The Campaign Builder's Guild

The Cataclysm
Exactly what happened is still unknown. It isn't known whether the Cataclysm was a creation of man, a divine punishment, or something else altogether. It began in 1313 when a mysterious flash of light, a sound of thunder, and a smell of sulfur swept across the Known World. Recovering from their temporarily dazzled eyes, humankind was met with a view of dark and ominous clouds gathering and amassing. Soon, the sky was darkened by black clouds, casting the world into a perpetual twilight: this first Omen was to become known as the the Gloom. With little light, plant life started to wither and with plant life waning, all other life soon followed. Fighting for resources, animals soon began encroaching on human territories, and even formerly docile creatures became desperate omnivores. This second Omen came to be called the Withering. Humans gathered in the great cities, fleeing the outskirts where there was little food and little purpose, and where predators and brigands roamed the countryside. The horrible living conditions of thousands of immigrants was further reinforced by the third Omen, the Malady, a horrible and contagious disease of the mind and body that killed, maimed and turned men into monsters. The fourth Omen, the Wrath, happened when the earth and nature itself rose up in a final attempt to wipe humanity away. Giant waves washed away entire pieces of coast. Earthquakes made buildings crumble. Storms haunted the sea and the land. Many people believed that the end of times was near. But then the horrors started to wane, sunlight penetrated the clouds for the first time in decades, and the Wrath slowly started wearing off. With sunlight back, the Withering was reversed, and the monstrously insane created by the Malady were driven away from civilization.

This is my newest draft of the doomsday scenario that is an integral part of my campaign. Now, i was originally going to hold this back for a while, while i did some more writing, but i realized i needed help with the timeline. How long could humanity have survived an onslaught such as this? Some plant-life, especially mushrooms, would have been able to survive the twilight conditions, and i was thinking that eating insects, entomophagy, might become more common as well since many of them would be able to survive. And some of the cities would have been somewhat out of reach of the earthquakes and waves. (Magical foodstuffs is not an option)
So how long would you give humanity? (Of course, millions would die no matter what) I know i said decades in the text, but that is mainly just a placeholder.

First off without light most plants would die out in months at most. Without stored food supplies stuff will get tight really fast. In the middle ages, most keeps would have around 6 months worth of grain in storage.

Well, as far as I know mushrooms and insects, along with maybe cannibalism for the desperate won't last very long. The sheer amount of insects needed to be eaten won't support any kind of urbanized population. Mushrooms are better are extremely low in calories, 4oz of mushrooms only has 13 calories, and the human body needs minimum 1200 a day for healthy living, which is 369oz of mushrooms a day and that's ignoring probable poisoning from consuming that many mushrooms.

While obviously other things can be supplemented (cannibalism would be a major one) with there being very little other plant life aside from other people there's not a whole lot to eat.

For meat, farm animals would be killed fairly soon, as they eat a large amount of grain. Chickens would be the last to be eaten since eggs would help supplement protein as well.

Now another thing is the technological level of the society. The better the agriculture the bigger stockpiles will be. Also if someone has a way of generating UV light (daylight spell, electricity) they could still manage to grow crops, potentially lasting indefinitely.

Finally it depends on what time of year this starts, worst time would be spring, as winter stores are gone and a new cycle of crops hasn't grown yet. Best would be end of fall, after the harvest, this would mean maximum available edibles.

Alright, just for the record this pure speculation on my part, if in a somewhat reasoned way. If it hits in spring, I give humanity 2 years tops. If it hit at the end of a harvest, 3-5 years before everything is beyond redemption. This is excluding potential areas with robust safeguards in place (unusually large food stockpile) or not losing the ability to grow crops (being able to generate light ala daylight spell or with electricity).

Now those are semi-conservative, and I'm not counting how much of an impact monsters would have on this, I can't properly extrapolate. Also ironically the plague actually helps out people (those that don't get sick) in this situation as it drastically cuts down the amount of mouths to feed. So being a slacker I proposed that the effects of monsters and the plague cancel each other out. If you think it would swing in ether way (monsters more of a problem, or plague killing so many food problem isn't nearly as bad) adjust accordingly.

Hmm, to make the horror last longer i was thinking that while the clouds blocked out most of the light, some would get through (therefore the twilight rather than darkness). But thank you very much : )

I'm with Llum on this one. What technological period is this taking place in? What is the magic like? What are the food stores like? What size city population are we looking at? All these questions can help narrow down greatly what the survivability is.

If you are talking about the survival of humanity as a civilization of some form then yes I am again with Llum, 2-4 years and civilization would finally collapse into the dust. Individuals though could survive for years (possibly even decades longer) depending on their access to special tools such as magic or personal stores of food and water (water is important here since this kind of mass die off is bound to cause contamination; especially if the malady is waterborne).

I'm pretty sure I'm not going to make the Malady waterborne.  The tech-level is somewhere around renaissance. Although nagic exists, it is not magic that would be of any real use here. City populations might be around a million for the largest cities, although this number would of course change over the course of the cataclysm.
And a small amount of sustained plant-life wouldn't be able to make the horrors last for a while longer?

Well a small amount of sustained plant life wouldn't be nearly enough food. Indeed it would probably cause massive wars and riots as people scramble to claim it. Though that might be something you want. Looking at the information given I would say that with the period of time it is at and the high concentrations of population, the cities would collapse as safe places to be within a matter of weeks. Waterborne contamination and lack of food in such a densely populated place would create a mass exodus as people rushed to find uncontaminated water and food. Pasteurization might solve the water issue (though in the real world that didn't become possible till the very end of the Renaissance). If that is a known practice and it can successfully cure the water of the malady, then I would push the ability of the cities to sustain back up to a couple years. Having that small amount of plant life isn't enough to change that by much but it does add some interesting results (like war and roving marauders). If the cultures here stockpile more than normal cultures. Say they have kept back an eighth of every harvest for the past forty years (effectively 5 years worth of grain). Then they could last for a fair while longer. Though this would only work with foods and grains that don't spoil.

Maybe i should just make it last 4 years then? Then there would be a pattern with the number 4, and civilization would be on the brink of collapse but not quite. Then i can always follow up with some wars if needed. Thanks : )

Sounds good, best of luck on your project :)

Thank you :)

i couldnt help but jump in even tho a bit late. I love destroying civilizations even more than creating them. And i just saw a Discovery Channel HD 2 hour presentation on what would realisticaly happen if the earth got hit by a meteor. I would look at your basic frame work and then aply it as a simple templet to three test scenarios. The Calamaties effect on  a farmer and his family in a farming village, the effects of the calamaty on a noble in a big city, and the effects of the calamaty on some one away from civilization, a hunter in the woods, a pirate/merchant on a boat on sea, or a group of adventurers in a dungeon, something "different" than the first couple.

1.The Gloom starts, within 3-4 days normal plants (average) become withered (dead) by 5th day no more "fresh plants" to eat, 7-12 days A.G (after gloom) funguses of all types sprouting from the ground and over take withered remains (minus trees, now dead but standing, for now) the world starts to look like an alien landscape. I would also say the staving animals (naturally responding) would start moving around at high speed by the 7th day looking for plant food. some become experamenting with omnivorism between 10-15 days? (total guess estimate) So withing a Week of the Gloom starting you should be in the Wither with the landscape looking like an alien spore/fungus/white sprouts covering the ground. About two weeks after the start of the Gloom or one week into the Withering you should have the animals comming, desperate herbavors (dieing out), disturbing new Omnivores, and hungery preditors (less plant eating prey).

Most SMALL local stores of grain would last 2weeks to a month. Yea large castles/cities could have up to 6 months. So at 2 weeks to a month after Gloom Dawn small towns supply holds would be running out, they are on the front edge of the encroaching animals. The landscape has changed to an alien world. I imagin small unwalled settlments would flee the villages at this point to their point of secuity (local larger town/fort/castle) "to their lord" for protection. This would over flow the main center. Some will take the refugees some would not. <- Possible interesting history point. This influx would drain the "6 month supply" faster. I would say within 2 months of Gloom Dawn, one month after the refugees came to the centers looking for protection. During the month People are starting to riot, fight, starve. withing a month of taking the refugees Cities are boiling cauldrons waiting to bubble over, or implode. The Malady triggers the Exoduses. With no people and a POX spreading among the people in close contact, people look to get away for sick people and look for something better. As people leave the cities, they enter the waiting hungery maw of the crazed animals. (How it plays out i think the crazed animals would come into play after the Malady). Some surviure bands, clean of the Malady (through luck or purging) make it to the old small forts and settlements, after about two weeks of traveling. It is here that humanity does its best to ride out the Wrath. In small settlments, sometimes nomadic small bands of surviors hunt scars animals, eat mushrooms, and drink fresh and tainted water. People are malnurished, loosing weight, and gaunt looking. Gout, Scurvy, and other dieseases start to take their toll. In this state, with earthquakes, storms and all manner of hell, i cant see humanity making it through a full year cycle of that, without comming out as tribes, completely restarting civilivation to the tribal level.

So i think the timeline should be something like this.
1. Gloom Dawn
2. 1 week AG Normal Plant life dead, no more "fresh vegitables"
3. 2 weeks AG Fungus rules the Landscape, animal desperation starts. People start to leave small frontier settlements looking for protection/safety at larger centers. start to encounter hostile animals more and more.
4. 1 month AG. Cities over flowing with refugees. Animals lurk outside the city walls, vorasiously killing late travelers and scouting parties.
5. 2 Months AG Malady starts. Mass Exodus into the thick of the hungery and twisted animals. Nature itself seems to try to push Humanity back into its festering cities.
6. 3 Months AG Cities are dead filled with dieseased corpses. Animals wont enter cities. Some Armed survirores have survied the trek back to small settlments and forts. Survivores live off of hunted beasts, fungus, canablism, and not fruit, vegitables, and any remains of Grain are also gone. The Wrath begins.
7. 3-6 months AG Some Humans holed up in forts, small walled towns, try to withstand the onslaugh of the Wrath and Crazed twisted Predatores. Others traveling, living as nomades collecting supplies as the travel from ruins to ruins, try to outrun the Wrath. With no normal plant life, dwindling animal life, and natural desasters detering settlement, i cant see humanity surviving anymore than a 6 month total cycle. I hope any of this is useful to you.

Hmm... I'm in a dilemma as to whether to make this world purely post-apocalyptical or make it more of a "new dawn" setting as originally conceived. I really like some of the visuals you present: mushroom-overgrown trees and the like. The Cataclysm was originally meant to be something like a turning point that represented the border between the old times and the new age. Can you come up with any ways to prolong the period a bit? and would the plants ever recover an onslaught like this?

Quote from: Crippled CrowWould the plants ever recover an onslaught like this?

The way he describes it, is mostly as an extinction event. Think what happened to the dinosaurs, there's really no recovering from something like that, at least that's how it seemed to me.

 

Quote from: Llum

Quote from: Crippled CrowWould the plants ever recover an onslaught like this?

The way he describes it, is mostly as an extinction event. Think what happened to the dinosaurs, there's really no recovering from something like that, at least that's how it seemed to me.

 

If there is not and that event happened as claimed, then explain how we are here today :P

I'm talking about the dinosaurs, who aren't here today :P

Also, there have been several reported extinction events, we don't always know what they are, but that they did happen and wipe out extremely large % of life on earth. Sometimes entire species, as in the dinosaurs.

I was being a smart alek. :P

Anyhow I think that yes plants would recover from something like this. Provided like CC was talking about, there was enough light for some to survive. You just would have a mass die out of alot of them.