Odd FRPG idea
Feb. 17th, 2021 03:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kengrSomething reminded me of the old Fritz Lieber story A Pail of Air. And by more obscure than usual though processes I came up with an idea for an FRPG campaign.
Picture your typical "medieval plus magic" world. Now have an analogous disaster befall it.
So daylight is rapidly getting weaker and things are getting colder and colder.
At first the underground dwellers won't notice much, nor will deep water dwellers. And a number of magical critters won't notice at all.
First really bad point will be when all the rivers and lakes freeze over. Ditto for parts of the seas.
That kills some forms of transit, kills water power, and is likely the far end of the demise of normal agriculture. Also make getting water a lot harder.
Deep wells will keep working until the freeze gets deep enough. After that, it'll pretty much be magic only to get water unless you are willing to burn even more fuel than you are already.
Eventually the oceans will be completely frozen over (unless you have some extra odd oceans :-)
At the second tipping point is when gases start freezing out of the air. CO2 will go first. So it'll be snowing dry ice flakes. Be careful about tracking that inside. You could suffocate everyone.
When the oxygen freezes out, any survivor without magical aid, will be doing the "Pail of Air" bit. And only surviving because there are large enough stores of food and fuel left behind by those who weren't as lucky.
Folks with access to magic of the right sorts willbe doing ok, though they'll be using a *lot* of it for just survival.
Different GMs will come up with their own ideas from this sort of starting point.
A campaign set there *before* the start of the Unending Cold Time offer all sorts of challenges coping with the apparent "end of the world".
Or you could start a campaign after it's gotten to the frozen air point. Things would be stable, but very very different.
Then there's the old evil GM standby of having a "normal" party get dumped there. Obviously they'd need to wind up somewhere they can survive for a while (deep dungeon, abandoned stronghold with the "life support" still runing, etc)
Picture your typical "medieval plus magic" world. Now have an analogous disaster befall it.
So daylight is rapidly getting weaker and things are getting colder and colder.
At first the underground dwellers won't notice much, nor will deep water dwellers. And a number of magical critters won't notice at all.
First really bad point will be when all the rivers and lakes freeze over. Ditto for parts of the seas.
That kills some forms of transit, kills water power, and is likely the far end of the demise of normal agriculture. Also make getting water a lot harder.
Deep wells will keep working until the freeze gets deep enough. After that, it'll pretty much be magic only to get water unless you are willing to burn even more fuel than you are already.
Eventually the oceans will be completely frozen over (unless you have some extra odd oceans :-)
At the second tipping point is when gases start freezing out of the air. CO2 will go first. So it'll be snowing dry ice flakes. Be careful about tracking that inside. You could suffocate everyone.
When the oxygen freezes out, any survivor without magical aid, will be doing the "Pail of Air" bit. And only surviving because there are large enough stores of food and fuel left behind by those who weren't as lucky.
Folks with access to magic of the right sorts willbe doing ok, though they'll be using a *lot* of it for just survival.
Different GMs will come up with their own ideas from this sort of starting point.
A campaign set there *before* the start of the Unending Cold Time offer all sorts of challenges coping with the apparent "end of the world".
Or you could start a campaign after it's gotten to the frozen air point. Things would be stable, but very very different.
Then there's the old evil GM standby of having a "normal" party get dumped there. Obviously they'd need to wind up somewhere they can survive for a while (deep dungeon, abandoned stronghold with the "life support" still runing, etc)
no subject
Date: 2021-02-17 02:31 pm (UTC)Are you familiar with 1816 "The Year Without a Summer"? Volcanic dust greatly reduced sunlight in the northern hemisphere. This happened in or near the trough of the 750 year climate cycle, so things were already colder than average.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-17 02:56 pm (UTC)I was thinking of something considerably more drastic. The cause could be anything. Sun going pout, wrath of the Gods, something moving the world farther from the sun. All sorts of possibilities.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-17 04:01 pm (UTC)I was just thinking of that story due to this image from Texas: https://i.imgur.com/ratUXMD.jpg
You could have a 'dying sun' mythology, where the end of the sun is prophesied and thus can be prepared for, to varying degrees of readiness. Which would cover your 'normal' party getting dumped there. They're in a shelter but it's life support is running out, so they have to move or fix it.