Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ebloke 03-20-07, 04:37 PM	Hi all, Looking for some advise on the campaign I am creating. A lich has discovered a way to stop the sun from rising and has slowly been moving his pawns into the proper places (the PCs have been an unknowing part of this so far) before the day the sun didn't rise. I have the why/how the sun doesn't come up and I have a couple of ways the PCs can correct the problem. What I am hoping to find is either source material or advice about how the progression of a world going into a state of constant night would be. I know there are some Ravenloft resources, etc. but most of what I found assumes the world is already in a post-apocalyptic state, nothing about the transition. It will take the PCs at least a couple of months to resolve the problem. Any thoughts on what the first couple of days would be like; first couple of weeks? Do you think creatures of the night have an internal clock that lets them know that morning is coming and they start to retreat to their lairs? Or do you think they hang out until fear from the sun sends them into hiding? Perhaps some of the more intelligent ones have the internal clock... How long would it take for a small village or town take to dig a moat or build fencing around a town. What would you do to survive? Anything after a couple of months and the food supplies will start to get depleted... this event is happening towards the end of the harvest season. Any thoughts or books I should look into? Much obliged, Tom
Elthbert 03-20-07, 04:46 PM	Well the how matters---- is it eternal day on the otherside of the world? It won't be long before everything on this side of the planet is frozen and the other side is burned to a crisp--- say a week at the outside. Or it the ight from the sun just blocked and the heat let through? Creatures seem to have an internal clock but I suspect that within a few weeks that would fade. A motivated town can dig a moat really really fast--- a few days at most, I would suspect tat the moat would be dug quickly and then improved( made deeper, wider, paved, spiked et, as time allowed and if the soil is piled up next to it then one has an instant rampart.
PoorHobo 03-20-07, 07:24 PM	Well the how matters---- is it eternal day on the otherside of the world? It won't be long before everything on this side of the planet is frozen and the other side is burned to a crisp--- say a week at the outside. Or it the ight from the sun just blocked and the heat let through? Physics should never get in the way of an awesome campaign idea. So its perfectly plausible for not only everyone to belive that the world is flat, but for it actualy to be true. True the sun not rising, on a round world, means one side is constantly at night and one is at day, but the facing of the earth doesn't determine whether something burns or freezes. Its how close the planet is to the star, so the sun not coming up (the world ceases to rotate) doesn't send the world into a freeze or burn. As for what happens? Grief. Lots of grief. In fact I looked up the 5 stages of grief. Denial - The sun goes down, and people goto sleep. When they wake up its stilll before dawn. Its alwasy before dawn. Most people are in denial for the first day or two. "The sun alwasy comes back up, it alwasy has, this is just some sort of wizard illusion, the sun is there" Anger - "Holy crap, my crops will be ruined! The world is ruined. of all the crap this had to happen" Bargaining - "Gods, we the people of oakville lay ourselves at your mercy. Bring back the sun mighty Pelor and we shall be ever pious in your name. Great statues will be built and only your name shall be venerated" Depression - "This is it, its over. the sun isn't coming back. no point in getting out ofbed anymore, food supplies are running low I think I'lll just wait here to die" Acceptance - "So this is it, this how it is. No more sun. We'll just have to make do."
Mastel 03-20-07, 07:41 PM	I would hide the sun instead of stop turning. It's more logical & less destructive.
Nathreet 03-20-07, 08:12 PM	internal clock: all animals have it, even stupid ones. Though the instinct it is based in the brain. As for light sensitive unintelligent undead... I dunno how they know to avoid it. However, the internal clock is timed by the sun. After a couple days w/o sun it starts to get inaccurate. Btw, there are places way up north (parts of Alaska?) where it is sunny for 6 months then night for 6 months. These places are already pretty cold already, so it's hard to gauge the results. Effects: Normally the ground stores heat from the day, keeping the night warmer and the day cooler than it would otherwise be. The ocean is even better at doing this, hence the mild weather on most of the coastline. The difference in temperature creates wind. As warm air rises and cold air falls, wind blows from the cold regions to the warm regions to make room for the falling cold air and to fill the space left by the rising warm air. Hence you'd have very strong winds, more frequent hurricanes, bad weather (more rain, snow and worse thunderstorms), etc. But thanks to the wind the extreme heat/cold wouldn't be as bad as you might think, especially near the day/night border. Plus the earth stores a lot of heat: it would take literally years before the temperatures reach their full extremes (hey, I got to use what I learned in my heat transfer classes!). It'd make it much colder outside, to be sure, but nowhere near antarctica. In fact, underground creatures more than 1-2 floors underground would be completely unaffected. The cold temps and bad weather could even add to the mood. Naturally famines and disease would erupt, but only so much can arise in a mere 2 months. There should be enough stores of food and firewood for most to last, but the poor would be hit pretty hard. Food, firewood and oil prices would climb. Again, seeing hardship all around would add to the dreary mood for the PCs. The first night would be ordinary. After 24 hours it would be much colder and windier, but otherwise normal. From there the weather would gradually get colder and more stormy. After the PCs fix the problem there would still be fields full of dead crops to deal with. Widespread famine would erupt. That's the same as any year with a bad harvest, except the problem would be worldwide. The sunny side of the world would have the same crop problems due to drought.
DragonicHeritage 03-21-07, 12:46 AM	Yes, all animals have internal clocks that tell them exactly how long a day is, and some have clocks that tell 'em how long the seasons are and other things too. The human body clock runs for about 25 and 1/2 hours. What's this you say, a say is 24hrs? An external reference used to reset the body clock is called a zeitgeiber, so for example humans use the sun as a zeitgeiber to tell them that the day is only 24 hrs long. So, After a few months of living 25.5 hrs a day, you may find that time has progressed a lot further than estimated(you have lost time)... Except if you happen to have a snazzy water clock of course. If you are confused by zeitgeibers... well for humans, in the dark our brains release sleep chemicals, and when we see the light again, the chemicals are stopped and the brain is told to wake up. That's why when you go toilet at night and you turn the light on you cannot go back to sleep. But if a zeitgeiber does not present itself, eventually you will wake up anyway. Basically they reset the body clock. Hope this helps, and look, I too get to use some of my knowledge!:D
sgingell 03-21-07, 01:37 AM	Definitely a cool idea, but I'd concentrate more on the story you want than the actual science of it. Cool down the planet as fast or as slow as you want. Some benchmarks to consider: How long until food riots as people work out there aren't any more crops? How long until apocalyptic cults take over? How long until lakes freeze? How long until creatures who can't build fires die out? How long until the *atmosphere* freezes? How long until the Lich starts making offers "Sign up with me, and I'll make you undead and able to withstand the cold."? I have no idea how long any of those should take in the real world, but you've got control over what the spell actually does. Does it 'turn down' the sun (make the times as long as you like)? Does it 'switch off' the sun (coolest thematically I think)? Does it not only switch off the sun, but also leech heat out of the world (make the times as short as you like)? The real answer is hard to work out, and you don't get much in game benefit from the hard work of sorting it out. Heck, what's the mass of your game world? It matters for determining how much heat is retained, but doesn't do any good for the story. Ignore the physics and concentrate on plotting adventures against the hordes of ice zombies and refugees trying to storm the PC's safehold and the mysterious NPC who may lead them to breaking the spell. That sort of thing is going to pay off more than looking up radient heat laws. -Stephen
Evil DM Mk3 03-21-07, 06:51 AM	One thing to note, there will be active competition for the new, lightless surface and the lich may be in more trouble than he realises. Drow, Mindflayers and other subterrainian light haters may now move upwards. Theoreticaly a lightless agricultural system is (I read about it in a space colonising article in a magasine) possible but it takes a lot of pre-planning, maybe 5 years to set up and about 4 times the normal farming population per acher.
Elthbert 03-21-07, 09:26 AM	Physics should never get in the way of an awesome campaign idea. So its perfectly plausible for not only everyone to belive that the world is flat, but for it actualy to be true. True the sun not rising, on a round world, means one side is constantly at night and one is at day, but the facing of the earth doesn't determine whether something burns or freezes. Its how close the planet is to the star, so the sun not coming up (the world ceases to rotate) doesn't send the world into a freeze or burn. As for what happens? Grief. Lots of grief. In fact I looked up the 5 stages of grief. Denial - The sun goes down, and people goto sleep. When they wake up its stilll before dawn. Its alwasy before dawn. Most people are in denial for the first day or two. "The sun alwasy comes back up, it alwasy has, this is just some sort of wizard illusion, the sun is there" Anger - "Holy crap, my crops will be ruined! The world is ruined. of all the crap this had to happen" Bargaining - "Gods, we the people of oakville lay ourselves at your mercy. Bring back the sun mighty Pelor and we shall be ever pious in your name. Great statues will be built and only your name shall be venerated" Depression - "This is it, its over. the sun isn't coming back. no point in getting out ofbed anymore, food supplies are running low I think I'lll just wait here to die" Acceptance - "So this is it, this how it is. No more sun. We'll just have to make do." I agree that in a fantasy world the laws of physics do not have to be followed, but lets face it, they are in virtually every fantasy world. Water runs down hill, fire burns, and swords cut flesh. That is why I asked WHY the sun was not rising. I Its how close the planet is to the star, so the sun not coming up (the world ceases to rotate) doesn't send the world into a freeze or burn. I am sorry but this is utterly completly and totally wrong. If a world ceases to rotate respective to the star ( which is refered to as being tidally locked) then indeed the sunny side gets burning hot and the night side freezes. An atmoshpere can midigate this somewhat and if a super thick atmoshpere ( like that of Venus) well then the greenhouse effect can indeed overcome the effect. Think of how much the temperature drops every night he on little old Earth, why do you think that is so? Why do you think that the day gets hotter as it progresses? Conservetively the dark side of the world would loose 20 degrees of heat or so for every 12 hours of darkness---- we are talking freezing temperatures in a few days. Even giving literary license a week is generous.
ebloke 03-21-07, 02:06 PM	Thanks for all the responses so far. I have been looking at this plot line for awhile and starting to get tough to see the forest through the trees. A second pair of eyes always helps. I have modified an idea from another campaign I read to come up with this... Deep in the planet is a cavern there is a titan whose sole propose is to turn a crank to keep the planet rotating. The lich-king, through dealings with a few demi-plane creatures has learned of the whereabouts of this titan. He began plotting how he could go about controlling half the world in darkness. He arranged for a couple of ancient dragons to be released from their prisons (thanks to the help of the unknowing PCs -- they were lead to believe their mission was something else). The dragons make their way down to the titan; they battle and eventually the titan falls. I know the consequences if the planet were to suddenly stop rotating, but plan to ignore those for the purpose of the story. I do plan to have the temperature drop, but it will be gradual -- a month or so before the temps are below freezing. Trying to not ignore the physics, but do realize that some of the laws will be bent. The lich-king has also thought about some of the problems that he might encounter with other powerful undead creatures and has gained their allegiance, plans to deal with them later or has had them eliminated (again, a couple other side adventures the PCs were hired to do). The lich-king has also started to gather resources for building an army. The PCs have started to take notice that more and more of the graves they come across have been dug up. It has taken a couple of sessions for this clue to take hold and they are starting to question some of the locals as to why it is happening. I really like the 5 stages of grief idea -- forgot about these, will incorporate the use of those in how the townsfolk are when the PCs are interacting with them. I thought about hiding the sun somehow, but found that having the rotation of the planet mechanized was easier for the plot. While the science of the environment is important... Like sgingell wrote, I am also looking more for how the people would react. I am trying to come up with a timeline for the events mentioned in his post, plus others items. Once all the campaign is completed, I plan to have it posted someplace. It is going to be a combination of original adventures, some taken from Dungeon, some taken from free sources on the internet -- all modified of course to fit into the campaign world. I like the idea and think some of it may be of value to someone else in the future.