Aftermath of Atropus

[dededo11]

So if the Elder Evil Atropus is driven away from a campaign world, how badly damaged would that world be since Atropus had been causing the dead to rise on that world for some time? Would there still be civilization on that world? Would it be possible for the people of that world to rebuild after the undead had been running rampant and causing destruction for some time?

[Jowgen]

If we're assuming the sign went all the way to overwhelming, then beyond the undead that have risen there are also some other global issues that might be overlooked.

The entire planet was subject to an unhallow, meaning that every single Hallow there has been negated. There is no more hallowed ground. Big set-back for any Good religious organisation, while the Evil one's Unhallowed spaces were unaffected.

Ironically, since every corpse rose as a zombie or skeleton, there are also no corpses left for any necromancers to raise minions from. They need to kill new people if they want to make any undead.

Civilization was also not the only thing affected, but the natural world as well, since all the dead animals, magical beasts, etc. also got raised.


But onto the actual undead thing.

The undead raised are exclusively mindless, so while their numbers pose an issue they are not an overwhelming force. Any sufficiently large city that had the common sense to keep its dead/cemeteries separate from the living people (because disease and whatnot) would likely have been able to wall of the areas where the undead were rising to preserve its population.

There'd be localised outbreaks of undead in the city population (e.g. people dying normally, slaughterhouses), which can spread through the city if not contained quickly, so it'd depend a lot on how well the local law enforcement/heroes was able to deal with these situations.

The places that really suffered would be smaller settlements, without walled-off graveyards and crypts, not to mention bordering the wilderness where undead animals and other creatures might appear. Unless these places have sufficiently sturdy shelters that people retreat to in time, they will not last long.

On the whole, I'd estimate that the percentage of a given population to survive each day would be around 40-50% in large secure cities, but at most 10% in rural areas.

After Atropus, the loss of all the rural manpower, not to mention the loss of wildlife, would likely result in widespread food shortages. Full on famine in big metropolises even.

Then survivors would then need to contend with the left-over undead. Being mindless, Zombies and Skeletons aren't hard to deal with, but it'll still take a lot of manpower, and there will be pockets of these stray undead the world over for years to come, even with the best purging effort.

There will also be those who can rebuke or otherwise control lesser undead, who will likely take advantage, conscript these to their forces, and start leading them in purposeful conquests. Cities or even entire states might well fall under the rule of small necromancer enclaves. The good aligned churches, commanding clerics that are effective at exterminating undead, would be another faction to rise to power, as the populus will be heavily dependent on them for security.

So Theoracies and Necrocracies everywhere. The civilisation of the new world order would likely restructure around these two.

[Fizban]

Many of the signs, if actually applied to the default world with city NPCs generated by the DMG and no DM optimization of their effects on society, are extinction level events. It rather annoys me, because if actually run as written it doesn't matter if the PCs beat the boss because everyone's already dead.

Atropus's sign is one of the least apocalyptic though. The key lies in the fact that corpses have to be intact enough to rise, and when you bury someone it doesn't actually matter if they reanimate because they're not getting out of there, as well as skeletons and zombies being total chumps. Even if you allow them the DC 25 str check from cave-ins, the majority of humanoid zombies can never beat it. Anywhere that actually disposes of their dead won't have any zombies aside from those that were laying on the table and from people just killed. DnD ombies are slow and easy to fight even for normal people, dangerous only if you let them be. Similarly, the vast majority of the world makes no use of healing magic, so they wouldn't even notice that part.

Honestly, I expect the effects on humanoids would be negligible, even for those that don't have Clerics who can counter it by recasting Hallow twice per area. Wild animals on the other hand, would be devastated. Predators make their kill, then find themselves facing a zombie that fights to the death. Eventually they would be starving enough to attack and try to eat the zombies, and unless the DM decides that's harmful then they'll be fine at that point. Pack hunters would potentially be worst off, since they have a chance for one of the packmates to get killed and zombified and force them to fight even more.

So you'll end up with some packs of zombie animals out in the wilderness, which depending on how you have uncontrolled zombies behave, may or may no be significant, and some packs of zombies will arise in humanoid areas before being dealt with summarily. That's about it.

If you want to make it more dangerous, all you need to do are have some relatively recent battlefields, ruins full of dead monsters left to rot, or tombs full of sarcophagi that can be opened by a single person, and a ruling that zombies/skeletons actively roam about looking for things to kill while grouping with their own kind. Then you can justify large packs of undead capable of overwhelming smaller settlements. But even then, the number and dispersal pattern you need to really prevent people from running is too specific. Only those people in small settlements who are found in the night will be in any serious danger. And if anyone in your setting has access to Celestial Brilliance (BoED, Clr 4) and the brains to use it, their pop center is now a completely impregnable fortress.

[Troacctid]

This idea has been explored in fiction before, of course. In fact, two D&D settings, Innistrad and Amonkhet, have similar phenomena. (Rather, MTG settings converted to D&D, but, y'know, same diff.) Innistrad has humans constantly on the brim of extinction, holding out against the forces of darkness. Amonkhet has one major city still standing (that we know of), protected by a magical barrier that keeps out undead; if you die within the city, a mummification process turns you into a useful servant rather than a monster.

Both of those have the effect still ongoing, but it's not unusual for there to be an apocalypse in a world's backstory. Look at Eberron—the whole planet was overrun by fiends for a while until the couatls sacrificed themselves to banish them to Khyber, creating the Silver Flame in the process. That sort of thing makes a great explanation for where all the ancient ruins came from for the PCs to explore.

[unseenmage]

Makes me wonder what a world where ALL the elder evils have strolled through would look like.

[Crake]

If we're assuming the sign went all the way to overwhelming, then beyond the undead that have risen there are also some other global issues that might be overlooked.

The entire planet was subject to an unhallow, meaning that every single Hallow there has been negated. There is no more hallowed ground. Big set-back for any Good religious organisation, while the Evil one's Unhallowed spaces were unaffected.

Imma stop you right there.


Hallow counters but does not dispel unhallow.

You can in fact have an area that is both hallowed and unhallowed, and the sign itself doesn't say that it removes any existing hallows, though any new hallows cast within the atropus unhallow area remove it.

It is also worth noting that any and all bodies that were interred in hallowed chapels and churches would in fact NOT have been raised:


Third, any dead body interred in a hallowed site cannot be turned into an undead creature.

Unless atropus has a clause that specifically overwrites this, which I don't believe it does.

[Fizban]

Father Lymic blots out the sun and lowers the global temperature, to 1 hour a day and a -4 degree penalty at Strong- how long does it take for all the plants to die and ensure mass starvation? Dunno how much stuff would die from the cooling since current research is more about warming, but I bet it's a lot too. Staying at Overwhelming for any significant length of time is likely global extinction, aside from any mysterious underdark ecosystems that are self-sufficient.

Additionally, Father Lymic's brood is a template that adds HD and a bunch of powerful abilities, turning anything into a decent monster. It spreads as a disease via their daily breath weapons, but overall the spread isn't too bad. Nothing compared to the problems of the sign itself.

The Hulks force all normally indifferent people to attack anyone they meet until they deal damage, at the Moderate strength. 90%+ of the PC race hummanoids (all 1 HD) are now dead, unless the DM allows and assumes non-lethal damage and/or that the attitude only matters for seriously engaging in businiess with people you've never met before.

Oh, the DM did make those rulings? Great. At the Strong sign, 50% of the population begins fighting to the death, with another 50% every day after that (unless the DM rules that being in the rage doesn't force you to kill, in spite of the obvious intent), unless you can somehow safely imprison and take care of the entire population until the sign stops. Only those in places that prevent this effect, which is not even [mind-affecting] tagged, with sufficient barricades and combat ability, will be spared. This includes all animals, and all monsters, though stuff with more will saves won't be halved quite as fast.
Ironically, the halving of the population stops when the Overwhelming sign hits, because it just knocks them unconcious in a few rounds with nonlethal damage. Once the Strong sign hits you want Overwhelming to happen yesterday, and then hope to take down the boss before everyone dies of thirst.

The Leviathan's sign is highly random and DM dependant, and depends particularly on how you rule acid damage vs objects. The DM chooses where the actually rather small area lands in the earlier stages, but at Strong it hits the whole continent. Most of them aren't immediately lethal so it's just massive crop and property damage (got any storm shelters?), and several are poorly written such that more area makes them less dangerous, but if you're the kind of DM that rules acid damage ignores hardness then everyone on the surface is dead and the entire landscape disintegrates as soon as the roll comes up acid rain. Of course, even without that the massive half-day to unending storms will leave everyone on stockpiled food only until they stop.

Zargon's sign is mostly the same, but just has the one supernatural weather Which within a few days or a week at Strong sign will almost certainly have proc'd, fouling all water on the entire continent, killing every creature directly exposed to it for even the slightest moment. Further, the 2 int of all animals means that they will actually turn into Whelps of Zargon at nearly a 1:1 ratio, powerful regenerating Evil oozes (listed CR 9) that carry the same befowling and spawning effect. They're mindless, but a nigh infinite nigh unstoppable mass, and as living creatures the ooze does hunger for something. People that stay indoors (and don't have their shelter destroyed by other storms, and don't contact the rainwater until it stops conferring that effect) and those with access to sufficient Remove Disease can survive, but they'll need magic to supply all their water unless the DM conveniently ignores the fact that all underground springs still have to come from snowpack somewhere.

All signs are calculated far more for annoying the PCs than credible effects on the world, and Pandorym's is quite obvious. It has only as much effect as summoning, Divination, and divine magic are used. Clerics out of the loop may lose faith, people may lose faith in them, but nothing happens to effects already in place- Hallows and magic items that people might rely on keep on just fine. The least effect of them all.

Ragnorra's sign hits an unspecified amount of the world with a deadly contact plague from the sky at Moderate tier. It can kill the average person in a week, maybe less, and releases dangerous swarms- the swarms aren't stated to carry the disease, but by spawning on top of the dead creature ought to pick it up immediately.
This causes a bug where each swarm should then beget hundreds more swarms as the individuals succumb to the disease. Animals and other living creatures are of course affected too. If the spores drop everywhere at once, then at least 90% of everyone is dead- a few with the saves, skills, or magic to survive will do so, but society is already lost.
At the Strong sign the DC increases to 20- either from a new wave or just the existing disease, is not clear. Anyone who's not dead at this point has to make daily DC 20 saves to avoid becoming an aberration, unless they have some positive energy resistance the DM rules effective- only those with high saves and many hit dice have a chance of avoiding it for long (though the intent might be that this only affects people who take damage). Those affected lose 2, 4, possibly 6 cha depending on reading. This can mean anything with 6 or less cha (including many animals, monsters, and humanoids with penalties and cha dump stats) eventually drops into a permanent coma.
At Overwhelming it gets more interesting, because all those dead people get back up as -cha aberrations with no other problems. So almost all humanoids were already dead, and now unless they were burned or buried they're alive again as aberrations. Thus, the vast majority of humanoids and animals are now aberrations with dismal and possibly comatose charisma. Darkvision is now widespread. Also, all undead not deep underground, sealed in thick vaults, or massively hard to turn, have been destroyed. Ragnorra kills everyone, but letting her run through just kills all sorcerery and. . . natural social interaction. If the tribal tendencies of certain humanoids is linked to their cha penalties, this massive loss of cha means the end of society. Aside from bare handful of super elites that make it out unchanged, who might be able to repopulate-as long as you don't look too hard at their gene pool or mix in some outsider/dragon/etc blood for diversity.

Sertorus's sign is annoying. It claims to be a Sign, but the only mechanical effects are on encounters with the PCs (at least it's honest about the intent). It causes extra random encounters, eventually at a level above the party. If this effect is applied to all people, then they'd all be dead eventually just not having PC power and eventual bad luck. Otherwise it's just fluff, there are now an arbitrary number of new snakey things in the world. The biggest thing to note are any of those high level snake monsters the PCs ditch because they have a boss they need to kill to stop it, because they could leave some real nasty stuff laying around the world.

The Worm That Walks's sign is the same, but with more specific monsters.


And that's all the signs. As for what you've got left, that depends on order of operations.

[Jowgen]

Imma stop you right there.

You can in fact have an area that is both hallowed and unhallowed, and the sign itself doesn't say that it removes any existing hallows, though any new hallows cast within the atropus unhallow area remove it.

It is also worth noting that any and all bodies that were interred in hallowed chapels and churches would in fact NOT have been raised:

Unless atropus has a clause that specifically overwrites this, which I don't believe it does.

As Hallow is Instantenous and therefore un-dispellable, Unhallow serves as the means to remove it from an area, and vice versa.


When two opposing spells (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20050607a") have areas, one spell can remove the other when aimed at the same area. If the second spell's area covers the first spell's point of origin, both spells are completely negated (no caster level check is required). If the second spell's area of effect merely overlaps the first spell's area without covering the spell's point of origin, the two spells negate each other only the area where the areas overlap.

As the whole setting is affected as if by Unhallow, all the Hallow points of origins are covered and therefore negated (taking the anti-undead raise clause of Hallow with it) . This would normally created make those areas free from unhallow, except the sign is a persistent effect that'll just activate again to cover that area too, although it could be argued that this only happens once the Sign moves from Strong to Overwhelming (same as for casting hallow after the signs comes into play..

The rules for signs coming and going over-rides the instantaneous duration of Unhallow, so that the world doesn't stay completely unhallowed after.

[Crake]

As Hallow is Instantenous and therefore un-dispellable, Unhallow serves as the means to remove it from an area, and vice versa.



As the whole setting is affected as if by Unhallow, all the Hallow points of origins are covered and therefore negated (taking the anti-undead raise clause of Hallow with it) . This would normally created make those areas free from unhallow, except the sign is a persistent effect that'll just activate again to cover that area too, although it could be argued that this only happens once the Sign moves from Strong to Overwhelming (same as for casting hallow after the signs comes into play..

The rules for signs coming and going over-rides the instantaneous duration of Unhallow, so that the world doesn't stay completely unhallowed after.

The article you linked refers to opposing spells dispelling each other, however hallow and unhallow specifically state that they do not dispel each other, unlike all of the other spells mentioned in that section of the article, which specifically state that they dispel each other. An area can be simultaneously hallowed and unhallowed at the same time, in fact, most druids in my campaign setting both hallow and unhallow their groves, providing all neutral creatures protection from good and evil (since druids hold a neutral stance).

[Maat Mons]

most druids in my campaign setting both hallow and unhallow their groves, providing all neutral creatures protection from good and evil

Firstly, this is a terrible idea, because summoning is one of a Druid's main abilities. An area that is under the effects of both Hallow and Unhallow is, by extension, under the effects of both Magic Circle Against Evil and Magic Circle Against Good. Magic Circle Against Evil means that only good creatures can be summoned in the area. Magic Circle Against Good means that only evil creatures can be summoned in the area. I'm not aware of any summonable creatures that simultaneously count as both good and evil, so casting both basically says "no summoning."

Actually, casting even one of the two screws the Druid over almost as bad. Casting Hallow limits his Summon Nature's Ally options to djinni, grigs, pixies, and unicorns. Casting Unhallow limits him to salamanders. Kind of makes you wonder why those spells are even on the Druid list.

Secondly, why wouldn't it provide creatures of all alignments with both Protection from Good and Protection from Evil? Those are the first effects of Hallow and Unhallow. Only the third effects of those spells can be keyed to specific alignments.

[Crake]

Firstly, this is a terrible idea, because summoning is one of a Druid's main abilities. An area that is under the effects of both Hallow and Unhallow is, by extension, under the effects of both Magic Circle Against Evil and Magic Circle Against Good. Magic Circle Against Evil means that only good creatures can be summoned in the area. Magic Circle Against Good means that only evil creatures can be summoned in the area. I'm not aware of any summonable creatures that simultaneously count as both good and evil, so casting both basically says "no summoning."

Actually, casting even one of the two screws the Druid over almost as bad. Casting Hallow limits his Summon Nature's Ally options to djinni, grigs, pixies, and unicorns. Casting Unhallow limits him to salamanders. Kind of makes you wonder why those spells are even on the Druid list.

As a DM I rarely have NPCs summon, because it just slows the game down. A druid would be more likely to have a bunch of friendly animals that aren't summoned, but instead wild empathied, and would have things like druidic avenger to replace spontaneous summons. If you think a buffed up bear druid is scary, just wait till you see a buffed up bear druid who's raging. It also does the druid the benefit of preventing planar abominations of ANY KIND being summoned into her grove, as well as the benefit of being able to tie two spells to the grove, instead of one.


Secondly, why wouldn't it provide creatures of all alignments with both Protection from Good and Protection from Evil? Those are the first effects of Hallow and Unhallow. Only the third effects of those spells can be keyed to specific alignments.

They do provide creatures of all alignments with prtection from good and evil, however the AC and saves bonus only applies against Good/Evil creatures, so a neutral druid would get +2 AC/saves against good and evil creatures, but they would recieve no such bonus against the druid.