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horngeek
2008-06-13, 07:47 AM
A while ago, I noticed a thread on how to resolve an apocalyptic style explosion in a fantasy type world. I would like to see what your opinions are, as it is an interesting topic. How would you describe it if:

1. The explosion was magical in nature and source

2. The explosion was non-magical in nature and source

For 1., I think that at the very least, whatever people draw on magic from should be completely shot. As in, you can't draw any more magic energy.

What do you guys think?

llamamushroom
2008-06-13, 08:42 AM
For 1, I would agree, but that would be unreasonably restrictive, as it would basically be saying "No Batman for you!". I think having considerably fewer mages in general (NPCs mostly) would be the way to go, or perhaps fewer magic items. Also, a barren wasteland caused by no more magical energy for plants/animals would be interesting (*coughTimeSpiralcough*).

Number 2, I would just have everybody struggling to survive. The problem with non-magical is that, in your average fantasy setting, normal explosives couldn't end the world.

EDIT: Advance Australia Fair!

Tsotha-lanti
2008-06-13, 08:45 AM
The question is too vague, since the parameters affects the answer critically. What world, what kind of explosion, etc.

In D&D, a 10,000-mile radius, 10d12 each of four elements damage epic spell would just do that. The entire radius is engulfed by a blast of energy that decimates pretty much everything physical, but that's it. (In Faerūn, for instance, it's basically impossible to damage the Weave with spells since the death of Mystrul - the exception being killing gods. That kind of magic just isn't possible anymore.)

Some plot-device explosion would have effects that create the sort of results it was invented to create.

horngeek
2008-06-13, 09:17 PM
You guys both make good points.
The problem with no more magic being too harsh is valid, but if I was using a senario like this, it would probably be at or near the end of a campaign or in the distant past.

Also, I said can't draw on any more magical energy. People who already have energy would not be as affected (ie, if using 3.5 D&D, wizards get their remaining prepared spells. Of course this only makes sence if the source of magic isn't like the Weave (for example, you use energy from the source, you don't alter the Weave)

As on the size of the blast, let's call it a sizeable enough blast to devestate an area about the size of Europe, if detonated in the real world (I don't know what the term for that is in explosives terms).

ShneekeyTheLost
2008-06-14, 04:41 PM
As for a magical explosion, I actually have a campaign setting created in just such a post-apocylaptic setting.

In brief: Once, there was a Golden Empire, ruled by a stern but fair Emperor. All nobility were arcane casters of some stripe, it was literaly a Mageocracy: Rule by Magic. Non-magic users were seen as little better than serfs. They belittled religion as a whole, and prohibited active temples, so there were very few Clerics, they just weren't able to effectively fight against the situation. Druids kept to the wild and untamed lands, and stayed there.

Then the Emperor got assassinated without a clear heir.

It was every mage for themselves. Neighbor fighting against neighbor, launching whatever magical might they might have, without respect for what it is doing to the countryside.

This went on for almost a full generation.

Finally, it ended up with two big huge mages duking it out with their army of smaller mages. It was a mutual destruction thing, where both significant mages blew up. No major mages were left.

That was when an heir to the emperial throne was found (smuggled out, ala King Arthur), and the clergy stood up. In brief, the dieties, all of them (even the evil ones), have decided to behave until such time as the continued survival of sentient life is assured. To this end, Clergy are given certain additional powers and restrictions.

The Effect:

There are places around the world where magic has been warped. This, in turn, warps the geographical area it is in, and anything inside it. Casting within one of these warped areas is... suicidal.

Arcane casting of any flavor is viewed in a very negative light, very much a 'Burn the Witch' situation.

There are no generalist wizards left. Specialist wizards must take one additional barred school (except Evocation). Thus most wizards have three barred schools, except Evocation and Divination, which have two.

All Sorcerers must choose a Bloodline. They will gain attributes based on this bloodline, and their spell list is affected by it as well.

Warlocks are not changed.

There are no arcane casting PrC's left. All the mages proficent in those forms of magic are all dead. However, specialist wizards are warped by the magic they wield as they grow in power, and sorcerers are also marked by their bloodline as they grow in power. Both gain school/bloodline related abilities on 1st, 5th, and every 5 levels thereafter.

Clerics are now a Poor BAB class, and both Divine Power and Righteous Might are removed from the game entirely. However, they gain one additional domain granted by their diety, and eventually gain the ability to spontaniously cast from their domains, and also get slight reductions to metamagic applied to their casting at later levels.

Paladins and Rangers develop SR as they progress in levels. They are specifically tasked to go out and defend the survivors from all the crap leftover from the wars. Trust me, they're going to need SR to pull it off.

As a result of the above, magic items are very rare. A +1 sword is OMG PWNZORIFIC! Scrolls are almost non-existant due to a general lack of wizards to write them and a hatred of all things arcane by the populous in general. Potions are slightly more common, but are expensive, and almost exclusively clerical in nature. The exception to this is Holy Water. All clergy are willing to pass it out for FREE, provided there is a good reason and use for it. Using it to protect your family from something creeping around nights is a good reason. Clean drinking water is not (except in certain, heavily blasted areas in which the local water source is contaminated beyond human consumption).

Thiel
2008-06-14, 05:12 PM
ShneekeyTheLost that sounds like a very interesting campain.

As for the topic. It all depends on how advanced the civilizations are. The far-reaching trading culture just far enough away not to be directly influenced by the blast will probably face major civil unrest since most of the trade will disappear, possibly even civil war The shamanistic tribe on the other side of the planet, not so much. This is true in both cases.

If the explosion is/was magical it might be fun to make areas where the magic is "dead" and places where casting spells will have "interesting" effects.

Signmaker
2008-06-14, 05:48 PM
1. Do it a la "House of M" arc.

horngeek
2008-06-14, 08:36 PM
1. Do it a la "House of M" arc.

What, "No more Wizards"?

jcsw
2008-06-14, 10:38 PM
What, "No more Wizards"?

That gives me an idea!

Simply take the House of M wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_m), and replace every occurrence of "Mutant" with "Wizard" or "Arcanists"

Jade_Tarem
2008-06-14, 11:16 PM
Remember that any blast sufficient to remove any trace of Europe from the Earth might have enough power to knock the Earth off its orbit, beginning a very inevitable countdown clock to oblivion through falling towards the Sun or spinning out into space. You could have your party set out on a quest to find a way to stop it, with the passage of time being marked by a slowly heating or freezing atmosphere, chaos throughout the environment (remember that the impact will be tremendous - earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, and so forth will become daily, and later hourly, occurences), etc. It gets even better if you start them at low levels with this happening, and then tell them to fix it. "Ok guys, step one in this plan is getting to epic levels. Let's get to it."

That only applies if your campaign world is running in a solar system like ours, of course.

Maybe your campaign world is flat? In that case, you might consider actually blowing a hole in the world. It would certainly be amusing. "Where's Joe?" "He fell through the planet." "Oh, sucks for him..."

Some campaign worlds are even wackier shapes. Someone on one of these threads described a ring shaped world. As long as you're laughing away physics, you could have the explosion knock free a chunk of the ring, but have that chunk stop drifting not-so far away. Ways could be devised to try to reach that bit of the ring, crossing the airless void and the mysterious magical effects between the ring and the broken piece. Of course, everyone wants to get to the broken part to search for survivors/treasure/the plot centric item/etc.

Hope this helps.

horngeek
2008-06-15, 05:13 PM
[QUOTE=Jade_Tarem;4462132]Someone on one of these threads described a ring shaped world. As long as you're laughing away physics, you could have the explosion knock free a chunk of the ring, but have that chunk stop drifting not-so far away. Ways could be devised to try to reach that bit of the ring, crossing the airless void and the mysterious magical effects between the ring and the broken piece. Of course, everyone wants to get to the broken part to search for survivors/treasure/the plot centric item/etc.
[QUOTE]

For the effects of this, see the Halo ending cinematic. The ring would tear itself apart.

monty
2008-06-15, 08:14 PM
For the effects of this, see the Halo ending cinematic. The ring would tear itself apart.

Stupid physics. CURSE YOU, NONEXISTENT CENTRIFUGAL FORCE!!!

Thiel
2008-06-15, 08:48 PM
For the effects of this, see the Halo ending cinematic. The ring would tear itself apart.

He did say that we're already laughing at physics,
Besides, that assumes that the ring is spinning.

Ryacko
2008-06-15, 08:52 PM
http://stardestroyer.net/Empire/Science/Nuke.html
You want a 60 gigaton (Sixty Billion Tons of TNT Equivalant) nuclear explosion. Admitantly it would be simpler to have several smaller explosions go off. Or have a meteor hit.

Suggestion: During the Manhatten Project, some scientists thought that the nuclear test explosion would cause a chain reaction throughout the atmosphere and effectively fry and burn up the Earth. Maybe have some mages and wizards working for two (maybe?) evil empires work on some kind of magic superweapon which would destroy the other empire. The project goes wrong or a lab assistant makes an error and FOOM... The map is changed completely! Trade routes are changed, there's now a lake or ocean where there were developed civilizations, the shock wave reduces the cities and towns outside the blast area to rubble. The world, or at least the world near the destruction is reduced to barbarianism.


You know, some conspiracy theorists say that ancient India had nuclear weapons according to their myths.


EDIT: If you have magic no longer available, at least have magic items exist.

Xuincherguixe
2008-06-15, 09:08 PM
The answer to both is to describe a Tremendous Nuclear Explosion. Or several.

"For an instant, the whole world seems to be a single white light. But that instant passes. As the world becomes a little darker, you see a billowing red cloud rising from the ground like a piece of hell itself was summoned here. This is followed by a Shockwave with a force even the gods couldn't match. Trees are snapped off, and are sent flying in every direction. Buildings collapse, and while their is in implication of screaming in all the people before they are ripped apart by the tremendous force, one would need to imagine what that would sound like, as they are being deafened by that terrible and overwhelming sound.

One cannot help but wonder why a myriad of awful effects are not occurring to oneself at this point. It is pretty peculiar that."

horngeek
2008-06-15, 10:20 PM
Remember, I said devestate europe, not completely erase it.

holywhippet
2008-06-15, 10:43 PM
In the campaign world my DM runs using magic can be a risky proposition. Too much magic can tear the fabric of reality. This can allow creatures to get through - sometimes from the upper planes, sometimes from the lower planes. On two occasions the tear in reality was big enough for greater powers from the lower planes to try and get through. This resulted in blighted regions - massive areas of land where everything just suddenly dies and which remain infertile to this day.

horngeek
2008-06-16, 05:20 PM
In the campaign world my DM runs using magic can be a risky proposition. Too much magic can tear the fabric of reality. This can allow creatures to get through - sometimes from the upper planes, sometimes from the lower planes. On two occasions the tear in reality was big enough for greater powers from the lower planes to try and get through. This resulted in blighted regions - massive areas of land where everything just suddenly dies and which remain infertile to this day.

The blighted regions would be a possible side effect of any magical disaster- possibly caused by the effects of the disaster on the source of magic itself.

Signmaker
2008-06-16, 05:54 PM
There's always the theory of Conjuration-Annihilation. From what I remember, every time you cast a Conjuration spell to create nonmagical matter, a Sphere of Annihilation is simultaneously created as a 'balancer'. You could have the universe operate on a timer, and the built-up volume of conjuration spells eventually creates (When timer is 'up') a massive sphere which erases a large portion of the map.

Ryacko
2008-06-16, 05:55 PM
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/
http://down2earth.eu/impact_calculator/

Meteor impact calculators!

Anyway, I'd use the first link, since you can switch back and forth and see the effects of what happens on how far you are. This should devastate Europe completely:

Distance from Impact: 8050.00 km = 4999.05 miles
Projectile Diameter: 8046.70 m = 26393.18 ft = 5.00 miles
Projectile Density: 3000 kg/m3
Impact Velocity: 68.00 km/s = 42.23 miles/s
Impact Angle: 30 degrees
Target Density: 2500 kg/m3
Target Type: Sedimentary Rock


Assuming that Europe is 10,000 miles wide, and this meteor strikes at the center. Apparently meteors can have the effects of nuclear bombs...