Entry tags:

dawn of fire, dnd

Post-Apocalyptic D&D... now with more Dragons
So I just had a cool suggestion for my post-apocalyptic D&D idea. I had originally outlined this in October in a post entitled, Breaking Down D&D -- and followed up with some more system thoughts in Characterization and System.

I had been waffling about what I think the apocalypse should be. I knew from the start that it had to be something which broke down the alignment barriers -- i.e. the destruction had to be something which wasn't evil per se and didn't care about alignment. My leading idea had been some sort of rain of giant insectoid or arachnoid creatures, but I wasn't very satisfied with that.

Anyhow, yesterday I brought this up with my fellow Hârn players after our game, and Dennis (?) had a great suggestion -- dragons!! Jim immediately made a reference to the recent Reign of Fire film, where dragons take over the modern world. I hadn't seen the film, so I didn't know abou that. Hoewver, judged on its own, I immediately liked it. D&D dragons are both good and evil, and it is a wonderful reversal. I can picture it fairly clearly now -- there is a dragon prophet who appears and begins to fly about with the news. It tells of the dawn of a new age, when the dragons will finally come into their own. Then, very suddenly, the shift happens and within weeks the world is overrun with dragons. After the cataclysm, dragons can reproduce and mature very quickly as needed. They are not centrally organized, but rather have hordes of little kingdoms which squabble amongst each other but are united against non-dragon threats.

What I like about this:

• It uses the core of the D&D mythology.
• It is a wonderful reversal. As majestic winged creatures, dragons take over the surface world, and humans are forced into dungeon lairs. It so clearly reverses the game.
• Dragons are very well-tested, well-developed, and varied foes within the D20 system. I can tailor encounters with the enemy carefully.

I think these are all very good things for what I want to accomplish. The point is to make the fights and the stakes for the PCs much more personal. They are not wandering adventurers looking to grab some cash. Everything that is left of their world they are taking with them and making for themselves.

I only have a handful of concerns. One is that this touches on works I'm not familiar with like "Reign of Fire" and more importantly the Dragonlance series. I know little about either of these, and I suspect I want to clearly differentiate myself from them. I also want to be careful about the good-aligned metallic dragons. I want to keep them roughly as they are written (i.e. good-aligned), but still make them horribly horribly dangerous under the circumstances.

I'd also be interested in dungeon recommendations from anyone who knows about D&D3. What are good modules with largish underground dungeons in general?