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Thread: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
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2021-02-08, 11:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2011
Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
You’re in charge of a small city and its surrounding countryside, and the omens couldn’t be worse. A great mountain from above the sky is predicted to plunge down to earth, followed by a smothering darkness and a winter that may last a thousand years.
Everyone has been receiving the same news, so it’s every community for themselves; there is nowhere on earth that will escape the impending calamity. Your city is more fortunate in two respects: you’re somewhat isolated in a steep mountain valley, and there are extensive caves nearby.
You have a modest contingent of clerics, wizards and druids up to 12th level, food reserves that will last roughly two years, and a city of twenty thousand terrified citizens with nowhere to run.
All of the more exotic escape options are right out—no wishes or miracles, no plane shifting or demiplane hideaways. Somehow you have to survive right there in your own secluded valley. You have only weeks to prepare before the catastrophe strikes and the snowdrifts are two hundred feet high. What’s your plan to survive?
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2021-02-09, 12:27 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2015
Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
Okay, here's the thing. A massive asteroid strike wouldn't actually cause a winter that lasts a thousand years. It would cause a short period of greatly reduced temperatures, perhaps including a decade or two where temperatures dropped sufficiently that most areas had no growing season at all, but then it would fade into a fairly ordinary ice age (with significantly reduced biodiversity). Without any better idea of the actual parameters of the disaster, and whether the planet will respond in a natural vs. magically mediated fashion, all strategies will likely be extremely mismatched for what will actually happen. There's a huge difference between global temperatures dropping a dozen degree for a thousand years and 'It's Boston in January for the next thousand years, planet-wide.'
Everyone has been receiving the same news, so it’s every community for themselves; there is nowhere on earth that will escape the impending calamity. Your city is more fortunate in two respects: you’re somewhat isolated in a steep mountain valley, and there are extensive caves nearby.
You have a modest contingent of clerics, wizards and druids up to 12th level, food reserves that will last roughly two years, and a city of twenty thousand terrified citizens with nowhere to run.
All of the more exotic escape options are right out—no wishes or miracles, no plane shifting or demiplane hideaways. Somehow you have to survive right there in your own secluded valley. You have only weeks to prepare before the catastrophe strikes and the snowdrifts are two hundred feet high. What’s your plan to survive?
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2021-02-09, 06:04 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2018
Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
Preliminary effort: Ensure every single able-bodied person receives basic training from the city's clerics, druids, or wizards--preferably favoring the first two, but if there's a lack of time or an excess of wizard teachers, you gotta make sure everyone is getting training. Even being just a 1st level character with access to magic can be huge. Target faith toward deities relevant to the coming situation, either those of plenty and warmth to call on their aid, or those of ice and cold to propitiate them. Paladin and Ranger are also acceptable, but not preferred.
Find ways to get additional XP for the casters. If there's any way to get even ONE 13th level Cleric, Druid, or Wizard, you have access to control weather. Druid is ideal, but anyone with access is desirable. That alone saves the city from the cold, and since each casting lasts 4d12 hours (doubled for Druids), you'll rarely need more than a couple casts a day.
Have every caster that can spare it cast create water as often as possible into the communal water storage. Clean water is even more important than food, and an ample supply ensures sanitation. Try to have scrolls of endure elements crafted on the regular, though with most of the city being trained as a spellcaster it might not be all that necessary (as long as you can cast 1/day endure elements, there's far less need to bundle up against the cold, reducing the need for conjuring fuel sources.)
On that subject, conjuring fuel sources: minor creation lets you mimic other "organic non-living material," which is exactly what wood, charcoal, oil, etc. is. And once it's burned, it's fine if it disappears after an amount of time. Other spells that can transform one material into another or spontaneously generate material would be invaluable.
Set up a protected hothouse type area where mid-level (5-6th) druids can cast plant growth on cultivated berry-producing bushes of various kinds. If a true crop-rotation system can be set up, it may be possible to produce fresh berries year-round, especially since there's two years worth of food to wait on. Supplemented by create food and water (which should be able to support several people per cleric per day), it should be possible to reach a reasonable level of food production even in the absence of ordinary agriculture.
Strictly regulate the population. It sucks, but it will almost certainly be necessary to prevent widespread starvation.
I'm sure there's more that can be done, I'm just not thinking of it right this second.
Edit: If allowed to use PF rules, abstemiousness. Turns a mere handful of food into enough to feed a medium creature for a day, 1st level Bard/Cleric/Druid spell. Easily able to extend "two years" worth of regular rations. Might even allow livestock and other animals to be preserved even in the absence of ordinary feed, assuming the emphasis on feeding a "medium" creature means it can be split among small ones or that multiple castings can feed a large one.
Also, working toward everyone having a ring of sustenance. As long as the materials are available, this would be a lifesaver; coupled with some kind of magic item of endure elements, you could have completely self-sufficient members of society who never need food or water and never mind the cold, and can thus work independently of the ordinary food supply. You'd still want to produce food, just in case someone loses their ring, a child is born, etc. but overall that would make a huge, huge impact on keeping things working. Even if only 10% of the population has rings, they cut down on food consumption significantly.Last edited by ezekielraiden; 2021-02-09 at 06:13 AM.
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2021-02-09, 06:21 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2009
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- Perth, West Australia
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Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
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2021-02-09, 07:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2011
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Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
Celestial Brilliance (L4 Cleric/Wizard/Sorcerer spell) provides light "brighter than bright sunlight" in a 60' radius for a day per level. If this works for growing food and sufficient cave space can be created over a 2 year period then a 12th level wizard with (modified) Int 22, extend spell, and access to a bead of karma (+4 caster level), could maintain 296 spells alive at all times providing ~75 acres in a state of better-than-sunlight. With twice the cavern space, you could move the stone this is cast on to provide a day/night cycle for plants yielding the equivalent of 150 acres worth of plant life. Plant Growth (Druid 3) makes this effectively 200 acres and a year-round growth plan probably makes this the equivalent of 400 acres of arable land. Online, I see estimates of ~5 acres/person, so this provides food for ~80 people.
A Cleric has access to Sustain (L4 spell) which at caster level 16 provides 128 person-days with no need to eat suggesting a level 12 cleric with a bead of karma can keep ~2K people alive.
Coming from the other direction, Hibernate (Druid 5) removes the need for food for a week/level, suggesting that a Druid 5 could keep ~1K people under indefinitely.Build help: Piercing Immunities | Skillfull full casters | Uptier base classes | Top 10 spells/level
PO: Core Fighter 20 > Pit Fiend | Whale Wrestler | Minimal Mailman | Wizard 1 > Fighter 1 | Team Mundane
TO: ExFighter | Eliminate spell defenses | All spells in no time | Planar Soldiers of Mystra | Best Nuke | Warmage vs. Favored Soul | Death Cults | E6 Circle Magic
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2021-02-09, 07:53 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2018
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- Nottingham, England
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Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
If you have two years worth of food, casting Flesh to Stone on large sections of the populace would be more humane than killing them as you could return them to life when conditions improve. If you have a single metamagic rod of Chain Spell you could do a dozen people per casting, enough to do a large chunk of the population before food stores run out. Anyone who shows even the slightest bit of magical talent doesn't get petrified, obviously.
A more radical solution; since you have lots of time, have your Druids descend deep into the earth and repeatedly cast Stone Tell and Commune with Nature to discover the nearest source of geothermal heat, and then use spells like Stone Shape and Transmute Rock to Mud to bring it to the surface, creating an area of permanent warmth.
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2021-02-09, 08:24 AM (ISO 8601)
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2021-02-09, 09:01 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2009
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- Atlanta, Georgia
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Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
The underdark wouldn’t be significantly affected by this kind of disaster. It’s full of food and monsters that could become food. If you go down from your deepest cave, with wizards to cast disintegrate and rock to mud and druids to scout for nearby caves as earth elementals, you should reach it in under 2 years.
Be ready to fight. Most of its inhabitants are tougher than a human commoner and none will be excited to see refugees (unless selling a chunk of your people as slaves is cool with you. Arguably better than starving while freezing but also arguably worse. You could at least offer people the option of being sold rather than murdered or turned to stone for millennia while hoping to be turned back ever. And you might get resources in exchange)Last edited by Gnaeus; 2021-02-09 at 09:05 AM.
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2021-02-09, 09:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2006
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- Wandering in Harrekh
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Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
This actually sounds like a pretty good solution. I'd take it one step farther: Team Undead. Get the highest level characters you can find to go Necropolitan. They're now statue guards for the next thousand years, with no need for things like food, water, or air. If there's something that can kill the guardians, it would have killed the whole society anyway, so there's not much additional risk.
When they wake everybody back up, they're a True Res away from normal life.
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2021-02-09, 10:01 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2011
Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
Originally Posted by ezekielraiden
*snip*
I should’ve mentioned that Pathfinder rules are available, so Abstemiousness is a good catch.
Originally Posted by Anthrowhale
Coming from the other direction, Hibernate (Druid 5) removes the need for food for a week/level, suggesting that a Druid 5 could keep ~1K people under indefinitely.
But even with a Druid 12, can you explain the math in a little more detail?
Originally Posted by Biggus
If you have two years worth of food, casting Flesh to Stone on large sections of the populace would be more humane than killing them as you could return them to life when conditions improve.
Because it’s a real concern if anyone will still be around to bring them back after a thousand years. If the period of winter is just a handful of years, there’s a good chance that most of the spellcasters will be alive and well, if a good deal thinner. But keeping a self-contained society alive for a thousand years, much less one that retains higher-level magical knowhow, is a very different proposition, and it would make sense to have a failsafe to restore the petrified people even if all the spellcasters are centuries gone.
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2021-02-09, 10:27 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2011
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Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
I meant a Level 5 spell for a druid. A level 12 Druid with Extend Spell using a prayer bead of good karma to hit caster level 16 with a modified wisdom of 22 has 3 castings of Extended Hibernate and 4 casting of Hibernate. Hibernate at caster level 16 lasts for 112 days. Extended Hibernate at caster level 16 lasts for 224 days. Together, these imply that you can generate 1120 person-days of hibernation per day.
Build help: Piercing Immunities | Skillfull full casters | Uptier base classes | Top 10 spells/level
PO: Core Fighter 20 > Pit Fiend | Whale Wrestler | Minimal Mailman | Wizard 1 > Fighter 1 | Team Mundane
TO: ExFighter | Eliminate spell defenses | All spells in no time | Planar Soldiers of Mystra | Best Nuke | Warmage vs. Favored Soul | Death Cults | E6 Circle Magic
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2021-02-09, 10:43 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2010
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- ganiseville GA
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Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
You don't need 12th level characters. The city is perfectly savable with something like 4 really dedicated 5th level adepts with craft wonderous item and a single 3rd level cleric.
Ok, so let's talk food and people and long term survival.
You need to set up a system to get food into people or get people no longer needing food.
Let's talk magic items.
A Field Provisions box costs 2000gp and feeds 15 people. That is a rate of 66.6gp and 5.333 exp per person. It would take 1334 field provision boxes to feed everyone in your 20,000 person city.
Field provision boxes are the lowest cost to create per person fed I can find.
So... does your city have 1,334,000 gold or other valuables they can liquidate into "materials" to make provision boxes with.
Does your city's spellcasters have 106,720 exp available to spend on item crafting?
Does your city have 4 people with the craft wonderous item feat who are at least 5th level?
If the answer to these questions are yes, take a deep breath. You are fine. You can craft the 1334 field provision boxes required to feed all of your population before your 2 years of food run out.
Ok, but how likely is your city to have any of those things.
First, gold. I am AFB right now, but someone should look up the DMG gold limit for a city of 20,000. I am pretty sure it's WAY over 1,334,000. A 12th level NPC should have 27,000 gold in resources. You need the equivalent of the NPC wealth of 50 NPC's to have enough raw gold to make enough provision boxes.
Raw gold resource shouldn't be a problem.
Second, exp. At first this seems thornier as your item crafting spellcasters will risk running out of EXP. This is a solvable problem though, as you can have multiple people contribute to item creation. Simply have other people contribute the EXP portion of the crafting. I would assume that on average characters are halfway to leveling. This means that a city should have 50 exp per HD of exp floating around. A city of 20,000 should have at minimum 100,000 exp available even if everyone was level 1.
Exp for crafting shouldn't be a problem.
And I would assume a city of 20,000 has 4 people with the craft wonderous item feat and CL 5. It takes 2 days to enchant a field provision box and you can make blanks en mass with fabricate (or just mass applications of low DC craft checks, it's a fricken box) for them to enchant. What more, as you make your first set of boxes you have 60 people no longer eating your stored food. You make a set of boxes every 2 days. Your 2 years of supplies actually stretch out to 3 or 4 years as people simply stop leaning on them.
Congratulations, you have a post food scarcity society. Rebuild your society deep enough that the earth keeps you warm. Supply light with everburning torches. Spend the copious amount of spare time everyone has teaching the next generation to be wizards and clerics.Last edited by Fouredged Sword; 2021-02-09 at 10:49 AM.
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2021-02-09, 11:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2018
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- Nottingham, England
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Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
If a 12th-level Wizard could temporarily boost their CL to 18, you could do the following: they cast Contingency: Stone to Flesh on themselves, the condition being that the temperature reaches a certain level, maybe 10C/50F or so. Then they're given the rod of Chain Spell and cast Flesh to Stone on themselves. This has the advantage that if they're desperately needed in the meantime, all you have to do is warm them up.
I'm not sure if they could realistically boost their CL that high using only WotC material unless they were a Red Wizard or something, but there might be stuff in PF you could use to get it there (I don't know PF very well).Last edited by Biggus; 2021-02-09 at 11:08 AM.
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2021-02-09, 11:17 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2019
Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
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2021-02-09, 11:58 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2014
Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
First off, what does a town of 20k look like in general, given the limitation of 12th lvl for the big casters? Well, 20k is a Large City, which is +9 modifier. Wizard 1d4 and cleric/druid 1d6 means the most powerful would range from 10-13 and 10-15, so capping at 12th level isn't the most unreasonable thing in the world, and let's us avoid messing with the random generation methods too much.
Spoiler: Population By Class/LevelClass 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Adept 94 24 4 8 2 2 2 1 1 1 Aristocrat 94 24 8 4 2 2 2 1 1 1 Barbarian 48 24 8 4 2 2 2 1 1 1 Bard 48 24 4 8 2 2 2 1 1 1 Cleric 48 24 12 6 3 Commoner 16991 48 24 8 4 2 2 2 1 1 1 Druid 48 24 12 6 3 Expert 560 40 16 4 8 2 4 1 1 1 Fighter 48 24 4 8 2 2 2 1 1 1 Monk 48 24 8 4 2 2 2 1 1 1 Paladin 48 24 12 2 4 1 1 1 Ranger 48 24 12 2 4 1 1 1 Rogue 48 24 4 8 2 2 2 1 1 1 Sorcerer 48 24 12 6 3 Warrior 933 24 4 8 2 2 2 1 1 1 Wizard 48 24 12 6 3
A large city with population 20000 had a gp limit of 40,000 (so that's the most expensive thing you could realistically get), and a ready cash supply of 40,000,000. Hopefully that gives people an idea of what they've got to work with.
Currently Running WW/Mafia: flat_footed's Fallout 3: Forecast--Rapidly Changing Conditions
Avatar by AsteriskAmp
My Homebrew
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2021-02-09, 12:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2018
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- Nottingham, England
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Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
Randomly generated NPCs are capped at level 20 (DMG p.138) so you wouldn't get the 21st-level Commoner.
@OP: another thought: automatically-resetting traps are a potentially near-unlimited source of heat/energy, if people aren't keen on the idea of having undead around.
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2021-02-09, 03:17 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2018
Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
With a ready cash supply of 40 million, getting everyone a ring of sustenance isn't hard, so long as you have crafters with Forge Ring. There's also the vest of endure elements, which are dirt cheap. Those two cover nutrition and warmth, so you'd just need to focus on keeping people alive, happy, and productive.
In fact, you could get one each for every person with over 5.7 million gold remaining. It would definitely be costly, but it's totally doable. Coupled with keeping a portion of the population in certification stasis until stable infrastructure is built up, and you have a recipe for reasonable success.
I imagine this culture would develop in very unusual ways due to being either post-scarcity, or at least radically reduced manual labor practice, and that there would be a significant culture shock at first especially for the farmers and other laborers. If they really did emphasize magical training for all, I could see a magocracy evolving out of it--one where community values are stressed because they had to learn to live with each other without leaving the confines of the city. Assuming the caves have access to moderate mineral resources, I could actually see this place being incredibly prosperous as soon as the world warms again.
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2021-02-09, 03:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2014
Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
5 dfas working 8 hour shifts, maybe 10 to keep it up easier, can provide endure elements for everyone with the endure exposure invocation which almost every DFA takes as their first. If PF is on the table anyone lvl 5 or higher with some ranks can take master craftsman then craft wonderous and can handle making food and/or endure elements items. No XP crafting means its just a matter of time and gold. You can take 10 on craft as well so with MW tools and your ranks hitting craft DCs should be pretty easy even with +5 per prereq. And PF crafting is 1k made a day so post food scarcity might be achievable before meteor hits.
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2021-02-09, 03:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2013
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Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
Wizards of up to 12th level, you say? Have you considered converting your population into, say, bone creatures? They're rather unbothered by minor things like subzero temperatures and starvation.
If any idiot ever tells you that life would be meaningless without death, Hyperion recommends killing them!
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2021-02-09, 03:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2009
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- Atlanta, Georgia
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Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
Most of these answers assume that a city happens to have on hand or easily available the components needed to craft 1,000,000 GP of items. I think that’s a pretty absurd assumption. It is abstracting rules designed for players (obviously you can find the stuff in a city of 20,000 to make a ring of sustenance or field provisions box 👍) up to an economy scale (obviously this means you can make 1200 or 20,000 since you could make one 😬) without taking outside factors into account (the city down the road will also be seeking the same supplies so you can’t handwave it to “it will be here in a few weeks by transport”. 😳) So the question would be, of those GP material costs, how much is readily available to be gathered or made locally versus how much is a hand waved part of the magical economy that is actually difficult to acquire. Are we to assume that the city of 20k has giant warehouses of material components that could be bought (or commandeered) or it’s just a bunch of stuff you can make in 2 years (part of the cost is a masterwork box or ring, probably all good there) or does each ring of sustenance actually require a thread of unicorn mane gathered on a full moon and there happen to be 20 in the city and good luck getting more, and those are 800 GP of the components of the ring. I’d really say there is a big “ask the DM” element here.
Last edited by Gnaeus; 2021-02-09 at 03:51 PM.
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2021-02-09, 04:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2010
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- ganiseville GA
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Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
Yes, but you fail to consider that 12th castors place the city well within the means to extraplanar markets via 12 level characters using planeshift (cleric 5) and teleport (wizard 5). There are markets that are the trade hubs of literal infinite planes of resources. It would be non-trivial, but still fairly easy for 20 or so of the level 12 characters to simply step out for a day or two and buy what they need with GP.
Or they can stay home and use various calling spells like planer binding or ally to call forth a powerful elemental or outsider to do their shopping for them for a reasonable fee.
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2021-02-09, 04:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2007
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- Dallas
Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
"Mister president, we must not allow a mine-shaft gap!"
"You're right General Turgidson. We attack the neighbors at dawn. Meanwhile, the clerics, druids, and wizards will move into OUR nearby mines, along with the entire treasury, and all the most beautiful women..."Last edited by D+1; 2021-02-09 at 04:28 PM.
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2021-02-09, 04:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2011
Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
Well. It depends.
What are the three terrors of the Fire Swamp? Cold, starvation, nothing to kill to get XP from. Also, the gods weakening / dying from the loss of followers. How could we handle these three - four (Spanish Inquisition) dilemmas?
There's lots of ways. Here are a few sample colonies:
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Well, Necropolitans don't starve or freeze to death. And those 12th level casters might well be liches. So lots of problems solved already, if we're an undead community.
However, we still might want to grow our numbers, and preserve at least *some* of the deities.
In the most selfish version, maybe we just volunteer to travel between communities (since we won't freeze or starve), and keep them aware of the world. We will accept… suitable volunteers (max ranks in Craft: snow shovel, for example)… into our number, granting them the blessings of eternal numbness. If entire communities die off (which we won't encourage, and will actively prevent if it's no bother), we will animate the corpses, scrub the ground clean, and eventually create a new settlement there.
Ultimately, hopefully the god(dess) of undead gains power and/or popularity.
Less selfishly, we may take a more active hand in providing for the other villages. Standard XP farming cheese for resources to create magical items (like Travel Cloak or Ring of Sustenance).
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Illithids are likely Epic by 12th level. Maybe some emergency crafting of Rings of Sustenance is in order, maybe direct some lava for heated pools. Hope someone took maximum cheese "Thrall Herder", and free meals just magically keep showing up daily Maybe just Tarrasque regeneration solves everything.
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For Dragons, well, they can eat anything, so that's covered. Cold Dragons - especially White Dragons - smile at this turn of events, while the rest start investigating lava-based heating solutions. XP isn't an issue, as they'll "level" with age.
Gaining XP as a Dragon is *hard*. The classed Dragons are probably all really young. Once they get old enough, they should use retraining rules to take Ur-Priest levels. The gods couldn't stop the mountain, what are they going to do now, in their weakened state, against an organized *city* of Dragons, huh?
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For lesser races, it's tough.
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Humans (etc) need to know whether Continual Light / Flame can grow crops. I'm picturing the total Minecraft home, with (Continual Flame) torches lining the hollowed-out stone cave walls filled with imported dirt, growing crops with flows from Create Water (more "Decanter of Endless Water").
As the Decanter can create hot water, it is also our source of "geothermal" warmth (the water is allowed to cool before being brought by the bucketful to the plants or something).
Everything essential is carefully guarded… and built with backup copies.
Gladiatorial fights serve many purposes: entertainment, disposal of criminals, reduction of surplus population beyond our means to support, and a supply of XP.
Inflicting the *entire population* with lycanthropy is a smart move: free fur coats, unified pack mind, and the Gladiatorial fights are worth more XP. Also, stronger vs invaders.
Not sure about "werebear", though.
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Gods need to make hard choices, and get ready to get *real* intimate with like-minded deities. Because, most likely, most gods and goddesses will be subsumed into a much smaller pantheon.
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Note that I mostly gave *magical* answers. Doubtless, psionic, incarnum, and muggle responses exist, too.
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So far, my post-arctic-apocalypse surviving pantheon looks like…
Tzeentch, god of planning, madness, and change.
Luna, goddess of lycanthropy.
Bahamut / Tiamat, dragons.
Wejas, Magic and Undead.
Ilsensine, Illithids.Last edited by Quertus; 2021-02-09 at 06:05 PM.
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2021-02-09, 04:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2014
Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
Originally Posted by DMG pg 137
Currently Running WW/Mafia: flat_footed's Fallout 3: Forecast--Rapidly Changing Conditions
Avatar by AsteriskAmp
My Homebrew
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2021-02-09, 05:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2018
Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
I'm in charge? How am I in charge? Am I a chieftain? Mayor? King? Does everybody believe the omens? How many people will be stupid enough to stay behind that I won't have to provide for? Just how extensive are these caves? How deep are they? Are they connected to the Underdark?
How modest is this contingent of clerics, wizards and druids? How many weeks to prepare? How soon will the snowdrifts develop? Is this a dinosaur killing sized mountain, or is this the size of Texas? Can I use 1st/2nd edition spells?
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2021-02-09, 05:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2008
Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
Get a few immovable rods, send a Druid and a Commoner up to the incoming mountain, Druid uses the mountain to cast Rockburst on the Commoner for 1d4 damage. Druid and Commoner climb back down, Commoner gets healed by a Cleric. Mountain is now destroyed, no longer a threat, Fireball and Cloudkill the city, use divination spells to locate any survivors, and feed them to the Druids' animal companions. Locate any Portable Holes or Bags of Holdings, loot the buildings, head to the next town over, rinse and repeat. Eventually get slain by adventuring party for being some sort of big guy, joke's on them, the next mountain's their problem now.
"Okay, so I'm going to quick draw and dual wield these one-pound caltrops as improvised weapons..."
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"Oh, hey, look! Blue Eyes Black Lotus!" "Wait what, do you sacrifice a mana to the... Does it like, summon a... What would that card even do!?" "Oh, it's got a four-energy attack. Completely unviable in actual play, so don't worry about it."
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2021-02-09, 06:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2018
Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
Sadly, it isn't difficult to ensure survival. Sadly for us, and having an interesting discussion, I mean. It's not sad for the people who get to not die.
Stronghold Builder's Guide has a magic item called Everfull Larder. It conjures enough food for 5 people each time it's opened. And it can be opened an unlimited number of times per day.
The only upper limit on on how many people you can feed out of one of those is how fast you can open the door, get in, grab food, get out again, close the door, and repeat. Unless it's one of those larders that's a cabinet rather than a room. Then skip the part about getting in and out.
I'm not sure exactly how many of those it will take to feed 20,000 people. But it's not going to be very many. So whatever the necessary materials are for building and magic-ifying one, you can probably get together enough to craft as many as you need without too much fuss.
Side note: In this situation, as in all situations, it's good to be an elan. They have no cap on their lifespans. And they don't need food or water. They do need humanity as a whole to survive in order to have a source of new recruits though.
If there were going to be a 1,000-year long famine that would wipe out large swaths of humanity, elans would have to do some fast recruiting. Gotta get a good chunk of new elans made before the pickings get too slim.
And, obviously, they'll work to make sure a good, genetically-diverse chunk of humanity survives to repopulate the world when things get better. That will be easy for them though, since they're an organization composed of ancient, magically-inclined individuals, chosen from only the best of the best.
I'd be interested to see the "human reserves" that elans construct for such a disaster. The social dynamic would be interesting, since the humans would sort of be cattle, but exceptional humans would be periodically chose to join the ranks of the "caretakers."
"Oh, I hope our wise and benevolent overlords deem me a worthy genetic specimen, that I may be chosen for the honor of receiving a license to reproduce!"
"Your fitness index is among the highest of this years crop. Doubtlessly you will be selected. Why, I wouldn't be surprised if, after bearing your allotted number of children, you are given consideration for ascension to immortality!"
"Oh stop! You're making me blush!"My Perpetually-Unfinished Homebrew: Tier-3 Class Suite, Homestuck Races for Pathfinder, Homestuck Races for 5e, Psionic Class Redux
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2021-02-09, 06:41 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2006
Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
Stronghold Builder's Guide is your friend.
An Everfull Larder, A Decanter of Endless Water, one Chamber of Comfort, a permanent Gust of Wind, and a permanent Wall of Fire cover basic necessities of life for everyone.
The Everfull Larder provides simple food.
The Decanter provides water.
The Chamber of Comfort enchantment provides fresh air.
Wall of Fire provides warmth.
Gust of Wind spreads the air and heat to the rest of the caverns.
You'll want at least a few such nodes in case of calamity.
The rest is just digging out rooms and Continual Flame lighting. A Lantern Archon is liable to be willing to help, either via Lesser Planar Ally (preferred) or BindingOf course, by the time I finish this post, it will already be obsolete. C'est la vie.
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2021-02-09, 07:41 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2008
- Location
- Dominion of Canadia
Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
Just mentioning that a one off campaign setting based on this premise, and several isolated city-states implementing the various different proposed solutions, would be hella cool.
Silent Lornia, its temples filled with the mute vigil of petrified citizens under the timeless stewardship of the risen dead.
Resolute Karst, parlaying its newborns against supplies with slavers from the dark under.
Militant Ulver, forcing rings that enforce both sustenance and obedience upon every citizen's finger.
Fallen Qinas, it's mountain cave sanctuaries overtaken by magical crops under the violet glow of artificial suns.
Devout Osria, blessed by the jealous gods of winter to endure the elements while all other faiths are brought low.
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2021-02-09, 07:49 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2009
- Location
- Atlanta, Georgia
- Gender
Re: Surviving A Thousand-Year Winter
@ AvatarVecna and Fouredged
I agree that under normal circumstances you could trivially zip off to Sigil or the like and fill your order. But in this case we are specifically banned by the problem from plane shift or other inter dimensional travel. So we get the limits of what is there.
And Avatar, the passage you cited supports my argument better than yours. “While exceptions are certainly possible (a boomtown near a newly discovered mine, a farming community impoverished after a prolonged drought), these exceptions are temporary; all communities will conform to the norm over time.” Here we have a global catastrophe combined with something blocking planar access, so whatever trade routes are selling survival goods are going to be FUBAR. Because every other city is going to want the exact same stuff. The merchant wizard zips down to the local Metropolis with his portable holes, only to find that the stuff he wants to buy in bulk has already been cornered or rationed or nationalized. (Or, assuming a realistic economic outcome for a lifesaving material in an apocalypse, the price has skyrocketed along with demand). So we’re squarely in that unusual circumstance exception. And arguing that they are storing 50gp/person of the specific components that you need doesn’t seem remotely rational, even if you assume that magic crafting stuff is essentially interchangeable, which I also don’t think is necessarily true.Last edited by Gnaeus; 2021-02-09 at 08:02 PM.