A Plague on All Your Game Worlds
Jan. 21st, 2019 06:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gridloreBack to this after I had my perfect January ruined by the AT&T outage. Harrumph. But still, I made a promise to 750words.com (a site anyone looking to make writing a habit should look into) and when I next get paid I shall be donating ten bucks for the cause of keeping things going.
But while not being able to write on the site, not to mention watch every single episode of Can't Pay? We'll Take It Away on YouTube (seriously, that show is addictive, and has led me to learn a great deal about how British courts and local governments work) I did dive into my reading, which includes "A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century" by Barbara W. Tuchman, a marvelous history of the 1300s that loosely looks at the era through the life experiences of one noble, Enguerrand VII, Lord of Coucy (1340 – 18 February 1397.)
One of those events, of course, was the Black Death. Running at its height from 1347 to 1351, the plague devastated Europe, killing an estimated 75 to 200 million people in Eurasia and wiping out huge swaths of population and civilization. This interests me from a fantasy world-building perspective on two points.
First of all, during the plague blame fell on the Jews of Europe. Despite the fact they were dying just as fast as everyone else, their otherness and visibility caused mass outbreaks of violence against them. The Church, while at first trying to hold society together by tamping down such mass hysteria, eventually gave in and quietly allowed pogroms to occur. The result was mass expulsions of Jews - the ones who survived that long, that is - and as always, Chruch confiscation of their goods.
Now picture a magical plague of some sort. Perhaps one victim in time rises as a zombie. Or the plague is spread at first by an unprecedented set of orc swarms spreading disease and waste over huge areas. Whatever, the gods aren't answering prayers and kingdoms are falling to sickness and ruin all around. How is going to get blamed? Who, in a fantastic medieval society is separated by their very existence? Who speaks in a mysterious language and is regularly accused of consorting with demons? Who is vastly outnumbered, but envied for their perceived wealth?
Arcane spellcasters. Given the mechanics of Vancian magics as used by D&D, low and mid-level mages aren't going to survive the mob. Oh, sure, they might blow holes in it, and perhaps set Munich on fire. Again. But mages will find themselves dead or ordered to leave at the point of the entire Unearthed Arcana polearm table. After which, those now abandoned wizardly laboratories and caves will be merrily looted by idiots who don't realize that Fritz the Wizard cursed everything before he left.
Which will result in a fine distribution of magical goodies all over Europe (or your preferred setting.) Because a nice curse would be to force the holder of any stolen goods to also wander far and wide; much like the classic Roma curse, "never cross the same river twice in one year, never sleep in the same place two nights in a row" forces the cursed individual to keep moving.
Another option is to have Fritz, assuming he has time, curse his items in a way that creates a compulsion to bring the stolen goods to a "safe house" that Fritz knew about in advance. A crumbling old watchtower, an abandoned dwarf mine, or his sister's place in Bremen. Which unfortunately is overrun with plague zombies. Oops.
The idea is of course to create opportunities. Have the party find Fritz's body. I will wait for all of you to stop quoting Wizards before moving on. On him are the clues to where he had his compelled victims take his things. Bingo, instant campaign goal. Especially if Fritz was a careful record keeper and had a drool-inducing list of what he cursed.
In Fritz's case, the curse in a Compulsion-style spell that forces the victim to take the object to a point, drop it, and return home. Lots of ways to play with that, like the spell failing on the "return home" part and the players battling across Europe to find an empty cave or worse, an extremely annoyed zombie Hausfrau.
Tomorrow I'll explore the fun times to be had in this post-apocalyptic setting. One thing the plague was very good at was upsetting to social applecart and creating opportunities. But I'll leave you with this thought. When Jews began returning to Central Europe after the plague burned out, suspicious authorities ordered them to obey restrictive laws, including a requirement to wear an identifying badge or garment. In most places, it was a yellow circle of cloth pinned to the tunic or vest. But some cities required something more prominent.
A tall, conical hat.
But while not being able to write on the site, not to mention watch every single episode of Can't Pay? We'll Take It Away on YouTube (seriously, that show is addictive, and has led me to learn a great deal about how British courts and local governments work) I did dive into my reading, which includes "A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century" by Barbara W. Tuchman, a marvelous history of the 1300s that loosely looks at the era through the life experiences of one noble, Enguerrand VII, Lord of Coucy (1340 – 18 February 1397.)
One of those events, of course, was the Black Death. Running at its height from 1347 to 1351, the plague devastated Europe, killing an estimated 75 to 200 million people in Eurasia and wiping out huge swaths of population and civilization. This interests me from a fantasy world-building perspective on two points.
First of all, during the plague blame fell on the Jews of Europe. Despite the fact they were dying just as fast as everyone else, their otherness and visibility caused mass outbreaks of violence against them. The Church, while at first trying to hold society together by tamping down such mass hysteria, eventually gave in and quietly allowed pogroms to occur. The result was mass expulsions of Jews - the ones who survived that long, that is - and as always, Chruch confiscation of their goods.
Now picture a magical plague of some sort. Perhaps one victim in time rises as a zombie. Or the plague is spread at first by an unprecedented set of orc swarms spreading disease and waste over huge areas. Whatever, the gods aren't answering prayers and kingdoms are falling to sickness and ruin all around. How is going to get blamed? Who, in a fantastic medieval society is separated by their very existence? Who speaks in a mysterious language and is regularly accused of consorting with demons? Who is vastly outnumbered, but envied for their perceived wealth?
Arcane spellcasters. Given the mechanics of Vancian magics as used by D&D, low and mid-level mages aren't going to survive the mob. Oh, sure, they might blow holes in it, and perhaps set Munich on fire. Again. But mages will find themselves dead or ordered to leave at the point of the entire Unearthed Arcana polearm table. After which, those now abandoned wizardly laboratories and caves will be merrily looted by idiots who don't realize that Fritz the Wizard cursed everything before he left.
Which will result in a fine distribution of magical goodies all over Europe (or your preferred setting.) Because a nice curse would be to force the holder of any stolen goods to also wander far and wide; much like the classic Roma curse, "never cross the same river twice in one year, never sleep in the same place two nights in a row" forces the cursed individual to keep moving.
Another option is to have Fritz, assuming he has time, curse his items in a way that creates a compulsion to bring the stolen goods to a "safe house" that Fritz knew about in advance. A crumbling old watchtower, an abandoned dwarf mine, or his sister's place in Bremen. Which unfortunately is overrun with plague zombies. Oops.
The idea is of course to create opportunities. Have the party find Fritz's body. I will wait for all of you to stop quoting Wizards before moving on. On him are the clues to where he had his compelled victims take his things. Bingo, instant campaign goal. Especially if Fritz was a careful record keeper and had a drool-inducing list of what he cursed.
In Fritz's case, the curse in a Compulsion-style spell that forces the victim to take the object to a point, drop it, and return home. Lots of ways to play with that, like the spell failing on the "return home" part and the players battling across Europe to find an empty cave or worse, an extremely annoyed zombie Hausfrau.
Tomorrow I'll explore the fun times to be had in this post-apocalyptic setting. One thing the plague was very good at was upsetting to social applecart and creating opportunities. But I'll leave you with this thought. When Jews began returning to Central Europe after the plague burned out, suspicious authorities ordered them to obey restrictive laws, including a requirement to wear an identifying badge or garment. In most places, it was a yellow circle of cloth pinned to the tunic or vest. But some cities required something more prominent.
A tall, conical hat.
no subject
Date: 22 Jan 2019 04:38 (UTC)Say dwarves are practically immune. That will start folks saying that the dwarves are behind it.
Other variations as to who gets hit hard and who gets off lightly will have different effects.
Though I'd be tempted to have orcs be highly immune to most things, just on general principles (they're immune because most plagues ran thru them early on and they're all descended from the survivors :-)
no subject
Date: 25 Jan 2019 18:29 (UTC)Plus, I think to have the dwarfs hit just as hard as the other intelligent peoples creates adventure opportunities for classic dungeon crawls, as abandoned dwarf outposts and cities will be quickly occupied by goblinoid hordes or orcs, plus whatever creeps up from the Underdark.