Postapocalyptic Legend Campaign

[Hopeless]

I've been running a game set in a future earth setting roughly 1500 to 2000 years from now following a cataclysmic series of disasters thats returned humanity to the bronze age and I wanted to get your view on some of the background details.

Just how much technology would you feel would have been retained in such a setting?

I've been tempted to explain away the return of magic through runes, sorcerors make use of one as part of their mage name, priests gain power through their holy symbols which bear one or more runes that make up the name of their patron deity/entity and others gain the ability to wield magic either through bloodlines to someone in their ancestry who bounded themselves to a rune thereby granting them the ability to make use of common magic.

However its not as readily available as this would seem.

In the game I'm running I'm looking at explaining this that one habitat having secured access to five such runes essentially representing the elements; air, earth, fire, water and one other that I'm still considering and these runes allowed them to build an empire that was broken because they had to place one of their runes in certain inhabited areas to expand their influence so when those areas successfully rebelled they lost that rune which drastically reduced the area they could wield their magic effectively.

In the last game I ran the player characters' discovered the rune of fire and bonded themselves to it eventually learning the spell to summon a familiar like the creatures from final fantasy.

Each character represented a member of the five families whose inherited rune bound represented one of the runes their home village Tarmsen once wielded to be the dominant power of the reawakening world some four to six centuries past.

One could summon a hound a literal hell hound since through its summoner it had the fire aspect but the others had different elemental aspect which meant the air aspect who could summon a hawk effectively summoned a phoenix (air-fire) the water summoned a steam horse (water-fire) and the last a lava wolf (earth-fire) but gained access to a talisman which would be the only way they could summon their familars outside of the borders of their village.

They know there are other runes but as yet haven't discovered they aren't within the boundaries of their village which is why I wanted to find out what you think about all this.

Given Legend isn't Runequest and I'm not looking to use the older system's rules on such I wanted to find out if just using the runes as an explanation for the ability to cast magic is good enough in itself.

Also I was wondering how much current technology could be retained since in the game mentioned above I have stated that their village have retained hot and cold running water, toilets, sewer systems although most of the rest has dwindled to bronze age resources it is located above a still working underground shelter that was designed to protect a reasonable population from the days when the cataclysm occured.

The only other settlements my players have visited was in the other game run in the same setting where they're on a quest to secure the barony for the area even though one of them has accidentally secured one part of the raiment that would recognise her as the duchess for the area (Essex if you're curious) but they also have retained some of the amenities we'd have now but not weapon & armour technology (including tanks if you're wondering) although I am wondering about steam tech.

I guess I've been watching Wizards & Warriors on youtube too much and was wondering about your thoughts on this.

What would you consider acceptable in a game you either un yourself or better yet would be willing to play in?

 

[havercake lad]

There was an interesting doc on TV some years ago that examined the probable rates of decay of our current structures and artifacts etc. (Items such as the pyramids survived a lot longer than suspension bridges and city blocks).

 

[alex_greene]

There was an interesting doc on TV some years ago that examined the probable rates of decay of our current structures and artifacts etc. (Items such as the pyramids survived a lot longer than suspension bridges and city blocks).

Life After People. Animated CGI effects by Impossible Pictures, who gave us "Space Odyssey: Voyage To The Planets," "Walking With Dinosaurs" and followups and of course "Primeval."

I have the whole series on two DVD box sets, all except the pilot.

 

[soltakss]

I've been running a game set in a future earth setting roughly 1500 to 2000 years from now following a cataclysmic series of disasters thats returned humanity to the bronze age and I wanted to get your view on some of the background details.

Just how much technology would you feel would have been retained in such a setting?

Honestly? I think that the presence of literacy and the preservation of books means that technology would soon recover to a higher level than the Bronze Age. The limiting factors are how much knowledge has survived, how many people are literate, what resources are left in the world and how quickly the survivors can build a stable base.

So, whilst it would not be possible to build, say, a blast furnace from scratch, after a hundred years it should be possible. If it took 3000 years from the Bronze Age to present day from scratch, then it would take a lot less time building on the knowledge that we already have.

As for surviving artefacts, most of them would have gone. Rare books might have survived, especially if they have been copied over the years. Ideas are the most important thing and they can be passed down orally, in books or in other ways.

 

[alex_greene]

So, whilst it would not be possible to build, say, a blast furnace from scratch

Copper and tin were being smelted in the Bronze Age out of little more than pits in the ground.

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

As mentioned, if literacy survives, it will take centuries not millennia to crawl back.

That said, there will be almost no material survival of technology (at least directly, gradual recreation will happen though).

I take it you have read 'A Canticle For Leibowitz' by Walter M. Miller Jr.?

 

[alex_greene]

As mentioned, if literacy survives, it will take centuries not millennia to crawl back.

That said, there will be almost no material survival of technology (at least directly, gradual recreation will happen though).

I take it you have read 'A Canticle For Leibowitz' by Walter M. Miller Jr.?

I'm a little more optimistic about the situation. Unless a pseudo-scientific civilisation turns up in the wake of the collapse of a Western technological civilisation, something anti-technological like the Church or the gang culture of the failed Federation colony Turkana IV in Star Trek: The Next Generation, then yeah, a new dark age.

But we've already made the discoveries - and sufficient scraps of knowledge would remain to jump-start technological development, particularly if the holocaust which claimed society had been caused by an external force, such as a small asteroid impact, rather than a nuclear war.

I take it you heard of a TV series by the late Terry Nation called Survivors?

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

Heard of it... I was generally out at Sea Scouts on Wednesdays. I think I saw an odd episode though.

I'm of a generally less optimistic opinion (I might have played too much 'Aftermath!', which can be pretty "dark")... although I suspect a 1970's level civilisation would have been more "robust" in a apocalyptic situation. More people were around then who personally knew how things work. Civilisation of today is just that bit more "fragile"... it would eventually recover but it would still be centuries to regain everything.

The problem is that most people today have little genuine understanding of how things are made and function... they don't need to, it's background technology that "just works". In an apocalypse sadly, I suspect nearly all of those with knowledge would disappear leaving the survivors (who would, likely due to numbers, be from the people who just used things) without a clue.

The issue might well be how many paper books on constructing even a basic electricity supply system survive so that access can be gained again to all the electronic information (which might have decayed in that time anyway)? Printed manuals don't really exist any more either.

That said, even scraps of surviving knowledge can have tremendous bootstrapping effect.

 

[alex_greene]

although I suspect a 1970's level civilisation would have been more "robust" in a apocalyptic situation. More people were around then who personally knew how things work. Civilisation of today is just that bit more "fragile"... it would eventually recover but it would still be centuries to regain everything.

The problem is that most people today have little genuine understanding of how things are made and function... they don't need to, it's background technology that "just works". In an apocalypse sadly, I suspect nearly all of those with knowledge would disappear leaving the survivors (who would, likely due to numbers, be from the people who just used things) without a clue.

The issue might well be how many paper books on constructing even a basic electricity supply system survive so that access can be gained again to all the electronic information (which might have decayed in that time anyway)? Printed manuals don't really exist any more either.

That said, even scraps of surviving knowledge can have tremendous bootstrapping effect.

There's a line I kind of recall reading from The Day of The Triffids - "If you think it's bad now, just wait till you need a dentist."

 

[Hopeless]

In the second character game they have found the underground habitat used to survive the cataclysm and its still operational due to it being powered by the fire rune which they've yet to figure out that if thats removed the habitat becomes useless save as an underground shelter but since several of the floors they've searched are monster infested (spiders they've encountered so far) it far safer above ground.

The Theocractic leadership has insured none of the others have realised the source of Tarmsen's security and wealth which will change thanks to the PCs but I'll cross that bridge the next time I run games for that group of characters.

I'm still thinking that conventional power sources should be limited to the bronze age but some technology has survived although I've yet got far enough to establish another game with a different group of players to throw another insight on the setting since I'm thinking either setting it on the coast or perhaps on the smaller island to the south of the Tames that separates the Rhitian Isles from one another.

That might be better since it leaves more options for a Legend sandbox not linked to the games run on the Northern Island.

Looking at a monastic order known as the Lightbringers who are the keepers of the lost knowledge and are trying to help the surviving inhabitants but in turn are being targetted by those that want to rule this new era and aren't above eliminating those that stand in the way if they can't enslave them for their own purposes.

As far as cults are concerned I originally thought along the lines of Greco/Roman pantheon but now feel that isn't necessary as ancestor worship might be a better way to go.

So how would you handle this?

 

[Hopeless]

Firearms, helicopters, airships, fireworks...

Already have one player figuring the bad guys have access to a helicopter, in the other game they found out the armoury had been largely cleared out and even named the bad guy of the other game as the Sorceror of Skull Mountain making him out to be a mercenary fixer in league with the Patriarch of Tarmsen (even thinking he looks like Vector from Wizards & Warriors series but thats maybe a step too far!).

The anima or the historia rodentia part i've been using have been indicated to have access to airships and very early firearms as indicated by the setting from the book and considering having fireworks being available which means blackpowder weapons should be available of they want to go to a larger settlement to buy some.
Possibly even have Tarmsen have some level of access although the real question is how do you feel about having such technology rumoured about in a game you're playing in?

Would it put you off or would you prefer it be kept as legends or myths ala King Arthur but more like something out of the Dark Ages which this game is supposed to be set as they're trying to ascend back out of that era?