The Campaign Builder's Guild

alright im currently developing a world where a magical global storm enveloped the world approximately 150-200 years ago and lasting for months? years?, it is a high magic world and im trying to come up with a reason as to why a storm like this appeared and the effects it might have on the races and the world in general, and so im after your creative talents evident in the many settings already posted here to help.


so far all i can think of is:
Possible causes
- A rise of a god (i dont particularly want to use this one).
- An archmage summons the storm (i cant think of a motive as to why one would want to summon the storm anyway).

Possible effects
- A new race is "born" through the magic of the storm.

A very cruel happening occured at some point in history (A genocide perhaps) and the storm represents the weeping and the sorrow of thousands of souls. That's just a thought, I liked it, lol... I'll be using it for part of mine now, I think :P

very interesting.

Quote from: HellraiserI liked it, lol... I'll be using it for part of mine now, I think :P

and glad i could help

The world passed through the tail of a comet, which set up a chain reaction in the atmosphere thanks to some sort of exotic gases in it. This also includes the possibility that this might happen again at some point in the future, when the comet passes the world's orbit a second time (and perhaps it has already done so in the distant past?).


In any case, the surface-dwelling races will suffer a lot from this - after all, their primary food supply is gone, and that can't be good for a population.

How much they will suffer depends on how much advance warning they had and if they knew in advance how long this storm was going to last. If they had several years of advance warning, they might have stockpiled enough food and supplies to ride out the storm. Advanced, organized countries will be better at this than isolated tribes who live close to subsistence levels (unless they are protected by spirits and the like).

Incidentally, how hostile is the surface during the storm? Merely about as uncomfortable as an ordinary thunderstorm? Like a hurricane? Or pretty much instantly lethal to anyone who goes above the surface?


If the storm lasts particularly long, there will also be large-scale ecological devastation. Most plants will die - no sunlight, remember? - and so will most animals (the best chances of survival have creatures who can hibernate for a long time). Most plants will eventually return - seeds are amazingly resilient - but animals and similar creatures have more problems, and it's probably a safe bet that most Small creatures and larger will be gone unless they find some sort of subterranean food supply.

Speaking of the underground, the beings and creatures down there won't be affected at all - and once the storm is gone, they might consider expanding to the surface! In fact, the creatures living down there will do it automatically, since there is no competition up there. Thus, the post-storm ecosystem will look pretty strange, with lots of creatures that either have darkvision or no sense of sight at all, sensing their environment through different means...

Ok... how about... ok, do you have a god of storms (Or weather, for that matter)? If so... Say he/she was seducted by someone (Maybe another god, and have another one be the one behind it all) and they've been so captivated that they've been unable to direct their attention to the world (Letting this mischevious god do its worse).

Or... How about this Storm God being blackmailed in some way so he has to keep the storm going...

Quote from: Jürgen HubertIncidentally, how hostile is the surface during the storm? Merely about as uncomfortable as an ordinary thunderstorm? Like a hurricane? Or pretty much instantly lethal to anyone who goes above the surface?

I was thinking high winds, thunder, lightning(possibly magical and for some reason blue in color), so just a bit more uncomfortable than an ordinary storm. But nothing about the storm is concrete yet.

Quote from: Jürgen HubertIf the storm lasts particularly long, there will also be large-scale ecological devastation. Most plants will die - no sunlight, remember? - and so will most animals (the best chances of survival have creatures who can hibernate for a long time). Most plants will eventually return - seeds are amazingly resilient - but animals and similar creatures have more problems, and it's probably a safe bet that most Small creatures and larger will be gone unless they find some sort of subterranean food supply.

I dont want the storm to last long enough to kill much of the plant or animal life, and out of curiosity how long would it take for many of the plant and animal life to die or start dying ?

Quote from: Jürgen HubertSpeaking of the underground, the beings and creatures down there won't be affected at all - and once the storm is gone, they might consider expanding to the surface! In fact, the creatures living down there will do it automatically, since there is no competition up there. Thus, the post-storm ecosystem will look pretty strange, with lots of creatures that either have darkvision or no sense of sight at all, sensing their environment through different means...

hmmm....migrating underground races, even if the storm is relatively short lived it could open up a whole new set of options up

Quote from: KalinI dont want the storm to last long enough to kill much of the plant or animal life, and out of curiosity how long would it take for many of the plant and animal life to die or start dying?

Well, a month or two should be fairly safe. This means that many animals and plants will die and the ecosphere will be out of whack for a few years - but there should be enough survivors in sheltered regions to eventually replenish it. Large animals will still be harder hit than others, though.

Quote from: HellraiserOk... how about... ok, do you have a god of storms (Or weather, for that matter)? If so... Say he/she was seducted by someone (Maybe another god, and have another one be the one behind it all) and they've been so captivated that they've been unable to direct their attention to the world (Letting this mischevious god do its worse).

Or... How about this Storm God being blackmailed in some way so he has to keep the storm going...

I dont have a god of storms or weather, but thats not important i could have one of the other gods summon up the storm, and i really like the idea that one of the gods is getting blackmailed, but it got me thinking what could a god be blackmailed for? why would the god care?

If the storm was to last 1-2 months and if it was constantly/frequently raining would the level of the sea change possibly making the sea slowly encroaching on the continents?

Well.. the idea that directly comes to my head as to what could a god be blackmailed for would be a love interest. (The person/other god could be in on it from the beginning, purposely seducting the god to fall for them) A different god could threaten to terminate the life of this god's love interest unless they do as told.

In case you don't want the God to be blackmailed because of this love interest, you could also say that this deity ascended to godhood in a very obscure/tricky/malevolous manner (Works even better if it's a good god that's being blackmailed) so the other god is threatening him to unveil their secrets... There's no need to make it so the blackmailer is another god... I could imagine this human/elf/whatever who found ancient scrolls from when the deity was still a mortal and that explain the 'true' way in which they ascended to their actual position.

Just a thought, let me know how you like it

I like it alot but it wont fit in with my world as i currently have only five gods and those five created the world, and i dont particularly want to add anymore gods as i said in my first post, but i could have it so that the gods created the storm to stop a mortal from rising to the status of godhood...

Quote from: KalinI like it alot but it wont fit in with my world as i currently have only five gods and those five created the world, and i dont particularly want to add anymore gods as i said in my first post, but i could have it so that the gods created the storm to stop a mortal from rising to the status of godhood...

Or there was an attempt by a mortal mage to ascend, and Nature itself rejected his joining the ranks of the Divine.  The storm is that mage, stripped of his body, his soul twisted by his vain effort, all of his power and his spells raging across the world, unable to live or die or be controlled.

Quote from: Cuirassier CYMROOr there was an attempt by a mortal mage to ascend, and Nature itself rejected his joining the ranks of the Divine.  The storm is that mage, stripped of his body, his soul twisted by his vain effort, all of his power and his spells raging across the world, unable to live or die or be controlled.

Wow this is exactly what i was after i will definatly be using this in my campaign, thanks Hellraiser, Jürgen Hubert and CYMRO for your help, now what could the side effects of both the storm and the actual mages spells running rampant for a month or two have on the world and the various races, Jürgen Hubert brought up the point that many plants and animals would die upsetting the ecosystem, but im also looking for any magical effects that could have slightly altered the world.

Quote from: Kalin

Quote from: Cuirassier CYMROOr there was an attempt by a mortal mage to ascend, and Nature itself rejected his joining the ranks of the Divine.  The storm is that mage, stripped of his body, his soul twisted by his vain effort, all of his power and his spells raging across the world, unable to live or die or be controlled.

Wow this is exactly what i was after i will definatly be using this in my campaign, thanks Hellraiser, Jürgen Hubert and CYMRO for your help, now what could the side effects of both the storm and the actual mages spells running rampant for a month or two have on the world and the various races, Jürgen Hubert brought up the point that many plants and animals would die upsetting the ecosystem, but im also looking for any magical effects that could have slightly altered the world.

- Zones of anti-magic.
- Zones where spell effects are enhanced or depressed.
- Areas that become teleporation circles to random locations for any living creatures wandering into them.  This could make Wandering Monster Tables really wild.
- Random offensive spells going off, i.e. fireballs and magic missiles become like hailstorms in the real world.
- Fish that breathe air and fly, flocks of evergreens swimming the ocean currents, herds of humanoids grazing peacefully in the fields watched over by awakened animals.  
- Rivers that run straight up into the air and pool in airborne lakes, populated by strange beasts made of stone and metal.
- Plants that grow to massive size in a matter of hours.
- Areas where nothing will ever grow again.
- The tides are no longer regular, but random, violent and chaotic.
- Cities full of people going through emotional extremes, passive and content on minute, violently enraged the next.
- Areas where the size of all objects becomes random at irregular intervals.
- Areas where abilities are enhanced.
- Random reverse gravity!
- Random Irresistable Dance!

Quote from: KalinIf the storm was to last 1-2 months and if it was constantly/frequently raining would the level of the sea change possibly making the sea slowly encroaching on the continents?

That depends on how close to real world physics you want to get.

On Earth, the amount of water on the surface and in the atmosphere together is pretty constant. Most of it is in the ocean, and significant amounts are in the atmosphere and in glacial ice (especially in the Antarctic). Rain comes from water that evaporates from surface water. So just by itself, more rain won't do a thing to change the sea levels - all that means is that more water evaporates from elsewhere on the surface. To change the sea levels on Earth, you have to melt more of the ice.

Of course, things might be different with such a magical storm. Basically, that means that if you want the storm to raise sea levels, you can. All you have to do is think how to justify it. Here are some possibilities:

- The storm generates all the rain by heating up select parts of the atmosphere - especially the oceans and large ice fields. Simply increasing overall global temperature will just mean somewhat wilder weather patterns - but to create a true global storm, it's probably better to assume (and more dramatic besides) that the heat is concentrated at a few locations, which are very hot (though there should be more than one if you want to cover the whole world) - some of them over the ocean (where they will create lots of water very quickly), some over the land (where they will torch everything near them and possibly create all sorts of interesting effects similar to what happens after a nuclear explosion - "plains of glass" are just one possibility - and some will be located over the ice fields, which will melt.

This would be catastrophic, to say the least. If the Antarctic ice fields melted, the sea levels of Earth would probably raise about 80 meters (you can adjust that number upwards and downwards, since we don't know how much ice was trapped there in your world...), and since this melting would happen fast, flash floods and tsunamis would cause devastation even much further inland than that. After the storm was over, the hot spots would vanish and much of the water would begin to snow out of the atmosphere - but it will be a long process (the ice in the Antactic goes back for millions of years in the lower levels), and the sea levels will only recede gradually. They probably haven't reached old levels yet, though each year more old ruins will become accessible at the shores...

If you combine this with the "botched divine ascension" idea, you should probably make sure that the location of these hot spots was somehow mystically significant for the spell or whatever was cast - crossing points of ley lines, places where ritual sacrifices were held (but then why do those within ice fields? Good question...), and so on.


- Another possibility that the water during the storm comes from elsewhere - the Elemental Plane of Water or something like that. In this case, they represent a permanent addition to the world's hydrosphere, and though the polar ice fields might absorb some of those, the sea levels will still be significantly higher than they used to be - how much higher depends on you. Just calculate the average amount of rainfall that each point at the surface will receive during the storm, and divide this by the portion of the world covered by oceans (the surface of Earth is 70% water, so you'd have to divide it by 0.7 in that case). As a point of comparison, the Norwegian city of Bergen gets about 225 cm of rain per year, and even Bergen doesn't have constant thunderstorms over the course of several months - so you could again end up with a lot of water.

In this scenario, you might also end up with lots of creatures from the plane where the rain comes from, with no way to get home - so they will end up in the rivers and oceans of this world instead and again influence the local ecosphere.

(Of course, if you want a more "fantastic" hydrosphere where all rain comes from the Elemental Plane of Water, then there's presumably some sort of mechanism how this water gets drained again, so all of this won't apply...).


Either scenario makes the storm even worse, of course; while you can have fairly "dry" storms that mostly have high winds and little water, this much water in the air will cause most rivers to grow by an order of magnitude or so. Human civilization has traditionally settled near rivers for access to fresh water, so most of civilization will simply be swept away. The best chance of survival will be for people sitting out the storm at the top of high hills (mountains have their own dangers of flash floods in the valleys, and the constant erosion will cause lots of avalanches). Much knowledge will be lost, since books and other written knowledge, too, will be washed away out to sea.

Basically, civilization has to start over. It will help that the survivors will know how civilization will look like, but the whole infrastructure is gone.

In my game something similar happens except that it is a dimensional portal opening near the world which releases a space craft from another universe. This is also incidentally how humanity gets started in my world. Essentially the dimensional opening wreaks havoc with magic, with the environment and so on, and ultimately destroys the civilizations which had been reigning in that world except for the aquatic one of the Sahuagin.

This is what i have come up with so far with the help of everyone, i would not have thought of most of this on my own. If you can think of anything else i could add feel free to post it.


The Storm of Lodis

One hundred and fifty years ago a great and powerful archmage, Lodis discovered a ritual that would allow him to asend to godhood, in the attempt to asend nature itself rejected his joining the divine, Lodis was striped of his body , his soul twisted by his vain effort, his power and his spells raged across the world of ladrona unable to live or die, or be controlled, that achmage became the storm that enveloped the whole of Ladrona.

The storm caused arcane energy to build up over specific places around the world, creating hotspots which caused the gobal temperature of the world to increase, in the north the ice fields melted rapidly, causing the sea levels to rise causing rivers to swell more than double their original size, flash flooding and tsunami's which devestated much of the inland.

Those that died then were said to have been the lucky ones, as Lodis's spells raged they created permanent anti-magic fields, areas of teleportation circles where anything that moved into the circle would find themselves on other continents creating much confusion, areas where natural abilities and spells increased or decreased, many of the plant life grew up to four times its original size and on the continent Danlomn rivers inverted flowing straight up into airborne Lakes.

Plant and animal life also suffered as there was no sunlight, many planets and animals died creating a shortage of food for the survivers.

The storm receded to its focal point the continent of Danlomn, where the Archmage Lodis performed his ritual, where it continues to rage to this day holding Lodis, preventing him from living or dying holding him in limbo.
Danlomn is avoided by all except the most foolhardy and the archmages name is cursed daily as many of the effects both natural and magical still stain the lands.

That sounds good...it will allow possibilities certainly, and fears that the storm might be unleashed again. I imagine that there might be those who perhaps have the task of remembering what was done to contain it before...

There will be an organisation that is charged with knowing how to prevent the storm from enveloping the world again (dont have a name for them yet) and there will also be a Cult of Lodis which will be an organisation dedicated to finishing what Lodis started and/or finding a way to unleash the storm against the world once more.

Quote from: KalinThose that died then were said to have been the lucky ones, as Lodis's spells raged they created permanent anti-magic fields, areas of teleportation circles where anything that moved into the circle would find themselves on other continents creating much confusion, areas where natural abilities and spells increased or decreased, many of the plant life grew up to four times its original size and on the continent Danlomn rivers inverted flowing straight up into airborne Lakes.

Do any of those people affected by increased/decreased abilities still maintain that gain/loss?  Did this storm bring about any new races/classes?  Are the teleport circles still in place?  Used today for travel/commerce?  

Just a few questions and thought.

the increase/decrease of abilities is only maintained when in the area affected, once they travel out of the affected area their stats return to normal.

Many of the teleportation circles are still around, and many are used as a means of travel, but there are a great many that have yet to be discovered.

There is a possiblity that a new race has been created, its still an idea in development.