>>17130263
Inevitably, what the Orcs and Goblins face is a new age of prosperity. They had always been shunned to etch out a living in the worse terrain, forced to hide in their mountain caves away from the swords and arrows of men. When the plague struck, so to did the Orc tribes, who were able to mop up the ill defenders and lay claim to their castles, kingdoms, and farmlands.

Thus it produces an opportunity for my players to play monstrous races, the question is what sort of adventures or threats would this new orc order face?

I like it. Are the PCs members of the darks races trying to get along in this new, brutal land? Are they dwarves trying to break through the plague or die in one last blaze of glory? explain, OP.

>>17130292
>the question is what sort of adventures or threats would this new orc order face
FUCKING BULLYWUGS

Or, more indirectly, all the lower-level trash monsters (Xvarts, Tasloi, whatever) rise up and take the place of orcs and goblins as being the common monsters that the "civilized" races have to destroy.

>>17130292
Searching abandoned human and elven cities for technology and knowledge perhaps?

>>17130292
Ninja'd. Well, other Orks are always an obvious one, whether simple competition or a splinter group. Dwarves making a final go at it would be possible too. Or there could be some crazy new threat no one has even thought of yet.

I don't like it because I dislike evil races.

I'm sure some people would enjoy something like that, though.

IN THE GRIM DARKNESS OF FANTASY, THERE IS ONLY WAR

>>17130317
Maybe some twisted fuck that created the plague plans to do something else with the survivors.

>>17130301
not OP, but whatever caused dat plague is probably not very pleasant...

The Dragons, their underkin, such as Dragonborn, Kobolds and even lizardfolk, underwent a casted social unity, in what Elves ironically called the Unsightly Alliance before their flight.

Duergar quickly grasped high, to assume the lands and resources the Dwarves left behind, or couldn't secure.

Halflings bent and broke under Orcish yoke, providing slave labor. Their culture disintegrated, and from forced intermingling with Goblins, the Goflings came to be.

>Not OP, but musing on the concept.

Dragons are good
Undead
Monster races
Golems
Dwarfs, going in or coming out
You gotta lot of options OP

>>17130339
>>17130338

What if this, what if...nature caused the plague?

I would kind of like to play something like that, just miles of big open world with nothing for the races to take over and explore. Have it happen so quick that the population of the "evil" races has not caught up with the population of the missing ones. And since the evil races were basically held back by tides of heroes and adventurers, they do not have the means to hold everything they see.

>>17130317
I love /tg/ you are all in my head. These are all good ideas, things I've thought about approaching. The dwarf campaign would be fun, as would the struggle of the Orc tribes trying to lay claim over their hold.

I also picture something like an Orc Renaissance. As more food is being farmed (since now they have farms) less orcs have to spend time obtaining food. Now we have orcs learning Common and Elvish (for it is a dead language) and trying gain better understanding of the Magic the humans and elves loved so dear.

Oh gosh, a CE race has taken over? HOW COULD CONFLICT POSSIBLY HAPPEN IN SUCH A WORLD?

Want backstabbery? Drow.
Want direct confrontation? Orc.
Want troublemakers? Gobbies.


I suppose orcs would see ogres as humans see orcs.

Or perhaps ogres are like dwarves to our humans.

Fantasy Post-apoc?
I can dig this...
The Elves went into outer space to the moon (rainbow bridge and all that), the Dwarves went into their mountainhomes like vaults, and the humans got wiped by the plague.
But what about the once-human liches? Would they try to 'preserve' human knowledge in small villages manned by skeletons of the infected? What if some humans did actually survive, sheltered by the Dwarves?
What became of the Gnolls, Lizardmen, Thri-kreen, and Warforgeds?

>>17130292
Self-destruction or a cultural evolution.
In most campaign settings, Orcish tribes, Ogre Tribes and goblinoids tend to be pillagers and raiders, and occasionally hunters- but mostly caravan/city raiders.

Without human presense from which to get food from, OR to lose great numbers to, they will quickly swell in great numbers.

Which means they will HAVE to develop their own agricultural society(which means the destruction of their primarily warrior-sustained culture,as a large number of them will be reduced to providers), and there will very likely be great, internecine warfare between Orc tribes.

They will change, or die out.

The Drow will no longer have a cultural reason to strike out to the surface,and thus their culture will drown itself more often in cultural strife without the eternal quest to kill Elves.

In the end, Mind Flayers would rise to the surface, unopposed. The surface creatures are weak willed and have few powerful sorcerers/wizards to counter them, nor do they have great investigative/leadership to counter them. Mind Flayers also are unaffected by daylight.

Relatively quickly, Mind Flayers would take over the surface.With the weaker goblinoids as slaves, the Orcs and Hobgoblins would surely fall eventually,unless that 'cultural change" I mentioned happened earlier.

Mind Flayers would eventually use the resources from the surface to conquer the Underdark.

Flawless Victory.

Orcs and Goblins, most of them would be fucked. Without their primary predators, and the quick pace of their reproduction, they would soon find themselves without their primary source of food (surface settlements and caravans).

You cant just STEAL agricultural techniques or methods, they dont have the cultural ...architecture behind them to just suddenly transition into a primarily self-sustaining economy.

They'd get fucked.

HOBGOBLINS, on the other hand, would be fine.Rank, Order social structure? Fuck yeah, they'd adapt , quickly.

>>17130391
Or, the liches that remained unaffected and undetected rise up and have hordes of bodies to work with now, and the mind flyers are well fucked and far from home because the ultimate weapon against them now has limitless resources to work with and nothing to hunt them and keep them back.

>>17130391
In rebuttal, the Orcs make use of slaves to man their farms. Now they can actually have families. they would probably still fight amongst themselves, but they would still work together against a common foe, especially Mindflayers whom all hate.

The Drow would take and hold their former elven kingdoms, why the oldest matron mother still remembers the stories her grandmother told her of the time when her people were exiled from those golden kingdoms. Returning is what they desire most.

Reminds me of Blight of the Immortals.

... I love it.

>>17130421
There's no reason an orc wouldn't understand how farms work. It's a pretty basic principal. They would look around at the huge fields of corn, wheat, etc. and say "Wut duh zog? Dis makes a lot of sense!"

>>17130423
so...
mind flayers = tyranids
liches = necrons

Fulgar picked idly at the spot where his last baby tusk fell from. When his real one finished growing in he would be considered an adult by his tribe and would be allowed to leave the fields where he spent his childhood tending farmlands and stock with the other children. When he was an adult he would earn the right to go on patrol with his father.

A loud whoop rose from the south and Fulgar picked up his sling. "Damn squigs, raiding the sheep again." he muttered as he started to run to where the sheep were grazing. If the boys didn't watch out the slimy little lizard pigs would gobble up half the flock before running off. Just one more week, about, until I can leave this place for adventure Fulgar mused. In just one week, a whole new world would open up, filled with treasure and excitement.

>>17130453
You're insulting thousands of years of agricultural growth and science.Read up on agricultural practices throught the millenia. It's NOT that simple.

Shit, read "Guns, Germs and Steel".

It's not just "Wot's dis zen? Zug Zug!"

"Dabu."

....Though to be HONEST, they probably could figure it out by reading some human books. Them libraries humies left behind? Useful.

>>17130453
If they can figure out how to forge iron weapons, there is no reason they couldn't figure out how to plant wheat.

and even if they didn't figure it out right away, they could survive as hunter gatherers just collecting from those farms without fear of reprisal.

>>17130292
>what sort of adventures or threats would this new orc order face?

>>17130369
>trying gain better understanding of the Magic the humans and elves loved so dear.

That gives me an adventure hook idea.

Perhaps some Elven or Human city-states took their reliance on Magic all the way. Cities where maintenance, lesser manufacturing, and even defense were all handled by persistent magical spells and constructs. When their owners died/moved on, the magical machinery remained. Ghost towns that still live through the enchantments and constructs their owners had become overdependent on. But without their owners to guide them or give them orders, the magical machines have gone rogue, singlemindedly seeking to gather spell components to keep themselves running--by any means necessary. All sorts of arcane horrors await your PC's if they dare to explore these cities.

A fantasy spin on the sci-fi trope of "long dead technophile civilization leaves all of its robotics behind".

Orcs would be like awesome adventurers, raiding ANCIENT HUMAN CITIES to try to discover the MYSTERIES within them!

Like ancient books!
That hold ancient,mighty,sorcerous knowledge of...MATHEMATICS!

...LANGUAGE!

...GRAMMAR!

Somethings were not meant for ORC TO KNOW!

Those ancient humans....mysterious beings they were.

>>17130486

Oh that is kinda good, what if this? What if the reliance on magic created a "ghost in the machine" effect, the magic began to become its own form of life due to the concentrated amounts of it. It actively tries to reason itself into being and deal with what it is, while no one around it can answer its questions or confirm what it is/isn't. Unable to move because if it spreads out, it will weaken and die, but as long as it stays centered in its home city, it lives and reasons.

Don't mind me, just posting some drow in the meantime.

>>17130480
And you're insulting creative liberty.

I understand if you want to apply anthropology to the extrapolation, but for fuck's sake, please don't impart a double standard of forcing factual history into a fantasy fiction.

Games die because of stubborn and pretentious opinions like that.

Would were-creatures still be around? The last remnants of a dead race of humanity?

Low Level Orc/Goblinoid Party Adventure Hook:

"Your party must go to the Ancient Human City of "Northbridge",and locate the "Lahbraree", and return with some samples of the ancient tomes of human power within! Great respect and honor shall be given to you upon your return! BUT, be fast, for upon sundown, the dead humans rise from their slumber and guard the town!"


SPOOOKY!

>humans are The Ancient Ones in this setting

I... like this. Sounds fun OP. Makes things interesting because you have to adjust your worldview in what is essentially the same fantasy universe.

Are warforged muddling about in this world? Seeing as how they're constructs that run on magic, one would think they'd be the least affected by the collapse of society. They also would'nt have to mind the dangers of plague ravaged lands

>>17130518
THANK YOU

Rotgobs and his crew finally cracked the lock on the tower. "Come on, boys! We's gotta find dem old 'umie stuffs! Da chief would give us lotsa wives if we find da secret of 'umie magick!"
But as soon as they entered the tower, a purple ray of light hit them. They become still as statues. "Wot da zog?" "Can't move!"
A figure stepped from the shadows, robed in dark cloth. "Who dares enter my abode, uninvited?" the figure opens his hood, revealing a well-preserved skull. "Orcs? What is this trickery?"
"Oi! It's one o' dem skelly-magicks, wot do da chief call 'em... likhs?"
"How observant of you. Yes, I am a lich."
"Um... da chief sez we's supposed ta bring back da secret o' magick."
"What need do Orks have for magic? Don't you have trade caravans to raid, or something banal like that?"
"There's no more caravans, likh. Dey all gone."
The lich, although skeletal, looks visibly disturbed.
"That can't be right. Just poof, gone? I find that unbelievable."
"We's done camped at da highway for a month. No caravans. Some other kinfolk went to dat village south o' here. 'Umies all dead. Red spots on skin, blood everywhere."
"W-what... hold on. Stay here."
"Can't move, likh, take yer time."
The lich rushed, and brings a crystal ball. He whispers something to the ball, and it shows the village. Dead humans litter the street, most of them half-eaten by scavengers. The lich whispers something else, and the orb shows the capital city. Corpses sprawled everywhere, some in piles, the rest scattered in the streets or in their homes. All of them human.

. I like the idea of human citys are contain fairly advanced magic, but I also thing that revere engineering and/or translating spells should be a centuries longs work that has only begun. The dwarves should also have the last magical texts in living language, and thus will be far in advance of the orcs in there magical abilities, although still nowhere near the human and eleven magics at the high of there development.

>>17130502
GRAMMAR + Magic = orc lovecraftian horror

"There! The ancient words or power are write upon that wall of stone. Look at them glow with sorcerous power."

Suddenly, "FOS RO DAH!" whole party gets knocked on its ass. "What the fuck are you orcish filth doing in my tomb?"

What about the Orc Church? One idea was a very powerful church lead by Kobolds. A very ancient Red Wyrm has decided to claim this plague as his miracle, and to place himself as a god before his kobold children. Now there is a massive horde of fervant Kobolds running around burning everything!

So what would be the plague's source? I'll brain storm some ideas!

A bunch of human magic users try to spread divinity in disease form for all humans but the disease just kills them instead. The disease targets humans and half humans.

Infected wheat, kills people, the cattle and the meat that people eat cattle from, taking both vegetarians and meat eaters.

The God of Humanity is killed by the God of Plagues, and this reflects on the world.

A band of adventurers open up a crypts and unwittingly infect the world as Typhoid Maries. They are revered among the dark races for this, each of them worshiping these unwitting destroyers.

Etc. etc.

>>17130687
I'm going to say that there is no real answer. There are several possibilities however.

perhaps the human's pantheon takes on negative aspect and become the evil gods of the orcs religion. after all you would have to be pretty evil gods to kill/allow to die all of your followers, no?

A group of less savage werebeast try to bring back humanity by using selective breeding and mate together the less beasties of them together.

I'm imagining a Orc warlord and a Hobgoblin Chieftan fighting over a priceless resource: a library full of books on agriculture, Architecture and civil engineering.

>>17130518
Man, it's a sad day when anthropology, cultural studies and science are just thrown away because they're 'pretentious'.

Instead of throwing them aside, you should try to find a way to make Orcs FIT into anthropological reason.Fantasy fiction is cool, but it's not a license to be silly. There's a reason why Lord of the Rings had such extensive backgrounds explaining how everything fit in the series- it's called verisimilitude.

And it's a good thing.

I'm not saying creativity is bad thing. I'm saying you need to work HARDER to explain how certain cultures managed to successfully make the transition from warrior-raider/hunters without agriculture, to a self sufficient agricultural society in a small period of time.

>>17130522
There's a thought
You are the last man alive after a horrible plague, the world is overrun with dark races, when night falls you are a bloodthirsty monster with nothing but a desire to kill.
This game: I AM LEGEND edition

>>17130609
"I... I can't believe it..." the lich palms his face in an analogue of weeping. "My descendants... all dead."
"Toldja, likh."
After a silent minute, the lich lifts his gaze to the orks.
"I have a question for you, orks. What would you do to the books and things you find?"
"Da chief sez to keep dem safe, so's once we can read 'em, we may find da secret o' magick."
"Why do your chief want to learn magic?"
"You know that us orks get food from hunts, right? Well, with da humies gone, dere's no hunt to be had, and we don't get dem farming thing. Our chief knew dat 'umie magickmen can make food with magick, so we's to look for da secret o' magick."
The lich then stroked his chin, as if there was a long, flowing beard there.
"Your tribe may have hope yet. How about this: You escort me to your chief, I'll make a deal with him."
"Wot's da deal?"
"I teach you orks magic, and other things, in return for the safety of my phylactery."
"Fillakt- fillka- wot?"
"My magic soul thingy! I can't live without it!"
"Oh, okies then."
The lich then spoke something, and the orcs now can move again.
"Now tell me, dear orcs, where is your village?"
"Uh, a bit east to the village, why ya ask-"
In a blip of light, the lich and the orcs, along with the entire tower, teleported out of view.

>>17130721
They'd settle the claim...
THROUGH MORTAL KOMBAT.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAwWPadFsOA

>>17130687
>>17130693
Tie it in to that really creepy God "Zarus", the one that's all like "Humans rule, everything else sucks and should suck human cock."Maybe Zarus tried to genocide/conquer the world by manifesting an Avatar, and the only way to defeat him was by basically an all-out war that left nearly everyone dead.

The only humans left are like...Liches.

>>17130732

Adventurers who were plane-jumping return back to this world to find..well humanity is dead. Would be a great intro for an adventure party.

very cool idea OP, hooks abound, post-apocalyptic fantasy, Evil has had more then enough time to dominate... generations for some evil races. But for the dwarves and elves, 30 years is not so much. their memories of the humans, who they had always taken for granted in stemming the never ending tide of orcs, goblins, and other evil humans, has yet to fade. Some even hold out hope that their may yet be some isolated human populations still out the remotest of places, or prehaps far across the seas...

I'd love to play in this setting... or DM it.

You could make Lich Wars have everyone be Liches, fighting other Liches or some other threat and have XBLOX HUGH battles over nearly infinite material

Ruling classes:
Dark Elf/Drow
Mountain Orc
Cave Goblins
Lizardmen
Middle/Warring class:
Common Goblin
Man-Orc
Plains and Woodland Orc tribes
Ogres and Trolls and Rockfolk (Golems and their ilk)


Peasant class/untouchables:
Ratfolk
Frogmen
Fishfolk
Small lizardfolk

I kinda like the ancient tomb discovered by adventurers being typhoid marys. Maybe it was not just a human disease but it effected elf, gnome, halfling, half orc, and dwarf alike as well as some other beast races. Maybe the orcs survived because they lacked chromosomes that made human races effected, and dark elves survived due to isolation, dwarfs are still around but they locked their holds and weathered the storm after a few holds were wiped out, and they refuse to open up because no news is bad news.

Elves got it, and due to their long life they could not out breed the disease, so the "pure" amongst them fled the continent or the dimension.

I also like scattered isolated survivors of it, humans who were born immune but ran so far from civilization that now they are quite tribal.

>>17130744

>entrusting your phylacery to a bunch of stupid orcs

rolled 8 = 8

>>17130480
Dude, agriculture really IS that simple.

You have to be genetically retarded not to get it.

Fuck, even the most primitive cultures understand slash-and-burn (one reason "Guns, Germs, and Steel" is a load of shit)

The rich, fertile countryside once belonging to country humies and halflings is now under da Orcs. They enslaved the halflings and exterminated thousands of goblins that were running wild through the abandoned humie fields, devouring the harvests and threatening to reproduce so rapidly as to overpower the Orcs through pure numbers. Enslaved goblins forcibly interbred with the halflings, creating the Golfling slave race that works the Orc fields in conjunction with the Orc yoofs and the humie beasts of burden that were left sitting in the fields (and were saved from hungry wolf-riding goblins by the Orc subjugators).

The free goblins were forced into the rocky highlands, with poor soil, cold winters, and lots of wolves. But goblins love wolves and wolves love goblins, so it just bolstered their armies for the defense against the Orcish oppressors and for the eventual liberation of their Golfling comrades.

>>17130806
>Humans are now tribal
My how the tables have turned

>>17130722
Anthropology can create and augment a lorebase, certainly. But it can also destroy it.

Anthro can add vast complexity to a history, a storybase, and to cultures. It can also point at something and say "That can't happen." in a fictitious setting.

I have no problem with what was said in post >>17130722
It's a smart way to assess a setting.

But the previous posts showed objective absolutism. Things that absolutely can or can't happen. And that's coming from the stance of historical reality, which fantasy and fiction entirely has no direct mandate or obligation to follow or be parallel to.

The deal with anthro is that when it's used as the end-all-be-all to say what "can and can't be", then it's being used improperly.

In short, hearing you say to broaden and add complexity to the setting, is fine, and actually pretty cool.
But, to hear you say an absolute "No" to a fiction and try to hammer down non-human practices to force them to apply to realistic human standards, made you sound like a bit of a raging dick.

>>17130803
Failure.
You didnt include Hobgoblins.
They are super lawful,incredibly organized, have trade, an alphabet, a warrior culture and have a caste based society where everyone knows their place.Unless you choose to challenge someone to rise above your station.

They are fucking awesome.

As someone who has farmed, as a child, I can tell you that farming is not complex. I understood that if you put seed in the ground, watered it, and waited a while, it would pop up. I might not have got amazing yields out of my corn and strawberries, but I got yields enough to eat.

Farming IS really that simple.

advanced farming, where you are rotating crops and all that shit is how you get high yields, but its not always needed.

I would make the elves immune, but the same thing that caused the plague caused them to leave this plane, for reasons they didn't tell the goblinoids, or anyone else. perhaps some of the elves dimensional gateways could be found intact, and with the proper magical rituals be pressed into service once more. but the rituals and spells are lost, and any record is written only in elvish, and well graded by there golems.

>>17130832
Also worth noting that the premise is that the Frazetta men are taking over land recently vacated by civilised humans. They will have seen agriculture in action and be able to copy it to some degree.

>>17130834

The human towns were taken over and fortified by the Hobgoblins.

The human cities are forboding mauseleums full of undead, animal companions, familiars, and other horrible monsters; but also with treasures of magik and dat siantz da boys is always talkin about.

Ok OP I found a problem here, which races were affected?
Just humans, dwarfs, and elves?
If so why are drow ok?
Has it affected animals?
Are half-human/half-unaffected race ok?
Really kind of vague on how this happen.


Then again I'm a sucker for lore

all surface dwelling, non goblinoids, perhaps excluding the elves, were effected, including half breeds, or so I would fluff it. letting the halflings and gnomes survive would make scociaty too easy to rebuild imo.

So basically anything that's not green or darker then

>>17130881
he never said the elves were affected, merely that they have abandoned the world. the plague seems to have pretty specifically targeted humans. I imagine half-humans/human offshoots would have varying degrees of resistance

I awoke from my chambers underneath the city to a sound I had never heard before since I had come to this warren of men.

Silence.

I awoke to silence. And while I may not truely sleep, it was a soothing indulgence. Something to make the passage of time that much more
comfortable.
But this silence. It was... unsettling. Never in my existance had it been completely silent. Always there had been some part of the city bustling, making noise as they went about their lives.

I became accustomed to it. And suddenly, it was gone. Nothing at all. At first, it was hard to fathom, perhaps I had made a mistake, but that... that was impossible. Truely, it was silent.

And so I used the tools at my disposal, and I looked upwards, to the city of man. I found it lifeless and silent. Corpses strewn about the street, boards across the window and a large red X painted over the doors. Smouldering bonfires and wretched, body filled ditches.

A plague. This had happened before, but never with such force or speed. While it was true that I had not been paying mind to the city above, engrossed in my studies and contemplations, merely a month ago, this was a thriving, noisy place.

Now, not a survivor to be seen. Corpses and vermin were the lay of the land. And while the silence is unsettling, after so many years... I will continue.

naw man, Dwarves are neather green nor dark. They don't talk much from behind those iron doors though.

>>17130894
Halflings and gnomes are too 'safe'.
We want a setting where people HAVE to choose the darker, meaner races.

Orc, Hobgloblin, Goblin,Drow,Svirfneblin, Troll,Ogre,ect.

It's the rise of the Monstrous Races!

Human cities, Elven Cities, all that shit? Dungeons.

The whole world is like fucking Dark Souls. The only humans left are fucking undead, going insane, or crazy Liches seeking TRUE POWER in their sanctums.

Thar setting sounds so fucking awesome I want to play it NOW.

>>17130774
Holy Shit that's brilliant!

>>17130846
alrighty then:

Ruling classes:
Dark Elf/Drow
Mountain Orc
Cave Goblins
Lizardmen
Hobgoblin

Middle/Warring class:
Common Goblin
Man-Orc
Plains and Woodland Orc tribes
Ogres and Trolls and Rockfolk (Golems and their ilk)

Peasant class/untouchables:
Ratfolk
Frogmen
Fishfolk
Small lizardfolk

now I'd imagine that the Mountain Orc and Cave Goblins would live in the Northern reaches. The Drow/Dark Elves would live on the islands (aways from the rest of the races they'd think dirty). The Lizardmen would rule the southern jungles. I guess the Hobgoblins would rule the plains.

>>17130914
Fuck NOW, I wanna play this shit yesterday. Twice. At the same time

Warforges,golems and other constructs set out to create their own society, creating a monument for their fallen creators and as a reminder of where they came from. This statue too, eventually becomes a construct and seeks to become human and bring back the human race.

>>17130862
Yeah, I get it, you planted a seed and got shit out of the ground.

Humans have been dead for thirty years. Grain stores have either rotted and moulded or had their contents squandered on terrible, uninformed, haphazard "farming" practices. Orcs are experiencing a population explosion and a major paradigm shift.

A child's understanding of farming will not enable them to support their nourishment needs agriculturally.

>>17130938
Then the society will collapse to sustainable level and level out if there's not enough food.
It's kinda how population usual goes

Dwarves raid like short Vikings.

>>17130938
We could have it that the Orcish Culture learned Agriculture from the last remaining humans they found on the continent, who , like the rest of their kind, eventually succumbed to the disease, turned undead and insane.

>>17130935
I think it would be cool if Warforged and Golems sought to wage an eternal mission to try to find out what happened to their creators (humans and elves) and how to bring them back.

Kinda like a good son would always want to know what happened to mom.

Shit, think Full Metal Alchemist.
Maybe they dont know THE TRUTH, and that humans must NEVER be brought back.

I think it would be cool if the plague killed all humans and elves and gnomes, halflings alike...and turned them into undead. (Making all major population centers and cities awesome dungeons.)

Maybe there's a few Undead who havent gone crazy....maybe a few of them became Liches instead of skeletons.

Maybe a few humans still walk the land , just...Undead, and fully coherent. But what they do now?Who knows what.Maybe they seek to protect their legacy.Maybe they seek to understand what happened. Maybe they seek eternal rest for their people....instead of eternal undeath.

Yuan-Ti started the plague, IMO. They wanted to wipe out all non-scaleblooded humans. Maybe their plan worked. Maybe it backfired, because the scalebloods would be susceptible to inbreeding and the species would quickly diminish to sickly, twisted mockeries of their former selves.

>>17130806
Or the adventuring group was pretty diverse, and the magical plague made it so each carrier could only infect their race. The Human Bard leader ended up wiping out his race when he went around the various kingdoms bragging about his exploits and showing off his trophies. The High Elf Wizard realized he had contracted the plague and sent a magical warning to his kinsmen to flee the land. The Dwarf Warrior returned home, wiping out the entire hold and forcing the others to bar their gates for fear of contamination. The Gnome Rogue lost his fortune in a bad bet, went back to his hometown to live as a thief and beggar, killing everyone he touched. The Wood Elf Ranger returned to the forest which withered and died when they all fell from the plague.

Similar things could happen to other "light" races that I'm forgetting.

>>17130962

That's not how humanity, as a whole will operate.

It will plummet, then level out after the scarcity wars.

>>17130938

Again, you act as if plants do not naturally grow...if you just stick them in the fucking ground and wait a while.

You do realize crops grow without humans....peach trees, apple trees, they recreate themselves without us, same with corn and wheat and veggies.

Advanced farming is not needed to live off of, this modern stuff is about money, not about necessity. We have enough to feed the entire US from the midwest alone, AND sell to other nations due to it.

>>17130987
According to prior predictions, that shit should have happened 10 years ago.

>>17130967
oh, there are plenty of ways to make a great story out of it, don't get me wrong. it just has to be done, that's all.

>>17130962
Not sure why you included a graph of the unprecedented population growth we've experienced lately (made possible by advances in technology, by the way) when your argument is that population will collapse and level out, but ok....

>>17130997
psst. your ignorance is showing.

Hey, there's no reason to fight over the agriculture thing. Different people can see it different ways - one DM might make it a point that the orcs and friends have a tough time figuring it out, and another might just say "It's not an issue."

At least you guys aren't calling each other fancy names, like "roody-poo" and "candy-ass", like they do over in /b/.

>>17131007
The idea is that population levels out when it doesn't have more room to grow, be from food shortages, no more land, etc.
The graph was the best thing I could think of for show that population starts small, grows exponentially, then levels out (making an S) when it can't grow anymore.
But if it grows higher then it can sustain will collapse then level out

so it's PLANET OF THE EVIL RACES, instead of APES?

>>17131042
Yes, you know you want to play

>>17130938
Here's the thing on the farming aspect.

The plague may not have killed the human race over night. it would take a year or so. it'd be gradual. Thus allowing the orcs to slowly take over. I don't like the idea of Orcs being dumb. Rather, I feel they are more underprivileged. They were forced out of the best land, to scratch out a living in a terrible and dangerous land, constantly in fear of being killed by those who fear them and call them evil. Yes it is true they love the taste of manflesh but how can that make them evil? They have families, they love, they care for one another just like anyone else!

As for the Plague

The plague was most deadly in the humans. Understanding of the disease however is rough. Research the Sweating Sickness, no one today even knows what that was, yet it claimed many lives. The dwarves for the most part survived because they locked themselves in, even though refugees pounded their hands bloody upon their iron doors seeking sanctuary. The elves left. No one knows where they went. Any half-elves left behind would have died, deemed not worthy to tag along. As for other races? What does it really matter? Gnomes are a bed time story orc moms and dads tell their children. They're not real! (or so they hope) and the halflings, who shockingly proved most resilient to the disease were not as resilient to the swords, spears, and chains of the coming Orc tide. They were forced to bury and burn the bodies of friends, families they had come to love only to face an unstoppable tide of warriors. It is from those halflings that the art of farming was learned and other trades that are not traditionally orcish.

What happens to those are post-human? Like, the various undead. Vampires, Revenants, Vryloka, etc?

Are they affected by the plague?

How do they fit into the new order? I would think a group of various undead humans would be a pretty big deal for the Orcs, as thy would probably want to reclaim the old human territories and resources.

Perhaps an alliance of Undead humans would form.

Enough with the goddamn agriculture. Way to totally kill any interest in the setting with this petty horseshit.

Humans are dead. Elves are gone. We've got some pretty good ideas with dwarves-with the humans gone, the dark races would likely try their standard raiding tactics to dwarves, and rapidly find out that shit don't fly. Dwarves have sealed themselves off and refuse to acknowledge the now-ascendant races, refusing to trade with them like they did with their old allies. They simply take what they need from the barbarians; ironically, just as the dark races once did.

So what do with gnomes/halflings?

Undeads have a mayor role in the setting, liches are more common(not much just relative speaking) for the many spellcaster that were desperate to escape the plague, vampires left without there main food source and force to sustain themselves with blood of animals or that of "lesser" races were gradually turn into into more bestial monsters.

>>17131123

>agriculture
>horseshit

Heh.

gnomes died same as the humans. halflings lived on somewhat longer, only to be wiped out by the goblinoids, although not before passing on knowledge of farming, irrigation, basic engineering and the like.

This reminds me of a Pathfinder game I'm in.

Basically, in an AU Glorarion, some of the goblinoid races & orc settled a new continent. Inhabited mostly by a small population of elves, it was only a few brief skirmished of the Greenskinned colonialists before the goblinoid society took off. A hobgoblin ruling class ran a militaristic Spartan/Roman government, with goblin peasants working the fields. Orcs became like elves in the setting, being the nomadic custodians of the wilderness. After some Drow incursions, the goblinoids found dour but loyal allies in the Duergar, whose metallurgy helped industrialize the goblin settlement. Trade with the Duergar also brought to light Kobolds, a chirpy, eager slave-race who had long lived alongside the Duergar in an odd symbiosis.

The campaign is set five generations after the founding of the first settlements and cities, with the PCs working with the official Census-Taker as they head south to get an official headcount of the populace there, as well as to cement an alliance with the new 'Grippili' allies.

Most races run the whole gamut of alignment, with most folks sitting at a comfortable neutral. The gods have refashioned to better reflect the images people would envision them as: Caden Caelein is a hard-drinking goblin through and through, Desna is a whimsical orc wanderer, etc.

There's conflict, there's fighting, but no more or less than if you had humans as the standard fatnasy race. Of course, things get interesting once a ship bearing strange, shouty pink-skinned creatures turns up off the coast....

>>17131132
I agree with this idea. Especially the vampire part. The vampires are forced to feast on Goblinoid blood it affects them. Thus the vampires have the only supply of potentially pure humans. These humans are kept locked away, by the vampire aristocracy.

As for the Agriculture thing, I'm going to lay it to rest. They eat meat or whatever. Ultimately it is not the biggest of deals. All that really matters is the main story of the "lesser monstrous races" taking over where once a shining human, elven, and even dwarven kingdom once stood.

>>17130910
This city may be empty of life. But it is still mine and I will keep it. Using the spells at my disposal, and the corpses laying about, I have constructed an army. It is fairly sizable and to my great suprise, some of the raised dead, a tiny few, seemed to have kept some of their intelligence.

I have given them the choice of the city armories, and they will be my agents into the world. For I must know more about this new world, and the order of things within it.

For the meantime, I have set the mindless undead under my command to the menial tasks. Re-inforcing and improving the walls, refurbishing those buildings I see fit, and arming themselves. They are simple minded but take commands well. Soon I will have secured my haven, and then it will be time for my agents to explore the neighboring cities. I must know what happened to them.

so, to add a bit more concrete 'whats going on int eh world today' i tried a bit of writefaggery

Several years after the the fall of humanity, an ancient and powerful lich awoke and, upon finding civilization dieing out, he set upon a goal. he would forge an empire, the greatest even known, not bounded by any of the ancient lines that restricted its predecessors. With his arcane power he gathered a great host of orcs and goblins and scoured out the the great city on the planes of its guardians, looted its treasure vaults and library, and filled its empty halls with his green host. There he began his empire.

>>17131162
Maybe some halfling slaves realized that life as a slave in a classroom is easier than life as a slave in a mine.

Never change, /tg/

>>17131159

You know what I mean, you cunt. This happens every time /tg/ has a halfway decent idea. People come along and sidetrack it into the most asinine, uninteresting, and irrelevant ideas.

When the fuck is this EVER going to come up in an actual adventure, other than the mcguffin for a fetch-quest?

Flesh out better ideas.

>>17131216
Wellp, as the DM I'm going to focus on the role of the one last dragon who has made himself into a god. The struggle of the survivors as they try to understand a strange people. I think I may even go through a regular campaign setting, and trash every major kingdom and city and see what comes out of it. I think there are a lot of options for players in this world, which is definitely something I like. I don't like one note campaign settings, I like something with verisimilitude to it.

>>17131216
lets try again tomorrow

>>17131262

I like the idea of playing group of humans in this world. With everything around them fucked to no end, their entire way of life and everything they've ever took for granted simply gone. And they have to find a way to survive without being preyed upon. It'd be an amazing campaign, especially if it was an especially longlasting campaign where you can actually try to reintroduce humanity onto the world stage by the party's actions.

Question: What are the Gods like in this world. Underpowreed and unable to protect their believers, or uncaring of their plight, or far too occupied/incapacitated to intervene?

Thank you, OP, now i want to play or run a campaign like this. I'll see what can i do with my group

>>17131316
>Question: What are the Gods like in this world. Underpowreed and unable to protect their believers, or uncaring of their plight, or far too occupied/incapacitated to intervene?

Humans were the most widespread races, so, they made up for the most of the believers. Its not a stretch to think many gods died.

Hell, you could even find DEAD GODS and demigods, titans, whatever you want, lying around or locked somewhere, oozing with power yet untapped, maybe gathering followers as they agonize, trying not to cease existing.
In this setting, the evil cults are basically, "good" monster races and the like, that follow "good" gods trying to resurrect them.

The dorf gods, though, are likely still alive and well, only more busy with protecting dorfs than anything else.

I'm imagining small units of S.T.A.L.K.E.R-esque dwarves raiding the surface to collect powerful artifacts from the fallen races to protect their ancient power from falling into the hands of the surface's newly dominant races

System dependent, but a 5th lvl d&d cleric can feed 15 medium creatures and provide them all with fresh water for drinking and bathing. This number scales geometrically with lvl. I'm pretty sure matel fantasy adventures has a ritual for this. I always figured that this is how monstrous humanoids supported them selves anyway.

>>17131344

But what about prior or during the plague? If the pantheon of gods got so horrifically devastated from the loss of humanity, one would assume they tried to stop the plague somehow. Did they try and fail? Was the plague itself divinely inspired? Were they simply too distracted to notice?

Half Orcs...what about this

Most of them died. Their human blood made them weak
But a lot survived, thanks to their orc genes. They are naturally the most magic-capable subraces (their human blood allows for a lot of Sorcery and such), and such, are usually prized within orc societies. There are few, but they still exist, and struggle to live.

A lot of them, however, decided not to side with the Monster races, and instead formed a coven of what amounts to be, basically, Half-Orc plague doctors with some magic.
They are shady, unpleasant, and most of them mad... but they're also the only ones that maybe, just maybe, can unfold the secrets of the plague...which doesnt mean they are nice. Oh no.
Turns out, Monster races make for...very resillent text subjects...

>>17131374
what if... the plague was the last breath of a evil god that died? Or what if the plague is just so goddamn misterious, not even the gods knew?

Hell, maybe the plague had a lot of "magic" in it, and thus, Divine magic became useless. Without vessels or avatars, the gods are poweless.

>>17131384
>and such
*and so
>text subjects
*test subjects

im derping a little, its late.

somebody archive this

>>17130480

but that implies orcs didn't have farms before the fall of mankind, and that's absurd. A "loot & pillage" culture stills needs agriculture and animal husbandry in their homelands in order to support its population. The primary goal of raiding parties was gold and manufactured objects made of materials rarely found on their lands; when they looted food it was to support the raiding party, since they had no supply line (and that was their greatest strenght). The primary inspiration for modern orcs are viking raiders and mongols hordes, who had their own sources of food (farms and herds of animals)

To be honest, for the orcs to be believable raiders, they would need a speed advantage, either horses or ships, warboars, crudely made cars, etc. Otherwise any opossing army would catch up with them and break them like twigs (since raiding parties tend to be small and not very disciplined)

>>17131395

I like the first idea. It'd make the apocalyptic events so much more tragic, being at the moment of victory over evil. Maybe it was the human races, allied with the Dwarves, Elves, but more closely the other humanoid races like Gnomes, who ended up warring against a God itself. The Halflings didn't really give a shit and stayed in their Shire, but the Humans eventually won. Slaughtered a God responsible for their world's evil taint. Summoning the last of its power, however, it cast a curse upon its killers. This curse took the form of a plague that targeted those races that had participated. The Dwarves and Elves were distant enough to withstand it, but the humans and gnomes? Nope. The Halflings weren't targeted but they still caught quite a bit of flack.

If we do go with this, it opens up a lot of doors for the newer "lesser" races rising up. Because the God responsible for the infectious evil of the world is gone, and they are beginning to see things more clearly then they ever have before.

>>17131437
Want to make it even better? Make your players be the ones that kill that god, in a otherwise generic fantasy, and in the next session, present them with this setting.

They will love and hate you forever.

>>17131369
sort of a Brotherhood of Steel feel to it. Assuming the dwarves were technologically superior to the other races.

>>17131369
what if there's underground enemies that are raiding the dwarves too?

>>17131465

Oh dear god, that'd be amazing. It'd have to be done right, though, and depending on the DM or groups not at all. For a lot of the groups I read about here on /tg/, that just sounds like it might come off as petty and That DM-ish to fuck over the group just because they succeeded at what the DM was trying to make them fail at.

If it's a group that can handle that sort of idea without going all petty about it, it'd make for one Hell of a roleplaying campaign. You've saved the world. Now deal with the consequences.

>>17131486
i'd play it...

And i doubt players who find their actions actually affected the world at large are going to get angry about it. As long as you dont start with "hey guys, remember you killed a god? well you fucked up!" you'll be fine.
Make the plague misterious, the twist comes as the players discover the god that caused this is the same they slaugthered 50 years ago in-setting, caused all this, and they're partially responsible

Hell, the more you reference the old party without saying it outright, the more they will like it. Maybe they collected several powerful items, and the new party, 50 years later, can find them buried somewhere, or hear/read about these "heroes of the past" and after a while, one of them gets referenced by name... and then the players are hit with the realization...

>>17131527

What if they don't find remnants of heroes, but remnants of tyrants? What if the world at the time KNEW who was to blame for this. That those who had set out to be heroes succeeded, but only to have their entire people damned. Since those who knew are kind of all gone, it's not exactly common knowledge anymore.

So the big surprise is when you discover that the horsemen of fate, those Doombringers spoken of in fear, is in fact the heroic party they once played.

On the dwarves, I have this idea of them sending the occasional scouting party to the surface to see what is going on. Only because of there weakness to the plague they wear a mix of their traditional armor and fantasy hazmat suits. I just love the idea of a group of orcs walking down the road and then being ambushed by mysterious little people in freaky looking mask, most likely with some kind of metal ornate like tusks demonic faces.

>>17131562
Yeah, that was the idea. Twist the tale a little, in the eyes of the common folk who suffered the plague because a group of overpowered hobos killed something they shouldnt have.

>>17131437
>The Dwarves and Elves were distant enough to withstand it, but the humans and gnomes? Nope.
The hallowed races that gave up their existence to rid the world of primordial evil and thus freed us all.

>>17131609

From the perspective of those evil races that became good and civilized after the plague ran its course.

From the perspective of the survivors and the Dwarves and Elves? Bloody arrogant fools whose fates were appropriately just.

>>17131624
I dunno, I'd be double happy.
A) evil god of evil evilness is dead, and
B) we're still alive to enjoy it.

Seems like a pretty standard isolationist race outlook to me.

>>17131564
man, dwarves make the SCARIEST full-plate hazmat you have ever seen.

And all that time locked away has given them time to perfect their smithing and enchanting. and steamwork/clockwork, if you're into that sort of thing.

The dwarven raiding parties are all paladins, and their magical hazmat gear is Divine in Nature. Even with this, the dwarves fear infection above all else, save perhaps the plague ridden minions of liches who raised the plague dead. These are ruthlessly hunted and destroyed as utterly as the dwarves can, often totally disintegrated using divine powers giving for the express purposes..

>>17131637

Considering that it gave their archenemy races almost total power across the world, maybe not so happy.

Considering it forced them into a frenzied, horrified state of utter isolation just to survive? Maybe not so happy.

>>17131637
>>17131641
back in the day, they burned incense to keep disease away.

Dwarven hasmat gear should smoke and smoulder to all high heaven.

>>17131641
What, something like this?

>>17131637
Then over time some began to worship the dead races? Congregate around the remaining human shades/lichs etc. as avatars of said god? A cult of humanity, which over time may even give birth to a true god?

>>17131666
sort of, but instead of beaks they have great, incense-flaming beards. and scary faces.

but how did YOU know I was imagining them to be gold, I never mentioned that

>>17131651
Well to be honest dwarves and elves have always been pretty isolated and paranoid. It's just the same song this time with a different band. Besides, they may find that their ancestral enemies aren't quite so bad now that Mr. King Evil has stopped messing with them.

Even in Tolkien, where orcs are ruined forever, the "feral" orcs and goblins that aren't under the direct control of Morgoth or Sauron are tame by comparison. They're still dangerous, but it's mostly raiding villages for food and the like, and not real warfare.

>>17131651
I meant that original comment from the perspective of the previously non-good races. Dwarves would be isolationist, and thus marginalized and probably ignored by the world at large.
With the considerable change in culture that the previously non-good races have to go through, they may grow to worship the builders of the cities they now occupy and the wielders of the magic they now are trying to master.
Well, the newer generations at least; the ones who didn't prey upon caravans nor tasted the flesh of men.

>>17131697

So you said "I dunno, I'd be double happy." to the part I said "they'd be happy?"

I thought you meant the Dwarves, Elves, and such because they're the ones I said wouldn't be happy about it.

>Mfw this is the Shadowmoor of High Fantasy.

>>17131681
I think we all imagined them to have gold armors.

Imagine it, the sky is black, in a wasteland, the plants are dead. In this soil nothing else can grow. Corpses being devoured by maggots, and they march. A group of golden juggernauts, with burning banners, march towards hordes of monsters who now dominate the world. They fight to the death.
Its better to die for a higher cause than live in this horrible world, and if you are going to die, you will die with honor, with your unyielding pride, as you take as much enemies as you can with you. That is the dwarven way.

>>17131726

While the evil races they avenge themselves upon are themselves no longer evil, the dwarven people utterly refuse to accept or acknowledge it. The Orcs will forever be the mindless ravagers of the past in their eyes, and none of the recent changes will change their minds.

As such, the Orcs themselves get to experience the irony of finally attaining a level of civilization that they once ridiculed and raided, only be ridiculed and raided by the Golden Horde.

Consider your idea stolen.

How about a human village that was approached by a vampire in during the plague offering them to save them by changing them into vampires.

I think the biggest problem you'd face with such a campaign is preventing it from turning into more of the same shit with a different hat on. It couldn't just be that the evil races take the place of the not evil races, otherwise you might as well just stick with the regular races.

>>17131726
It's incredibly evocative.

>>17131726
>>17131740
Dwarves as well-intentioned extremists that take the idea their ancestral hatred for orcs and goblinoids and bring it to a whole new level, in a world now ruled by the evils of the past, and march as GLORIOUS GOLDEN PALADINS that brim with SACRED FLAMES OF RAGE, who raid and attack this new world order just like the ravaging hordes they once suffered?

>fapping furiously

>>17131755

We're not talking about a perfect swap or anything. Just imagine if the evil Orcs were evil because of the influences of a dark god. Now imagine if humanity succeeded in slaying this God, but with the unfortunate side effect of getting themselves wiped out as well. With the evil influence gone, and a gaping hole to be filled where humanity once was, there is a lot of room for Orcs and other races to grow and expand.

>>17131767
Am I right, or am I right?

>>17131775
it is a much more... legitimate sounding threat than the standard ork horde. I'll tell you that.

Ooh, this talk about Dwarf survivalists makes for an idea.
So, the plague hits, humans die, dwarves go on vault mode. Maybe one or two activated their boatmurdered-esque magma doomsday button to sterilize the environment. The dwarves kept to themselves, only rarely going to the surface at first, and never went out at all later on once they realized humans, their allies, are wiped out completely. So the isolated dwarvenhomes, self-sufficient each of them, keeps on locking themselves in their vaults. The world around them changed, the 'evil' races turned good and civilized, and almost forgot about the existence of the races wiped out by the plague. Only legends remain of them. By this time, the plague had already gone extinct as well, its hosts thoroughly extinct and it can't adapt to the other races' immune systems. So, one day, a dwarven vault is close to running out of supplies, and sent scouts across the lands... only to find the orcs and goblins living civilized.
Boom, fallout + stalker + fantasy setting!

So in this setting, let's say that after the humans died out there is this giant land grabe between the drow, orcs, undead, and dragon.

The orcs grab the largest chunks because the orc warlords form an extremely tentative alliance to not kill eachother until they all have gotten across the map. Literally that's the deal. One of them brought the largest scale map they had and they all agreed not to war with eachother until one of them had a fortress on the what would be the east, west, north, and south edges of that map. Of course, that was almost their first action within the new alliance. Now Orc camps dot the landscape and the only thing keeping them from eating eachother is the thought that if one warlord conquers another, he inturn will be weakened to the point that another warlord will conquer him. These lands are known as the Orc Kingdoms.

The drow arose as well, but they took on a parasitic role. In almost every town, castle, camp, or fortress there is a drow. They serve as intermediaries between kingdoms and everyone has at least one drow advisor. While other races would be offended to think they are being controlled by the most "old-man" of races the drow brought trade in food and technology, both of which are still in thin supply. It should be noted that most drow goods are strange types of zero-light plants like a lichen, moss, or fungus.

>>17131784

The Drow in that scenario kind of sound like Aes Sedai. And any Wheel of Time references make me cringe.

>>17131784

The undead swelled in ranks from the plague but also took on a new purpose. As it turns out vampires, liches, and some demons despise the current races more than they did humanity and enforce their territories with a burning ferocity. Some liches have ironically been so distraught about the change that they spend their time recreating and restoring human villages and cities to glittering perfection then set their minions to operate as normal, human citizens in these places... The more sane seek to resurrect humanity or send all the "dark races" into extinction. Essentially the undead have become twice as deadly in that they don't want everyone to be their minion or to perform some rite, they just want everyone dead.

The dragons took advantage of the plague as well, but they'd never admit it to being opportunists. The sought out and took the magical places of the world and each dragon took his own unique location based on that dragon's personal preference. Everyone, whether it was drow, orc, or goblin, in that general area was now either working for them or they were a smoldering heep. The dragons imparted the knowledge on the land so that while they collectively have smaller territories they have more advanced crops, better society structure, and better technology and magic.

>>17131775
Alternatively, the orcs could never have been evil in the first place. Perhaps predisposed towards aggression with a reduced capacity for logical reasoning, but not evil. That gives you a fairly basic psychological standpoint to base orc society from. Get your head into the basic psychology of the races and elaborate on what a large scale society from that standpoint would look like.

Of course, i think the "reformed" ones are likely to be the PC's. The rest of the world, though, is probably a hellhole. One can only think what the "plague" did to the soil. Maybe a big part of the world is effectively dead.
There's also the thing that the 'evil' races have THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of years of 'evil' traditions. Of course most of them will still adhere to them.
There's a lot of space for gray morality here, too. The liches, for example, dont shape up to be all of them evil. There's also the half-orc plague doctor covens, the vampires, and dragons, the Underdark, other monster races, and who knows what else. The setting is post-apocalyptic, not a "inversed tables" scenario.

Maybe the gnomes, instead of being anihilated, were... mutated? into twisted, crazy, super magic and powerful fey monsters? So we can bring some cannibalistic overpowered fey creatures up in this bitch?
If we stick to the "dead soil" they might be the ones that are healing it, but they are also murdering machines?

>>17131801

Thing is, we're looking for something that would create a more rapid change in society. Not over night, but more than simple adaptation and such. Having a race that's been subtly influenced over the years having that influenced removed makes for a quicker, albeit still slow, change. While it would take later generations to really begin questioning the old ways, it'd be like lifting a fog they never knew was even there from their eyes.

>>17131775

I think you're giving humanity a little too much credit. Can we try to keep the HFY! to a minimum?

It'd be cooler if the each of the races in decline had a hand in their own destruction. Perhaps they sought uplift their entire species from this existence? It could have been a joint project but the results for each race was very different. The humans destroyed themselves with divine plagues. The dwarves suffered madness. The elves, being the pricks they are, succeeded. The rest of the traditionally "good races" suffered as a result of the dominant races suffering, i.e. dwarves killing off the gnomes / halfings falling prey to humanity's enemies.

>>17131713
That wasn't me.

>>17131740
This. I see them as extremists who in their isolation refuses to see that the world has changed. While not seen as evil, they are regarded as relics from a previous age that cannot be reasoned with.
Basically, random high-level encounters that roam around and fuck shit up, killing and burning anything that 'doesn't belong on the surface world'.

>>17131820
Why does the change have to be immediate? Having a few generations worth of history behind this idea would help add depth to the entire affair.

>>17131832

That's exactly what we said, actually. Humans weren't the only ones, but being the most numerous of the "good" races, they were a major component. They, plus some of the other humanoids like the gnomes, were utterly wiped out. The Elves skipped town and the Dwarves hid from the ravagings.

>>17131840

Well, the OP did set the time at 30 years after the plague finished its course.

But yes, putting a century or two of time progression would be best.

Anyone here read Thud, by Terry Pratchett?
The deep-downers are kinda what I'd imagine the dwarves in this setting to be. Meaning that you'd practically never encounter them, and when you do it's these figures cloaked entirely in thick black leather, to ward off the plague in this case.
Oh and they have flamethrowers. When they come upon a settlement, it will burn.

>>17131836

I like that, yeah. Not evil, just . . . stubborn. Which is appropriately dwarvenish.

>>17131864
i think that 30 years is best. They dont have a "world" yet. They're building it, in the middle of the remnants of the plague, trying to scavenge some knowledge, warrying to control the best resources available, while they try to figure out what to do next.

More like "Suddenly, the raiders got nobody to raid. Wat do" type of scenario, with things like the GOLDEN HORDE just recently appearing, and all that.

Basically, all this should be BEFORE they hit a status quo. So, 30 years work like a charm.

>>17131820
>While it would take later generations to really begin questioning the old ways
Maybe, but having individuals and individual tribes moving out to settle emptied lands, and thus removed from 'traditional society' would speed up the process significantly. Two or three generations would not be impossible.

Also:
>People who labeled them 'monsters' and marginalized them
Gone
>Villages and caravans to raid
Emptied/gone
>Humans/elves and what not to feed upon
Gone
They are essentially going to have to restructure their entire family/cultural structure to cope with these changes, and a lot of 'traditions' are going to be thrown out because of it.
Personally, I see them as a race reborn that is trying to find their place in the world now that everything has been flipped upside down.

I actually had an idea for this as a follow-on to a previous campaign. In the last one, my players played for so long (About 5 years, actually) That they ended up wiping out the Sun God and most of humanity, and taking his power ot become demi-gods themselves. Not a bad aftermath for monstrous races to claim a world for themselves.

>>17131894
Well then base the society off of what they'd be attempting to build with the base mindset in place. Doing a sudden "and now they think just like humans" change would sap away any point to making them nonhuman. It would just a post apocalyptic campaign where most of the characters are uglier than a stump fence.

>>17131847

No, what I'm suggesting is erasing the previously dominant races and replacing them with "twisted" versions. The could, for example, rule in another plane, occasionally visiting the old world to enact mysterious rites. The humans would basically be plague zombies, which a high number of "naturally" created intelligent undead. The dwarves would be very crazy isolationist, fighting amongst themselves as often as the other races. Perhaps they think they're in some place they're not?

Like others suggested, the halfings would be enslaved by the Goblinoid, making up the majority of the bottom caste. The Gnomes are all dead, having been wiped out by the now very crazy dwarves.

You could model the main empire off the various Chinese dynasties. The Goblinoids form the main kingdoms. When these kingdoms get weak enough, the nearby tribes of orcs invade and establish a new kingdom. They're soon assimilated and, after a while, become decadent. Next wave of orcs invade.

>>17131894
Yeah I completely agree with this guy. It's enough time for the youngsters who were born after Godsdeath to have no idea what the Old World was like, but the old guys still remember. So the youngsters are old enough to start making their way in this new land, but the old guys with the old traditions are still in charge.

But nobody really knows how anything is going to fit together yet.

>>17131847

You could have pre-plague orcs be essentially evil savages but in the years without good races to constantly quell them they turned on themselves. After afew decades they realize that everyone of them will die if they keep that act up and that eventually snowballs into concepts of being good or evil, intrinsic or altruistic, etc.

They collectively learn morality because they lose the security of having good races to enforce them.

>>17131894
I'm thinking like this...
30 years -> pre-fallout 1 analogue
150 years -> fallout 2 analogue
200 years -> fallout 3 or NV
So perhaps the dwarves came out about 40 years after the plagues hit, orcs get really civilized by 100, and forming empires/truce with dwarves by 200.
Also, how about 'the elves return' scenario? Let's say during the plague, they mass-teleported into the astral plane or something. After the plague disappeared, would they return to this world, or would they just observe? Maybe even kidnapping some of its inhabitants to understand the world without them having to set foot on it?

>>17131907

Well, that's not what we're doing, so instead of worrying, participate.

>>17131923
>elves are now greys

>The Drow
>Coexisting with anyone

>>17131916
>>17131894

To make a more stable civilization, there would be more time needed, is what I meant.

I agree that the setting should continue in the 30 year scenario, but with plans for what the future will be like to help fill it out, much like >>17131923 this fellow is doing.

Speaking of which, Elves should return in force. And by force, I mean the entirety of their race simply reappears. Turns out their GTFO was a means to survive the plague by removing themselves from the time-space continuum . In It's Magic, Motherfucker terms: Basically teleported themselves into the future where presumably the plague has run its course.

>>17130609
Could I have some moar, sir?

>>17131943
>evil races
>coexisting with anyone

It's no more a stretch than standard orcs forming a functional society. Just because they trade with them doesn't mean they have any interest in being their friends and aren't planning on conquering them or wiping them out.

On the subject of undead, there would be a lot of them. Intelligent good and neutral-aligned ones.

As the plague got worse and worse, those who are capable of becoming liches and whatnot do so in order to 'save' themselves. Others do it willingly so they can attempt to aid the afflicted and search for a cure effectively, without worrying about being infected of spreading the contagion.
The loss of everyone and everything they've known and dedicated (gave) their lives for has hit them hard though, too hard for far for many.

And why don't you make the dead diseased humans into zombie like creatures? so it would be a risk to get into the big kingdoms.

>>17131938
kinda.
But instead of abducting people through flying saucers, they abduct people from underneath their bed, inside their closet, out in the wilderness, etc.
It's like they've become the boogeymen orc kids listen to when they're a kid. Or nWoD True Fae.

>>17131985
>>17131913

Basically what I said. Make majority of the human dead plague zombies with a minority being plague "liches." The zombies are mindless and easily dominated by the liches.

Like many said, many of the liches could be insane. Undead Priests, could, for example, be tending to their very dead flocks.

>>17132014

because everyone knows that plage plus fantasy equal zombies.

>>17132014
I'm not quite sure I like the idea of zombies, it makes things too black and white by giving everyone something common to fight against.

I'm seeing the undead as being a toss-up between benevolent, insane in that they refuse to acknowledge that they have failed and everyone they've known is long gone, insane in that they believe the first people they meet are human survivors/loved ones they've known, insane in that they try to live their lives as if the plague never took place, and they are not undead, and simply just insane.

>>17132064

Well, for me i think is just a way to give a challenge to people looking for human knowledge or artifacts, fill it with zombies and angry ghosts.

Congratulations, now you have the new dungeons of this setting.

>>17131946
The disappearance of elves will give more of a flavor if it is left a mystery. They just simply... 'left'. The ascendent races were not around to witness it, and the ones who were are all mottled bones bleaching in the sun.

Perhaps a lich somewhere may know something...

I don't see why it would have to be zombies. Couldn't it just as easily be leftover souls? Like, evil souls, people who had dedicated their lives to evil... who now had no place to go? Even if they didn't realize they were serving this god of badness, they were. And now he's gone, and his personal plane of existence, the afterlife for those folks, is gone too. So there are evil spirits roaming the land, trying to get their bodies back, or get revenge on the people who killed their god (like the remaining "good" races) or maybe they're just hungry.

Zombies is so passe.

>>17132095
I agree. Something like specters or like the corpses in the marsh from The Two Towers that tried to snatch frodo

>>17131938

>>17132095
Or something like in Jade Empire where souls can't rest... except this setting's Water Dragon is dead forever, and there's no rest for them... ever. They'll just keep coming back for all eternity.

This thread reminds me of King Obould of the Orcs... trying to forge himself a kingdom in the face of the dwarves in Mithril Hall and the Humans of Silvermoon not wanting to recognize him as an equal but being unable or unwilling to stand against his might.

>>17132084
Totally unlike the Dwemer of TES.

>>17131946
I like this idea. Elves timeskip to perhaps 300 years into the future, but it cost them a lot of their magic. Elven magic is now about 10% of what they used to be, the 90% was sacrificed to do the ritual needed. And since they went to their secret tree-houses (read: jungle shrines/sacred forest sites) during their absence, and those woods are still impenetrable 300 years later, you get these territorial elves kidnapping/killing people near their sanctuaries. people in this case, orcs and goblinoids and the other races.

>>17131946

That would be nice thing having some variation on Silmarillion.

>>17132244
Which is one of the more flavorful aspects of TES.
If that is a quip about originality:
>Fantasy
>Originality

I think that having them disappear is the best option for the setting's background. Having them come back ruins the whole 'all these people are gone' schitc. Having them be insane monsters doesn't really add to the setting when new enemies and racial/tribal dynamics is more than enough to fill whatever roles that needs to be filled in the setting.
Better if they are gone, IMO

>>17132278
this could lead to good quests, BTW. Your party is tasked by an orc archaeologist to escort him to some unknown ruins in the dangerous forests. So your team beat off the native flora and fauna, and safely got the professor to the site. Then suddenly, in a bright flash of light, a hundred human-looking beings appear all around you!

>>17130982
Bard..... Was the plague a std

>>17132301
>orc archaeologist

Now i want to include an Orc Indiana Jones in one of my campaigns

>>17132348
Indy's a TERRIBLE archaeologist though. I'd vastly prefer a bespectacled and respectable man of SCIENCE trying to unearth and decipher the mysterious ways of the ancient ones.

So what we have is a high magic setting (human/elves) that was wiped out leaving behind a low magic people (orcs/other goblinoids) having to deal with what was left behind. A lot of interesting things can happen here.

Ancient magical/automated city guardians mindlessly persisting centuries after it's people are dead guarding wealth beyond measure but leaving the whole area uninhabitable by the "new" peoples. Wizard experiments left unattended too long, it's masters long dead. Leftover gods, reeling in that their people are gone, either making a last blind stab at the races they were aligned against or trying to adapt to bring them into the fold. Dwarven mountain fortresses under siege so long, a bustling city has sprung up around the attackers with most residents not even remembering that a siege was going on. Great liches performing horrific experiments to rebirth their race of origin using mutagenic magics and littering the countryside with horrific mutates. Knowledge that was considered common, now priceless information to leaders and the power hungry if only they could understand it.

>>17132376
The book of Eli is now the Book of WAAAAAAAAGH

>>17132367
Archaeologists are all glorified grave-robbers anyway (I speak as a historian, mind you, so a certain degree of bias should be understandable).

Indy is barely even a glorified one.

>>17130502
>...LANGUAGE!
>...GRAMMAR!

They're the same fucking thing and they're stuff orcs would already have ingrained in their minds if they're capable of forming actual societies.

>>17131369
I'm picturing them as wearing these weird combination gas mask/ye olde tyme beaked doctor mask things.

It's pretty awesome.

Pardon my english, but I don't know why nearly everyone has elected the new human heritor to be the orcs , but it's more likely than the hobgoblins and the rest of Neutral/Legal guys take the place of the humans than the orcs.

The orcs are savages who will kill his siblings for meat or a shiny thing. They don't will form anything more big than a raider band if any other creature alot more powerful than they coerce them to join in his army.

They are dumb, lazy and without any trace of sympathetic in they mind. And they are totally uncivilized.

But the hobgoblins in the other hands are organized, cooperative and capable to form great armies and strongholds. They are active and industrious, capable of runing things like farms and mines.

tl:dr. Orcs dumb, Hobgoblins great.

>As someone who has farmed, as a child, I can tell you that farming is not complex. I understood that if you put seed in the ground, watered it, and waited a while, it would pop up. I might not have got amazing yields out of my corn and strawberries, but I got yields enough to eat.

>Farming IS really that simple.

And I suppose you hibernated or went into suspended animation while you waited for your first crop to grow.

Oh wait, no you wouldn't, you'd bloody starve to death.

Agriculture produces lots of food. Races that live off agriculture (or raid food from races that have the infrastructure to support agriculture) can have higher population density compared to hunter-gatherers.

Infrastructure isn't only farmland and seeds. You can give a hundred acres of ripe wheat fields to a starving man and he'd still starve to death before he bakes his first loaf of bread. You need some place to store the stuff, some way to transport it, a mill to grind the stuff (which involves stones and wheels and gears and what-not) and an oven or fire of some sort.

What's going to convince Ork A to domesticate a donkey, repair a cart, somehow conjure up sacks and ride 30 miles to the nearest granary on order to feed hundreds of other orks that he's never met and doesn't like? Is there a currency system?

I'm not saying that orks CAN'T learn to farm. I'm just saying that, unless the humans had been keeping entire gangs of them as farm-slaves, woodsmen, charcoal burners and apprentice blacksmith, it'll take them at least 1000 years to develop the infrastructure.

What do all those orcs in Mordor eat?

>>17132666
Eachother, shit, etc.

Also there is that huge lake in the southern part of Mordor, slave armies tend giant farms there.

Also I chose orcs because I feel they are a classic of DnD mythos. Hobgoblins are much less common. I have always felt that Hobgoblins are just special snowflake orcs. I also feel silly saying the word Hobgoblin over the word orc. I could never take them very seriously.

the orc decision is a personal one. I personally feel that orcs are not stupid but a product of their environment, one in which they are constantly under threat from predators (Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Dragons, and Adventurers) They are hated by all and live short lives. They seem dumb because they are still living in the iron age when everyone else is living in the renaissance.

But I feel they have the same primal motivations as any human. They want shelter, food, and water. They value family (or tribe), power, and strength. They also come in many different flavors or shades of green that you can focus on. For some of us, the dastardly and cunning orcs of Lord of the Rings are attractive, for others the savage but noble orcs of World of Warcraft are attractive. Meanwhile Hobgoblins are one note creatures. They are like orcs, but you know, with military structure. They are LAWFUL evil instead of being CHAOTIC evil. What's going to make this work out well as a game is not focusing on black and white simple bullshit. What makes it attractive I think is that it is a relatively simple idea, and one that can be entertained and taken in many different directions.

>>17132666
your mother's cunt

>>17132666
THEY TASTE MANFLESH!!!!!1111!!!!

which is hopefully less gay than it sounds

I mean, you guys are so awesome. I've read some great points on this little thread that I never would have thought of on my own. Although the agriculture thing can be a bit of a sidetrack, I think it brings up a valid challenge any group of survivors will face. I appreciate the discourse. I also really enjoyed the focus on Undead, because I hadn't thought of them, it'd make sense that without fear of Paladins coming to smite them they could come out of hiding in their dungeon holes.

So anyways, Thanks /tg/ for being awesome

>>17132670
The idea that orcs in Mordor maintain a massive army be eating each other is dumb. How could you believe that yet scoff at the idea of them farming?

>>17132691
>without fear of Paladins coming to smite them

What makes you so sure the human paladins are going to stay gone?

>>17132637

For some reason I'd think Orcs would tend to raise cattle before making grain a food staple.

I'd think that it would be easier than straight agriculture for them. It would probably be something primative like not eating the cow with the X brand or not eating a cow until it is so tall or so heavy.

Of course, no matter what you settle on in the setting you'd have to agree that they would be producing at a fraction the elves, humans, or dwarves would. Further, disease would likely rip through most of their crops or cattle.

I suppose you could have a rule that Orc made food has x% chance of causing food bourne illness. Orcs have symptoms reduced by half.

>>17132701

The former is "lolevil yay!" while the latter is "oh man that should mean they have an actual society, that's not cool, man, they're supposed to be grunts and easy exp without any moral hangups."

>>17132707
NANANANANA
EVENING GLORY!
who's laffin' now? e? e?

Having read through the thread, I've come up with the following plan for a series of campaigns.

Orcs were created/manipulated by an evil god, created for the specific purpose to wipe out humans, as gods are reliant upon their followers to continue existing/remain in power.

Thus orcs have for ages waged war upon humans, but it's an uphill struggle and while they are not quite a pest, they have never been a true threat to all of humanity.

A party of adventurers will have reason to fight the orcs and at some time in their adventure, they will learn of the god's creation of the orcs, and a plan will be put forth to destroy this god, so that the orcs will be left without guidance.

Should the part succeed in slaying the orc god, his last breath will be used to curse the adventurers, and all their antecedents!
Not quite on purpose, this curse echoes through time and blood and, as all humans originally come from the same ancestor's (as well as the half races,) all are cursed.

The curse causes humanity to wither away, leaving much of the "civilised" world empty.

Orcs, suddenly without the iron fist of their overlord god holding them, find themself in a wonderful new world, except for all the other "monstrous" races that feel this is a prime chance to make a bid for dominance.

>>17132707
>Pelor the burning hate dies
>Pelor doesn't care about death, humanity will prevail
>Humans die
>The holy ones get back up

shiiiit

>>17132734
cont.

A lot of elves have died too (A surprisingly large number of elves liked to do the nasty with their lesser cousins) and the remaning pure elves leave this world for what it is. Dwarves retreat as the monstrous races take more and more of the world.

The gods lie dormant, almost forgotten, biding their time until they can rise up again, deciding on what race to cast their lots with.

In time, bastions of the undead will rise up, led by a powerful lich or vampire. Orcs will be the most numerous race, now that they can fill in what was basically the human role. Searching through old cities, they have uncovered artifacts and knowledge, though there is much for the taking, by those brave enough.

Are there any humans spared from the curse, through some twist of fate?

Only time will tell.

>>17132666
They suckle their nourishment from Sauron's saggy teat, Mr Checkmate.

Or, you know, receive regular shipments from that continent of evil humans with eliphants.

The thing is; if you've got the capicity to build huge fuck-off gates of iron and huge fuck-off towers, it's assumed that you've got the infrastructure support a population.

A race that lives off raiding the food stock of other races is going to be in serious pain if the guys feeding them disappear.

Someone mentioned in this thread that even the most primitive culture knows how to farm. The most primitive cultures are the hunter-gatherers.

Jumping from hunter-gatherer to farmers (which took humanity hundreds of thousands of years) in the time it takes for a orc NOT to starve to death is like a caveman jumping off a cliff and evolving wings before he hits the ground.

>>17132014
Father Grigori as a lich?

>>17132735

THE UNDEAD BE SMITING UNDEAD ERRYWHURR

VAMPIRES BE CONVERTIN TO THE BURNING HATE JUST TO SAVE THEMSELVES FROM THE BURNING LEGIONS

HOLY SHIT, SUDDENLY THE UNDEAD ARE DIVIDED WHEN BEFORE THEY ARE NOT BECAUSE OF THE RISE OF THE REVENANT KNIGHTS

>>17132755
>the burning legion

That is a wonderful setting name for undead paladins and clerics of Pelor.

>>17132785
As opposed to the 'Lukewarm Legion or the Icey Guard.'

Maybe the Orcs will imitate human culture and look back on their society as representing a 'golden age'... thereby creating an Orc renaissance

>>17132755
paladins of the burning hate don't have "smite undead"

they have "smite nonhuman"

>>17132666
Food grown by countless slaves that till the fields around the large lake in southern Mordor. Tithe from Rhun and Harad is unlikely; Sauron went through the effort of making his realm a country-sized fortress, he wouldn't overlook a glaring weakness of dependence on food from outside sources.

Early post apocalyptic orc culture will be closer to a cargo cult until they work things out. They perform an almost parody imitation of what they think the humans do to grow crops, tend animals and so on, eventually getting it right over time. It would be a long and hard struggle.

>>17132707
HOLY FUCKING SHIT, MAKE PELOR THE BURNING HATE SOME KIND OF NECROTIC HUMAN DEATH GOD OF PURE HATE

>Foul Orcs. Thou hast infected my perfect silent dead halls with thy presence. Thy heresy shall be washed away with thy blood and flesh nurturing my human paladins!

I mean, even if the humans worshipped the normal Pelor, the shift to Burning Hate Pelor in the post-human era makes total sense.

>>17132832
Also they eat dead slaves, dead soldiers and anything they can catch/shoot.

>>17130386
I think the Warforged would create their own society away from everyone else (in this setting it could be debatable if they even have sentience or are just magically "programmed" to think they have it). They're a declining power however, as they don't have the means to repair or upgrade themselves (the ability was removed by those who created them, since they actually a realized that in fantasy a grey goo scenario is possible).

>>17132849
Not really. In books at least, orcs use cannibalism as an insult.

Anyone considered an alignment shift?

If Evil suddenly becomes the norm in a society, that means, the alignment thingie needs to be realigned.

I'd say, keep the Orcs evil, but give it an TES Orsimer vibe.

Give them epic tales of cuthroats and murderers, epic heroes of slaughter. Heroes. Not villains. These are heroes of war, of battle. Always looking for that next fight, that perfect fight... and that perfect death.

Without care of the political and societal ramifications of an action, but solely focusing on the action itself.

Perhaps some kind of Zen mixed with Nietszchian Ubermensch thinking?

You're at now. So focus on now. Along with some Nietzschian "Life is all you got, live it to the fullest."

Like a mystical path for philosopher-warriors looking for a short moment in which they live in the now, killing, feasting, composing poems, epics, writing philosophical books, and eventually dying.

>>17132884

Considering good is pretty much an objective thing in these settings... what's to stop some Orcs stumbling across some of it and becoming dainty happy goody two shoes orcsies?

Plague kills every single living human. But what about undead? Maybe you can have some crazy necromancer trying to create undead human civilisation

If you're not running this with Burning Wheel, you're doing it wrong.

The Cult of the Light:

Years ago a few humans attempted to bring their religion to the barbaric savages. The plague resulted in their religion becoming lost. The Orcs who converted eventually had their religion garbled beyond recognition, in a mixture of elvish, orcish and human beliefs. Now the Cult of the Light is a minor religion, worshipping such gods as Pell'or and Kuff-Bert. They are regarded as unusual by other Orcs, especially because of their relative pacifism.

>thisrobotistrainedtofuckyourmouth.jpg

Because I kept getting duplicate file entry. Anyway, this thread is the robot, and I accept it with an open mouth and a smile.

Please tell me someone archived it for future reference for DMs wanting a brilliantly fleshed out campaign idea?

Sorry if I missed something similar to this idea, but I really like the idea of a Lich who is obsessed with his genetic line and is a patriarchal figure who became a lich to ensure that he could guide them to greatness through the ages with his counsel. Just before the plague hits he uses magic to find and gather the best of his living ancestors to him in what is essentially a fallout shelter made of his soul, he also at this point uses similar magic to gather several hundred other humans of strong breeding stock and offers to save them if they agree to his breeding program. The strain on the lich to keep the plague out is immense so he requires regular sacrifices to maintain the quarantine zone so Golems are regularly sent in an out to bring back living beings for this purpose. I've read the majority of the thread and I don't think I saw anything like this but when it became almost entirely an argument about agriculture I started to zone out a little.

TLDR: Welcome to the Vault.

>>17133076
Early in the timeline, you can have "alien abduction" golem encounters, shit like golems stealing crops, cattle mutilation.

Later in the time line, you can even get fucking X-COM "Humans attack from the depths, led by their horrible ancient Lich-death-god!".

We are all neglecting the most crafty of all the monsterous races.

Da Kobold.

Depicted as cowardly, rag clad, rusty spear hurling sewer rats, Kobolds boast the most unified culture of all the monster races.

Highly organized, with every kobold having a duty and a place in the den, they are the force which fills dragons' hordes with gold and silver. Capable of mining as well as a dwarf, crafting traps better then the finest gnome tinkerer, and having an insane level of sorcerers due to their direct blood line with dragons, Kobolds would be the prime movers and shakers of this new world.

Gnomish genocide would be the first order of business. Then the expansion into new lands. Like dwarves, their first instinct upon finding a suitable area is to dig down and become unnoticed. Imagine the suprise of a hobgoblin settler band, when they found that nice mountain valley had three kobold holds underneath it.

With their pint sized statures, their warrens would be unassaultable by the larger races, leaving only the goblin, a witless, cowardly creature, to bear the brunt of any attack.

Kobolds would rise supreme over the other warring nations, tied together by the knowledge they are superior, for they are kin to dragons. And having a dragon back you up helps.

tl;dr, Kobolds already are organized, and would be kings.

In such a setting, I can just see some mean old orc warrior sitting on his porch surrounded by his old trophies, skulls and weapons, yelling at everyone who gets on his "lawn", grumbling and mumbling about the glorious old days when orcs weren't "Farmin' an' learnin' weaklin's", and still faintly remembers the taste of human flesh...

everyone who has raeged about agriculture has forgotten the surviving halflings being used as training cadre for the farming efforts, and even without them, there were some races that did some small scale farming in imitation of the humans and "civilized" races.


i think that some sort of peter pan style "lost boys" raiding against the surviving evil races, completely unaware of any sort of previous culture of humankind. now that he orcs and whatnot are the "civilized folks" these feral children and descendants of the small children that survived are the new boogeyman for the small children.
OP thanks for this fuckwin idea.

>>17133111
>Implying they could defeat the Mind Flayers and Liches

>>17133187
Greater Draconic wright+Loredrake Dragonwrought Kobold

+3 EFFECTIVE SORC LEVELS MUTHAFUCKA!

I was just thinking about the role Gods play in a world like this.

What if the 'plague' wasn't just a natural world event but one that also caused great upheaval in the cosmos, shutting off worlds from one another and shunting Gods--somewhat depowered--back into the mortal world.

It would explain why Gods like Corellon haven't stepped in and stopped all this from happening.

This could also mean the former all-powerful Gods are weakened and walking the natural world. In 4.0, for example, the Gods only exist in the "aspect" form and are entirely killable; either protected by secluded organisations (say, for Pelor or Corellon), trying to make it as an adventurer (Avandra, Kord) or actually leading the very people that used to worship them (Bane, Gruumish).

>>17133111
This has been discussed numerous times in the kobold thread /tg/ has hard-ons for.

Without anyone to keep them underfoot, with fewer people killing them and with their fast breeding cycles paired with their knack for innovation, community-minded spirit and cultural tendency to actually build a sustainable place to live, they'd fast become an alarmingly powerful society.

>>17132713
i just saw COWBOY ORCS in my head from that.

now git along little WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHIEZ

and it was BLESSED LOCK GLORIOUS!!!!!!!!!

Great idea, OP, and some great ideas from /tg/, too.

I like the idea of "rediscovery" that this setting brings.

I'd love to play as a band of adventurers following old and forgotten human roads in an effort to recreate trade routes amongst the new civilisations sitting on the ruins of the old.

I'd love to play as a group of explorers hired by archaeologists or scholars sifting through the haunted streets of old human cities trying to find old human magics (not necessarily magic, could be anything)

bump

I think this thread deserves archiving

>>17134567

It's been archived for about 10 hours now. Vote it up.

>>17134567
That's awesome!

SO now, other than orcs, undead, and fallout type missions, what else would you like to see?

>>17134682

Are we still going with the whole misguided Dwarven fanaticism thing?
As illustrated by these posts:
>>17131836
>>17131767
>>17131740
Because I think that's fucking awesome.

>>17134682
Question. What's stopping the dragons from totally dominating everything?
Orcs and Goblinoids tend to not get along well with magic, so there's very little in the way of true threat for them.

>>17134781
There is only one dragon, a very ancient Red Dragon called The Almighty Crimson God, He has installed himself as a god among the survivors. His church is very aggressive similar to the Catholic Church in the middle ages. It also helps when your god can show up to eat heretics and burn your enemies.

>>17134781

Dragons are beasts of terror, who rely on keeping their prey in abject fear of them. Those heroic knights of legend are those who overcame that fear. Dragons were able to prosper because those knights were rare.

But not so with the Orcs. Goblinoids, certainly. Probably even better than with humanity. But the Orcs would be less likely to surrender to fear. No knights for the Dragons to worry about, just the majority of them going "No, FUCK YOU!"

So Dragon-dominated Goblinoid populations, sure, but the Orcs would actually be better off than the humans.

>>17134810
I think of it as he's the last of his kind. And he's so very old, he's been alive for thousands of years. And because of that, he has come to the conclusion that it is better to be worshiped then to actually rule. In reality, he's like the pope, those little chieftains and kings all rule their POS kingdoms because he lets them. Meanwhile he lives in his massive cathedral/lair being showered with gifts by worshipers and pilgrims.

The Almighty Crimson God has two major cathedrals, the first being his ancient Mountain Lair, the Obsidian Cathedral. There his faithful make the harsh pilgrimage to receive blessings. The second is more of the seat of the clergy and lies closer to the lands of the New Kingdoms. Once it had been a massive human city, until the Almighty reduced it to a sheet of glass with his mighty breath, then with magic sculpted it into the holy seat from which his church rules the faithful.

>>17134874

Considering Obsidian is a volcanic glass of sorts, I'd see the Obsidian Cathedral or Citadel a better name for the clerical capital.

Maybe the God-Dragon's home is a mythical place no one knows anymore, like the burning bush upon a mountaintop. It exists, and is out there somewhere, and the God-Dragon does make its presence known still, but where his mountain home is no one knows

I want to play in this setting. Right now.

Any of the aforementioned races known for agri/horticulture?

If humans and elves were around you have farms, and woods full of prey.

In your world, I am expecting canibalism due to no one growing food. The canibalism forces the survivors to breed warriors instead of planters to not be eaten, ending in a vicious cycle of lower and lower population until nature recovers and the cycle starts again.

Unless maybe you are the one to bring enlightenment to the Orcs?

>>17134968

There was a large population of Halflings that survived and were enslaved. The going idea was that when the Lesser Races realized how fucked they were they enslaved the Halflings to do the agriculture for them. As time goes on, they would begin to do it for themselves as well. However, since the plague that ravaged the world was so very specific in its targeting, there is still plenty of game around to augment their diet.

That being said, it was also discussed that the Lesser Races would begin to bloom population-wise, no longer having the other races to keep them in check. This population boom would then instigate a much bigger population decline when they are no longer able to support themselves. Eventually, they'd find the right ratio. This could all conceivably take place within two or three generations.

What happened to the human livestock? If it's a divine curse then some of the livestock probably got away, and started breeding. Herds of wild horses and cattle make for an excellent food supply for a hunter-gatherer society. I have a mental image of what was once farmland reverting to a quasi-plains environment, with herds of edibles wandering around wild, Nomadic Orc hunting camps moving from area to area, hunting cattle in the summer, sheep in the autumn...

>>17135033

Interesting idea, seems well thought out. Very similar(in ways) to the Midnight Campaign setting.

Not a huge fan of 'evil' campaigns however. They generally take the thin layer of civility preventing a party from being dicks, and invert it into a Thunderdome situation with one survivor walking away.

>>17130292

There's always a bigger fish: Demons, cosmic horrors, abominations...

>>17135071

What we discussed ended up being a bit more grey than evil. The things that made the lesser races 'evil' is in fact due to the subtle influences of one evil god. The same god killed by the other races and the same god to strike the other races down.

Nothing happened over night of course, but it was essentially like taking off the wool covering their eyes. While those who were alive during the Godsdeath retain their old traditions and ways of life, the newer generations would have a much harder time fitting in. 30 years later, you've got old Orc raiders sitting on their porch screaming about their lawn, middle-aged Orcs using Hobbit slave labor in an effort to survive, and young Orcs actually learning how to themselves.

We didn't do a basic swap, where Orcs and Goblinoids are basically Humans and near Humans, or just kill all the good guys so the evil can reign. We got a starting point, the sudden and utter absence of humanity and human-like races. From there, we tried to logically figure out what the other races would do in that situation. Since the Orc lifestyle is in many ways dependent upon human success, taking away humans would force them to either utterly rethink their way of lie or die out.

>>17130962
>2011
>still being a neo-Malthusian
ISHYGDDT

But no, seriously. Stop worrying so much. All the panic about overpopulation in -our world- is just that, groundless panic.

Here: http://overpopulationisamyth.com/ - watch these videos (Yes, yes, I know they're just short videos, but they're aimed at laymen, and you can see all the actual science and statistics used for those videos on the site.)

I apologize for going off-topic, I'll be dropping this discussion now, just wanted to post this.

>>17134968

Just tossing out some ideas at how Agriculture could be re-introduced.

Old Elven Tomes the Drow had lying around but no use for 'cause...they lived in the Underdark/Darklands.

Orcs that were once slaves to Human Kingdoms that used slaves, therefore they know how farming works as the now extinct humans made them do it.

They discover in a very advanced human/elven kingdom constructs designed to farm. They emulate what they do and reverse-engineer the techniques.

Lonely, bored ghosts of farmers who're more than happy to share the secrets for some company for a bit.

Outsiders of any stripe and kind that shares the techniques for their own agenda.

Dragons, motherfuckin' dragons. They might not have use for it, but some like to collect 'useless' info like a hobby.

>>17132707
>Paladins are IMMUNE TO ALL DISEASE
we all derped.
THE GOLDEN HORDES NOW HAVE THEIR LEADERS!

SCARLET MONASTERY ERRYWHERE

>>17135289

Consider however that the disease is divinely inspired rather than naturally occurring.

However, I do like the idea of the more powerful/holy Paladins somehow surviving.

>>17135328
That would be a crushingly depressing prospect.
The question then would be, is the plague completely gone?
Because if not, those paladins are just left to tolerate the fact that their life-long enemies are now the good guys, they have no friends or allies aside from a few other paladins, and have no way of repopulating the human race (unless their children are somehow magically paladins from birth).
What would happen to them? Would they all be Grey Guards?

>>17135361

I'd say the plague lasted only as long as the dying God still lived. In his last moments of life, which for a God could be, say five to ten years? He dedicates his existence to eradicating everything those responsible for his death held dear. Humanity gets hit hardest because they're one of the three most responsible who also had little to no means to counter-act it. The Dwarves hid from the God's wrath and the Elves magicked themselves into the future to skip the God's wrath. Humans got the full force curse. In relation to them, other humanoid races got hit hard, too. Gnomes got just as wiped out, but the Halflings were surprisingly sturdy. Certain humans, like undead, powerful mages, paladins, etc. were capable of withstanding the God's wrath. Once the God finally faded into death, the plague just sort of . . . fell apart. Like, if this was a sci-fi setting the plague would be nanotechnology that, once the controlling program died, simply became inert and disintegrated.

>>17135361
I think that these paladins who are immune to disease would probably band together in the hopes of surviving.However, this is 30 years later, so there would probably be only small groups. They're doomed to die, but they cannot set aside their charge. They probably are dedicated to finding a cure. It's a small group that serves as antagonists or the chance for a Player to say "I want to be a human paladin". They'd have to work it out between them and their god's beliefs whether or not what they are doing is right. They may have to defend their divine relics from the flames of the Almighty Crimson God and his faithful who have set to work destroying all churches and relics of the old gods.

>>17135328
Holy/Powerfull

Make that the more fanatically inclined

Opinion: Kobold kingdoms worshiping dragons. With Chinese motifs, up to and including the paper-mache dragon puppets.

>>17135404

In continuation, one of the reasons I'm setting the idea forth that the plague is simply finished and gone now, is to provide a way for humanity strive to survive. Granted, they've been knocked down to Endangered Species status (which has happened to us once before IRL), and there is no way in the foreseeable future that they will even be able to approach their former levels of glory. But the idea of pocket Human societies ran by Paladins, Wizards, or Hell, even Liches, appeals to me. Maybe the Dwarves take some of them in, mostly the Paladin societies, which can give us the Paladin infused Golden Hordes. Liches are pretty much all about experimentation. They may have given up their humanity, but they don't want to live in a world without humanity.

>>17135435
This isnt World of Warcraft.

Fanaticism doesnt fuel a Paladin.
If he goes overboard, the forces of good can literally strip him of his powers,and he becomes Fighter without Feats.

Immediately succumbing to the plague.
And dying.

UNless this is 4th edition, but in 4th edition, Paladins are not immune to diseases.

So....yeah, you wont be seeing crazy assed Scarlet Monastery.

>>17135450
Actually, I was playing with a bit of writefaggotry that almost falls on this lines. What a weird coinky-dink.

He was old and knew of the world before...

The orcs called him a god at first; their infantile minds could not comprehend his majesty, his power. With disdain he saw the monstrous races build shrines outside his tower. At first he played the part, toying with them for his amusement, but in time he grew bored. And from boredom came disdain. It was not their world.

It never had been their world. He knew that because he remembered whose world it once was.

In truth, he never missed his humanity when he burned it away. When the plague came though, he missed it greatly. It wasn’t the beat of his heart or the sound of his native language spoken on a living tongue but the idea of being human that he missed. It was the dominance his people had once enjoyed. Man ruled the world, not orcs! Over time, this idea festered until it became an obsession. The way forward became clear to him: someone must restore balance.

>>17135505
Now he stands over a new race, a perfect race. The souls' of Man, given new shape and rendered perfect, stand glistening under the moonlight, chanting for all to hear. “Bleached bones, bleached bones,” their cries ring out, filling the night air with terror. At the army’s head are the vampires, hand selected to represent the purity of what once was the human race. They don’t chant. They are silent as death for he has filled their oh so human hearts with hate and anger. The orcs seek to steal Man’s birthright; they will not allow it. Libraries, the vaults of knowledge, and the old cities of Man are all off limits. Orcs are little more than animals, and they all intend to send the filthy monstrous races back to the wilderness where they belong.

So the lich Erin Rah stands tall as he watches his perfect army slaughter another orc village. He watches the death of hundreds of orcs, and his only reaction is to silently whisper over and over to himself. “Bleached bones, bleached bones,” he says. “Those perfect human bones.”

>>17135525
>>17135505

That last line, my god. That last line. I heartily approve good sir.

>>17135450
The way you describe it reminds me of Lucid's setting, a little bit.
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/16991398/
Perhaps this would also make room for other beings who hid in the darkness to show themselves as a civilized force?
And of course, the only humans left would have to be the sons and daughters of powerful adventurers/paladins/mages who managed to survive.

anyone else having trouble posting?

>>17135550

I get that when I have poor internet connection.


>>17135545
Basically, yeah. So the societies would have to be very, very small, and probably dying out, since they are basically small communities of families.

>Orc society would be like real life middle ages

>>17135563
I don't think so.
It's easy enough to MAGIC yourself some shelter and DRUID yourself some crops and PALADIN yourself some immune systems.

I'm just saying that human settlements will be fucking impenetrable fortresses of paranoia and magic built by the few tough and powerful survivors; essentially self-sufficient Dorf Forts on the surface. If your party encounters one they should learn to stay the fuck away.

>I think it would be cool if the plague killed all humans and elves and gnomes, halflings alike...and turned them into undead. (Making all major population centers and cities awesome dungeons.)

So the Accursed from a little known indie game called Strifeshadow. They were brokenly op against elves, no way goblins or orcs stand a chance against them.

>>17135598
I CANNOT imagine the kind of society engineering and cultural stability and inner-workings of a society needed to produce a society where EVERYONE is at least Paladin enough to be Immune to Disease.

That's insane.

Such a society would be like...crazy.

>>17135623
Exactly.

What do we 'really' call adventurers?
Insane murder-hobos.

I think we have just the right amount of justification for it to work.

>>17135642
Well, if this setting's Paladins are still bound by 3.5 or earlier rules on HOW TO PALADIN, then they're still supposed to be noble seekers of justice and goodness.

I dont know how you could create a culture where EVERYONE is born fucking LG.

That...would take some doing.Maybe by someone NOT SO LG. Maybe a LICH who wants to preserve the remnants of humanity.

>>17135598

Dying out because of little to no future generations being born. I'd rather prefer we don't let incest be the human way of things, and if it's societies of a handful of families it's a dying society.

>>17135623

Everyone is a paladin when the society is formed of a small cadre of surviving Paladins and the families they can make with each other. Not an actual civilization of Paladins.

So, looking over the thread, the gist of the setting is this:

Massive Plague kills off humans, gnomes, and endangers Dwarves, Halflings, and Elves, of which become isolationist societies. I assume something similar happens to Genasi, Tieflings, Goliaths, etc, leaving various Orc/Goblin/"Evil" races to become dominate over the lands.

The Gods were unable to stop said plague, having been barred in some unknown way (Such as it being the dying curse of an immensely evil God, slayed by adventurers), and now the Gods are either dying off, or adapting themselves to orcish culture, or maybe just changing entirely.

There is a rise in undead-human creatures.

So, the campaign hooks I'm seeing are:

- Dwarven raiding parties coming from the mountains to continue the fight left unfinished when the plague hit.

- An alliance of undead humans (Liches, Revenants, Vampires, Vryloka, and maybe Shades?) who are trying to rebuild the human empires and crush the new Orc order.

- Pelor becomes the Burning Hate, and revives his paladins and clerics as undead soldiers to revenge humanity. They either kill or convert other undead to their cause. The Burning Legions are coming.

- Kolbolds and dragons (and maybe dragon born) are making a powerplay as well, Kolbolds being the most prevalent in this front.

- Citizens of the underdark are flowing in to take the world (esp. Drow) for their own.

- Search for the last mythical tribe of humans who may have survived the plague.

- Learning to farm

Is this about right?

>>17135722

Yeah, that's pretty much the gist of it, though we've begun discussing the idea of the mightiest Paladins actually surviving and perhaps attempting to safeguard small pockets of humanity dying out, or for the fanatical types leading the Dwarven raiding parties.

I think making the orcs and goblionoids evil is just as retarded as making the other races good. It be more interesting if the setting wasn't so clear cut.

"Fantastic racism" would be a great addition. The humans, dwarves, and elves could have been at war with each for centuries. The plague could have been developed by the elves, who thought they needed to trim the numbers of their enemies. It kills the humans pretty well, but has difficulty penetrating the dwarven holds. The war then continues, with the elves annihilating a good portion of the dwarves, until the plague begins the affect the elves. Desperate, the elves use magic to remove themselves from this existence, until a time when the plague has died down and they can return.

The dominant races would be the goblinoids and the orcs. The goblinoid could have had their own nations but were slowly marginalized by the rise of humanity. With humanity gone, they would experience a resurgence. The orcs also would have been marginalized by the elves, and now, being free of them, would seize new lands.

The dwarves, having survived the war, would expand. This would be interesting because we usually on see dwarves when they are in decline. A dwarven empire would be quite refreshing.They make a good rival for the goblinoids.

Other remnants might be vast domains of undead, ruled by their more intelligent brethren. Instead of being innately hostile, they could openly trade with the other races, perhaps even using mindless undead as loanable labor. Thus, the previously dead cities would become powerful citystates, attractive to all who wish to sell their wares freely.

>>17135703

More believable is that a bunch of paladins got together after the plague and formed a community of sorts. Most of their sons and daughters are born plague resistant, thus, you have a village and a keep formed by zelalous paladins who think the world has gone to the very shitter. Their main goal? roam to world to find more surviving humans and bring them (forcibly if needed) to the Town, to keep humanity from extinction. Most orcs and goblinoids just think they are dangerous, paranoid loonies

>>17135755

The plague is gone, so plague-resistant isn't necessary. And while that may be their goal, it is an impossible one that they will never succeed at. A society of sons and daughters with an occasional immigrant is a dying society.

>>17135752
>I think making the orcs and goblionoids evil is just as retarded as making the other races good.

We're not doing that? At all?

The rest of what you wrote is basically verbatim our ideas, aside from the idea of a resurgent Dwarven Empire. Which could work, though I do like the idea of the Dwarves remaining hidden in their caves aside from the occasional raid. Maybe the resurgence happens after their stubbornness finally gives way and they see that maybe they need to change too. So a few decades of the Golden Horde before the Dwarven Empire, perhaps precipitated by the final dying off of the human paladins.

>>17135755
What about the Mages and Druids who had their own way of escaping the plague?
And don't forget all the adventurers with disease immunity artifacts and such.

>>17135803

Keep in mind, this is no ordinary plague, but the final curse of a dying God. And this curse was one that none of the other Gods seem to have been able to have stopped. A God cursed the land, a God so powerful that even while dying the other Gods could not stop this one thing. Humanity is done, even if there were some who survived. The only ones to survive in numbers would be the undead, since they are already dead. Of the Wizards, Druids, Paladins/Clerics? Only the singularly most powerful. Not just adventurers, but the outright most powerful. A paladin force of thousands? Maybe a dozen survived. Maybe the Druids who were taken by the Elves survived. The wizards? They had only one avenue of survival open to them: Lichdom.

>>17135598
>>17135675
>>17135692
UNLESS THE PALADINS THEMSELVES ARE INFECTED, THEY CAN TOTALLY HAVE NON-INFECTED CHILDREN YOU GUYS.

THAT IS HOW DISEASES WORK.

the kids don't NEED to be paladins unless the adults are foolish enough to let a stranger interact with their children.

>>17135869
Oh, alright.

I had fallen in love with the idea of 'Precursor Fortresses' and wanted to see it implemented, using the paranoia and madness of a PC to explain away the insanely munchkined defences and lifestyle.

>>17135767
>>17135803

Humans. The plague wiped up 60% of their population, another 30% died in the aftermath (monster raids, regular disease, undeads)

Of the remaining 10%, most were enslaved and died or were forcibly assimilated (breeding stock)

But 1% of them managed to survive and rally around some of the greatest heroes humanity had and now live in the last human city

>>17135899
if these precursor fortresses canonically are chock full of PCs, then I will laugh my ass off and then run away.

because that shit can FLY, you just don't know it yet.

Alright, so: the Dwarves escaped to the earth. The elves escaped to the sky. The gnomes, I'm thinking, escaped to the Faerie lands. Whatever magic the fey feed from, the gnomes let it consume them in its injured state, and while they have partially restored it from the dripping blood of human civilization, they have been twisted into mutants.

Sometimes a squishling hob and his sparmate will get hungry durimg an afternoon of free training and head into a dead wood for wild mushrooms. As they descend, they find trees sprouting foliage--they didn't see that from the hills, and they would have seen those blue-green leaves. Or are they green-blue... or are they yellow-green... and the hobs forget which way they came, though the hunger gnaws at them still. The leaves of a thick shrub taste cool, almost fizzy. Sweet things are a delicacy, the hobs remember, whereever they used to live. Everything is so slow in the forest. They can barely move in the night air. Then they feel a soft pressure, hear something spurt far off in their necks, and relax in the cool as the Gnome takes another meal.

>>17135918
gnomes are TOTALLY cannibals.

because they don't have many halflings to farm for them any more.

>>17135897

You're getting hung up on the idea that the kids might be made Paladins as a means to survive.

It'd be far more likely that they'd attempt to enforce Paladinhood as a means to keep a part of that way of life alive. Everything around them is gone, their Gods are dying, there is little left to live for because their futures are essentially slammed shut. So having Paladin parents teaching kids to be Paladins might be one of the only ways they can keep something, at least this one aspect of humanity, alive. Has nothing to do with the being Plague-free because the Plague is gone and infecting nobody. Those infected are dead. Those who are still alive are not infected. The disease died with the God.

>>17135929
>>17135918

Gnomes are extinct. Elves skipped time.

>>17135932
yeah, but these people are acting like the kids NEED TO BE PALADIN AT BIRTH or this shit won't work, and that's retarded.

>>17135900

More like 99.9% of humanity is dead from the plague.

>>17135932
>>17135912
So now we have mobile Precursor Fortresses and Scarlet Monestaries as the last known remnants of humanity; both are too paranoid and xenophobic to communicate or trade with.
How else has (living) humanity survived?

>>17135951

These are good ideas for the last moments of the human race, but remember that in this setting the last living human died 30 years ago. If there are surviving humans left, and that last one was just the last known human, then they'd be exceptionally small. Humanity is struggling to survive with less than a hundred members left kind of small.

I think we should be done with the Human Paladin society ALTOGETHER, unless it's mandated that players cannot be humans.

If you put humans in the campaign, players are going to want to play them,specially if they're pretty special and unique badasses in a culture full of badasses.

No, we want players to play Dark Races, and Monstrous races.

If it were up to me, humanity would be like in Dark Souls. Just their achievements left behind,glorious reminders of the past, and the only humans left are undying, undead that rise every night, a few undead with sanity trying to preserve what's left of their home,and maybe a few Liches trying to restore humanity to greatness or at least release them from their undying curse.

>>17135951
>>17135991
yeah, that is probably THE amount of humans out there.

there MIIIGHT be one or two in dwarven holds when they locked down, and maybe a few more who were in other planes when it happened, but that can't be more than three dozen.

>>17135942
Arguably a paladin's calling in life is strict, extreme, and rare. Which would mean that only a very small number of people are suited to the task of being a paladin. So for me at least, paladins are usually rare or are people who were fated to be paladins to begin with.

>OP
Theres no reason to suppose that Orcs, Goblins, Drow, and others get along with each other. I skimmed the topic and didn't see any mention of some great and powerful evil being controlling them. I don't think this is going to be an age of companionship but rather an unending war over who can snatch the best land, resources, etc.

You might also consider letting your players play as variant types of the normally chosen races. Like for example Desert Orcs, Jungle Goblins, Ice Elves, etc.

>>17136009

The Great and Powerful Evil Being controlling them is dead. He was the cause of the plague.

But yeah, we haven't gotten around to the internecine warfares yet, but we did mention that they'd be there and heavily prevalent at first.

>>17135999

I'm fine with dismissing the Paladin society. I wasn't much for it, but it was being discussed and I felt we should give it justice if it is implemented.

>>17136026
>>17136008
yeah, we sort of glossed over the wars.

I, personally, think those kind of specifics might be best left for after you decide player races, so it will always be interesting. but that's me.

>>17135937
Well, I missed that. Is the idea of voracious fey mutants usable?

Also: nobody has discussed the seas very much. You know, isolated islands, merfolk, and whatnot.

>>17136008
>>17135991
yeah, guys are right. We'll leave it at that, and let the Humans be nothing more than a dangerous legend and folk story for young orcs.

>"They call it the Valley of Doom for a reason son. None who have ventured there have ever returned."

>>17136034
>>17135999
can we just go back to the whole "Humans who were holy enough to be immune to disease got back up when they died" thing?

because undead SMITE NONHUMAN paladins sounds awesome.

>>17136044
Sure.
We all love that Idea. I was just making sure that living humans were still around, just in fuck-your-shit-up NPC form.

>>17136038

Maybe the world used to be much more connected. Continental communications and such. Since the plague, however? Utterly cut off. Who came out on top could be different per continent, but the fate of humanity is the same globally. Perhaps the Dwarven Resurgent Empire takes place on the nearest continental landmass, where the Orcs and other lesser races didn't succeed as well as the main landmass we've been discussing.

>>17136044

Sure. I meant dismissing the living Paladin society. Undead Pelor servants however? Definitely.

I'd just like to point out that faith is an extremely strong thing in a religiously dedicated mind. There is no reason to suppose that the extreme religious orders of humans haven't come back as undead champions, liches, and other nastiness. Concurrently, there is also no reason to suppose that these undead are not still motivated by their religious ideas.

>>17136070
So now not only do we have Revenant Paladins of Pelor, The Burning Hate, but also other guys are getting back up?

>>17136070

Those would be the undead Paladins we were just mentioning again. At the moment, Pelor is the one who was able to do this.

Since all of the other Gods are either dying off or trying to conform to the new way of things, i.e. the Lesser Races, it probably wouldn't be much more prevalent. They'd need divine support, and Pelor is the only one so far to provide it.

>>17136079

Continuation:
However, it'd be interesting to set up one other God that was once allied to Pelor but is now in utter opposition. One that didn't have to make much of a change. Like say, Bahamut. Since the Dragonborn, one of its client species, could have survived the plague relatively well, so too might have Bahamut himself. But now that Pelor has gone full-on undead LE status, Bahamut is in opposition.

>>17136079
I've found that a small percentage of undead rise under their own power. Unless your system is set up such that divine intercessions are needed, theres no reason to suppose that undead champions, liches, specters, wraiths, and wights haven't returned under their own power. Imagine a type of wraith that hates all non-humans, or a wight who wields a human epic weapon 'Orc-slayer' the sword.

>>17136101

Undead and such generally do, yes, but religious ones? I would think they'd require divine intercessions. There are plenty of undead running around, and many of them are trying to preserve the human way of life as it is, and we already have a religious undead force. I see no reason why we should incorporate more.

>>17136124
>>17136101
>>17136098
It is ENTIRELY possible that both gods died in the exchange. Pelor kills god X, god X with his dying breath curses humanity and strikes a mortal blow to their god, pelor with HIS dying breath brings back some of them, because there aren't any left

>>17136124
True.
Say, what does the Human Plague do to the soul?

>>17136144

Thing is, the first God's death was caused by mortals. Humans, Elves, Dwarves, etc. They discovered that this one God was almost single-handedly responsible for the bad in the world and in a concerted effort the mortal species struck the God down. They might have had divine support, but it wasn't a war between Gods.

But after the God's death, a God much more powerful than all the others, when entire species went extinct or disappeared, most of the Gods lost worshippers. Apparently, their own existence is tied to that, and so many died or struggled to claim new domains. Some of the ones to survive did so by latching onto the surviving Lesser Races. Pelor survived by switching into an Undead Super-Racist.

>>17136149

That's an interesting question. I kind of want to say it utterly obliterated all of Humanity, body and soul. Just to add some real finality to it.

But we do have spirits wandering around, not just undead.

Why not say that it had zero impact on the soul. This way we can have entire cities populated by the spirits of people who were wiped out within moments of each other still going about their daily lives as if nothing happened. As well as those who understand what happened and rage and rail against fate by taking it out on the Lesser Races.

I like the idea that Pelor HIMSELF is undead, now. Perhaps he died when most of his followers did, but then got back up along with those that returned as natural undead. He then proceeds to start making as many SKELEPALADINS as possible.

It also explains how he becomes such a raging dick. Zombification-induced insanity.

>>17136250
Skeladins

>>17136250

Perhaps it was his own way to survive. He can't stop his death, not unless he goes for a Lesser Race, and he has way too much of a rage-on to do that. When his death gets closer and closer, he gets more and more desperate. Bahamut does he what he can, but ultimately Pelor dies in the midst of his last ditch attempt, his most desperate grab at a continued existence. And Pelor is gone.

But not for very long.

>>17136195
>entire cities populated by the spirits of people who were wiped out within moments of each other still going about their daily lives as if nothing happened.
Now I have this vision of an Orc/Human town, the Orcs moved into town when they all died, and now everyone has some sort of shaman training as part of their upbringing.

It doesn't need that much fleshing out, but it'd be perfect for a player encounter.

ITT
we make Pelor the Burning Hate even better.

To go with the idea of the Orc master race, I see there being a big divide in the orcs. Those who want to stick to the old ways, who have the support of the most powerful of the old guard but promote a way of life that is now impossible, and those who have tried to change to adapt to the new world.
The old guard is lead by aging but battlewise warchiefs, the old priests of evil having been rendered useless by the death of the god.
The new guard are fractured, many turning to the Old Gods of Man and Elf, with a young charismatic Orc rising to unite them.

War looms on the horizon.

>>17136314

Perhaps the divide is internal rather than external. Not two separate Orc factions warring against each other. The Old Guard are those in charge, but they are aging and ailing fast, and are naturally being forced to hand the reigns of power down to the New Guard. The setting can be at the time in which it's pretty much half New Guard, half Old Guard, and both sides are constantly butting heads and arguing even worse than the American party system. Old Guard retains control of the military, the New Guard takes over the economies, and both struggle over the political reigns.

>>17136343
sounds good.
Or perhaps it's heterogenious, with some communities more old guard and some more new guard, but most are mixed.
And rather than war, it's a lot of tension and small scale fights.
Also, we're autosaging.
New thread?

>>17136314
BOOO!
Fuck charismatic orcs rising to unite them!
This isnt World of Warcraft!
BOOOO! HISS!HISS! BOOO!

Why not a dashing young Hobgoblin rising to become a mighty warrior-king?

Why not a mighty Gnoll-Sorcerer who has risen to become an Emperor, an empire forged by his own hands?

Or even a good Mind Flayer leading a group of his people to forge alliance with the surface races, hoping to forge a better tomorrow?

FUCK ORCS.

>>17136377

Mind Flayers are there, Gnolls and Hobgoblins have been discussed and will have their call to fame. Hobgoblins will likely be the best off in transition to a more civilized way of life.

We are speaking about Orcs because they're Lesser Race poster child, and we just haven't finished with them yet. They're the poster boy because this is OP's setting, and he has stated he prefers Orcs more than Hobgoblins.

>>17136375
By all means, just post the link to the new thread here. This thread's been archived, so be sure to include it in OP.

>>17136377
>implying this all isn't happening at once

these guys are doing this stuff ALL THE TIME. It's only the surfacers and overwhelming demon gods keeping them from being THE BAWS

>>17136402
Boo.
Op should try to be original and not repeat the same shit other campaign settings do. He might likes Orcs, but he's fucked. Warcraft already made Orcs rising to become glorious unifiers and warlords, blah blah, fuck Thrall.

Orcs shouldnt be this setting's poster boy.

>Fallout
.
.
It seems You guys are already settled in the plague settings. So please keep my idea of solar flare, that sterilized the surface for the next campaign.

>>17136377
>>17136432

Now I'm thinking you're just some sort of troll or something. If you're not going to contribute, kindly leave. Or remain in this thread while we leave to a new one.

>>17136450
new thread

>>17136452
What did I say?
All I said is that orcs are over-used, busted little guys, and the whole 'great warlords turned unifiers' is already being overused by the biggest MMORPG ever made.

There are TONS of other races you could use.
Another "Orcs rise" setting just seems bleh.

I'm contributing by giving constructive criticism.

>>17136438
>solar flare
>Pelor The Burning Hate
I was going to say that's silly until HOLY FUCK IT WORKS.
When Pelor 'died' the world was hit with something like this, maybe?

Personally I'm reserving any surviving humans as no more than 3 dozen total. Like you guys mentioned, either they are hiding with the Dwarves, or were paladins who holy-ed their way through the disease, or planar travelers who escaped it unwittingly. Just remember that the youngest surviving human would be 30, 50s would be average. So the dude is old. I really like the 30 year time period because it's not so long that the humans are myths, and not so long that everything is settled. This is all still very new. There may even be creatures on this world totally oblivious to the plague (like those Merfolk you mentioned or something else very far removed from it all).

Also: This setting needs a name. I'm thinking Age of the Orc or the New Kingdoms. But I don't really love either of those.

>>17136927
we have a new thread
>>17136450