Six Ways to End the World

Last week’s Think Tank was how a hero’s origins shape their story.  For this week’s Think Tank we talked about how a societies belief in the world’s end create adventures.  The end is nigh, say the wise-men and the witless.  Do the characters believe their fate is sealed?  Do they take up arms against the danger faced by their people or do they deny it’s existence and carry on? Is the danger imagined or will it really come to pass and end life as it is known?


 

Chris – The Nay Sayers

The great Elvish prophet Eleanth made three death-bed predictions regarding the future of his people. Each prophecy was exact, detailing dates and places with no ambiguity. The first two have come true exactly as Eleanth said and the third prediction claims every elf shall die on the same day. The date of this prophecy approaches and all of elfkind prepares itself for death.

That is, except the Nay Sayers. They deny the truth of Eleanth’s prediction and carry on their lives as normal. They make plans for the future, invest in long term projects, educate themselves and raise children. Nay Sayers are mocked and abused by the other elves for their beliefs.

Plot-Hook: A Nay-Sayer has borrowed a large sum of money from a human merchant for a long-term business venture. Now the merchant has learned that all the elves are due to die and she wants her money back. It is the character’s job to recover the cash.

Jaye – Summer is Coming

This winter has been generations in length.  To the Snow Orcs of the deep south, things couldn’t be better.  The world is cold, pleasantly twilight most of the year and there’s an abundance of fish.

But for four successive months now, the ice is starting to melt.  The shamans point to the cave art and sing old songs.  They tell of a time of warmth, when strange folk came from the north atop thin legged beasts.  They slaughtered the Snow Orcs, killing entire tribes.  Many now fear that the warming will bring back the invaders.  Some tribes prepare for war, others are building ships to go further south into the ice packs.

Summer is Coming.

Plot Hook: The players are part of one of the northernmost tribes.  They’re being sent north, facing breaking ice and warming temperatures to scout the hotter lands.

Alex – The Great Degauss

The machine people of Tekka had a great love for their history and memories, and also a great fear. Their star occasionally gave off strange pulses until one day building up to a large discharge, a magnetic burst. On Tekka, the magnetic burst degaussed their minds and records, disrupting memories and history. Now there is a theory, a rumour, that the burst was just the beginning and the star’s pulses are going to build again until a massive magnetic burst springs forth, wiping all the recorded memories and data of their people, destroying them as a culture.

Plot hook: The players are searching for answers to some of the blank spots in their memories from the magnetic burst. The players are contracted to investigate a lab that may have contained shielded records and could help predict the great degauss or even help survive it.

Emily – the Red Clock!

Thousands upon thousands of years ago the ash fell, the light burned and the storms ripped as our world was born. The painful rains gave birth to our peoples of human elf, dwarf and the dark things. All was well, until a hundred years ago rumours spread of an ancient fortress full of the metal war beasts that tore apart the world and a red clock that is counting down. People are divided many believing that its a silly rumor people bring up everyone other year, others panic and become fantics believing the end is nigh and god may safe them, and some are building bunkers hoping to survive.

Plot hook: The party are adventures trying to see if there is truth to the rumours especially since the clock is due run out soon

Patrick – Death by Chinese Whispers

The groves of the Sunder basin yield bitter olives, perfectly formed in the shape of human skulls. On the temperate shores of the river rice farmers have reported that the warm-mineral rich waters have turned to blood. In the Ossuary at St Narius the interred skeletons are screaming.

The message carries from town to town across the sleepy canyon, changing with each leap from mouth to ear to mouth. Before long Mount Killgore strains the bonds of earth and seeks to walk one more, comets fall in the outlands and demons debauch in the holy spaces.

The fact that none of these sightings and warnings can be verified does not matter; the End is coming. In every town men grasp weapons, horde food and make ready to venture out and defeat the demons that walk in the guise of men…

Josh – Char’Garok the Great Devourer

It is said that in the deepest and darkest caves there lies a cult. A cult dedicated to bringing the great devourer back from the dead. If this cult succeeds then they unleash an ancient evil upon the world. A gigantic mass of mouths, eyes, claws, teeth and flesh. He will consume every form of living matter, people, animals, monsters, even the very soil itself. Good and evil and everything in between are meaningless, they are merely sustenance for the jaws of death.

Plot Hook: They say that Char’garok’s remains were found at the beginning of the world, almost like he was the very first being. Is his return inevitable? Can the heroes stop the premeture awakening of Char’Garok? And even if they do, is he just delayed?


 

Image Credit – Burning Books by Adam Wasiak – All Rights Reserved