Post/Author/DateTime	Post
friedmad 09-04-07, 10:21 AM	how would you describe a ruined modern city to fantasy characters? any good source material out there on this? thanks
glorfon 09-04-07, 10:56 AM	Were there a couple of scenes like that in the shanara series?
Tempest Stormwind 09-04-07, 11:19 AM	Having blatantly stolen the sequence from Tales of Phantasia, it came out something like this: The ruins in this area are covered with moss, except where rust prevails. Each of the former buildings looks oddly uniform and angular, and from the more intact structures you can guess that several towered in height, far higher than even the church in the capital city. Sharp fragments of glass, stone and metal litter the cracked streets, interrupted only occasionally by smaller ruins covered in rust. It's particularly striking if they happen to find an *intact* building; the source I pulled this from had three (a jewelry store, a pub, and the central control room buried deep in the basements of the ruins of city hall). Beyond the glass door, darkness prevails. The moonlight, however, reflects off of the floor, giving you just enough light to see large tables made of glass and a counter in the far corner. Two of the tables are broken, and the shards of glass crunch beneath your boots as you walk through the room. The third table is intact... and just beyond the glass lies a collection of gems, the likes of which you haven't seen. They sparkle in the moonlight, untouched by the dust that litters the room. (Bonus points if they hear a voice in a language they don't recognize if they break the glass, then a long-dormant golem returns to guard this wizard's workshop -- I mean, security drones come to apprehend the jewel thieves after they trip the alarm. Which still works, because despite *main* power being off (hence the lack of lights), the alarm is on an auxiliary system.) And so on and so forth. Basically, they'd recognize a lot of the devices, but not their functions, and would remain unaware of anything we'd run through a wire. (The most dramatic room is one I don't have time to explain; it was also lifted directly from Tales of Phantasia. Upon restoring power to the city, the powered doors to the bar unstick, and inside there's still racks of whiskey, a closed-circuit holographic TV (which one of the characters mistook for a magical spirit similar to those he could summon in the game), repeating the last information fed to it (sports plays, bad movies, and a news report the day before the city was destroyed)... and giant picture windows that revealed the huge portion of the city (complete with skyscrapers, street lights, and implied auto-monorails) buried beneath the ruins you found, now pulsing with light from newly-restored power. (Essentially, the ruins the party found would have been the equivalent of Sharn's skyway; the wealthy part of town situated far above the vast majority of the city.))
Dvus 09-04-07, 11:58 AM	Yes, the Shanara series had quite a few references to modern ruins in a fantasy setting. I remember most being in Morgawr. I think that's the one where they are searching for a "magic" artifact in the heart of a city controlled by a computer. Lasers, robots, electricity, it's all there. D
Orchomenos 09-05-07, 10:16 AM	You should read L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth. Unlike the movie, the book was great. :D Basically, around year 2000, the Psychlo, some aliens, invaded the Earth, destroyed every city, and hunted down surviving humans until only a few survivors remained in the montains. 1000 years later, some human "rediscover" their lost civilisation...
Eater_Of_Souls 09-05-07, 12:10 PM	There is also a scifi series for youngsters that delas a bit with the issue called "Time of the Tripods" or something like that. Those 3 books from allmost 20 years ago were my first scifi books :) Edit: Also Wheel of time namely book 4 covers an ancient high technology/magic ruined city for a few chapters. WoT also has refencies to ancient magical devises that essentially are our every day items fueled with magic, such a recorder that types automaticly letters for you, flying "wings", hower cars and so forth. Also Dankiens strange theory about "space gods" is good reference for what players might see and what they really see just reverse Danikiens "technological interpretations" of ancient glyphs and carvings. ;) Artickle about Daniken in wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_von_D%C3%A4niken)
Dvus 09-05-07, 01:10 PM	You should read L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth. Unlike the movie, the book was great. I had forgotten about this one! Battlefield Earth was a superb book! I enjoyed reading it and it does have quite a few references... D
GoriceXII 09-05-07, 01:33 PM	Cool idea, I think this would be neat. The buildings and objects would seem strange and alien. As stated there would seem to be a lot of glass and metal. However one good way to describe such stuff it seems to me is to tell the pcs what it looks like according to them. For instance describing the remnants of a car as 'the rusted skeleton of a metallic beast' or a ruined skyscraper as 'a bizarre, gigantic framework of metal rectangles and squares towering into the sky'. A DVD player might be described as a smooth box made of a light alien metal.
Eater_Of_Souls 09-05-07, 01:39 PM	A DVD player might be described as a smooth box made of a light alien metal. Or better a strange melting wood that glows green/blue/red when burned in fire :D
Enderlaand 09-05-07, 01:46 PM	I don't think we need to go so far as to say that metal is a 'strange wood.' D&D character are very (sometimes all too well) familiar with metal. They're also very familiar with things that are strange a foreign to us (magic and monsters, weapons and armour).
Maldin 09-05-07, 01:52 PM	The reactions of the apes to the "Forbidden Zone" in the Planet of the Apes series would be a good corollary. Civilizations with medieval tech would never mistake a car for a skeleton (they're not stone-aged!, or unintelligent), but it would most definitely seem to be a strange "machine" or possibly an elaborate sculpture to them. There are so many of them, maybe these sculptures have some religious significance? ;-) Denis, aka "Maldin" Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
Ornum 09-05-07, 01:56 PM	Another source to take a look at is some of the stuff found in Stephen King's Dark Tower series, particularly in book 3 (The Wastelands) and book 5 (Wolves of the Calla).
Mojo_Rat 09-05-07, 02:25 PM	Depending on how ruined the city is, i think alot of it would come off as ruined Stone buildings and towers. Most adventurers are fairly familiar with ruined buildings :P Although i dont know how familiar with cement most fantasy games are.
friedmad 09-05-07, 02:57 PM	well i was thinking of creating a setting centuries after a nuclear holocaust, where, because of the radiation contamination, magic has manifested itself. so a setting would be for example, a ruined city where magic runs wild at, oh, say, where chicago used to be
GoriceXII 09-05-07, 03:08 PM	I suggested a skeleton because I've actually thought of ruins in that way--it's not an uncommon metaphor. Also I was thinking of one with really little more than framework left. If they saw one that was still largely intact they'd probably see it as some kind of carriage or wagon. After a nuclear attack? Then a lot of it would really be in ruins, they'd be more likely to find the occasional artifact than a lot of intact buildings.
Eater_Of_Souls 09-05-07, 03:31 PM	After a nuclear attack? Then a lot of it would really be in ruins, they'd be more likely to find the occasional artifact than a lot of intact buildings. Depends on the blast and from the type of weapon used, population could had as easily died from a radio active fallout as from the actual blast it self, death would then be much much slower and agonizing ofc. and would had likely creeped it self in to a various legends as it is that immediate blast area remains radio active for 100s if not 1000s of years ... In cases of Hiroshima and Nagasaki they used hydrogen which has a significantly shorter half time then a plutonium/uranium which was spewed up in Tzernobyl accident. Or it might not need to be radiation at all it could be a biological or chemical weapon, there are a lot things from which to choose your weapon of choise. :rolleyes:
friedmad 09-06-07, 11:48 AM	well, maybe not some destruction calamity, but i wanted to explore a setting where modern cities fall into a millenium of decay due to lack of upkeep. we know what an ancient city that hasnt been occupied for 1,000 years would look like to modern folks; what would a modern city that hasnt been occupied look like to medieval folks (say, from back before the invention of gunpowder).
Aliquid 09-06-07, 01:23 PM	I think the streets in a city would look quite odd for medieval folks. “The streets are all perfectly straight and meet each other at exact 90 degree angles. Whoever built this city must have been extremely fussy about this sort of detail.” “The streets appear to be covered in some sort of odd paving stones that have bent and cracked over the years. The odd thing is…. it almost looks as if the entire road was originally covered in only one stone. One very long smooth paving stone.”
DoveArrow 09-06-07, 02:37 PM	Have you ever read the Tripods Trilogy? It's a science fiction series of children's books set in a world where Earth has been invaded by alien creatures that have forced mankind into subservience by means of mind control. In the series, mankind has abandoned its cities, and reverted to an agrarian society controlled by the tripods. The ancient cities still remain, though, and the descriptions of these cities are extraordinary. I think these descriptions might just be the thing you're looking for. If you have an opportunity, I recommend you check the series out. If nothing else, it's an enjoyable read.
Stormonu 09-06-07, 03:11 PM	Don't forget gamma world. There should be some descriptions you can cull from their sourcebooks.
V8122 09-06-07, 08:38 PM	"You see many strange symbols, approximatly half of them depict the profile of a maiden with a relaxed expression. She may be a mermaid. You conclude that the buildings were all brothels"
Orchomenos 09-07-07, 10:13 AM	Watch the movie The Time Machine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine_%282002_film%29). The main character travels very far in the future, in a post-apocalypse world, where humans revert to almost stone age. Some computers and robotic devices are still active, which could make for funny encounters. Take a look at the D20 Modern MSRD (http://www.dominion-x.net/d20-msrd/index.html), especially the D20 Future section, for some stats on robots, and for mutation rules.