[WW] Campaign Setting Ideas

[Michael Robert Blair <pellinoire@yahoo.com>]

Some campaign ideas.
Have fun,
M.

The shock waves caused great destruction in the cites
surrounding the sea. People were starting to recover,
to rescue survivors from the wreckage when a few hours
later the tsunami arrived to complete the devastation.
All of the great coastal cities were wrecked and the
tsunami roared up the board flat river valleys
destroying towns, villages and destroying farmland.
Civilisation was pretty comprehensively devastated,
only a few smaller inland cities and sheltered coastal
ones survived and with most of the population and
farmland destroyed survival became difficult and that
was before the years of poor or absent harvests caused
by the dust cloud from the eruption.

The great ridge of rock that the imperial city was
built on collapsed with the earthquake and them the
tsunami flooded through the debris turning the most
fertile farmland in the world into a salt marsh.

Barbarians moved into the settled lands in search of
food, easily overcoming several countries and border
territories. The city-states who survived did so only
because of the dwarven survivors who provided a vital
influx of skilled engineers and soldiers just before
the barbarians came. The cites who turned them away
died and the cities who did not use their skills to
fortify themselves died.

The barbarians who seized towns and cites feasted on
the stored food they recovered then died as they had
not the foresight to ration it. The surviving
city-states managed to hold on, just, and were able to
hold together until the climate recovered.

Outside the city-states some rural populations were
able to survive by hunting but many perished. Many
cultures were destroyed, the people reverting to a
hunter-gatherer existence. Books were valuable only as
a source of kindling (and toilet paper). Only the
strongest and the most ruthless survived, some turning
to cannibalism, preying upon strangers and then their
own families to survive.

As the climate rapidly deteriorated settlements in
marginal agricultural areas were abandoned. Often the
sea became the only reliable food source but even that
deteriorated with over fishing and the reduction in
sunlight caused by the eruption. Starving migrants
travelled in search of food, often overwhelming
communities that might have survived on their own so
that all died.
Gradually the climate did recover, the summers became
warm again and the precious hoarded seed could be
planted with some guarantee of a harvest. By this time
the population had fallen by perhaps 75%. Civilisation
started to spread out again from those areas that had
survived.
 
Two kingdoms have fought a series of wars over control
of a river. The river drains a range of mountains and
is a major trade artery. Grain and other goods,
principally foodstuffs and luxury items are
transported upriver and traded to the dwarven kingdoms
under the mountains in exchange for manufactured
goods, luxury items and specie. 
The upper river is controlled from a city that has
changed hands many times ? even being independent on
several occasions.

Beyond the mountains lie:
1.	An icy wilderness of tundra.
2.	An icy wilderness of rock and ice, the shore of a
vast frozen sea. Products: Ivory, 
3.	An endless steppe. Home to mega beasts (mammoths
and dire creatures) and the hardy barbarian tribes
that hunt them. They in turn fear and worship the
dragons that prey upon them. North of this lies the
taiga, vast dark coniferous forests. Products: Furs,
ivory, musks.
4.	Desert. Home to strange and sinister tribes.
Products: Gems, relics from ruined cities.

The inhabitants of the lands beyond the mountains will
trade through the dwarven kingdoms. Their goods are
strange and exotic.

New routes to the mountains are potentially very
valuable. They would allow trade with dwarven kingdoms
who have had to trade through a series of middlemen,
making their goods much more expensive.

The emperor died centuries ago trying to stop an
invading barbarian army, a vast coalition of tribes
brought together by one charismatic individual. He
killed the leader but he himself was slain and the
imperial army destroyed. Leaderless the barbarian
horde divided once again into independent tribal
groups who roved and pillaged the empire. Many cities
fell, pillaged then abandoned, their inhabitants slain
or enslaved. The surviving cities became independent
and feud over trade and territory.
Maybe the incoming barbarians were the humans!



	
	
		
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