The day after (3.5)

[Balor01]

I am making a post apocalyptic campaign (war of epic wizards vs. gods, elder gods, abominations, homebrew gods ... lots of awesome, ending in a big bang anyway) which starts almost at the same time as the title suggests - right after the death of last two antagonists who in a matter of a couple of weeks reduced the World to a smoking crater.

Now most post-apocalyptic worlds (Dark sun, etc ...) operate in a situation where post-apocalypse already lasts for decades, even hundreds of years.

This is not the case here. This really is "the day after". It will sort of a start wit a caravan, travelling from point A to a point B, just to realize, that their destination is boiling with maximized/empowered black tentacles, reanimated commoners, reshaped into greater undead and an aspect of a god, trying to break free from arcane bounds, cast upon him.

Definitively, this is not the place to be. But soon, new effects come and i would like your ideas on these effects, when arcane holocaust is in question.

If you had a group of refugees in a post-nuclear war, you'd have sky slowly darkening and long winter starting due to effects of nuclear winter. But what sort of "weather effects" would an arcane-type cataclysm bestow upon the world?

And I am not talking about rampaging monsters. I have that figured out. The question is how would a world deteriorate due to all those thousands of d10s thrown around?

Regarding something similar I really like movie "the Road", so those of you who saw it, know what I want. Slow, yet fierce effects of arcane world war.

[Admiral Squish]

Well, one cool effect would be storms of elemental energy that's just WRONG. Snow that discharges bursts of electricity to whoever touches more than one flake. Burning Tornadoes. Rain of acid. Then throw in some wierder effects. Like baleful polymorph effects riding on lightning bolts, or a rain that comes down as blades of all description.

Massive, scorched forests, cities overgrown with vibrant plant life that crushed the people and the buildings of the city alike, random lava-lakes. Describe the changes in wildlife, starting with small critters. Like, the PCs notice a rat covered head to toe in multi-colored iridescent scales. Bugs that look more like plants than bugs.

Oh! and living spells! Can't forget living spells. On that train of though, you could probably steal a lot of the ideas for this from the mournland.

[Mastikator]

Excess use of conjurations have ripped the fabric of space and portals to various outer and inner planes lie in the open, pouring out their content. The rips are slowly repairing themselves, but not before armies of devils and angels, hordes of demons and elementals run amok. Once the portals close the whole area becomes a dead magic zone.

[Balor01]

@Mastikator
I have the creature part covered. It is enviroment effects I am really interested in. Like Admiral Squish wrote ...

[Trekkin]

You could always add massive global warming from all the arcane energy being expended into the world, together with its accelerating effects on weather.

Depending on how you treat arcane energy itself, it could amplify all ambient energy now that there's enough of it being drawn in and expended. Sunlight becomes scorching hot, rain becomes more like a waterfall in the sky, a strong wind acts like a tornado, and so forth. Even the rotation of the planet could be sped up, which might freak out your players if expressed as Coriolis winds going haywire and days and nights getting a lot shorter.

[Volthawk]

Well, some Epic Spell seeds have wide-ranging effects that last a while. Maybe some areas would be affected by them? Energy, for example, could make messed up weather. Also, look at Fimbulwinter from Frostburn (4d12 weeks of permanent winter for miles around, and more fun if that particular casting had Fell Drain or similar added , because then you have Wights in an area of permanent winter), and it's little brother Blizzard. Also, the Seas of Blood epic spell from Stormwrack would be quite cool, especially if you enlarged the area. Also, transmutations, such as the x to y type spells could have been thrown around a lot (one I just noticed was Water to Acid in Stormwrack), so the terrain itself would have been greatly affected, as you could even add in damage from the powerful spells (I mean, spheres of annihilation would cause quite a bit of damage). Shadow Landscape from the SpC is pretty cool too. You might have creatures with long-lasting Planar Bubbles (from SpC), and planar rifts, of course. In core, you could have Storms of Vengeance and Teleportation Circles around. Some of these spells are normally short duration, but you can handwave that away somehow, I guess.

TL;DR: Use wide-ranging high-level spells to change areas of the world.

PS: Sorry if this seems messy, I was just putting down my ideas as I was looking through the books.

EDIT: Oh yeah, also look at Incursions for ideas.

EDIT2: Also, spells like Blood Snow and Blinding Snow (both from Frostburn) may help spice up those wintry areas.

[Shenanigans]

I like all the ideas so far, and think that finding widely varying areas (like the Fimbulwinter Volt mentioned) interspersed with scorching deserts, torrential rains, etc. all in close proximity and changing without warning. Imagine being wrapped in furs, fighting off the blizzard one minute, then the next be in a desert with burning (literally?) winds and blazing sun.

[Volthawk]

Another thought: Planar Rifts mean an area is affected like it's on another plane. If you have the Manual of the Planes, look up the Far Realm. A timeless area where you go mad and things (even magic) change randomly? Fun .

[0tt3r]

If you want an area with a less extreme effect, you can have dust kicked up that is blocking the sun, a la the dinosaur meteorite. The terrain can also be cratered like crazy in this area, with pools of arcane waste.

[Adamaro]

@Ott3r
Tnx, but I have already considered this effect. Nuclear winter=dinosaur meteorite.

And arcane waste = living spell?

[molten_dragon]

Some effects I thought of.

Rain that falls up from the earth to the sky.

Randomly appearing and disappearing wild magic zones.

Randomly appearing and disappearing dead magic zones.

Uncontrolled growth (plants, animals, insects, etc.) in some areas and all living things slowly dying in others.

Bleed-over effects from other planes (pools of lava, negative or positive energy zones, freakish howling windstorms in a very small area, etc.)

Strange gravity effects (zones where there is no gravity, or where gravity is much stronger).

Strange temporal effects (zones of fast or slow time).

Subtle stuff. Normal weather that seems to slowly grow more extreme over time. Winters are colder, summers are hotter, more storms (and more powerful ones).

The planet starts rotating faster or slower, so a day lasts 36 hours or only 12. Maybe it starts rotating in a different direction, so the sun rises in the north and sets in the south, or rises in the west and sets in the east. Maybe it stops rotating altogether so one half of the planet is being burnt to death and the other is slowly freezing.

More cataclysmic natural disasters. Floods, hurricanes, tidal waves, earthquakes, volcanoes, you name it.

Hopefully this gives you some ideas.

[jpreem]

Add some wild and non-magic areas. Some areas where spells will always have a metamagic effect on etc. Maybe add some places in the world that have their time running at different pace (warning notice. a major cheesemine)

[Grelna the Blue]

Have you introduced mutants yet? Some animals could become Beasts of Chaos. Some humans could become members of one or more races that you've never used before (e.g., minotaurs, manscorpions, mongrelfolk, etc.).

If the Far Realm has not hitherto been a part of this campaign, using Far Realm creatures in zones heavily irradiated with epic battle magics could reflect the reality warping nature of that radiation.

You could use the Taint rules, feats, and PrCs from Heroes of Horror, making it strictly an environmental effect.

Aside from that, I strongly second Adamaro's suggestion of using living spells.

[OMG PONIES]

Perhaps pockets of magical energy that empower all arcane spells cast within? Residue from the epicenters of the apocalypse...no reason the player's cant use it to their advantage as well.

High-speed erosion of landforms due to increased winds or magical radiation leading to landslides, avalanches, and the like?

[Gabe the Bard]

"Strange temporal effects" can be really scary and devastating when it catches you off guard. Months or years could go by in the space of a few minutes, and your characters could even age accordingly (a good time to be an elf).

Temporal anomalies could also provide one possible way for the party to try to undo the cataclysmic events that resulted in the world they are living in.

[Wagadodo]

I actually like this idea. But one that I can think of is having to opposite geographic areas right beside each other. Traveling in a equator like area and going from a desert to a place that now has 5 feet of snow with in a few feet.

Or an ocean that boundaries have risen five feet but do not splash upon the ground. You could actually walk straight into a wall of water.

I like the idea of snow causing burning effects mentioned earlier.

A ground fall that has flowing ground that goes up into the air to form an floating island then falls from the other side to create a infinite loop of moving ground.

[falcon36]

Something interesting as an explanation for all this would be that the entire planet was infused with so much arcane energy that it became a ball of raw energy itself.

I'm thinking like Arcane Tectonic Plates that are constantly moving around like the creation of the earth and whenever they clash, the earthquakes release huge amounts of 'mana' (instead of exploding in lava). These Manaquakes could do anything that arcane spells could think of. A lot of the ideas already came up.

And the Arcane Tectonic Plates could be small and have significant gaps between them so that the manaquakes are frequent and quick. The party would have to find ways to cross these chasms as wide as the Grand Canyon which fall into the raw arcane core.

[bokodasu]

Teach people not to look at the sky - Aurora Borealis of Color Spray (or the Prismatic line), clouds that crackle with Flare-producing lightning...

Localized weather effects - when the fog rolls in, will it be solid? Or a cloudkill? Or just a nice obscuring mist? Glitterdust storms, storms that reduce the hardest stone to mud, acid storms...

Random areas of reversed gravity.

Obviously areas that are burnt out wastelands... but throw in one lush, overgrown, perfectly lovely garden bursting with abundance just to mess with your players' heads. (A plant growth spell that took on a life of its own. Why not?) You will be tempted to add poisonous creatures, or hugely overgrown fauna, or a mind-controlling fungus to it, but don't. It's much more entertaining to watch them try to find the worm in the apple when it's not actually there.

[Volthawk]

Obviously areas that are burnt out wastelands... but throw in one lush, overgrown, perfectly lovely garden bursting with abundance just to mess with your players' heads. (A plant growth spell that took on a life of its own. Why not?) You will be tempted to add poisonous creatures, or hugely overgrown fauna, or a mind-controlling fungus to it, but don't. It's much more entertaining to watch them try to find the worm in the apple when it's not actually there.

This is a good idea. Perhaps areas like this would be highly contested by survivors, who all want the support it gives. However, the garden isn't that large, and people in general are often selfish and jealous, so there's fighting over it.

EDIT: Also found new spells for terrain dangers. Befoul turns areas of water foul and poisonous. Despoil from the same book kills off massive areas of plant life. Utterdark shrouds areas in darkness that affects evil creatures a lot less. All three are from Lords of Madness.

[bokodasu]

Perhaps areas like this would be highly contested by survivors, who all want the support it gives. However, the garden isn't that large, and people in general are often selfish and jealous, so there's fighting over it.

Nope. (See? See how tempting it is?) If you put survivors in it, then the party knows it's safe. Just stick it in the middle of somewhere really dangerous, completely deserted except for some pretty butterflies or something. (Do not make the pretty butterflies disguised hellwasp swarms.)

[JonestheSpy]

Nope. (See? See how tempting it is?) If you put survivors in it, then the party knows it's safe. Just stick it in the middle of somewhere really dangerous, completely deserted except for some pretty butterflies or something. (Do not make the pretty butterflies disguised hellwasp swarms.)

Also, if this right after, than the surviving population probably hasn't devolved into the "constant war over scarce resources" stage yet. People are still probably in shock, trying to find other survivors (especially ones known to them) and preserve as much of their old life as they can.

On a different note, the Book of Vile Darkness has some good elements to utilize. 'Evil Weather' would probably be all over the place - Plague of Nettels, Green Fog, Rain of Blood - all creepy, fun-for-the-DM stuff. And the 'Lingering Effects of Evil' section can be easily adapted to Lingering Effecs of Arcane Apocalypse'.

[Volthawk]

Also, if this right after, than the surviving population probably hasn't devolved into the "constant war over scarce resources" stage yet. People are still probably in shock, trying to find other survivors (especially ones known to them) and preserve as much of their old life as they can.

True. Got to admit, I was becoming kinda general there.

On a different note, the Book of Vile Darkness has some good elements to utilize. 'Evil Weather' would probably be all over the place - Plague of Nettels, Green Fog, Rain of Blood - all creepy, fun-for-the-DM stuff. And the 'Lingering Effects of Evil' section can be easily adapted to Lingering Effecs of Arcane Apocalypse'.

Maybe the Signs from Elder Evils could be adapted as well...