Ideas for lots of changes in the campaign world

[Dr TPK]

My campaign world is the default D&D 3.5. Greyhawk with a low-level bend to it.

The PCs have been away for a year and now they are returning. I'd like them to get surprised by what has been happening when they've been away.

Any ideas? The world has been very static, so you can easily go with the information given here in the OP.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

The easiest thing might be some war, revolt or uprising. Some large good kingdom is now an evil empire, half the continent has been overrun by peasant revolutions or the wilder regions have almost all been consolidated under the rule of some goblin warlord. Or maybe some large city has been overgrown with trees and nobody knows why. The problem with all of these is that they're plot hooks, you'd practically need to let the next bit of adventuring revolve around this stuff.

Alternatively, introduce some new technology. Preferably one that really changes peoples lives. Like a public system of "teleportals", a cheap and easy way to teleport from one city to the next. You could even get some sort of cultural change or fad to have a similar effect. The book "Casting for Dummies" has been the greatest hit since the invention of magically copied texts and anyone who's not literally fighting for their life in a gutter somewhere has picked it up and now has access to a couple of cantrips (because giving everyone one or two levels of sorcerer might be too game breaking), be sure to give the martial PC's the chance to get in on this too.

[DJroboninja]

I would go with some sort of natural disaster that has drastically altered some area of the world. Maybe their old home city was flooded by a tsunami and is still rebuilding, or a great earthquake shattered a coastline and transformed it into an island chain. Maybe a magical disaster tore a mountain out of the ground and it still floats in the air above the city of Greyhawk, causing people to wonder when it will fall.

Use it as set dressing or a plot hook - maybe everything is blanketed in snow, but it's the middle of summer, and the PCs need to figure out why.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I like a good transplanar invasion, myself. Say the rilmani, ethergaunts, or kaorti have established a solid beach-head somewhere in our world to a degree that a single adventuring group will likely be inadequate to uprooting them.

[DrMotives]

Or maybe some other band of adventurers has saved the world from some villain or disaster, and everyone is gushing about them. The PCs can find this party of NPC heroes are smug irritating people that are largely adored. Have them steal the PCs thunder once or twice, let the players get really annoyed at these people. Then they find the crazy raving lunatic who claims the NPC heroes manufactured the problems they solved. Most people ignore this guy, but the PCs are in a position to hope his ramblings have some merit, and investigate.

[atemu1234]

Gemstones rain from the sky, and none knows why. But by the night, creatures are... changing.