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Old 05-30-2019, 09:18 PM   #11
YankeeGamer
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Default A different fantasy world--after a catastrophe

Post apocalypse fantasy world

A lot of fantasy worlds have a huge underdark, with enormous caverns, underground oceans, etc. Somehow, the surface oceans don’t flood them—probably some divine protection added into other things.

But, the ongoing war between elves and drow, and between dwarves and deep dwarves, combined with a surge of illithid problems, resulted in a change to that.

One group of heroes was faced with the consequences of this war again and again, and gradually grew more and more willing to adapt extreme measures. In particular, three great Drow cities and the primary Ilithid nation were the targets. It was a welcome bonus that a few other dark communities were in the expected flood zone. The Deep Gnome communities and a few others were categorized as “acceptable losses.”

It took a century, but they broke the protections against flooding—and at the same time, shattered the barriers between the greatest ocean and the underdark in several places, including the great inner sea.

The results were more than the association had expected. Fault lines they had triggered broke with more violence than they’d dreamed of, and the oceans poured into the underdark, accompanied by earthquakes and volcanoes. Cities below were wiped out, miles wide sinkholes opened up above ground. The great Inner Sea was reduced to a few small lakes separated by miles of exposed sea bottom, and a massive sinkhole.

The association DID accomplish their desired results—the Drow are all but extinct, Mind Flayers likewise. Essentially, the entire western underdark has been destroyed. And there are connections between various regions—and every so often, another one gives way, and more of the underdark is opened to flooding.

Even underground seas were all but depopulated of everything smaller than microbes, as the pressure change crushed almost everything.

Now, decades later, the old inner sea bottom has collapsed into the sinkhole, and in one place, is over 10 MILES deep. (Not an error; it’s the deepest known sea in the world, since it flooded into two subterranean seas) Its sea level is much lower than it used to be, only a little higher than the ocean.

This is geologically unstable, and the shore is bound to collapse soon.

Here and there enclaves survived by one means or other—usually mighty magics. Some of them have continued to survive, but others fell as, for example, Drow and Deep Gnomes that had combined their power to survive, fell back to fighting.

The surface is a MESS! Sea Levels have dropped a few hundred feet, devastating portside economies. In some places, the earthquakes created Tsunamis, wiping out coastal communities. Even now, decades after the crash, massive shifts are causing more earthquakes throughout the continent. Places that see earthquakes are seeing them more often, and more severely, and there’s a few regions that have not seen earthquakes in living (elvin) memory until the event, are now major quake and volcano zones.

There was a year without a summer the first year after the Event, and have been a couple more of them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer

I originally planned this for the forgotten realms, but it can work in most classic fantasy worlds.
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