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The Duskblade
2016-12-31, 05:34 AM
Having just picked up Dark Souls 3 lately I began to toy around with a campaign idea of a setting where the light of the sun and stars suddenly vanished. The how and why I'll keep to myself for now in case I end up running the setting via the forum. But to prevent the obvious problem assume that temperature won't be affected. All natural light has vanished and unless you happened to be near a source of fire or other artificial light source you are plunged into darkness.

The first obvious problem is anyone not near an existing light source or capable of producing one in pitch black is probably dead pretty quickly. Particularly anyone who happens to be in any kind of remote location. Any animal life not near human settlements is probably in the same boat. Farm animals would probably be mostly ok at first since they will have humans close by.

The second problem I see is that anything relying on photosynthesis isn't going to survive. Meaning crops will die. For that matter so will trees which will become a necessary non renewable resource for anyone who can't generate magical light.

Any kind of travel is going to require either magic or a lot of wood. And as a result stand out like a beacon. In the short term I'm guessing that would also attract anything that managed to survive. Although I doubt much natural life would last more then a few days completely blind. But then in RPG's there is always non natural life. Also anyone willing to douse their own lights could set up some nasty ambushes. So alot of risk for both Traders and adventurers.

Speaking of which any settlement's are going to need external resources. Between plants dying and the need to kill farm animals for meat, or even just the need for wood in non forested areas resources are going to become hard to come by.

Ships are probably right out, anything on the water when the light goes out is probably in a lot of trouble unless they are lucky enough to be near a lighthouse and I don't see how you could generate enough light to navigate by.

So yeah, anything I've missed or assumptions I've made that you disagree with please let me know. A couple of questions I'd like to get feedback on.

1. What would people be eating once the existing stores got used up?
2. What sort of timeline would you expect for various events? (Deaths of wildlife, crops and tree's dying, how quickly would resources run out, how much wood would be needed to sustain a settlement ect)
3. A big one. What on earth would this do to a human psychologically and society at large?

Also a couple of additional idea's I'm considering. Is weather effected? Like I said above assume a liveable temperature but I'm not sure you would have a day/night cycle as such. I was toying with the idea that the temperature is static and there is no actual weather but that comes with it's own crop of issues.
The other one is Darkvision. Obviously this would put races with Dark vision in a pretty good place. I'm unsure whether to tackle that directly or just exclude that ability from the setting. (Could make the argument that even a drow still needs at least a tiny bit of light for actual vision)

Floret
2016-12-31, 07:08 AM
One things to maybe consider I could think of: Given a divine entity of light, stars, the sun or similar in the setting - what happens to them; what to their clerics; and what to the believers?
I can imagine that the death of those entities might be what caused it, but that need not be the case, but something has to be preventing them from "doing their job" - their nonexistance in the first place obviously an option.
If they are dead, how does that effect their clerics? Do they loose their powers? Do they fall from faith? If the gods are otherwise prevented from doing their job, do they look to the clergy to help rectify the reason?
Do the believers suddenly fall from faith? Or do they maybe swell in number, hoping to make the sun come back, desperately sacrificing things, because maybe the Sun god is angry and needs to be calmed? Sects could spring up, schisms arguing over how to deal with this, many things, generally.

As for Darkvision - that mosten times does not mean your eyes are a magical lightsource or independant of lightsources, but just that they are far better at capturing light than "regular" eyes, thus needing less light to see clearly. The fun thing is, then, that complete darkness effects those people just the same. They don't see ****. Of course they need LESS lightsources than everyone else, but they still need SOME.

As for natural life - Same conditions as to Darkvision apply. No animal can see in complete darkness, so only something not reliant on visual senses would actually profit, everything else will go down. Meaning Bats, moles, at the max. (Of course there could be magical beings and bioluminescense. Bioluminescense might, depending on if one is predator or prey, be rather nifty to have - and produce great visuals for a forst only illuminated by the leaf veins of some trees, and other similar landscapes.)
Also, mushrooms might get a good deal out of it.

Oh, another thing: Measuring time is suddenly very, very difficult. I mean, days? What is a day if there is no sun? What is a week? If the setting is still reliant on sun dials (Or, a part of the setting is), then they will loose those completely, and have to find something else. People with mechanical clocks might be better off - but then, at some point, wonder what happens when all of them fail, or even what the point is of still keeping time.
Seasons will get wonky with no sun to power them - in any case, if it works like our world, everything will get cold very, very quickly. For this there might be a supernatural reason for why it doesn't, sure. Maybe seasons are governed by a god, and that one is still around heating the world despite the absence of the sun.

What I did for a (less realistic) setting: Maybe one could take a look at The Banner Saga. It deals with the opposite problem, the sun is suddenly stuck in the sky, and now what?, but some issues arise. (Not many, mind, but I found it to be a fantastic game anyways)
Banner Saga and my own thing bring up one other possibility for what happened to the Sun (Not the stars, yeah, and my setting still had those... but the sun is out of the picture): Given a planet, it might be merely stuck on the other side of it in the sky, resulting in slower seasonal shifts, and the hope of "getting to the light, physically".

Just some thoughts.

GloatingSwine
2016-12-31, 07:23 AM
1. What would people be eating once the existing stores got used up?


Each other.

How long crops will live is irrelevant, they'll stop growing and won't mature to an edibile harvestable state.

Livestock reliant on grazing would die first, when their corpses are decayed to inedibility, people eat each other as long as they can until they become extinct.


Even assuming that the "no more light" is magically restricted to visible light and the sun's infrared still heats the surface to habitability (without which the whole surface freezes to ~-100 degrees within a week and almost everything is dead anyway), most photosynthesis relies on visible light so all the plants die, anything that eats plants dies, and then finally anything that lives on the decay of dead plants and plant eaters dies.

So, as long as your adventure can deal with taking place on the deep seabed among beasties that live on thermal vents or seafloor minerals instead of light, "suddenly no more sun" is a problem you need to fix quick.

SilverLeaf167
2016-12-31, 08:25 AM
I love the idea! However, one major issue is probably going to be deciding which "realistic" consequences you want to include and which you don't. For instance, plant life dying is realistic; but never mind eating, what do people breathe from then on? Every question and ruling is a new can of worms. Whatever line of realism you draw will be inherently arbitrary, but a setting like this will just have to deal with it, and I hope you can too.

As for food, Floret already mentioned mushrooms, though they'll start getting rare too with no plant life to feed on. Really, unless you just make up some kind of crop that can grow with almost no nutrition in complete darkness (which I think would be acceptable, as long as you still make it interesting and limited somehow), humanity is probably completely screwed.

You mentioned Darkvision and Drow, so I'm assuming D&D/PF; excuse me if I'm wrong. Those few people capable of casting Create Food and Water will become incredibly valuable, but whether they become rulers or slaves will probably vary, and they can't feed a very large community anyway. Plant Growth doesn't allow instant crop-creation as far as I can see, but every little boost is vital. Rings of Sustenance and other similar methods of not eating at all are sought-after as well, but unlike Clerics whom you need to keep alive, you can just kill the person with the ring and take it for yourself.

I don't know if I'm focusing too much on the food aspect, but that really seems like the crux of survival in this setting.

EDIT: Speaking of Dark Souls, undead enemies might be interesting, especially if they start reanimating for no visible reason. Light and positive energy are generally the anathema of undead, so perhaps the lack of light has metaphysical effects as well? Undead have darkvision, aren't really edible for humans and can generally survive without nutrition while still having the urge to hunt the living. Another reason for Clerics to become the most powerful people around...

The Duskblade
2016-12-31, 09:12 AM
Yeah Clergy was always going to be a problem. From a story perspective I think things work best if you allow clerics their powers but they don't have any method of communicating with other gods/planes or getting off world (Similar to Ravenholm).

Bioluminescense is an interesting idea. As a resource they'd be really valuable as a light source that while not strong won't expire (Although even mushrooms need nourishment). It also seems like a good and visually impressive solution for say an Elven city.

And yes I can definitely see parallels with Banner Saga. I may have to replay those. Which is always welcome :smallsmile: Actually the concept of Banner saga where your leading a group of refugees makes a lot of sense here. For example a town on the coast that serves as a trading port won't necessarily have a lot of natural resources. Especially since fish being as blind as everyone else presumably won't be biting. You could open the campaign having to lead the people of the town to a new home.

Breathing is an excellent point actually. I think including that as a factor makes sense. This is a apocalyptic scenario after all.

The magical creation of resources is an interesting point. Going off of pathfinder a 5 level cleric with a decent wisdom score can essentially keep 30 people fed if they use both spell slots on the ability. Which expands the more levels they gain. Granted a level 5 cleric is probably going to be something like 1 in 10000 (On the plus side anyone with access to the light spell should survive the onset of the darkness) but it does mean that a small enough group with a cleric can be sustained until breathing becomes an issue. Bit of a toss up whether it's more interesting to go with the social impact of having powerful figures who have some level of ability to delay the inevitable but can't save everyone or just verbatim exclude the conjuration of resources and limit the population to what little is available.

Also regarding undead I could actually see people seeking out ways to become undead since it's probably one of the only ways to 'survive' the scenario.

Alright so I think we've established this is an Apocalypse scenario. Initially anyone stranded in the dark is pretty much dead without a light source. And the death of plants means the death of livestock and eventually a lack of air, which leaves a few major events.

The death of farmable crops and grass for grazing.
The death of livestock.
The use of non renewable resources assuming rationing but also assuming conflict over what is left.
Lack of air becomes an issue.
Lack of air becomes fatal.

As a rough estimate how long do you feel these would take to reach? How long can humanity survive.

Edit: Giving it some thought I think it's better to leave stuff like food conjuration in. Those abilities rarity creates some interesting dynamics and also gives the players room to get creative. Plus it actually works well with a set piece I thought of. (A temple with a constantly maintained daylight spell over it. Now consider the implications of a temple using a spell slot that could have fed 15 people that day to light up their temple for an additional 50 minutes.)

SilverLeaf167
2016-12-31, 09:53 AM
Alright so I think we've established this is an Apocalypse scenario. Initially anyone stranded in the dark is pretty much dead without a light source. And the death of plants means the death of livestock and eventually a lack of air, which leaves a few major events.

The death of farmable crops and grass for grazing.
The death of livestock.
The use of non renewable resources assuming rationing but also assuming conflict over what is left.
Lack of air becomes an issue.
Lack of air becomes fatal.

As a rough estimate how long do you feel these would take to reach? How long can humanity survive.

As mentioned, plants would stop growing pretty much immediately. You'd only be able to use what you have right now, so... early spring would probably be the worst time for this apocalypse to happen (no new plants yet, winter storage running out) while the best would be right after the autumn harvest.

When it becomes clear that there will be no more plants, people will probably butcher all available livestock within days; there's no way to feed them (without wasting valuable food) and butchering them right now gives you more, better meat than waiting for them to starve. This meat would then be salted and otherwise preserved, at which point it basically lasts as long as you want (apart from running out, obviously). In this sense, probably one of the best places to survive would be in a countryside village where only a couple butchers and a few other people survive, so they can loot the nearby farms for animals. :smallamused:

The availability of trees really depends on the area; generally speaking, even without the apocalypse, they're already "non-renewable in the short term" (if you cut down a full-grown tree, there's no way it'll grow back within your lifetime anyway), so there won't be much change there, especially after such a radical drop in population. Some tree species might survive for several months, but once they're left to rot they would start deteriorating rather quickly, so savvy people would be trying to chop down and preserve as much as they can (kinda like with the livestock). People would definitely try and migrate to forested areas for easier access, assuming they don't just scavenge all those abandoned buildings.

I know I'm the one who suggested the breathing issue, but a quick Google search implies that oxygen probably wouldn't run out for several millennia, given the massive reduction in animal life. So that's probably not an issue in the short term either.


So yeah, in terms of environmental threats, food really seems to be the main problem. Interpersonal and monstrous elements are another matter entirely, of course, as usual for an apocalyptic setting. :smallbiggrin:

dps
2016-12-31, 01:11 PM
A lot really depends on what you want in the game.

Fantasy setting with lots of magic available and a lot of social cohesion? Potentially no major problems--just have mages magic up a lot of light.

Same setting as far as magic is concerned, but without the social cohesion to organize the magic users? Well, getting them organized and keeping them focused on what society needs them to do might just be a major plot hook.

Low magic setting? Good mages become invaluable resources that villages/states/civilizations fight over.

Non-magical, scientifically advanced setting? Put the scientists to work teching up a solution.

Non-magical, non-advanced setting? In the long term, everyone is totally screwed.

In all but the last setting, the kind of details you asked about are essentially fluff.

Yukitsu
2016-12-31, 01:22 PM
I did this in a game once.

In this setting, a small province over a highly volcanic caldera (which kept the temperature high enough to live) had a few scattered villages. They used to be incredibly magically powerful, and when the lights first disappeared the most powerful mages created these orbs that could be launched into the sky and take the place of the sun, albiet a much weaker sun whose light could only reach a few kilometers.

A few hundred years later, people who possessed these balls became extremely powerful within their local community and the world had basically fragmented into small villages across the province. There wasn't really much point in stealing one of these as having two side by side did very little, you'd have to send one of them off further away and that grouping would inevitably form their own village. People mostly scraped by just trying to get whatever malnourished harvest they could while others spent their time digging through ancient wreckage for relics from the age of light.

Bohandas
2016-12-31, 02:39 PM
The temperature would crash quickly with no sun.

If this is a D&D game, the world would probably quickly be overrun with illithids, drow, and vampires, at least until the illithids and drow froze to death.

Aeson
2016-12-31, 02:59 PM
(if you cut down a full-grown tree, there's no way it'll grow back within your lifetime anyway)
You're exaggerating a little, here. It depends on what you want the tree for and what species of tree you're looking at, but in decent growing conditions you could probably have a tree ready for harvesting within 20 to 50 years of planting.

Of course, if you lack an artificial light source which can replace the sun for your trees, you're not going to have 'decent growing conditions' in a sunless and starless world, so this is kind of beside the point.


As for natural life - Same conditions as to Darkvision apply. No animal can see in complete darkness, so only something not reliant on visual senses would actually profit, everything else will go down.
That's not entirely true. At least some snakes, for example, have eyes sensitive enough in the IR portion of the spectrum to detect the thermal radiation given off by warm bodies and objects.


(A temple with a constantly maintained daylight spell over it. Now consider the implications of a temple using a spell slot that could have fed 15 people that day to light up their temple for an additional 50 minutes.)
There's no particular reason why the Daylight spells would need to come at the expense of Create Food and Water spells - the Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, and Sorcerer/Wizard lists all have Daylight, but only the Cleric list gets Create Food and Water. Nothing says that the temple can't employ a bunch of 5th-level Wizards or something like that to maintain its Daylight spell. Of course, there's also no reason why the general public must necessarily know enough about magic to recognize that the resources being spent on illuminating the temple do not detract from the temple's ability to provide food (and even if the general public is sufficiently knowledgeable of magic to recognize this, there's no requirement that they must act in accordance with that knowledge), which would lead to the same kinds of problems in the event of a shortage of food as would be the case if the clerics actually were casting Daylight from slots which could be used for Create Food and Water.

A further note is that it might actually be better in the long run for spellcasters to spend their spell slots creating permanent magical lights which can be used to grow crops than to directly create food; the number of people you can feed using Create Food and Water out of a given set of spell slots is fixed, but the total area you can illuminate grows at a constant rate if you use those same spell slots to create permanent magical lights, and any spell slot which can be used for Create Food and Water can also be used for Continual Flame. Continual Flames might not provide illumination with the best spectrum for growing plants, but if you can put enough into an area they ought to work.

(At least, going off D&D3.5 rules.)


Bioluminescense is an interesting idea. As a resource they'd be really valuable as a light source that while not strong won't expire (Although even mushrooms need nourishment). It also seems like a good and visually impressive solution for say an Elven city.
Real-world bioluminescense is rarely bright enough to illuminate even very nearby objects; the most you're likely to get out of such is knowledge of where the bioluminescent things are. It'll look neat but probably won't do much more than trace out the shape of things in the area (specifically, the things upon which the bioluminescent stuff grows or the things which, from the observer's perspective, occlude the bioluminsecent stuff), if handled realistically. A longer-term realism issue is that an ecosystem reliant upon bioluminescence is ultimately unsustainable if the light from the bioluminescent creatures provides the energy for the things that the bioluminescent creatures eat.

Of course, this is presumably for a game, and on top of that it's in a fantasy or at most a soft sci-fi setting, so since it's probably not going to be all that fun for the players to stumble around in a barely-illuminated elven city, however beautifully-described the tracework of glowing moss growing over the rocks and trees and houses and whatnot is, go ahead and have swarms of glow-moths or whatever providing enough illumination to see reasonably well throughout most/all of the city or grow plants or whatever else you want them to do. Most people are probably not going to care about an unrealistic depiction of bioluminescence, especially if it also sounds (or looks, if you happen to be inclined to provide pictures as part of location descriptions) neat, but they will care about something which prevents them from having fun.


The temperature would crash quickly with no sun.

If this is a D&D game, the world would probably quickly be overrun with illithids, drow, and vampires, at least until the illithids and drow froze to death.
Depending on how you rule the magic which animates undead to work, even vampires and other undead may eventually freeze to the point of being unable to move or to the point where movement incurs the risk of breaking off pieces of themselves.

SilverLeaf167
2016-12-31, 03:01 PM
The temperature would crash quickly with no sun.

If this is a D&D game, the world would probably quickly be overrun with illithids, drow, and vampires, at least until the illithids and drow froze to death.

He stated several times that for practical reasons we should assume a liveable temperature, presumably caused by... magic?


You're exaggerating a little, here. It depends on what you want the tree for and what species of tree you're looking at, but in decent growing conditions you could probably have a tree ready for harvesting within 20 to 50 years of planting.

Of course, if you lack an artificial light source which can replace the sun for your trees, you're not going to have 'decent growing conditions' in a sunless and starless world, so this is kind of beside the point.

Okay, it was an exaggeration, but if the campaign takes place immediately or shortly after the apocalypse, that still means the lack of trees really isn't an immediate change (especially since a radically smaller, pre-industrial community would take quite a while to even chop down all the trees in a sizeable forest). Not that you denied any of that, of course.

Bohandas
2016-12-31, 06:26 PM
Druids and clerics of plant deities who can sustain crops through magic become very powerful politically.

In Greyhawk-based D&D the cult of Heironeus may become very powerful as well, as Heironeus' adjunct demigod Murlynd is known to have experimented with food-conjuring items

Beneath
2016-12-31, 07:26 PM
The games Fallen London & Sunless Sea kinda explore this, albeit at a higher technology level (it's set in the early 1890s, and in the 1860s London was taken by bats and put into basically the underdark).

They solve the food issue with mushrooms that just grow with no apparent inputs; fuel is generally coal or gas (for lights), often imported from Hell. They also even have their own set-up for what will happen when the sun and stars all die. Obviously those solutions are setting-specific, but any magical solution will be even if your magical solution is just pulled from a D&D rulebook.

You need an energy input into the system unless everything just stops eating. That energy input could be a magical light source or something that just grows without input, or even an ecology on volcanic vents like on those on the ocean floor that develops now that it's not being outcompeted by photosynthetic life. Maybe something purely magical like a weed that grows on darkness the way regular plants grow on light (for symbolism, it should be nasty and covered in sharp thorns)

For light, many established fantasy creatures have light sources; fairy lights are a thing, if massively untrustworthy, for one. Also, when the lights go out, your cities will still have their stocks of candles and firewood so they won't immediately go dark (it will be pretty bad though), and you have room to invent more. Maybe some kind of super-firefly. Maybe something with bound fire elementals.

Remember that the byproducts of your creatures can be more important than their actual powers, too; sulfur coming off a devil or fire elemental might be more useful than just having the thing there.

Self-sustaining or magically-sustained livestock could be incredibly important. A herd of cattle that don't need feed for whatever reason can provide milk and cheese for a community, plus dung for fuel. If your options are to use the same magic to feed humans or cattle the same number of calories, feed people, but if you have a special magic that can only feed cattle (maybe they can eat the thorny weed that grows on darkness, but humans can't), that's good too.

Also, if forests die off, they'll dry out. So soon after the darkening you might have lots of forest fires. Magic might make these fires last longer than they should, because of ghosts. If they are a setting element (a forest now inhabited by the ghosts of what first starved, then burned), there should be something in these places that makes them worth exploring.

Depending on how the warming magic works, rain might stop falling soon after, too. Or weather patterns could completely change.

King539
2017-01-01, 12:48 AM
Do plants still grow? Anyway, I expect mass hysteria and darkness-worshipping cults.

Lemmy
2017-01-01, 02:12 AM
Another thing... If the Sun is gone, what is keeping the planet from completely freezing within hours?

LokiRagnarok
2017-01-01, 05:43 AM
A few random thoughts:
At the beginning, people who were already blind might have an advantage. For a change, consider a community of the seeing led by the blind ;)

You'd get a lot of charlatans claiming to provide some help - somebody comes into town, claiming to sell an "everburning lamp" which goes out mere hours after they are gone.

Charisma-based checks suddenly become a lot harder, since you cannot see your conversation partner. In the end, it probably evens out, since Sense Motive got harder - but so did Bluff.

In the middle-to-long-term, people would start to burn books for light. This starts the Dark Ages - in more than one sense. And consider the ramifications of burning a spell book out of ignorance!

If you have a high level mage, some fun things can probably be done with Permanency - Wall of Fire is on the list of allowed spells, so is Arcane Sight. (Think about how lack of light affects such detection spells, by the way). Incidentally, with some heavy rule-lawyering, Mage's Private Sanctum might shield you from whatever effect causes the darkness. Mage's Magnificent Mansion even more so.
Suddenly, travel to pocket dimensions or other planes got a lot more interesting.

Finally, consider picking up a copy of "The Boy and the Darkness" by Lukyanenko - it explores the premise of a dark world where all the people have sold off (literally) their portion of sunlight to some dark entities.

Fri
2017-01-01, 07:10 AM
Another thing... If the Sun is gone, what is keeping the planet from completely freezing within hours?

People are asking these on purpose, right? Right?

The Duskblade
2017-01-01, 08:32 AM
Just something I thought of. We've already discussed the role of clerics. But what about Druids? What happens to them (and by extension rangers) and their abilities as nature essentially is dying? Per the rules as written probably no actual effect but from a fluff standpoint I imagine it might wreck some havoc.

SilverLeaf167
2017-01-01, 10:32 AM
Just something I thought of. We've already discussed the role of clerics. But what about Druids? What happens to them (and by extension rangers) and their abilities as nature essentially is dying? Per the rules as written probably no actual effect but from a fluff standpoint I imagine it might wreck some havoc.

Well, first they'll be in great emotional anguish as they watch their beloved companions and surroundings rot away, and all their magic can do is prolong this suffering. Soon that anguish will become physical and metaphysical, thanks to their magical bond to said surroundings. Some druids will do what they can to preserve what little life they can, whether that leads to little greenhouses or unholy hybrids. Others will become unholy hybrids themselves as they succumb to the effects of their deteriorating world.

Perhaps they'll just isolate themselves; perhaps they'll try to help others; perhaps they'll find someone or something to blame for this cataclysm; perhaps they'll become ravenous beasts. Nature was all they had, and now it's gone, so anything is possible.

At least, that's how I'd handle it. :smalltongue:

Lemmy
2017-01-01, 05:29 PM
People are asking these on purpose, right? Right?Well... Yeah. I'm entirely sure I didn't type it by accident.

Why? Did I miss the explanation?

Blackhawk748
2017-01-01, 05:40 PM
If it hasnt been said already (i skimmed after the first few posts) mushrooms are now amazing, as they dont require light to grow. Also the denizens of the Underdark are going to probably rule everything because the surface now looks a lot like underground. Which has some interesting implications, cuz any group that has easy access to the Underdark *cough*dwarves*cough* has a serious advantage as they can go find the bioluminescent fungi that lives down there and make bank trading it or just horde it for their own use.

Honestly id be worried about things like Desmodu, Drow and Duergar cuz they are not letting this chance go. So screw undead armies, the Drow are on the warpath!

napoleon_in_rag
2017-01-01, 06:26 PM
Having just picked up Dark Souls 3 lately I began to toy around with a campaign idea of a setting where the light of the sun and stars suddenly vanished. The how and why I'll keep to myself for now in case I end up running the setting via the forum. But to prevent the obvious problem assume that temperature won't be affected. All natural light has vanished and unless you happened to be near a source of fire or other artificial light source you are plunged into darkness.



I suggest reading Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall" for inspiration. I prefer the short story but he later wrote a novella.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightfall_(Asimov_novelette_and_novel)

It is about a world with multiple suns so there is never a nighttime, it's always day. But once every few thousand years, all the suns and the planet's moon align creating a super solar eclipse which plunges the world into darkness. Because the inhabitants have never seen night or stars, they go mad and burn the civilization down, even though the eclipse only lasts for a few hours. A good read!

Happy New Years Everyone!

Bohandas
2017-01-01, 06:51 PM
Another thing... If the Sun is gone, what is keeping the planet from completely freezing within hours?


People are asking these on purpose, right? Right?


Well... Yeah. I'm entirely sure I didn't type it by accident.

Why? Did I miss the explanation?

No, but it's been already said that for some reason the temperature doesn't crash.

That said, the reason why it doesn't crash makes a big difference as to what is or isn't a viable solution? Is the world heated from another source other than the sun from the get-go, or is something new going on? Are the gods intervening? Is there a secons interior hollow-earth sun keeping things warm from the inside? Or maybe interior outpockets of the elemental planes of fire and magma bringing in fresh heat? Maybe the sun is still shining down on the planet but magical shadow covers everything making things appear dark; this could potentially interfere with torches and candles as well. Or perhaps sunlight is being converted directly into thermal energy before it reaches the ground, potentially resulting in a paradoxial temperature rise. It makes a difference how this happens

The Duskblade
2017-01-01, 09:05 PM
I wasn't going to post this but I don't think it'll hurt anything. The explanation I had in mind was that the entire planet was plane shifted. And the host plane had a static temperature.

This of course would have additional complications (melting ice caps because suddenly everywhere has the same temperature and so on)

But any alternative explanations are welcome. Wouldn't make much of a setting if the planet just froze a few hours in.

Kareeah_Indaga
2017-01-01, 10:54 PM
...Someone made the sun invisible? Do invisible things still give off heat?

And people keep bringing up the Underdark; surely some major government, adventuring band, or something would get the idea to invade the Underdark to steal the equivalent of cattle and crops that don't need sunlight? I seem to recall the drow have them.

SilverLeaf167
2017-01-02, 10:15 AM
...Someone made the sun invisible? Do invisible things still give off heat?

They sure do; in fact, they still give off light, you just can't see the source (like the physical part of a torch, for example). Not sure how that would look with something like the sun, where the light is the only thing you can see anyway. Of course, nothing a DM can't fix, but it doesn't technically fit in with the general rules.


And people keep bringing up the Underdark; surely some major government, adventuring band, or something would get the idea to invade the Underdark to steal the equivalent of cattle and crops that don't need sunlight? I seem to recall the drow have them.

Interesting idea about the Underdark. Personally, I'd somehow pretty much forgotten it even existed, though as Blackhawk748 mentioned, the subterranean races would stand a good chance of conquering the overground instead. I'm not sure what they'd really gain from it, but... :smalltongue:

Adventurers in general would probably form a disproportionate part of the survivors to begin with (the stronger the likelier), so having the expertise to raid the Underdark would just further cement their power and role in the community. Of course, now society faces a choice between figuring out which Underdark foodstocks can survive overground, or taking the risk of migrating underground instead...

Blackhawk748
2017-01-02, 10:26 AM
Interesting idea about the Underdark. Personally, I'd somehow pretty much forgotten it even existed, though as Blackhawk748 mentioned, the subterranean races would stand a good chance of conquering the overground instead. I'm not sure what they'd really gain from it, but... :smalltongue:

Space? Seriously, im pretty sure the Duergar and the Drow would be trying to conquer the overworld if the sun didnt blind them when they stuck their head out of a hole.

Professor Chimp
2017-01-02, 10:27 AM
Maybe the video below can help. It's basically explains what would happen to our planet if the sun suddenly disappeared, but I suppose you could use it as inspiration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rltpH6ck2Kc

SilverLeaf167
2017-01-02, 12:40 PM
Space? Seriously, im pretty sure the Duergar and the Drow would be trying to conquer the overworld if the sun didnt blind them when they stuck their head out of a hole.

Are they really that pressed for space, though? I can imagine them raiding the overworld for magical items, material goods and a few slaves, maybe even setting up small outposts. However, the darkening means that the "space" up there is just worthless wasteland and hardly worth migrating en masse when their lifestyles are already perfectly adapted to the Underdark.

napoleon_in_rag
2017-01-02, 01:08 PM
I wasn't going to post this but I don't think it'll hurt anything. The explanation I had in mind was that the entire planet was plane shifted. And the host plane had a static temperature.

This of course would have additional complications (melting ice caps because suddenly everywhere has the same temperature and so on)

But any alternative explanations are welcome. Wouldn't make much of a setting if the planet just froze a few hours in.

Maybe a large moon explodes wrapping the planet in an extremely thick dust cloud. You could also have random events where pieces of the moon occasionally crash into the planet.

Or a "Nuclear Winter Scenario" where a huge volcano erupts, sending enough dust into the sky to block out the sun. Like if Yellowstone ever goes.

http://www.livescience.com/20714-yellowstone-supervolcano-eruption.html

Or have it just happen and never explain why. George RR Martin has never explained why a single season lasts 100 years in Game of Thrones. No one seems to mind.

Blackhawk748
2017-01-02, 02:16 PM
Are they really that pressed for space, though? I can imagine them raiding the overworld for magical items, material goods and a few slaves, maybe even setting up small outposts. However, the darkening means that the "space" up there is just worthless wasteland and hardly worth migrating en masse when their lifestyles are already perfectly adapted to the Underdark.

Well it won't be a wasteland after they Underdark-ify it. Add a mushroom forest (and all that dead stuff will be wonderful fertilizer) some bioluminescent fungi and bam, new "Overdark".

Now that i think about it its less about space and more about there being less horrendously murderous creatures topside. Especially now that the sun went poof.

SilverLeaf167
2017-01-02, 02:47 PM
Well it won't be a wasteland after they Underdark-ify it. Add a mushroom forest (and all that dead stuff will be wonderful fertilizer) some bioluminescent fungi and bam, new "Overdark".

Now that i think about it its less about space and more about there being less horrendously murderous creatures topside. Especially now that the sun went poof.

Well, I think OP has implied that there will be some horrendously murderous creatures topside, to keep things interesting. Of course, the Underdarkers may not know that before it's too late. :smalltongue: Should make for an interesting "faction" in the world, basically competing with the survivors for resources (with a better base but less local knowledge) while neither side has any idea what to do about the other... things roaming around.