Post apocalyptic western - help building a world WARNING: TL'DR material inside [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post apocalyptic western - help building a world WARNING: TL'DR material inside [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Cravin
03-03-08, 06:24 PM Hello CampShop First, if your a TL;DR type, don't bother coming here : P

A group o my fellow roleplayers has recently asked that I run a game for them. I don't have a great deal of time, but the small time I do have, I now desire to put into making a game for my potential players.

Now, If you are still here, wonderful, if not, thanks for stopping by.

Warning: My grammar is not perfect and my writing skills are sub-par. Please bare with me.

What I want to do, is not really make a 'campaign' rather, make an entire world. A world where if a new player ever wants to join, they can. The game doesn't end, it goes on and on (Like a wheel, one might say.) I guess the best way to get this going is to tell you a little about the world I have made so far.

My world does not have a name yet. But the name shouldn't matter to much to you, what should matter is what it's name used to be.

Earth~ It has been 2000 years since the fall of civilization. something incited a war that lasted for 9 Years. In the year 2019 the majority of earths population vanished overnight. 81% to be specific. When that happened, despair, fear, and chaos reigned supreme. The Human population at the moment before 'it' happened was roughly 7.9 billion.

After 'it' happened earth's population dropped almost instantly overnight to
1,501,000,000 (1.5 billion) Most thought it was a deadly super-virus. Others called it Ragnarok, the end times. Regardless, billions died instantly.

The people that were left were few and far between. Many helpless, many injured. Electricity began to fail, technology was all but null without its ever present life force. Communication between those who still had some way of organizing stopped.

Eventually, those who were left alive, and adapted to living in this new world, which was not many. probably no more than 60% of the remaining 1.5 billion (about 900,000,000) began to notice things. Some people began to notice a voicelike presence in their minds, calling out to them, telling them things that warped their reality. The earth itself began to evolve and change. Nature grew rampant with a furious speed, overtaking entire cities in merely months or years. Wild beasts began to grow, things, like no human has ever seen, save in movies, or ridiculous Story Telling Games.

Some humans began to be born differently. Varying in all aspects. Some coming out black as night, others so large they tore from their wombs, in their own self-birthing fits. Many of these 'monsters' were cast away or killed. But more were always made. This was a long, long process taking hundreds of years.

What had actually happened is that the ever present magic in the world. That little thing that tells you not to cross the street when all of the sudden a Semi comes careening out of control, just where you would have been standing. That lightbulb that flares and explodes when that strange kid from class became angry. Or the light you saw, right before you could have sworn it was the end of the road for you, and you come jumping back into your body from somewhere far off.

Magic. Power. Energy. Call it whatever you want, but it has always been on this planet. Divided equally among all living things. when all of those people died that day, the energy was forced to even itself yet again. and now, it had room to really show itself. It had been caged and now it was more or less 'free'

Again, 'Magic' as it was called of old. began to show again, giant orbs of flame could be seen flickering across the night sky. Two men having a shout contest when one suddenly vanished from a green light into a pile of dust.

Language adapted and evolved. Some people merely forgot it, but most overtime developed a new language, a language most people had in common, maybe it was that mysterious power again.

Now, (With a mighty gap) it is 2000 years since the decline of the human race, who still exist to this day, but not nerly in such a way as they used to, not that any remember those, except for some of the story books that told of flying metal and iron sticks that could kill a manby roaring loudly at him. (Nothing like the sticks we use today, which are of course magic.)

The lush forests of the world have mostly faded due to the constant war and fighting between the races. All Claming to be the 'true race.' Not everyone is up in arms, but it is a large majority of the world. Over half of the planet is now covered in desert sand. The heat is a constant. Some say we anger the gods and the Bright one in the sky is coming for us. The reason for our suffering.

It is said that parts of our world still exist, old relics of the past. In an ancient land exists towers as tall as the eye can see made of stone and metal. Towers so high they literally scrape the tips of the heavens. It is also said that the greatest of beasts lurk there.

Now in our world, many races exist. All of them claiming to have been here the longest. None of it really mattering.

---------------------

That is basically all I have right now. I wrote that last night while I was at work (4.am) I really do apologize for the terrible quality but if you read that, you deserve a freaking cookie.

TO tell you a little about what the hell that was supposed to mean is this: The world was basically destroyed, most of the population wiped out. A force that had always existed in the earth was divided among the rest of the world. Magic ensued people casting fireballs, ect. Dinosaurs came back, magical monsters, scary things that go bump in the night ect, ect, ect. for one reason or another the world changed several times, eventually ending up in the way the players will start. A western style setting. Lots of heat, and comboyish types. The technology level is all but nill when it comes to electronics, a few things fro mthe past exist still (ie guns if someone if someone is lucky)

I intend to work on this further, but I really want some opinions on things I can do to make the world better, I want to make this really extensive. A game that an go on forever.

So, what is your opinion?
Cravin
03-03-08, 06:25 PM Reserved
Cravin
03-03-08, 06:26 PM Also reserved, Just in case.
Cranewings
03-06-08, 01:13 AM RPG Rifts from Palladium might be what you are looking for.

Rifts begins with two future-historical premises: first, that there will be a golden age of humanity with tremendous advances in science, technology, military, and society. Much of the solar system will be conquered, humanity's wars will end, and harmony will reign. Second, this golden age will be followed by an apocalyptic nuclear war in South America during the year 2098. The special circumstances of Earth's mystic position in the Universe at that time (namely, a multi-planetary alignment combined the naturally higher levels of mystic energy present during the Winter Solstice) causes what would "normally" be the deaths of few million living beings to take on a whole new level of importance. The deaths of the first few million people started a mystical chain reaction which triggered natural disasters across the world. This in turn releases even more mystic energy which completed the cycle by killing even more people and adding the PPE of their collective souls to the mix. Ultimately, the PPE of billions of human beings dying nearly simultaneously energized the ley lines and caused many rifts to open, both on Earth and throughout the Megaverse -while simultaneously ripping untold millions of alien beings from their own homeworld and alerting the Great Powers of the megaverse of a new planet to conquer. Many creatures, both mythical beasts and alien beings, come through the Rifts -some of them now permanently opened and incapable of being shut down again -to wreak havoc. This period is covered in Palladium's Rifts: Chaos Earth spin-off series. The combined release of PPE triggers further catastrophic natural disasters and fantastic landscape changes. With it, the lost continent of Atlantis (located near the Bermuda Triangle), infused with necessary levels of magic necessary to sustain its existence in Earth's Dimension, reappears from its dimensional void, reshaping coastlines all over the Atlantic and flooding coastal areas. As these disasters claim more and more victims, more PPE is released into the ley lines and makes the disasters worse (including magically empowering a dormant volcano in the Yellowstone National Forest to such an extent that it not only reactivates but eventually swallows up the entire state of Wyoming). By the time everything slows down somewhat, the old world is gone and approximately five to seven billion people worldwide have lost their lives.

Rifts game play takes place roughly 300 years after this event, described as 103 P.A., or "Post-Apocalypse", a calendar established at the formation of the Coalition States. This is equivalent to the year 2389, according to the New German Republic. Although different storylines may begin before or after, such as with the invasion of Chi-Town by the Federation of Magic (before) or as the Four Horsemen appear in Africa (after), most of the series "World Books" are described with a kind of snapshot of 103 P.A. At the latest World Books, the current date is around 110 P.A.(2396).

By this time most of the disasters have quieted down, but Earth is still bathed in the released PPE. The planet's mystical energy has attracted untold numbers of alien beings from other dimensions, who continue to arrive through the Rifts. These creatures include humanoid Dimensional Beings (called D-Bees). Some are familiar fantasy races, such as elves and dwarfs, others have never before been seen on Earth. Also now sharing the planet are monstrous creatures and demons with hides a hundred times stronger than tank armor. The most powerful (and a common theme in Rifts) are the "Alien Intelligences," Lovecraftian, living mountains of flesh, lidless eyes and wriggling tentacles with great supernatural powers. In some rare cases, even the ancient gods of mythology have returned to reclaim their former lands.

To cope with these natural, supernatural, and alien menaces, the human race has tried to change in a variety of ways, many of them borrowed from the technological developments of the lost golden age. Augmentation of the human body has become common with three basic categories: the "Juicers" do it chemically, the "Borgs" do it mechanically, and the "Crazies" make use of performance-enhancing brain implants. All such augmentations boost strength, speed, endurance and dexterity to superhuman levels. However, they all come at great cost. Chemicals cause the body to wear out faster, decreasing life span to a few short years. Mechanical Borg augmentation causes a loss of humanity, causing those with multiple limb and organ replacements to become more machine than human, also making use of magic impossible. Brain implants cause mental instability ranging from mild phobias to crippling neurosis or psychosis. Those people who choose to be augmented in these ways accept these risks in order to become powerful. Some are required to receive these augmentations either for defense or for work. The poor, hungry and weak are often forced or coerced into these roles to serve their rulers.

Some turn to other means to become "more" than human. Magic abounds on Rifts Earth, and many people turn to the magical arts. Others form pacts with alien intelligences or deities in exchange for great magical knowledge, almost always becoming pawns of the beings they dared turn to for power. Still others discover that they have great psionic potential, and dedicate their lives to discovering the abilities of their own minds.

The Ley Lines, formerly invisible, now dominate the landscape, appearing as massive lines of bluish energy half a mile wide, some twice that tall, stretching thousands of miles, crisscrossing the globe. The largest can even be seen from space.
JulesCARV
03-06-08, 01:39 AM I'm not sure whether you want this to have any verisimilitude vis-à-vis the real world or not. If not, then never mind, but if so, I guess my main problem here is that you're talking about a decline in population to 900,000,000 people. You make it sound like a post-apocalyptic setting, but that's basically the population as of around 1800. Now, 1800 was a very different time than 2008, of course, and you can't deny that the mass dieoff would be a huge change, with much infrastructure falling into disuse and decay, massive disruptions, etc. Still, though, I'd have thought that if magic were concentrated enough in individuals to make magic real in a world of 900 million people, David Hume and his friends might not have been so skeptical of supernatural phenomena.
Chrono Nexus
03-06-08, 07:14 AM D20 Modern makes references to a time when magic still existed in the world (a silver dragon is still alive in the setting). It's possible that some relic from the ancient past was recovered, and it's activation reawakened magic in the world. I'm not sure how that could cause the instantaneous deaths of billions, however. Perhaps the survivors were more receptive to magic, while the bodies of the ones that died rejected the influence.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Cravin 03-03-08, 06:24 PM	Hello CampShop First, if your a TL;DR type, don't bother coming here : P A group o my fellow roleplayers has recently asked that I run a game for them. I don't have a great deal of time, but the small time I do have, I now desire to put into making a game for my potential players. Now, If you are still here, wonderful, if not, thanks for stopping by. Warning: My grammar is not perfect and my writing skills are sub-par. Please bare with me. What I want to do, is not really make a 'campaign' rather, make an entire world. A world where if a new player ever wants to join, they can. The game doesn't end, it goes on and on (Like a wheel, one might say.) I guess the best way to get this going is to tell you a little about the world I have made so far. My world does not have a name yet. But the name shouldn't matter to much to you, what should matter is what it's name used to be. Earth~ It has been 2000 years since the fall of civilization. something incited a war that lasted for 9 Years. In the year 2019 the majority of earths population vanished overnight. 81% to be specific. When that happened, despair, fear, and chaos reigned supreme. The Human population at the moment before 'it' happened was roughly 7.9 billion. After 'it' happened earth's population dropped almost instantly overnight to 1,501,000,000 (1.5 billion) Most thought it was a deadly super-virus. Others called it Ragnarok, the end times. Regardless, billions died instantly. The people that were left were few and far between. Many helpless, many injured. Electricity began to fail, technology was all but null without its ever present life force. Communication between those who still had some way of organizing stopped. Eventually, those who were left alive, and adapted to living in this new world, which was not many. probably no more than 60% of the remaining 1.5 billion (about 900,000,000) began to notice things. Some people began to notice a voicelike presence in their minds, calling out to them, telling them things that warped their reality. The earth itself began to evolve and change. Nature grew rampant with a furious speed, overtaking entire cities in merely months or years. Wild beasts began to grow, things, like no human has ever seen, save in movies, or ridiculous Story Telling Games. Some humans began to be born differently. Varying in all aspects. Some coming out black as night, others so large they tore from their wombs, in their own self-birthing fits. Many of these 'monsters' were cast away or killed. But more were always made. This was a long, long process taking hundreds of years. What had actually happened is that the ever present magic in the world. That little thing that tells you not to cross the street when all of the sudden a Semi comes careening out of control, just where you would have been standing. That lightbulb that flares and explodes when that strange kid from class became angry. Or the light you saw, right before you could have sworn it was the end of the road for you, and you come jumping back into your body from somewhere far off. Magic. Power. Energy. Call it whatever you want, but it has always been on this planet. Divided equally among all living things. when all of those people died that day, the energy was forced to even itself yet again. and now, it had room to really show itself. It had been caged and now it was more or less 'free' Again, 'Magic' as it was called of old. began to show again, giant orbs of flame could be seen flickering across the night sky. Two men having a shout contest when one suddenly vanished from a green light into a pile of dust. Language adapted and evolved. Some people merely forgot it, but most overtime developed a new language, a language most people had in common, maybe it was that mysterious power again. Now, (With a mighty gap) it is 2000 years since the decline of the human race, who still exist to this day, but not nerly in such a way as they used to, not that any remember those, except for some of the story books that told of flying metal and iron sticks that could kill a manby roaring loudly at him. (Nothing like the sticks we use today, which are of course magic.) The lush forests of the world have mostly faded due to the constant war and fighting between the races. All Claming to be the 'true race.' Not everyone is up in arms, but it is a large majority of the world. Over half of the planet is now covered in desert sand. The heat is a constant. Some say we anger the gods and the Bright one in the sky is coming for us. The reason for our suffering. It is said that parts of our world still exist, old relics of the past. In an ancient land exists towers as tall as the eye can see made of stone and metal. Towers so high they literally scrape the tips of the heavens. It is also said that the greatest of beasts lurk there. Now in our world, many races exist. All of them claiming to have been here the longest. None of it really mattering. --------------------- That is basically all I have right now. I wrote that last night while I was at work (4.am) I really do apologize for the terrible quality but if you read that, you deserve a freaking cookie. TO tell you a little about what the hell that was supposed to mean is this: The world was basically destroyed, most of the population wiped out. A force that had always existed in the earth was divided among the rest of the world. Magic ensued people casting fireballs, ect. Dinosaurs came back, magical monsters, scary things that go bump in the night ect, ect, ect. for one reason or another the world changed several times, eventually ending up in the way the players will start. A western style setting. Lots of heat, and comboyish types. The technology level is all but nill when it comes to electronics, a few things fro mthe past exist still (ie guns if someone if someone is lucky) I intend to work on this further, but I really want some opinions on things I can do to make the world better, I want to make this really extensive. A game that an go on forever. So, what is your opinion?
Cravin 03-03-08, 06:25 PM	Reserved
Cravin 03-03-08, 06:26 PM	Also reserved, Just in case.
Cranewings 03-06-08, 01:13 AM	RPG Rifts from Palladium might be what you are looking for. Rifts begins with two future-historical premises: first, that there will be a golden age of humanity with tremendous advances in science, technology, military, and society. Much of the solar system will be conquered, humanity's wars will end, and harmony will reign. Second, this golden age will be followed by an apocalyptic nuclear war in South America during the year 2098. The special circumstances of Earth's mystic position in the Universe at that time (namely, a multi-planetary alignment combined the naturally higher levels of mystic energy present during the Winter Solstice) causes what would "normally" be the deaths of few million living beings to take on a whole new level of importance. The deaths of the first few million people started a mystical chain reaction which triggered natural disasters across the world. This in turn releases even more mystic energy which completed the cycle by killing even more people and adding the PPE of their collective souls to the mix. Ultimately, the PPE of billions of human beings dying nearly simultaneously energized the ley lines and caused many rifts to open, both on Earth and throughout the Megaverse -while simultaneously ripping untold millions of alien beings from their own homeworld and alerting the Great Powers of the megaverse of a new planet to conquer. Many creatures, both mythical beasts and alien beings, come through the Rifts -some of them now permanently opened and incapable of being shut down again -to wreak havoc. This period is covered in Palladium's Rifts: Chaos Earth spin-off series. The combined release of PPE triggers further catastrophic natural disasters and fantastic landscape changes. With it, the lost continent of Atlantis (located near the Bermuda Triangle), infused with necessary levels of magic necessary to sustain its existence in Earth's Dimension, reappears from its dimensional void, reshaping coastlines all over the Atlantic and flooding coastal areas. As these disasters claim more and more victims, more PPE is released into the ley lines and makes the disasters worse (including magically empowering a dormant volcano in the Yellowstone National Forest to such an extent that it not only reactivates but eventually swallows up the entire state of Wyoming). By the time everything slows down somewhat, the old world is gone and approximately five to seven billion people worldwide have lost their lives. Rifts game play takes place roughly 300 years after this event, described as 103 P.A., or "Post-Apocalypse", a calendar established at the formation of the Coalition States. This is equivalent to the year 2389, according to the New German Republic. Although different storylines may begin before or after, such as with the invasion of Chi-Town by the Federation of Magic (before) or as the Four Horsemen appear in Africa (after), most of the series "World Books" are described with a kind of snapshot of 103 P.A. At the latest World Books, the current date is around 110 P.A.(2396). By this time most of the disasters have quieted down, but Earth is still bathed in the released PPE. The planet's mystical energy has attracted untold numbers of alien beings from other dimensions, who continue to arrive through the Rifts. These creatures include humanoid Dimensional Beings (called D-Bees). Some are familiar fantasy races, such as elves and dwarfs, others have never before been seen on Earth. Also now sharing the planet are monstrous creatures and demons with hides a hundred times stronger than tank armor. The most powerful (and a common theme in Rifts) are the "Alien Intelligences," Lovecraftian, living mountains of flesh, lidless eyes and wriggling tentacles with great supernatural powers. In some rare cases, even the ancient gods of mythology have returned to reclaim their former lands. To cope with these natural, supernatural, and alien menaces, the human race has tried to change in a variety of ways, many of them borrowed from the technological developments of the lost golden age. Augmentation of the human body has become common with three basic categories: the "Juicers" do it chemically, the "Borgs" do it mechanically, and the "Crazies" make use of performance-enhancing brain implants. All such augmentations boost strength, speed, endurance and dexterity to superhuman levels. However, they all come at great cost. Chemicals cause the body to wear out faster, decreasing life span to a few short years. Mechanical Borg augmentation causes a loss of humanity, causing those with multiple limb and organ replacements to become more machine than human, also making use of magic impossible. Brain implants cause mental instability ranging from mild phobias to crippling neurosis or psychosis. Those people who choose to be augmented in these ways accept these risks in order to become powerful. Some are required to receive these augmentations either for defense or for work. The poor, hungry and weak are often forced or coerced into these roles to serve their rulers. Some turn to other means to become "more" than human. Magic abounds on Rifts Earth, and many people turn to the magical arts. Others form pacts with alien intelligences or deities in exchange for great magical knowledge, almost always becoming pawns of the beings they dared turn to for power. Still others discover that they have great psionic potential, and dedicate their lives to discovering the abilities of their own minds. The Ley Lines, formerly invisible, now dominate the landscape, appearing as massive lines of bluish energy half a mile wide, some twice that tall, stretching thousands of miles, crisscrossing the globe. The largest can even be seen from space.
JulesCARV 03-06-08, 01:39 AM	I'm not sure whether you want this to have any verisimilitude vis-à-vis the real world or not. If not, then never mind, but if so, I guess my main problem here is that you're talking about a decline in population to 900,000,000 people. You make it sound like a post-apocalyptic setting, but that's basically the population as of around 1800. Now, 1800 was a very different time than 2008, of course, and you can't deny that the mass dieoff would be a huge change, with much infrastructure falling into disuse and decay, massive disruptions, etc. Still, though, I'd have thought that if magic were concentrated enough in individuals to make magic real in a world of 900 million people, David Hume and his friends might not have been so skeptical of supernatural phenomena.
Chrono Nexus 03-06-08, 07:14 AM	D20 Modern makes references to a time when magic still existed in the world (a silver dragon is still alive in the setting). It's possible that some relic from the ancient past was recovered, and it's activation reawakened magic in the world. I'm not sure how that could cause the instantaneous deaths of billions, however. Perhaps the survivors were more receptive to magic, while the bodies of the ones that died rejected the influence.