylight and half endless night. For your purposes Arenson does a reasonable job of describing the Japanese-inspired night half of the Moth world - the kinds of flora and fauna that have adapted to the environment, etc.

comicshorse
2015-07-14, 05:31 AM
You might also consider giving Gemini a look

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/classic/rev_5386.phtml

Mastikator
2015-07-14, 07:53 AM
What do drows and dwarves eat anyway?

Magically conjured food. A underdark type ecosystem is not even remotely viable from a realistic standpoint. The supernatural should account for about 99% of underdark biological acitivies.

In a darkened DnD world magic would be the only option, using create food spells to feed yourself and keeping a gate to the elemental plane of fire open at all times just to have a smidgen of warmth. That's basically it, if you can't 100% sustain yourself on some supernatural source then that's game over for you.

A couple of clerics would survive until they die of old age. Procreation is not an option because they'd be so far and few in between that they'd live lonely horrible lives.

Undead creatures that do not require the living to survive would be fine though, but it would be more hellish than any of the outer planes, including the abyss. So even demons would avoid the dark world.

Strigon
2015-07-14, 12:31 PM
Oh, I nearly forgot: Winter is a death sentence for any unprepared community that lacks fuel, warm clothing/blankets, and food. This is assuming a more temperate climate like that of Europe, however. But if they do not have a way to get warm and keep warm, large numbers of people will die to hypothermia and illness. As food would be especially scarce and needed in winter, it would not be surprising if remote villages and towns all died in bad winters.

In other regions, overly hot seasons or rainy seasons might kill off large swathes of the population. Hot seasons would rely on water which is now fouled due to the lack of plants keeping the river banks tidy, and rainy seasons would destroy buildings that cannot be replaced easily.

Any industry relying on wood is probably halted. Which would mean that obvious contenders like blacksmithing and building probably end completely except where remaining infrastructure and order prevail, but only in limited amounts. Mining probably needs wood for both smelting and supports, so is likewise halted. The Underdark probably has an equivalent to wood, but given that missions going there are dangerous enough, people are probably more focused on food then wood.

The seasons are entirely reliant on the sun.
Either the sun is entirely gone, and there are no seasons, or the sun is gone but some effects remain, and plants might still grow.

Really, I'd find some way of keeping the plants growing (Though maybe at a reduced rate or in smaller patches.) Personally, I'd just say the druids, rangers and clerics use magic to tend to the plants and crops. Less food, but not no food.

Also, I would consider this a wasted opportunity if you didn't put something out there in the dark. Some awful predator, be it a race, or a single entity that might even be the one responsible for the whole mess. Just make sure it's threatening and unique, because this is the perfect place to throw in a truly terrifying monster.

TheCountAlucard
2015-07-14, 12:36 PM
Another option is to have the riskier (read: foolish) Mages open portals to (the warm regions only of) Hell. Hey there, devils! Yeah, as long as we regularly sacrifice souls to you we can get heat, light and warmth through these flaming portals? Sounds Great!
If they're smart enough to know about the plane of hell they're smart enough to know about the plane of Fire, and would probably think to open a portal there first.

Honest Tiefling
2015-07-14, 12:48 PM
The seasons are entirely reliant on the sun.
Either the sun is entirely gone, and there are no seasons, or the sun is gone but some effects remain, and plants might still grow.

I assumed that if freezing and oxygen and some things were not a problem, that something was making for seasons. But that is a good point.

Deepbluediver
2015-07-14, 01:26 PM
Yeah, you guys definitely make a lot of good points about the temperature/plants haha. This is a magical event, which is why the moon is still visible and the world doesn't just freeze over with everyone dying, although I want to make the temperature more volatile.
Sounds like a good opportunity to place the entire campaign underground, where creatures and civilizations rely on thermal heat from the planet's core to provide the energy needed to maintain an ecosystem. The surface is a frozen wasteland where civilized races venture only occasionally to scavenge from the remnants of the old world for resources and lost technology and artifacts.


If you're dead-set on keeping things surface-bound, my next question is how "soft" are you willing to go with the science? Something like the planet's sun went super-nova and ended up as a dwarf-star, and although the planet survived it was blown into a weird elliptical orbit. Everything is much darker because there is less light coming from the star is substantially decreased and people have to try to stock up on resources during the brief interludes in between the planet careening to close to or far from the diminished sun.

NRSASD
2015-07-14, 01:51 PM
A really fun concept that is admittedly soft science is the idea of an infrared star, i.e. a star that produces all forms of radiation except visible light. In Night of Masks by Andre Norton, the protagonist gets stranded on a world that has no visible light, but a 40 C climate. The oceans boiled away due to a solar flare a couple hundred years ago, resulting in torrential monsoons that fell periodically. The wildlife was an interesting hybrid of tropical and cave dwelling, as they recently emerged from the caverns below to repopulate the surface after the flare. The only light sources on the world were artificial lights from the research station, or bioluminescent lures used by large predators to draw prey. While the story itself was decent, the setting was quite a lot of fun.

In your setting, has the sun suddenly disappeared? Or was there never a sun to begin with?

Wardog
2015-07-15, 05:10 PM
What do drows and dwarves eat anyway?

Minced plump helmets, minced tallow, minced tallow, and minced beer. Roasted.

Kami2awa
2015-07-16, 02:06 AM
I initially read this as "A world of eternal light". Those have been done too, like Valinor before the destruction of the trees, or the nine-sun world of Isaac Asimov's Nightfall. Such a world would also be pretty weird.

How about a world where the sun is not dark yet, but it's slowly going out? The world of eternal twilig- OK, we'll think of a better name.

ShaneMRoth
2015-07-16, 02:27 AM
Perhaps you take a cue from underground ecosystems.

Bio-luminescence.

Mushroom forests.

Stuff like that.

Only above ground.

TheCountAlucard
2015-07-16, 03:52 AM
How about a world where the sun is not dark yet, but it's slowly going out?That was actually one of the inspirations for D&D; when you get a chance, see if your library has anything by Jack Vance.

ILM
2015-07-22, 04:59 AM
I'd also like to point out that people don't like the dark generally, and that they'll be cold. In a medieval setting where cities are basically built out of wood, that means fire - lots of it. Your urban centers will probably burn before they freeze.