Campaign created Thursday, November 5, 2009 01:16:38 PM by Ken Fucius

A Post-Apocalyptic Campaign set many centuries after a great cataclysm befell humanity. A great number of people simply died out within a very short period of time. After that, nature took over. Those that survived the Ancients rebuilt their lives as best they could. These are their stories.

In the dim past of what is now called the shadow years, mankind had built a world of wonder and glory. The world had consolidated into several mighty nations, and seeking new frontiers, man had set out to explore the heavens.

What catastrophe could devastate such a powerful people none now know as the events are buried in the ashes of destruction. Legends persist, of course, but the truth of these may never be known. Some hold that man became too proud of his accomplishments, and the forces of the cosmos sought to teach him a lesson. Others propose that wicked men came into power and chose a path of conquest. Still others believe it was all the result of a colossal mistake.

Whatever the cause, nations clashed and deadly war was waged. Awesome weapons of destruction scoured the earth. Oceans boiled. Continents buckled. The skies blazed with the light of celestial energies. The age of glory passed away.

By the time the violence subsided, the very face of the world had changed. Mountains had fallen. Rivers, tamed for hundreds of years, raged wildly through broken dams. Not a single city was left unharmed. The shadow years descended.

Not one in ten thousand survived that war. Of those that survived, over two thirds died in the resulting radioactive and biochemical death clouds.

But the world was granted a second chance, a legacy to all the creatures of Earth. To survive the perils of the wilderness, one had to either learn to resist the Earth's deadly environment, or adapt to them. The few who found the means to resist continued the pure strain species of man. Most animals and plants changed to adapt to their new world. The world witnessed the birth of countless new, and sometimes violent, species.

This then is the way the world is. It is a land of brooding, gigantic forests, wild unbroken plains, and rugged mountains. In places, the wilds give way to man-made deserts and death lands. The ruins of the past dot the landscape. In this world, nature is merciless, death is often quick, and strangers are regarded with caution and suspicion.

Scattered across the continents are tiny settlements of intelligent creatures scratching a precarious living from the hostile landscape. Their only hope is to recover the glory of the past, to rebuild society, to restore the age of wonder and prove themselves worthy heirs of mankind. For somewhere, out there in the Great Void, await the brothers and sisters of this world. If only the intelligent species can mature from their barbarism, and escape the wilderness, then they may at last be welcomed into those lost worlds of man.

Character Types and Ability Guidelines:

Competent Normal (50 base +50 in disadvantages*).

*see campaign messages