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Fax Celestis
2008-02-01, 12:11 PM
Yes, you heard me. A Storm is Coming players, this thread is not for thine eyes.

So soon my players in my ASiC game will be going up against the Big Bad Evil Advanced Frost Worm Demon (http://http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56409) (BBEAFWD?), in which they will attempt to prevent his ascension to divinity. I am planning on having two things happen upon his destruction (or his ascension, if they fail).

Should the party prevent his ascension, the whole south pole (where they are currently located) will begin to melt at a very rapid pace, returning to the tropical rainforest state it was in several hundred years ago. How should I handle this in-character, and how quickly should the thaw be? Of course, as a result of this thaw, the sea level of the world is going to raise significantly, which is what I'm shooting for them to be their next task: helping restructure civilization that's been badly tsunamied and flooded.

Should the party fail to prevent his ascension, the world will enter a second ice age and the entirety of the planet will begin to freeze over. How quickly should this freeze happen?

In either case--whether due to their chosen means of destroying Ghulurak or due to a side effect of his ascension--the little-known Goddess of Sound is going to be expelled from her place in the heavens, and as a result sound will be stripped from the world. This will render Listen checks irrelevant and make many creatures dependent upon subsonics for survival completely SOL. It'll also interfere with spellcasting that has Verbal components. The spells will still be castable, but they'll have the failure chance that's set down in the Deaf status condition.

Questions? Ideas of what to add to this? Statements of "that's preposterously stupid?" Any help at all would be appreciated.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-02-01, 12:19 PM
Wouldn't that screw blindsighted critters to the point they become CR 0,000000000000000091019?

Additionally, wouldn't it make items that allow you to Silent Spell your spells worth kingdoms?

Shishnarfne
2008-02-01, 12:22 PM
That's a fairly significant set of consequences one way or another...

I'd suggest that the time scale for any changes that you wish to be non-immediate should parallel the amount of time that elapses in-game. Thus, the players ought to see changes on a sufficiently meaningful timescale that they might be able to associate them with their own actions.

Of course, word of any changes should probably travel somewhat more slowly than the actual changes, so that they are already taking place before the players find out.

However, the second listed change (that results yea or nay) will probably aggravate some of your players... even more so as they realize what's happening, and probably won't know why...

Fax Celestis
2008-02-01, 12:22 PM
It would, temporarily at least. The party (and probably other groups) are going to be attempting (and probably competing) to restore sound as quickly as possible.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-02-01, 12:25 PM
What's the level of the player characters? It seems that they'll either have to storm the houses of the other gods or do a REALLY high diplo roll to get the goddess back into the pantheon.

Fax Celestis
2008-02-01, 12:32 PM
What's the level of the player characters? It seems that they'll either have to storm the houses of the other gods or do a REALLY high diplo roll to get the goddess back into the pantheon.

When they're done, they should be about ECL 14-15. They're ECL 11-12 right now.

FlyMolo
2008-02-01, 12:33 PM
This sounds awesome. Well done.

You could say something like "A fresh breeze blows across the barren frosted plain. It feels strangely warm." Then point out meltwater pools on top of this glacier a little while later. Your options are gradual, over an IC day or two to notice the changes, or your classic The-walls-are-shaking, Indiana Jones sudden collapse. Either could be fun.

Fax Celestis
2008-02-01, 01:19 PM
The problem with the Indiana-Jones style is that the PCs are pretty deep arctic right now, and I can't really do much of the ZOMGMELTING thing plausibly.

Bellmaethorion
2008-02-01, 02:10 PM
I like the melting/freezing part, and though sound just disappearing would be interesting, wouldn't it completely mess up the food chain as bats and such die, and insects overpopulate(I know bats don't eat ALL the insects, there's also spiders, birds, other insects.. but still)
many other animals would also be having difficulty to hunt, or notice hunters.

Logically(though logic, of course, needs not be followed in D&D) the sudden lack of any and all sound will have a ripple effect that changes... alot.

Fax Celestis
2008-02-01, 02:13 PM
I like the melting/freezing part, and though sound just disappearing would be interesting, wouldn't it completely mess up the food chain as bats and such die, and insects overpopulate(I know bats don't eat ALL the insects, there's also spiders, birds, other insects.. but still)
many other animals would also be having difficulty to hunt, or notice hunters.

Logically(though logic, of course, needs not be followed in D&D) the sudden lack of any and all sound will have a ripple effect that changes... alot.

It would do a lot of different kinds of damage, hence the need for the heroes to fix it ASAP.

MandibleBones
2008-02-01, 02:20 PM
What about basically running a remake of The Day After Tomorrow while the ice slowly (but much more quickly than normal) melts?

Also I completely wish I were playing in this campaign.

Fax Celestis
2008-02-01, 02:29 PM
What about basically running a remake of The Day After Tomorrow while the ice slowly (but much more quickly than normal) melts?

Also I completely wish I were playing in this campaign.

Well, I do need another person. It's Wednesday nights, 6:30-9:45ish PST.

AKA_Bait
2008-02-01, 02:32 PM
I would make everything pretty gradual. Particularly the sound one. I think it could be pretty interesting if when the goddess was tossed out that sound didn't click off like a light switch but more faded away. Something like:

Week 1: Everything seems normal.

Week 2: There is a small, hardly noticable delay bettween when someone opens their mouth and speaks and when the words are actually heard. Bats start crashing into things.

Week 3: The delay increases to half a second and the eventual sound grows fainter. Verbal components in spells have an additional failure chance as do invocations etc.

Week 4: Keeps getting worse.

You get the idea.

Fax Celestis
2008-02-01, 02:34 PM
I would make everything pretty gradual. Particularly the sound one. I think it could be pretty interesting if when the goddess was tossed out that sound didn't click off like a light switch but more faded away. Something like:

Week 1: Everything seems normal.

Week 2: There is a small, hardly noticable delay bettween when someone opens their mouth and speaks and when the words are actually heard. Bats start crashing into things.

Week 3: The delay increases to half a second and the eventual sound grows fainter. Verbal components in spells have an additional failure chance as do invocations etc.

Week 4: Keeps getting worse.

You get the idea.
That's a rather good idea. I was actually planning on doing the lightswitch thing (a la Buffy's "Hush"), but this would probably be more effective and grant a sort of buffer-period.

Brawls
2008-02-01, 02:51 PM
I'm going to hate myself for asking, but how is the polar region actually a tropical rain forest?

Anyway, how catastrophic do you want your impacts to be. The faster the change the more damage. I'm not sure if your familiar with the Missoula Floods that occurred in the Pacific Northwest, but the result was the sculpting of the scablands in eastern Washington, a temporary inland sea, and finally the carving of the Columbia River Gorge. All from several releases of ice dams in Montana. That has the potential for a lot of devastation of society, since many settlements are located on rivers. A slower pace will allow people to evacuate to higher ground, develop watercraft capable of staying connected with other habitations, etc. You might wind up with more sunken cities than outright destroyed ones, which is an interesting campaign hook.

On the other extreme, the rate of cooling can have a huge impact on agriculture and livestock. Imagine transitioning from a Mediteranian climate that is pastoral to having to move your livestock into your dwelling so they (and you) don't die of exposure. Also, your growing season gets shorter each year and migratory patterns for game begin to shift to improve survival chances. You also have the potential for rapid glacier formation and advancement in any mountainous terrain, possibly threatening settlements and people. Limiting travel during the winter, etc. One consideration with a rapid cooling is that sea levels lower, as more evaporated water is converted into snowpack, rather than immediate runoff. Thus the hydrologic cycle could result in miles of new exposed coastline, etc.

Either way, sounds like a fun scenario to game in. Not sure what to say about the Goddess of Sound.

Brawls

Blackadder
2008-02-01, 03:13 PM
Keep in mind even if it were a balmy 90*F over the South pole tomorrow, it's going to take a goodly number of years for things to melt of. Thing is, ice goes DEEP. Even with the temperature at 90*F during the day and say 70*F during the night, it's going to take a number of years for all the ice to melt away until things become Tropically inclined.


Physics here, the ice on top shields the ice below from heat transfer, it takes a good long time for ice to melt. In geologic times it's an eye blink but that's another matter.

Real world example example, in 2003 I was in DC during Winter working at the Pentagon, right around March we had a late snow, it got cloud we had 2 inchs fall on the ground, sit there and then a day or two later the temperature hit 55*F during the day and only fell to 42*F during the night. Over the week it got even hotter, the snow fell on a Friday, but it was not gone until the following Tuesday with pockets in the shade remaining until that Thursday. Despite the 20* temperature difference. Note here how two inchs of snow stayed around for over four days despite it never going below freezing. How about five feet of snow? Much longer, and ice takes even longer to melt. Increase the temperature to increase melting speed.

Ice takes awhile to melt, in fact this will hold true no matter how hot you make the ice area unless it's above 160*F when water starts to move(Not yet boiling) and that's when it beings to severely reduce the time it takes to all melt, once the temperature hits 160*F your going to see Indian Jones style "whole lakes flashing to water from ice" or quick enough.



All that said, here's my advice to you.
Divide the campaign in half, first hit them with the south issues, then right around the one month mark, toss in the fact that tides are coming in much higher(Half an inch or it's just noticeably rougher) and then things can accelerate from there. Around month two the first signs of flooding would become evident, if they went back to the south most of the surface ice, if not the ice-bergs and the like would be melted. What to know what it would look like at the 2 month mark? Picture Iceland, in fact picture this
http://www.icetourist.is/upload/files/Gullfoss%20i%20vetrarham.jpg
Still snow on the ground in most places, it's not ankle deep anymore and there are a half a hundred rivers criss-crossing the land.

Right around month 4 (Assuming 75*F highs) is when you will expect normally flood proof areas on the coast to start getting flooded regularly during storms with things getting worse from there until right around the two year mark when most of the ice should be gone.

Fax Celestis
2008-02-01, 03:16 PM
I'm going to hate myself for asking, but how is the polar region actually a tropical rain forest? The "planet" the PCs are on is actually a habitable moon and therefore receives better sunlight at a different angle than the planet below. As such, the poles are actually not set up the way they are on our planet.


Anyway, how catastrophic do you want your impacts to be. The faster the change the more damage. I'm not sure if your familiar with the Missoula Floods that occurred in the Pacific Northwest, but the result was the sculpting of the scablands in eastern Washington, a temporary inland sea, and finally the carving of the Columbia River Gorge. All from several releases of ice dams in Montana. That has the potential for a lot of devastation of society, since many settlements are located on rivers. A slower pace will allow people to evacuate to higher ground, develop watercraft capable of staying connected with other habitations, etc. You might wind up with more sunken cities than outright destroyed ones, which is an interesting campaign hook.

On the other extreme, the rate of cooling can have a huge impact on agriculture and livestock. Imagine transitioning from a Mediteranian climate that is pastoral to having to move your livestock into your dwelling so they (and you) don't die of exposure. Also, your growing season gets shorter each year and migratory patterns for game begin to shift to improve survival chances. You also have the potential for rapid glacier formation and advancement in any mountainous terrain, possibly threatening settlements and people. Limiting travel during the winter, etc. One consideration with a rapid cooling is that sea levels lower, as more evaporated water is converted into snowpack, rather than immediate runoff. Thus the hydrologic cycle could result in miles of new exposed coastline, etc.

The more I think about it, the more appealing a more gradual chance appears.

Blackadder
2008-02-01, 03:19 PM
*Edit
If it's Magic Ice of course, it should all turn into Magic water in 1d20/days of course. :amused:

But if it's Non-magic ice, the old natural cold version of water, expect weeks before anything is noticeable on a large scale(Water level) even if on a local scale(Two weeks) you see free-flowing water in the area.

No magic ice is 1d10/months +1 month per 25 feet of ice
And of course I made both of those up, but the physics behind it(And the magic physics behind that) are correct.

So it all depends on what temperature you set it post dead ice worm. If it's 75*F expect a month or two before anyone notices in fair off places, while at the middle of the cold area expect it to be noticeable within a week or so(Free flowing water) if it's 90*F-110*F divide the time in half, and half again for 110*F and the free flowing water to two days later. The higher the tempature, the faster the effects are noticeable.

Fax Celestis
2008-02-01, 03:20 PM
Keep in mind even if it were a balmy 90*F over the South pole tomorrow, it's going to take a goodly number of years for things to melt of. Thing is, ice goes DEEP. Even with the temperature at 90*F during the day and say 70*F during the night, it's going to take a number of years for all the ice to melt away until things become Tropically inclined.


Physics here, the ice on top shields the ice below from heat transfer, it takes a good long time for ice to melt. In geologic times it's an eye blink but that's another matter.

Real world example example, in 2003 I was in DC during Winter working at the Pentagon, right around March we had a late snow, it got cloud we had 2 inchs fall on the ground, sit there and then a day or two later the temperature hit 55*F during the day and only fell to 42*F during the night. Over the week it got even hotter, the snow fell on a Friday, but it was not gone until the following Tuesday with pockets in the shade remaining until that Thursday. Despite the 20* temperature difference. Note here how two inchs of snow stayed around for over four days despite it never going below freezing. How about five feet of snow? Much longer, and ice takes even longer to melt. Increase the temperature to increase melting speed.

Ice takes awhile to melt, in fact this will hold true no matter how hot you make the ice area unless it's above 160*F when water starts to move(Not yet boiling) and that's when it beings to severely reduce the time it takes to all melt, once the temperature hits 160*F your going to see Indian Jones style "whole lakes flashing to water from ice" or quick enough.



All that said, here's my advice to you.
Divide the campaign in half, first hit them with the south issues, then right around the one month mark, toss in the fact that tides are coming in much higher(Half an inch or it's just noticeably rougher) and then things can accelerate from there. Around month two the first signs of flooding would become evident, if they went back to the south most of the surface ice, if not the ice-bergs and the like would be melted. What to know what it would look like at the 2 month mark? Picture Iceland, in fact picture this
http://www.icetourist.is/upload/files/Gullfoss%20i%20vetrarham.jpg
Still snow on the ground in most places, it's not ankle deep anymore and there are a half a hundred rivers criss-crossing the land.

Right around month 4 (Assuming 75*F highs) is when you will expect normally flood proof areas on the coast to start getting flooded regularly during storms with things getting worse from there until right around the two year mark when most of the ice should be gone.

Normally all of that would apply, but there's a minor conundrum with this: the polarization (if you will) of the southern pole is due to the magical influence of the demon that the PCs are going to be dispatching. Without magic to back it up, it should lose integrity rather quickly.

Fax Celestis
2008-02-01, 03:21 PM
*Edit
If it's Magic Ice of course, it should all turn into Magic water in 1d20/days of course. :amused:

But if it's Non-magic ice, the old natural cold version of water, expect weeks before anything is noticeable on a large scale(Water level) even if on a local scale(Two weeks) you see free-flowing water in the area.

No magic ice is 1d10/months +1 month per 25 feet of ice

I have been beaten to the punch. Maybe I'll finally make use of my fortnight die (d14)!

Blackadder
2008-02-01, 03:31 PM
The question is Fax, how much is magic ice, and how much is normal ice? If it's all magic ice, well.... stand by because things will get very bad VERY quickly.

You know coastal tides right? What if high tide did not go away and simply got higher each day until everything was flooded out to X where X is the amount of magic ice-turned water you dumped in the ocean.

In short very bad things, it's not a gradual thing, it's an in your face your world is flooding kind of thing. And that's hard to recover from. Keep in mind how hard building ports are. By their nature they would be the first ones hit, and under-water. And the streets will flood, the houses will flood, the docks, the warehouses, entire towns will be gone. Once safe harbor's are no longer safe harbor's because the reef's that protected them and shield ships from storms are now deep under-water or that finger of land or whatever bit of geography that made your port a nice place to park ships, is now underwater You can't rebuild a port at the water line because there's that pesky underwater city that you can rip the bottom of your boat out on. Along with, the aforementioned no longer being as great a place for a port.

Short term, massive economic damage, thousands of people displaced and a big increase in piracy and raiding since the people safeguarding the water's are without proper facilities just like everyone else.

Long term increase a whole new series of ports, thousands of jobs, mass migrations and new trade routes.

Or in other words if everything is magic ice, the ports get flooded(Along with some peasants) pretty much everyone takes it in the shorts and no one lives happily ever after. (Unless your a Pirate or a treasure diver)

Long term, economic growth job creation and new trade routes for everyone Hurray!

Yakk
2008-02-01, 03:33 PM
Victory:

Have magic, especially long-range and "maintained but controlled" magic, go wonkey. They have to trek off the contintent. Magic items that aren't constant-effect just don't work. Flight is a good way to smash yourself into the ground. Teleportation is punative. Planar travel attempts at best knock you out or kill you.

So they have to walk.

The best route ends up going over some mountains.

The weather gets warmer. Cracks in the ice are found. They fight at least one fight with crazed ice elementals. Loud noises from cracks in the distance.

As the approach the mountains, a fog starts rising -- the ice is melting.

They cross the mountains -- on the other side is a jungle. @_@

Behind them, an volcano goes off (loud noise, red glow, ash falls).

The jungle contains a pyramid. The pyramid contains 1000s of year old magic that runs off crystals that seems to be working!

Decypher script on the sign outside indicates that this is a transportation node.

Adventure in pyramid: constructs powered by crystal magic, trying to keep the place clean, and you guys look like debris to them.

Ends in the teleportation room. Either they can teleport anywhere on the map, or it railroads them to one of a few locations. Possibly add in the entire system overloading because they powered up the room (crystals flashing in brighter and more alarming patterns, louder and more keening noise and warbles).

They teleport out, and the pyramid blows up behind them. Note that the map contains other locations (future adventure hooks), and the shape of the world is quite different (there are entire continents added and removed).

Then they find out what happened to the rest of the world. Long-range magic is still funkey, but the disruption of magic isn't as bad up here.

The Volcano explosion knocked an entire ice sheet loose. It slid off the continent into the water, which created a massive tsunami, which rang around the world.

Some sub-continents where scrubbed clean of all life. Most coastal cities where wiped out. Cities up major rivers where heavily damaged. The few remaining coastal regions are flooding.

Refugees everywhere. A plague of undead is starting to take off, caused by the mass suffering and death. At least 1 person is harnessing the undead, and attempting to go undead-geometric (the players might not notice this to start).

Ice elementals riding on icebergs that survived the tsunami are everywhere, and causing lots of damage.

Then the sound problem starts hitting.

Possibilities at this point:
1> Fix what is wrong with magic. The crystal magic from the pyramid might be a route.
2> Fix what is wrong with sound. I don't know.
3> Prevent the world from being overrun by an empire of undead.
4> Stop the flooding before the world is drowned. Get the ice elementals to gether in one spot, and freeze a lot of water, might do it.
5> Rebuild society to be strong enough to continue on past the end of the world.

...

And that's the players winning. :)

Burley
2008-02-01, 03:40 PM
As far as the temperature thing...I dunno. I'm not a geologist, so I can't comment.
Nor am I a physicist, but I play one on TV. Therefore, I think there would be much more profound and sudden problems occuring if sound were to suddenly shut off. Since air is constantly full of sound waves, our ears have adapted to that. If you've ever been in a soundproof booth and held your breath (did once at a museum), you hear your heartbeat in your ears and everything else is stagnant. It hurt my ears like crazy. I dunno if I'm strange or what, but I would imagine that taking something so profound away would cause people to scream bloody murder...well, not scream...
And, if sound were to suddenly go away, would you make sound suddenly come back? If so...I would imagine a lot of eardrums would burst...unless you rolled Fort saves for every NPC in effected existance.

I'll suggest something, but first: Why exactly is the Sound God/dess being disbarred? It must be pretty severe for the pantheon to give SOUND the pink slip...
Anyways, I would suggest something like AKA_Bait's idea. Something gradual, and you could back it by saying that the Sound God/dess was put on suspension for review by the pantheon, and therefore severely weakened...

Fax Celestis
2008-02-01, 03:46 PM
As far as the temperature thing...I dunno. I'm not a geologist, so I can't comment.
Nor am I a physicist, but I play one on TV. Therefore, I think there would be much more profound and sudden problems occuring if sound were to suddenly shut off. Since air is constantly full of sound waves, our ears have adapted to that. If you've ever been in a soundproof booth and held your breath (did once at a museum), you hear your heartbeat in your ears and everything else is stagnant. It hurt my ears like crazy. I dunno if I'm strange or what, but I would imagine that taking something so profound away would cause people to scream bloody murder...well, not scream...
And, if sound were to suddenly go away, would you make sound suddenly come back? If so...I would imagine a lot of eardrums would burst...unless you rolled Fort saves for every NPC in effected existance.

I'll suggest something, but first: Why exactly is the Sound God/dess being disbarred? It must be pretty severe for the pantheon to give SOUND the pink slip...
Anyways, I would suggest something like AKA_Bait's idea. Something gradual, and you could back it by saying that the Sound God/dess was put on suspension for review by the pantheon, and therefore severely weakened...

The Goddess of Sound is being barred off due to the artifact the PCs are using to subdue Ghulurak before his ascension. It has the unfortunate side effect of displacing a random deity from their power and sealing them in an as-of-yet unknown location.

As for what Blackadder said above, I've only got one question: I have a people who are deposed from their historical home and are now a seafaring trader race who live out of their ships. Should they survive, or are they going to go first?

AKA_Bait
2008-02-01, 03:56 PM
As for what Blackadder said above, I've only got one question: I have a people who are deposed from their historical home and are now a seafaring trader race who live out of their ships. Should they survive, or are they going to go first?

I'd say decimated by not wiped out totally. Ships that were far, far out to sea might have made it.

Fax Celestis
2008-02-01, 04:50 PM
I'd say decimated by not wiped out totally. Ships that were far, far out to sea might have made it.

So around the northern pole? That might work.

Brawls
2008-02-01, 06:50 PM
So around the northern pole? That might work.
They may be the safest folks, in point of fact. Assuming no nasty weather that would threaten their floatilla, of course. However, the ports where they re-supply would no longer function as before. Also, safe harbors (whether natural or man made) would change based on new ocean level and impacts to coastal features. Therefore, if these sea faring folks did need to find shelter from a storm (or creature), their customary refuges may no longer be safe or available.

Under the rapid magical ice melting scenario, damage to coastal communities would be large; however, I think communities on rivers fed by melt water would be in greater danger from flooding and erosion. Like I mentioned, when the ice dams holding back Lake Missoula released, the Columbia River Gorge was carved and an inland sea formed. That is a pretty catastrophic level of change and it occurred rapidly, geologically speaking. Also, if you really want to throw some reality into the scenario, you should look at what happens to the geologic plates when the weight of lots of ice is suddenly removed. Plate tectonics in other parts of your moon might also respond to an increase in the pressure associated with more or less water. I wouldn't be suprised is a massive round of earthquakes and eruptions did not accompany the changing global dynamic.

Brawls

Yakk
2008-02-01, 08:52 PM
Tsunamis are not dangerous deep at sea. It is only when the surge hits the shelf does it start mounding up. And then it flows at land, and it has nowhere to go but break...

Ie, it would be a huge massive wave, but it wouldn't be a sharp wave. It is only when the wave "breaks" does it form a sharp cliff of water. And then it smashes into land, and then it flows out, both causing huge amounts of damage.

Note the volcano in my random spew: with the ice melting and going away, pressure on a geological level changes, and the release of pressure could trigger a volcano, which then causes an ice sheet to crack and slide off the continent...

This also leads to large numbers of huge icebergs floating away from the south pole, each melting, and the sea level going up both quickly on a geological time scale, but not instantly. It also leads to some cool visuals, where you see an iceflow half the size of a kingdom floating along a traderoute, melting...

Now, one might expect some serious weather, which would suck.

MeklorIlavator
2008-02-01, 09:51 PM
I'm supporting Yakk on this, as tsunami's usually only raise the water a few centimeters if far out at sea. Also, the survival of the displaced people could provide something of a plot hook: Every one would be suspicious if one rather large fringe group made it unscathed, and so you could have large groups from the wrecked countries attacking them, similar to the persecution of Jewish communities in Medieval Europe. The PC's could easily become involved, being the dashing heroic types that PC's are.

VanBuren
2008-02-01, 09:59 PM
I would make everything pretty gradual. Particularly the sound one. I think it could be pretty interesting if when the goddess was tossed out that sound didn't click off like a light switch but more faded away. Something like:

Week 1: Everything seems normal.

Week 2: There is a small, hardly noticable delay bettween when someone opens their mouth and speaks and when the words are actually heard. Bats start crashing into things.

Week 3: The delay increases to half a second and the eventual sound grows fainter. Verbal components in spells have an additional failure chance as do invocations etc.

Week 4: Keeps getting worse.

You get the idea.

While there's certainly a lot to be said for the gradual effect, I think it would perhaps be less effective than the lightswitch. Especially if it happens right as they deal the final blow to the BBE.

Actually, IMO that's the only way for the lightswitch method to be thematically more effective than the gradual loss. Otherwise do gradual.

Fax Celestis
2008-02-01, 10:02 PM
The volcano's an excellent point, as there's an active volcano that's nearby already. The dromites have a hive there.

philippos
2008-02-02, 10:31 AM
There is a book called Fingerprints of the Gods which is about our own fake history of a seafaring race who rebuilt civilization in Egypt and Peru after the last ice age. This book would maybe have some good sugestions buried within the otherwise useless text.

but it basicly talks about flash floods, volcanism and a loss of history and then a few people trying to rebuild while this is going on (or it talks about how this group really existed and these ruins are why)

If the iceage hits; will it radiate from the spot and mean that the southern ice grows more everyday while water everywhere else disapears making the weather unbearably dry untill the world is a desert that never gets warm? Or will it hit all over the place taking out some cities sparing others casting various peoples adrift, breaking old friendships forging ones between races (example maybe dwarves and goblins work together for survival) And during iceages there are still oceans they are just smaller, but if its magic or a moon maybe there isn't enough and its all solid.

But given the idea of environmental upheavial of anykind as the new campaign setting, I would have it creap up, you can have a magical backlash in the first week/second/whatever to let them know something is up and then everything goes back to (almost)normal which can lull them for the slow creep to new disasters. what is the time scale that you are looking at for playing in the "new version of the world" will the players fix it and right the world in a single epic quest, or will everyone be forced to deal with the new way of things for a much longer period of time?


I'm not even sure what it means for sound to disapear, all vibration, just that between 20htz and 20khtz the perception of said vibrations..?.... I'm over physicalizing it but it seems a cool idea.

skywalker
2008-02-03, 01:16 AM
While there's certainly a lot to be said for the gradual effect, I think it would perhaps be less effective than the lightswitch. Especially if it happens right as they deal the final blow to the BBE.

Actually, IMO that's the only way for the lightswitch method to be thematically more effective than the gradual loss. Otherwise do gradual.

I concur. I absolutely love the image Van has created of absolute triumph and then sudden silence.

If they lose, then of course something crazy happens.

I vote for the lightswitch idea. I think the shock is the coolest effect.

Rock out and realism be damned.

Blackadder
2008-02-03, 01:31 AM
How about combining the two? Light-switch plus gradual

Post defeat turn off the sound for five minutes, no hearing no talking no nothing. Then bam, everything works fine for 1d20+1 hours then shut the sound off for another X minutes. After a week has gone by increase the length to hour or two. Then push it up, by week three you have "sound-outs" for six hours at a time. Once you pass twelve hours of quiet time switch it up. Have sound start cutting in and out every five minutes. Give them a big ol event of some kind, then shut the sound off randomly and increase it on a sharp curve until it's quiet 24/7.


OAN:BOAT PEOPLE!
Boat people will be fine baring any major storms, if they are a sea-faring people then they could end co-oped by retreating town folks or sunk by unexpected tides.

Tidewaves will not effect them that much.