Alternate History Thought Exercise: Dungeon Fantasy Earth

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by robertsconley

How far back is the point of departure? Are we talking about magic being part of Earth's physic since the evolution of homo sapiens? Or something more "recent".

A thought.

The divergence occurred at the end of the Triassic era, roughly 65 million years ago, when an asteroid smacked into the Earth (around the Gulf of Mexico, IIRC) to cause the extinction of the dinosaurs. The death and destruction caused by the event caused mana levels to skyrocket.

Several species of dinosaurs became the birds. However, one was warped by the increase in magic to become dragons. The ancient dragons meddled with magic while observing the rise of the mammals. They appreciated the megafauna at first, because it was food for them to eat. One dragon took the recently evolved Australopithecus and toyed with them using magic, creating the elves, dwarves, halflings, orcs, and goblins. Other dragons messed with other forms of life, creating manticores, pegasi, gryphons, and even nastier beasties.

The dungeons of antiquity are old storehouses where the dragons performed and housed their experiments.


Over time, the main Human branch came to dominate, creating the ancient Sumerian, Egyptian, Hittite, Celtic, Harappan, Minoan, Mycenaean, and Chinese civilizations, among others.