The sea god is even angrier than usual. Ideas for consequences?

[OttoVonBigby]

Right now, in my fairly standard medieval-style D&D setting, I am running a "prequel campaign" of sorts set smack in the middle of a well-established historical event in the setting, the "Hundred-Year Fury" of the sea god. What happens is that the seas become almost completely unnavigable during that time; ships that are unusually well-equipped and -crewed can risk short voyages without leaving sight of land, but beyond that, ceaseless storms and terribly immense Cape Horn-like waves will sink anybody.

The reasons why this happened have been (at least partially) established in another campaign, but totally unknown to the people living during the Fury. The reason(s) it *ends*, I haven't decided; I'm happy to chalk it up to divine whim (the sea god is CN).

What I'm curious about is what you folks would put into the setting as day-to-day impacts of such a continental-scale catastrophe. Here are two examples of concepts I've already implemented into this campaign:

* Overland (and river) transit of goods and people grew in scale greatly to compensate for the loss of often-cheaper sea routes. As a consequence of this, banditry exploded too, and as of the time period of the campaign, rulers are struggling to adequately contain it. They've resorted to hiring lots of mercenaries (which often worsens the situation when the mercs get greedy). I'm reading A Distant Mirror by Tuchman right now and got some inspiration from the situation in France in the late 1300s (e.g. the White Company).

* Numerous cults, most of them weird, have split off from the main church of the sea god. That church is not exactly a major social influence (except in port cities), but the mate of the sea god is the goddess of creation and the sun (whose church IS the major one), and the two of them are considered to have created the world.

* A significant proportion of individuals have decided that the end of the world is coming. This contributes to the weirdness of the above cults, but on a larger scale, I'm thinking entire kingdoms will have descended into anarchy--probably some will be among those most dependent on the sea for food and commerce.

One particular question I'm asking myself is "How might this impact the sun goddess's church?" It's kind of analogous to the medieval Catholic church, though less monolithically-influential and less morally compromised. In the world's myth, she's the first deity, and she created the sea god to be her mate and ally. So it seems to me attendance (and therefore income) in her temples could go up or down.

Another question that will probably matter is "What impact would this have on the large submarine societies, like the sahuagin?" Water-breathing and undersea adventures are a very strong possibility as the campaign unfolds.

I'm not especially concerned with hyperspecific real-world physics/meteorology extrapolations (e.g. "That can't happen because of tropospheric whatever" or "Everybody would suffocate because plankton yadda-yadda"), but generalizations like "Wind/rainfall would increase/decrease inland" are welcome.

[Dagda Mor]

A bunch of populated islands are cut off from the world, start going mad from mundane crisis & subtle unhingement of there being nowhere to hide from the god's fury.

Refugees from water-dwelling races like Sahuagin start showing up on land, fleeing strife caused by sub-surface aquatic chaos on a level landlubbers can barely manage to appreciate.

Coastal cities, largely ghost towns, become subject of much superstitious fear- people view them like Moria in Lord of the Rings, assume sea god's wrath is because they sailed too greedily and too deep. Lynch mobs pursue former sailors.

[LudicSavant]

Coastal cities, largely ghost towns, become subject of much superstitious fear- people view them like Moria in Lord of the Rings, assume sea god's wrath is because they sailed too greedily and too deep. Lynch mobs pursue former sailors.

Oh man. Sailing is a dark art.

"I-I don't think that's how sailing works."
"HE KNOWS HOW SAILING WORKS! GET HIM!"

:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

[MrZJunior]

I think people would start attending the sun goddes's church even more religiously in the hopes of getting her to rein in her husband. Weird cults will spring up trying to find the right combination of rituals and sacrifices to win her favor.

As to meteorological suff: rains of fish and other sea life start happening far inland.

Aquatic refugees will probably start settling in what few sheltered bays and coastal waters remain leading to conflict with fishermen and other surface dwellers who rely on those waters to survive.

Perhaps people will stop eating fish, fearing that doing so has angered the god. Angry mobs might attack fishermen.

Is the god likely to try and do stuff like create land sharks or something to threaten the surface?

[AceOfFools]

Constant storms at sea would probably have some effect on sea level, which could in turn make some communities unlivable. A similar effect might come from wild or unpredictable tides.

Sea fishing is done as an industry, and any area that had it as a staple of their diet is in the midst of a famine.

Powerful waves can ruin coastal comunities.

Rough seas may drive some sea dwellers to seek stability on land to wait out the sea gods rage.

All in all, I'm seeing a mass exodus of costal communities with people heading inland, which could be a source of bandits, and will certainly create conflict between the refugees and inland people. Not only have the storms disrupted the economy, there is a massive influx of desperate, hungry people that there isn't enough food for.

[Rift_Wolf]

How far into the 100 year fury are your party? Because the coastlines going to be completely different after 100 years of constant storms. Anything not built on bedrock could be swept away.

My initial thoughts were 'deep sea inhabitants unaffected.' but while that's true of regular storms, this is Sea God storms. Aquatic subtypes are all kinds of in trouble. Aboleths and Creatures of similar magic power could arrange for mass plane shifts somewhere calmer (Elemental Water) until the worst is over. Less powerful aquatic Creatures and animals would be fighting extinction, unless the Sea God favours them. This favour could be earnt by unleashing fury on the human settlements that doggedly cling to rivers and channels.

It's not all bad news though. Certain commodities from overseas or obtained through seafaring (shells, whalebone, turtle shells) will skyrocket in value. Sure trading in such rare trinkets might be angering a sea god, but what trader listens to superstitious mutterings like that?

[sktarq]

One thing to consider is the loss of trade.

Trading via sea is often the only viable means of trading bulk goods so if a barren nation traded ores for food that trade could well have collapsed (sure a few elite coast hoppers still come in gold and mythril but with smaller ships built ride rugged seas they can't fit enough food to make a major dent in the famine that has resulted. This would esp true of very large cities that use the ocean to expand their economic catch-basi and places like military outpost and young colonies.

With loss of trade also come loss of many of the ways the elite compete with each other as the exotic luxury competition has always been a way to vent internal tensions. . . So more primal competition may well take over. And woe betide those cultures that imported luxury good were keyed to social structures-like the roman empire's use of purple dye to indicate social rank. If the symbol of ruler ship can not be renewed the new rulers would be weakened - at the same time it is stressed by bandits and economic disruptions of its own. This could just as easily happen to a church cut off from it sources of holy incense.

Those exotic oils etc in magic item creation my well now be more expensive too if they can be had at all.

Marginal resources that relied on a wide dispersal area in order to have enough customer would be put out of business. (luxury and specialist type stuff would be very vulnerable to this) anyone/any community reliant on this trade would face economic collapse and join the migrating and the bandits

Also those who still can move through the wild sea-would be great heroes bringing news and perhaps rare goods-which they would make a killing at. Any mage who can cast spells that transport people and goods would become very rich off this service.

[jqavins]

My initial thoughts were 'deep sea inhabitants unaffected.' but while that's true of regular storms, this is Sea God storms. Aquatic subtypes are all kinds of in trouble.
My initial thought was that this could easily go either way, and it would depend on why the sea god is angry. More specifically, at whom is he angry? If the sea god is mad at land dwellers, then deep water is safe and the sea dwellers disappear into the depths. But he is equally mad at them then they will want to seek shelter on land. And if he is just throwing a general tantrum then he may or may not think to effect the deep water as it is usually not effected.

Likewise, attendance at the sun goddess's church could go either way, as you (Otto) noted. Some would beseech her to intervene with her husband, while others would loose faith because she hasn't done exactly that. My suspicion would be that the former happens in the first few years, but attendance trails off after that due to the latter. A hundred years is a long time for people to continue begging a goddess for what she is obviously not doing.

Seafaring technology would likely advance. People would adjust to storms by building sturdier ships, so the sea god would ramp up the storms. So the ships would get sturdier and larger still. The sea god introduces navigation hazards, and people find new, better ways to navigate. The sea god sends gigantic monsters after ships, so ship builders and owners learn to add more powerful weapons. Etc. By the end of the hundred years, the technology of sailing will have advanced by what would have taken several hundred otherwise. And other technologies will have advanced as well, just to supply the maritime industries. (For example, you can't make better harpoons and machines to hurl them without better steel and mechanisms, which would spill over into other areas. Think of what the space program did for us.) You called this a continental effect; are there other continents not so affected? And mostly isolated from the affected continent by the Fury itself? When the Fury is over, the people of that continent will conquer the world. (But then, if this is a prequel to another existing campaign in which they haven't conquered the world then perhaps you'll want to have a reason for that.)

The other extreme is possible: if going to sea is too dangerous right off the bat - unimaginable storms, navigation hazards, sea monsters, the sea god's wrath gone to elevel all on day one - then there'd be no hope of going to sea, basically no one would try, and seafaring technology wouldn't advance at all. Much would probably be lost from misuse. Then when the Fury is over the whole continent would a hundred years or more behind the rest of the world, and ripe for conquest from outside. But, see the parenthetical ending the last paragraph.

Weather inland would probably become chaotic. One could make all sorts of arguments about what would happen, like lots of rain at sea means the water cycle is completing itself at sea leaving less cloud cover and rain inland, but equally well one could argue that increased wind at sea would lead to increased evaporation and more rain on land. Or that more cloud cover means less sunlight so the whole planet cools, but then water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas* so it could mean increasing temperatures. Add the fact that any major disturbance will have ripple effects that are seemingly counter to the whole (like global worming leading to cold winters in some places.) And global effects are modified, perhaps even inverted by local geographic features like inland seas and mountain ranges. All together, the result is that any weather change you want in any given region probably has some explanation that is logical at least on first blush, and the global picture is probably chaotic.

Some who rely on coastal fishing might do OK for a while (depending on their local geography) but then if the sea god escalates all the fish could just die. Which would lead to a biblical plague of disease and flies on the coasts.

* We are hearing so much about CO2 because it is stronger per ton and because it is rapidly increasing, but water vapor is responsible for more greenhouse effect that CO2 overall.

[avr]

Constant storms means that there aren't going to be huge thousand-year old trees anywhere near the coast; locate elven forests appropriately.

OTOH weather systems which need to build up steam over the sea can't get going, e.g. the monsoon.

Erosion is probably disintegrating some land features, and carving out or even building up others. Much of the eroded material will go to the bottom of the sea but some will get swept back to land and fill in bays or build up spits, islands and sand bars.