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Inyssius Tor
2008-05-20, 02:43 AM
Cross-posted from RPGnet:
I just read Worlds and Monsters. It's a great book; probably not something I'd buy, but still great. When reading it, though, I got the distinct impression that the world was littered with so many ruins that you could not physically find a single patch of land unoccupied by ancient and mysterious abandoned structures erected by one or another vast but long-fallen empire. Just leafing through it, I see...


All of the massive empires of the mountain giants, hill giants, fire giants, frost giants, and cloud giants (ruled by their titan overlords) on the Material Plane and the Elemental Chaos. Destroyed by dwarven rebellions, wars with the humanoids, and the fall of their primordial creators--the Astral deities who killed the primordials presumably did not embrace their ancient foes' servants and foot soldiers.
The death giants' Shadowfell empire, destroyed for many of the same reasons as above plus planar sympathy with the Prime Material (in an "as below, so above" type of arrangement).
The Fomorians' Feywild demesnes, which fell in pretty much the same way as the death giants' empire.
The all-encompassing--intergalactic--Illithid empire. Destroyed by the Gith rebellion.
Many abandoned Dominons in the Astral Sea, created by exarchs, demigods, and deities long destroyed (or who simply moved elsewhere, like the Raven Queen).
Zannad, ruled by flesh-warping Yuan-Ti mages and destroyed by rampant mutants and societal decay.
Cendriane, the latest Eladrin empire to span both the Feywild and Prime Material (wiped clean in hours by some mountain-dwelling Sealed Evil); also, the Anauli Empire and the Realm of the Twin Queens before it, and various others before them.
Bael Turath, the mighty demonic empire of the Tieflings (destroyed by Arkhosia).
Arkhosia, the mighty draconic empire of the Dragonborn (destroyed by nasty demons summoned by Bael Turath, who actually still inhabit many Arkhosian ruins).
Nerath, the last great human kingdom; destroyed a hundred years ago by the Ruler of Ruin... and also the countless but little-mentioned great human empires preceding it.
The territories controlled by the gnoll Ruler of Ruin and his (goblinoid, troglodyte, and other savage humanoid) followers and slaves.


Now, that is quite a few fallen empires. I think each of them have an interesting and (more or less) unique aesthetic, even. There's a lot of good material there I'd like to use, but I'm not sure I can think of many different reasons for adventurers to delve into these ruins. You can only use "delving into the abandoned city for cash or MacGuffins" or "hunt down bandits who use the forgotten complex for shelter" so many times before it gets a little tiresome...

The city of Bael Turath has a good plot hook associated with it, in that the place is something of a magnet for tiefling cults and mad prophets; perhaps the players or their patrons need to get in touch with one of these lunatics. The book mentioned a dragonborn city in a huge canyon, ripped apart by a tiefling-sent earthquake dragon; I can imagine that newer towns have grown up almost against the sides of the chasm, but no plot hooks beyond "something bad is lurking in the canyon" or "hey, I wonder if the Arkhosians left any shiny things down there?" (I imagine it would be pretty cool if some recent disaster left the city half-submerged in water, but that doesn't give the players any other reasons to go in there.) The book covers a Cendrianian cloud city--Amethystra, and yes that's the best name they could come up with. It's a cool locale, made from slender, beautiful, and loudly echoing crystal spires. There are no scars of war there, since the place was wiped clean with very little opposition by whatever can of evil the Eladrin had opened. It would be a perfect place to put lunar ravagers, or possibly winged fey of some sort, but that's the "hunt bandits who lodge there" scenario yet again.

So, does anyone else have any ruin-based plot ideas?

bosssmiley
2008-05-20, 03:31 AM
You mean other than "Lost Empires of Faerun" or "Serpent Kingdoms" or "Netheril, Empire of Magic", or Al-Qadim's "Jungle Kingdoms", or the whole backstory of the "Dark Sun" setting? Or - say - any of the rest of the 30 or so years of published and homebrew D&D material? Or all the other films, books, etc. that use the idea of precursor (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Precursors) races (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AncientAstronauts), ancient empires (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AtlantisTheLostEmpire) and sealed evil in a can (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SealedEvilInACan) as their background?

I got nothing. :smallamused:

Xefas
2008-05-20, 04:25 AM
So, does anyone else have any ruin-based plot ideas?

Well, presumably, and this is purely hypothetical, but presumably, the PCs are adventurers. Adventurers, as in, people whom adventure.

Ruins seem like as good a place as any to adventure in.

Do they really need a reason to seek out a place, clear out its inhabitants, loot anything of value from it, and become exceedingly rich?

I mean, what else are they going to do? They're adventurers. Long ago they traded such exciting and lucrative skills as "Staying home and knitting" and "Enjoying the family tailoring business" for the ability to explode people with their brains and take a crossbow bolt to the face at point blank range and only by mildly discomforted.

Illiterate Scribe
2008-05-20, 04:34 AM
Someone is seeking to rebuild said ruin? Mine it for relics, on an industrial scale? Turn it into a theme park, a la Escape From Monkey Island 3?

Kurald Galain
2008-05-20, 04:43 AM
This is hilarious. Most settings or books have one, possibly two, collapsed ancient empires. The default setting for 4E now has several dozens of them :smallsmile: I suppose every single race and monster needs as background fluff that they used to be a great empire that was destroyed at some point.

Reel On, Love
2008-05-20, 04:49 AM
Man, you know how many collapsed empires real life has?

Illiterate Scribe
2008-05-20, 04:51 AM
Man, you know how many collapsed empires real life has?

Yes, but they mostly build their ruins-to-be on top of each other, rather than scattered around the barren wilderness, c.f. Cordoba in Spain.

Kurald Galain
2008-05-20, 05:01 AM
Man, you know how many collapsed empires real life has?

I have an inkling, yes. Do you know how many of those were founded by giants, or faeries, or dragons? Or how many of those were destroyed by rampant mutants, summoned demons, or a sealed-evil-in-a-can? :smallbiggrin:

Glawackus
2008-05-20, 07:53 AM
One of the ruins starts slowly rebuilding itself, or, just suddenly appears restored to its previous glory.

A novice wizard who's nicked his master's wand of fly sees that the ruins spell something from the air.

The ruins are moving closer and closer to <Settlement Name Here>, and not even the best diviners are sure what will happen once they get there.

Roderick_BR
2008-05-20, 08:16 AM
Man, you know how many collapsed empires real life has?
And add to it the fact that while we don't have magic, we use sattelite surveilance, intercontinental communication, and scholars studying how to find out information about older cultures instead of making time stop for several seconds, and we probably still don't know even half of them. Fantasy settings must have many more.

Tura
2008-05-20, 08:17 AM
Yes, but they mostly build their ruins-to-be on top of each other, rather than scattered around the barren wilderness, c.f. Cordoba in Spain.
True, but then again human empires don't usually leave behind them monster-infested ruins with wild magic zones, deadly traps and lingering curses, so rebuilding on top of them is rarely a problem. :)

Zeful
2008-05-20, 08:22 AM
A novice wizard who's nicked his master's wand of fly sees that the ruins spell something from the air.

Apprentice: "your ne\" what the hell is that supposed to mean?

MorkaisChosen
2008-05-20, 08:26 AM
There's a third Generic Ruin Plotline: someone wandered into them and hasn't been seen since. Find and rescue them.

XiaoTie
2008-05-20, 08:27 AM
I have an inkling, yes. Do you know how many of those were founded by giants, or faeries, or dragons? Or how many of those were destroyed by rampant mutants, summoned demons, or a sealed-evil-in-a-can? :smallbiggrin:

Because real life has giants, faeries or dragons right? And fantasy, on the other hand, is all about humans without fantasy races.


On topic. Love them ruins. Like Xefas mentioned they are a good place for "simple" adventures for the heck of it, and they can also be very plot-related places with minor changes. I'm currently using many ruins as a very subtle plot-related idea that has to do with ancient empires and precursor races like bossmiley mentioned.

Citizen Joe
2008-05-20, 08:35 AM
At the point that a culture can afford to throw away resources, they literally bury themselves in trash. Most real world empires fell in this manner.

Ryuuk
2008-05-20, 09:12 AM
Lets see, here's a few possible hooks:

- The PCs must get to the Town/City/State of X in a hurry, the trip over land would take weeks, but rumor has it that there is a much quicker route by using an ancient mountain passage.

- A magical accident/earthquake has uncovered a twisting network of corridors descending miles below the City of X. Apparently something down there also took note and people have been disappearing.

- There is something about that old site to the east. Random individuals on the neighboring town of Y have been have been having strange dreams and within a weak they head to the ruins on their own accord, never to be seen again.

- The PCs travel to the ruins of X in the trail of the BBEG, who having acquired Maguffins Y and Z, is planning on reusing the site for its powerful magical properties to advance his own mad schemes.

Not exactly original, but viable nevertheless.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-05-20, 09:29 AM
I got nothing. :smallamused:

It's not like the very name of Forgotten Realms refers to the countless fallen empires of the setting...

The whole planar empires deal is a bit new, though.

Classic D&D requires ruins, and I always enjoyed the history of Faerūn; so this sounds cool.

Trog
2008-05-20, 09:30 AM
Yes, but they mostly build their ruins-to-be on top of each other, rather than scattered around the barren wilderness, c.f. Cordoba in Spain.

Who says these aren't? :smallbiggrin:

Ruler of Ruin controlled Nerath ruins over Arkoshian-destroyed Bael Terath dretch-infested undercity over haunted Illithid temple-caverns atop a sealed and slumbering titan still served by his dwarf minions long since turned to galeb duhrs who are slowly working to free their stone master.

BOO-YA! Four-level dungeon set to go! :smallcool:

MorkaisChosen
2008-05-20, 09:44 AM
Ah, the old ones are the best...

Waffles
2008-05-20, 12:41 PM
Ever read At the Mountains of Madness?

Just rip that off verbatim.

black dragoon
2008-05-20, 12:55 PM
I've gotta imagine that
A: some ruins were built over and are now part of vast underground network beneath the city and that those that were not built on or cleaned out were left for very good reasons. OR
B: This is a really big world with imcomprehensible physics.

Illiterate Scribe
2008-05-20, 12:58 PM
Who says these aren't? :smallbiggrin:

Ruler of Ruin controlled Nerath ruins over Arkoshian-destroyed Bael Terath dretch-infested undercity over haunted Illithid temple-caverns atop a sealed and slumbering titan still served by his dwarf minions long since turned to galeb duhrs who are slowly working to free their stone master.

BOO-YA! Four-level dungeon set to go! :smallcool:

There is also a portal to the far realms in the bottom.

Yoinked.

Guildorn Tanaleth
2008-05-20, 01:41 PM
The PCs get captured by the BBEG, who attempts to get rid of them by having his minions take them down into the depths of the ruins & leave them there. The PCs then have to escape while the BBEG learns about the Evil Overlord list.

Who said it had to be a reason to go into the ruins?

Terraoblivion
2008-05-20, 02:19 PM
Also a lot of real world cities from various empires were not build over even if a new city was build nearby. Just a few examples from different empires: Anyang the capitol of Shang Dynasty China (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_Dynasty), Nineveh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineveh) the capitol of Assyria, Babylon, Memphis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis%2C_Egypt) one of the many ancient Egyptian capitols, Mykene (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mykene) of Homerian fame, Knossos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knossos) one of the Minoan capitols. The list goes on, i am just too lazy to look them all up now. I just wanted to point out that the world is in fact overflowing with ruins from countless different empires, Kurald Gerain. And ruins that were not resettled directly, even if people settled nearby.