Fantasy Fallout (Bring Your Ideas to Town)

[Vknight]

Simple enough idea.
It a relatively average Eberron style D&D setting. All the common civilized races.
No wizards have noticed there infinite power loops etc.
Lots of magi-tech, steampunk things.
Now the bad things begin a group of wizards realized just all the things they could do. And they snapped what was stopping them what could possibly go against them? The various nations realizing what superpowers wizards could have also became worried.
The setting goes into a cold war everyone to afraid to unleash the power of a fully mastered wizard.
So each began building arks, forts, and other underground installations from which to hide from the inevitable destruction.
It happened then and spells rained from the sky. The destruction reshaped the settings landscape. Common conventions of geography no longer apply.
The spells turned the world into a great wasteland, from which it is trying to recover. Rare are there forests, plains, saved by powerful wards or just lucky.

This setting is very much a Dark Sun meets Fallout

And ideas can be posted here thanks for each one. If you have questions about the setting etc post them here or in the discussion thread
How did this come to be what can we do? Where do we talk about this horror!

Thanks and remember, War war never changes

[nyarlathotep]

Due to the obscene percentage of the wizarding and archivist population that were Vecna blooded almost all knowledge about wizards and how to become one has been lost. People make up stories and spread misinformation about the wizards of old: claims range from the mundane that they all wore beards and pointed hats, to as outlandish as claiming that all wizards burned anything they could see to ashes.

From a mechanics point of view tier 1 casters should be banned as they don't really fit in with a survival game, and should be replaced by the focused casters like warmage.

[Pokonic]

The Cloud equivulent is necromantic in nature, and thousands of people have been changed into horrible, horrible ghouls that heal within the area that the substance is found in. The substance melted bones as well as flesh, and one should be warned that healing potions can become contaminated with the stuff.

Dragons warped by the spells gave birth to eggs that spawed Hydras and Linnorms, and the most dengenerated ones are Land Wryms and Drakes scouring the wasteland for food.

Also, this thread started out as a self-contained setting and eventualy decended into a planier-wide Fallout/DnD mashup. Plenty of stuff to read thru.

[Vknight]

Thanks that's really cool and helpful

[Pokonic]

No problem, try to review what we have and see if there is anything you would like to add.

[Icedaemon]

Portals to the outer realms and the far realm, even tears in the fabric of space abound, accounting for the presence of varied outsiders and abominations, most of which are too powerful for parties to engage directly, at the start at least. No-one who has ventured into such portals has returned.

I remember to have seen some form of multi-elemental cloud creature in MM II or III called a tempest (I think) which would also fit well.

[radmelon]

A great story I read that involved a magic apocalypse, and in fact looks quite a bit like what you want, is Fallout Equestria. Possibly the best MLP:FIM fic I've ever read, it quite handily goes into the details of the aftereffects of the megaspells. The only downside is it's quite a doorstopper, the pdf being over 2000 pages. I'd still recommend it though.

[Pokonic]

A great story I read that involved a magic apocalypse, and in fact looks quite a bit like what you want, is Fallout Equestria. Possibly the best MLP:FIM fic I've ever read, it quite handily goes into the details of the aftereffects of the megaspells. The only downside is it's quite a doorstopper, the pdf being over 2000 pages. I'd still recommend it though.

God, yes. This, so hard. Good idea to go thru it and see just how well magiteck could last out a "end of the world" thingi, and plenty of threats to fill the place with. Including a necromantic cloud variant.

[Vknight]

Ah Fallout Equestria.

As for things.

The equivalent to the Vaults were the 'Arks' great buildings, or ships that were sent to sea, to a temporary dimension to last out the war etc.
Since the Arks were built by crazy wizards and of nations of differing idealogies each had there own set of rules and contained differing levels in how many of the various races were present.
Some of the wizards expected to survive the war and wished to be able to access the Arks to fuel armies. So some arks were war machines, barracks for soldiers, or magical breeding grounds to create new life to survive in whatever environment could come about.
From the sea's boiling away to the mountains crumbling to dust.
So each ark that a wizard built often fit different parameters

The World has been sealed off for the most part because no one wants the damn place for all the things wrong with it.
Its not a matter of they can't get there its there just nothing there to get.

[Asheram]

In theory, Magic could be a sort of radiation since it's canon that spells leave a lingering aura after they've been cast.
True, this gives an "Overwhelming" aura 1d6 days, but when we're talking this level of devastation we're talking proper epic-level ritual castings which are cast over days and with an intercontinental range

And for good measure, since we're talking magic radiation that both damages and mutates creatures, why not throw a little STALKER in there as well with areas that defy the laws of nature; Localized gravitaton, different time flows, unhallowed areas which turns corpses into undeads, high or low pressure areas that could kill a man as surely as if he had been transported into outer space.

[Othniel Edden]

One of my better ideas actually took this literally. In that I had magic appear from radiation. Wizards would channel radiation into their bodies and convert that into spells. For many the radiation would turn deadly, but others learned how to expell the harmful effects from their bodies with a ritual called the "cleansing". This would cause their bodies to reutrn to physical health, which actually allowed their bodies to continue for years after most sentients would normally die. I had a super computer that would immortalize those in its service by turning them into Oracles, which where a blend of spirit and computer program, and serve as a god of knowledge. I had different breeds of goblins be the result of pre-war programs for everything from a form of cheap labour to millitary support. The world was fallen, and it was being reborn as a atypical fantasy.

[LordVader]

In a post-apocalyptic setting like this, necromancy should definitely be a significant part of everyday life following the breaking of the world.

There's going to be a real shortage of living things, a huge supply of corpses, and more than a few tasks too hazardous or labor-intensive for what scarce living labor pool exists. Undead are untiring laborers who can be sent into extremely high-risk areas, something a post-apocalyptic world should be rife with, in order to retrieve resources or scavenge.

Undead can also be employed in order to defend towns from raiders, mutant beasts, or other threats, again without risking the few living that remain. Undead also allow for much more efficient use of resources, something that would be key in a post-apocalyptic scenario; they don't eat or drink, they have no need of living space, and whenever a member of a community dies they can be converted into a resource which can continue to serve that community.

Necromancy would likely lose much of its negative stigma, as it's simply far too useful a practical tool for a post-apocalyptic world to scorn on the basis of morals. Indeed, in a place that's already seen so much death, what's a few animated corpses? The idea of death being used to save the living after extermination on a global scale is rather fitting, I think.

[Grinner]

For fluff, I'd recommend alternating between survivalist communities and tyrannical magocracies. Spellcasters should reviled and feared universally, subject to witch hunts, but greatly envied for the power they hold. The end result of this scenario is a land studded with wizards' abodes and maniac-populated villages.

In villages, a spellcaster can be expected to receive a cold welcome. If he shows any ambition, they'll attempt to kill him before he can cause any harm. If he shows none, then he may receive a place in village as a protector/problem-solver of sorts.

More daring communities may even encourage their members to learn magic, but any such activity performed openly will draw the ire of less progressive communities. Eventually, the open practice of magic may become accepted, but it will always be heavily regulated.

[Pokonic]

Necromancy would likely lose much of its negative stigma, as it's simply far too useful a practical tool for a post-apocalyptic world to scorn on the basis of morals. Indeed, in a place that's already seen so much death, what's a few animated corpses? The idea of death being used to save the living after extermination on a global scale is rather fitting, I think.

On the other hand, while creatures like Ghouls arrived naturaly vi basic Fallout-style radiation, being a user of necromancy could be like being a practicing cannabel or a slaver: Your crazy, people are gunna know eventualy, and most folks would want to kill you dead.


Also, more ideas:


The BoS group seeks out magical items rather than tech, and generaly see groups of tribals as worthless. Generaly, they tend to have gishy builds, being able to both swing that +4 flaming sword and to use that staff straped to there back that shoots fireballs.



A group of savage elves stumbled apon what seems to be a strange shrine. Adorned with gems and gold, it depicts a dark-colored elf with twin scimitars at its sides, and the area was filled with writings and tales about his acts. Thinking that the place is a temple, they now dress up as the elf, using the places stockpiles of replica-but-still-magicaly durable blades to arm the tribe. Now, it is said, there is a place filled with strangly-clothed elfs that sound, act, and speak exactly the same out there in the wastes.

[LordVader]

On the other hand, while creatures like Ghouls arrived naturaly vi basic Fallout-style radiation, being a user of necromancy could be like being a practicing cannabel or a slaver: Your crazy, people are gunna know eventualy, and most folks would want to kill you dead.

I'm honestly not sure if that would necessarily be the reaction, given again the sheer utility of necromancy in this kind of setting. Necromancy is all about maximizing available resources to the utmost extent, and that's something which is literally invaluable in a post-apocalyptic setting.

Fallout as a setting is often very much so about setting morals aside for practicality and survival, and I think this certainly would apply to the necromantic side of the magical arts.

If anything, I think evokers would be most likely to elicit that kind of reaction from people, seeing as they are the ones responsible for rending the world apart.

At the very least, there will certainly be some settlements which employ necromancy on a large-scale basis in order to compensate for deficits in the amount of available workers and soldiers.

These settlements stand to be easily the most powerful in the wasteland, too, as long as they can maintain a decent pool of necromancers; you've got greatly enhanced scavenging ability, a massive advantage in a war of attrition which will prove especially devastating in a post-apocalyptic scenario, and superior agricultural ability. Given how small populations will be, the ability to turn your enemy's losses into your own troops whilst simultaneously avoiding losses in your own populace is an incredible asset. Definitely a force to be reckoned with, and probably something which would rank up there as a major power alongside the aforementioned BoS-style high-level faction(s) which track down all the old magical tech they can find.

As far as a BoS-style group goes, I'd see that as a faction comprised almost entirely of mid-to-high level individuals who rode out the apocalypse in some kind of haven and now seek to restore their power through the aggregation of as many magical doohickeys and whatsits as they can possibly find.