1) The wave affected everything humans, animals, plants, inaminate objects equally.
2) Roughly 70% of what was hit remained unchanged still human, still a fish same old, same old.
3) 20% was altered by the wave into recognizable beings/objects from ancient stories elves, dwarves, giants, harpies, vampires, birds of paradise, the barnacle tree and so on.
4) 7% are altered in a recognizable manner from modern stories/ideas. Examples include imps (from doom), dumpster devourers (d20 modern), anthropomoprhic animals and so on.
5) 1% develop changes other than physical in nature. The important distinction is that this doesn't include those who have undergone physical changes and non-physical changes e.g. someone turned into a hengeyoki will posses their shapechanging powers, a chiken turned into a basilisk will have its ability to turn someone to stone or a hengeyoki who in addition to their inherent shapechanging powers can also weild magic. Instead this deals with those who are otherwise still human but have developed new powers e.g. psychic or magical in nature.
6) 2% Mutate uncontrolably generating new bizzare monsters, most of those in this category ARE monsters having gone insane from the transformation, these also tend to posses the strongest powers post-change prior to others learning how to control, use their abilities to best advantage. This category also includes those that are destroyed by it e.g a building collapsing into ruin or mutating into a living thing that devours its tenants would be in this category.
Of course there are some in every category who've lost it either due to their own changes or someone close them's chagnes. The reason behind these changes at the moment is linked to the magic interacting with the minds and psyche's of nearby beings and creating these things. In other words most people think of themselves as human deep down but some desire/believe they are/should be something different.
So Mr Smith remains Mr Smith (male, human) but Mrs Smith becomes an elf because everyone who know's her has always beleived she has an aloof beauty that reminds them of the stories of elven beigns (tolkein for instance) while in certain regions of the world the belief in certain old stories causes those stories to take effect on those who most resemble them. Those with the strongest belief/desire are even able to cause a change in thesmelf that is at odds with everyone around them e.g Mr Doe in heartlands america has always longed to be Miss Doe but couldn't bear to face the social stigma involved, now he is she and no one can blame her for what the magic did.
The monsters/destroyed ones are caused by the deep, dark, broken parts of the human psyche manifesting themselves (not necessarily even requiring a prolonged status e.g. one person may after years of calm, collected living have snapped over some little thing. Normally they'd get control and apologize for destroying their neighbours car, this time however they mutate into a bloodthirsty beast driven by a need to kill their mind lost forever because of the strength of that rage).
The players are a group (possibly effected by change depending on character creation e.g. if someone wants to play a moreu) who are struggling to adapt to this new world. Eventually because of their experiences and abilities they'd get recruited into one of the new agencies created to try and control the damage caused by this event, a combination of military and police.
What I need though is a reasonable explanation for why this explosion occured now. I'm interested in any ideas people care to share, at the moment the possabilities I'm considering are.
1) Alternate realities exist and normally they are created, destoyed and merge peacefully but occasionally two markedly different realities crash together and that's what happened here.
2) Similar to one except that rather than two realities crashing together this one just happened to brush another one going through a massive magical upheaval that spread into our world permanently changing it by opening links to places that were previously closed. Of course even if these links are closed some of the changes will remain e.g. a mage could still use magic by tapping into their own internal source of magic rather than the flows now running across the planet.
3) A highly advanced scientific experiment (such as the massive super-collider recently that could have caused a black hole) accidently blew open ancient links to the plane of magic allowing a massive surge to flow out into the world, eventually dropping back to relatively lower but still higher than preivously levels.
4) A cop out approach wherein a random god unleashed all the magic on an out of the way reality to see what would happen.
Personally so far I like 2 best.
The Wonders of the World, from the Great Pyramid at Giza and the Sphinx to Stonehenge, Chichen Itza, Great Wall of China, the Nazca Lines, and others (there's a good list at Wikipedia) were built/created at key points on ley lines, their original purpose to seal away ancient arcane forces.
With the passage of time, and a lack of magic to keep them working, the seals have weakened. The shock waves from an unimaginably powerful calamity traveled between dimensions to the modern world and ruptured the seals.
The resulting explosion of arcane might swarmed over the world, twisting and perverting everything man has known. Long-forgotten sequences of DNA have been reawakened, rapidly changing a person into something "different" or granting them abilities only thought of in stories.
This helps explain why ancient man undertook the task of creating the Wonders and establishes a simple, logical explanation for the changes that occur instead of "magic did it and that's all there is to it."
For more of a story or challenge, you could add in some sort of guardians that have been dormant since the loss of magic, just recently reawakening to either assist or hamper the PCs.
Many years ago there was the age of magic with elves, dwarves, mages, vampires, divine kings and many other beings of power and mystery. Some were good, some were bad and some were neutral but a balance of power existed ensuring that wars were largely determined by phsyical might while the wielders of power countered each other and eliminated threats to their realms. Then a deranged necromancer as a last attempt to stop the priests (need to find a suitably ancient realm perhaps atlantis :confused
from destroying his lifes work opened a gateway to the demonic realms . . . and was promptly eaten. After this the demons swarmed out as the various realms put aside their differences (for now) to fight against the demons but were slowly pushed back and weakened. Eventually a priest was granted a vision by his gods of a way to strip the demons of their power at a cost.Working together priests and magic users of diverse cultures assembled the components of a massive lock while soldiers fought and died to by them time. Eventually the spell was enacted sealing away the surging flows of magic behind various locks (the wonders of the ancient world e.g. pyramids, stonehenge) stripping the demons of most of their power (it had to go into allowing them to continue to exist in world with little natural magic). Slowly but surely the empires hunted them down and slew them until none were left . . . and then turned on the non-humans elves, dwarves, mages in anger. However the same priest who'd been shown the lock had forseen this and knowing even they unleashed magic again there were too few non-humans to win a war so he had devised a second spell that the most powerful representatives of the various factions (elves, dwarves, mages, druids, wu-jen, hengeyoki) cast. This spell transformed the non-humans into humans (since even without this reason they knew it was just a matter of time till humans destroyed them) and stripping the memories of this great war from the humans transforming into clashes between various empires of the time. Thus ended the age of magic.
As the millenia passed the wounds healed and the creatures of the aincent world became myth's and legends. Meanwhile the magic locked away slowly built up placing more and more pressure on the locks slowly weakening and slipping through the spell creating the strange events of history (Roanoke or the mary celeste for example). Then the industrial revolution happened and the damage and corruption of its early days weakened the spells still further (Nuclear testing, heavy metal poisoned waters, strip-foresting). Bringing us to the current day.
Then at a certain point (depending on campaign start) two events happened simultaneously. First the universe passed into conjunction with another at the same time when an ancient and powerful god died sending a massive surge against the locks straining them to breaking point. At the peak of this surge a technological device goes wrong (nuclear plant explosion or a supercollider accident for example). The shockwave of this (or perhaps just the destruction of an ancient relic . . . perhaps the wailing wall is destroyed in a bomb explosion) overwhelms the spell and causes it to shatter unleashing a wave of mixed wild and divine magic into the world followed by a tsunami of several millenia's worth of backed up magic. This awakens the strains of ancient races and causes some strange mutations on top.
The god invovled knowing what was going to happen (its a god:D )designed the seal with a time lock. It can only hold back so much before shattering and releasing the magic. Think of it like a balloon you can blow air into it slowly inflating it but eventually you reach a point where it bursts. This allows me to remove the need for passing universes as well, magic was released because after millenia it finally reached the point where the steady inflow of magic reached a point beyond the spells tolerance and shattered it sending the flood of magic out into the world in several day's of massive magic levels that then dropped off to more normal ones.
A small plane, with lots of magic, hits ours and all the sudden a new planet the size of our moon is in the solar system. The new space will cause a gravitational wave that will generally mess stuff up on the third rock, and also carry lots of magical energy.
Not only will the players have to deal with the insanity and riots, but the upcoming invasion of refugees from the new planet, which is in an unstable orbit. somewhere between earth and Venus.
1: Eons of genetic mutation of cells allow for the changes
2: Genetic engineering/research allows for most of the worlds populace to become immune to some disease but when the catastrophe hits certain members of the populace are effected as mentioned above.
Possibality
A new virus crops up and rapidly spread across the world as its highly contagious and doesn't show any signs until late in its progression i.e. infected, contagious, symptoms show, death. In desperation a new vaccine is developed and after initial tests show it cures the victim mass production is rushed into place and people all over the world are innoculated. Then the side effects show up . . .
Its set in current day so I think PL4 (if I remember right) still that raises a possability I hadn't considered thanks.
Possibality
A new virus crops up and rapidly spread across the world as its highly contagious and doesn't show any signs until late in its progression i.e. infected, contagious, symptoms show, death. In desperation a new vaccine is developed and after initial tests show it cures the victim mass production is rushed into place and people all over the world are innoculated. Then the side effects show up . . .
And by "side effects," the vaccine could switch on long dormant genetic sequences in everyone and everything. By screwing with animal and plant DNA, you can get some creations with magic-based abilities in there rather easily.
Given how quickly the virus spreads and the cure gets rid of it, the mutation is rapid, usually completing in less than 4 hours. The 4 hour change is quick enough to be considered "sudden" in evolutionary terms (perhaps "instant"), but is slow enough to be some-what plausible.
Now the question is why would they be vaccinating plants and animals.
Its set in current day so I think PL4 (if I remember right) still that raises a possability I hadn't considered thanks.
Possibality
A new virus crops up and rapidly spread across the world as its highly contagious and doesn't show any signs until late in its progression i.e. infected, contagious, symptoms show, death. In desperation a new vaccine is developed and after initial tests show it cures the victim mass production is rushed into place and people all over the world are innoculated. Then the side effects show up . . .
Glad I could help... and maybe throw in a limiting factor for the world populace and you could have the 'Changes' begin/occur during/start of a solar allignment of the planets that releases/breaks/fractures the magical wards on each of the Wonders of the World.
And yes, you could also throw in early immunizations then mutations of plants and animals due to the virus crossing species of certain remote areas... those die off so a secondary form of the serum is discovered that while it doesn't innoculate humans it does for animals and plants... a special herbicide for the plants that works on animals too... think DDT!
I get the feeling you know more about these things than I do:D . I'd actually prefer to go with 3/4 day's for conversion after having the vaccine administered, that way they'll have time to use it on a large numbr of people before realizing what its doing. Four hours would be noticed too quickly even if you assume 1 minute per injection doing around 40 thousand people worldwide you'll notice it before reaching 10 million cured, 400 thousand and your looking at 100 million with a global population in the region of 6 billion well you see the problem.
Now the question is why would they be vaccinating plants and animals.
Good point about going with a 3-4 day change instead of the 4 hour bit.
As for the plants and animals, the original virus mutates to affect plants and animals (not just humans). Although affecting them slower than humans, the virus still has the same effects as the original (human infecting) form. To spread the cure as quickly as possible, and to affect/cure everything possible, the scientists created an airborne variant to be spread over less civilized areas where people could not receive the standard treatment (injection). The airborne version also had the added effect of treating the infected plants and animals.
And it's not that I "know more about these things" than you do. When I was younger, all I read/watched/thought about was science fiction (one reason why I love D20 Modern so much). Between that and my (apparently) natural disposition to science, I can think up stuff and make it sound more possible than usual, usually by detailing some of the science behind it.
In other words, I'm a good "Idea Man." :P
A limiting factor could explain why a portion of the population hasn't changed although I'd prefer it to not be linked to external influences, as in if they don't change they wont change if you see what I mean.
@shinobi_guyver
I've actually been reading deep black biowar at the moment and its talking about terrorists using animals as a breeding ground/means of spreading a virus so maybe I should use that. A (unididentified) extremist group through illegal work develops a new virus, they (after innoculating themselves) deliberately spread amongst numerous animal species then release them to kill off the godless christians/jews/muslims/buddhists/insert group of choice here as those who know their proper place in things will be given the cure.
However the virus is unstable and mutates so as it spreads throughout the world 62% of those infected die as planned but the rest begin mutating and changing (afterall if its able to jump species its not unreasonable to carry strains of the old species DNA or have unexpected effects on the new ones DNA now is it). Meanwhile a government agency manages to recover the vaccine and manages to engineer a cure for the now mutated virus. However by the time they spread it worldwide only 24% of the population is alive and unchanged wtih another 31% mutated (and sadly 55% have died). Then as time progresses people realize that some mutations weren't obvious (psychic powers, magic).
First you find yourself turned into a cat-girl (feline moreu or feline hengeyoki) then you realize you have weird powers (telekinesis, teleportation, the ability to generate and control light [last one's magic first two are psychic]). Does that make up for the gender and species change or make it worse? Do you try to control and develop these new powers?
This is a really neat thread ;)
You could set it up to where magic (or some near mindless Lovecraftian entity) arrived to our dimension shortly after the virus was released and the two had a bizarre reaction to each other (or perhaps the cure for the virus), causing the change.
First you find yourself turned into a cat-girl (feline moreu or feline hengeyoki) then you realize you have weird powers (telekinesis, teleportation, the ability to generate and control light [last one's magic first two are psychic]). Does that make up for the gender and species change or make it worse? Do you try to control and develop these new powers?
Question (Now that I remember about this thread): Are you needing this backstory for before the campaign begins?
Do the characters survive the explosion/virus/whatever partway through the campaign?
If it's the former, I don't have much more to say unless you come asking for ideas. If it's the latter, I could think up some stuff rather quickly if you'd like.
With regards to the timing I've been generally thinking that the events would be pretty much central to the campaign. The cataclysym (as it were) would happen at the start of it still tossing up with how much of it would have happened though. The options are basically . . .
A) Its about to happen for the begining of the campaign (say 3 levels as you 4th is the earliest you can take an advanced class) the group keep running into weird things from old myths and legends in increasing amounts. Then it all explodes into a massive change and the group is on the forefront of dealing with it.
B) Its happening at the start of the campaign and the groups trying to stay alive and sane in a world with things can change over breakfast.
C) Its just finished and the groups trying to pick up and re-establish society of some sort.
Personally I like the first one.
As for the Cthulu one there's a fun idea "Worship the horrible tentacled thing from beyond the stars or risk becoming a horrible tentacled thing from the earth.":D
The reason I thought to ask when it's happening is because if the PCs are affected by the virus midcampaign, I foresee an entire session dedicated to recreating the PCs with the new racial stats and other things that would have to change.
Also, if the PCs are changed and then have to make new characters, are they gonna be able to choose what they become, are you (as the DM) gonna choose for them, or will it depend on a percentile dice roll?
Considering how random it is supposed to be (change now, change later, don't change at all) a percentile roll may be best.
I figured choice/roll, that is when it hits they can pick a race they want to play (moreau, elf, dwarf, etc) and then their new height/weight/sex/hair colour/eye colour (all the physical traits but no actual mechanic i.e. attributes are changed except as indicated in the racial description e.g. an elf getting +x to spot. For example they'd still retain the bonus starting feat/extra skillpoints from being human even though they aren't one any more they were when they got them but they'd also because they're now a high elf get +1 to dex and int and -1 to con because of the new physical body they have which reacts differently if you see what I mean.) or they can just have the entire thing determined by random rolls.
So only attributes and physical descriptions are to be changed. I guess that makes sense, after all, if you become something else, it doesn't mean you forgot what you were before.
Although, I do think that a random/percentile roll would be best. This is supposed to be a sudden, life-altering event. If the players had a choice of what to become, I feel it would detract from the mind-blowingness of the event, but that's just me.
As for the forgetting what you were some would be in that situation just not the PC's in this game.
as energy is all connected to each other... a shockwave is only logical
I think I've seen that somwhere before hmmmmmm. . .either way you'd need to have diminishing returns to avoid losing humanity entirely, of course depending on the game that could be interesting. Perhaps the group's overall goal (or a short term one) is to find a way to preserve the last pure blooded humans from being bred out of existence.
With regards to the timing I've been generally thinking that the events would be pretty much central to the campaign. The cataclysym (as it were) would happen at the start of it still tossing up with how much of it would have happened though. The options are basically . . .
A) Its about to happen for the begining of the campaign (say 3 levels as you 4th is the earliest you can take an advanced class) the group keep running into weird things from old myths and legends in increasing amounts. Then it all explodes into a massive change and the group is on the forefront of dealing with it.
B) Its happening at the start of the campaign and the groups trying to stay alive and sane in a world with things can change over breakfast.
C) Its just finished and the groups trying to pick up and re-establish society of some sort.
Personally I like the first one.
Well...all of them have their merits. The only thing I know to tell you is run each option by your players and see which one they are most interested in.
As for the Cthulu one there's a fun idea "Worship the horrible tentacled thing from beyond the stars or risk becoming a horrible tentacled thing from the earth.":D
As an interesting twist, you could set the horrible tentacled thing from beyond the stars to be a friendly and genuinely nice creature XD
What would cause the Quantum reset though?
What would cause the Quantum reset though?
You could use a version of the Large Hadron Collider, which is currently broke. :\