Many fantasy stories have the conceit that the setting takes place after our modern world has ended. Shanara comes most readily to mind as an example. There are some game systems, such as Earthdawn, which draws upon this trope as well. But I can think of no published world from any major RPG publishing house which draws on this idea for d20.
Have any of you GMs had your players unexpectedly stumble upon Cheyenne Mountain or Hoover Dam or any other ruin of the modern world?
Tangent follows.
I think the idea of it is cool, but I have never experienced it.
Tangent begins:
Maybe man had magic at some unrecorded point in history, went to technology, ended the world as we know, and during a 3rd world(in the future), now has magic and technology. I would not have all the technology from today but some of it may still be getting discovered/rediscovered. Maybe someone found blueprints on the atom bomb that were somehow preserved in hard copy, and the heroes have to stop the bomb from being remade, after finding out that is why the world ended before.
I wish I had the free time to write my own stories again. Tangent ends
Maybe Iron Kingdoms could be refluffed. I think Iron Kingdoms would be a better fit even though I have only flipped through the books a few times.
Many fantasy stories have the conceit that the setting takes place after our modern world has ended.
Have any of you GMs had your players unexpectedly stumble upon Cheyenne Mountain or Hoover Dam or any other ruin of the modern world?
Yes. Well, not Hoover Dam or whatnought, but to the concept yes. Many times.
WAY back in 2nd Ed, I created my own homebrew campaign setting on the planet that was once the home to the entities that built Sigil. They were a powerful techonological race that created many planar devices and locations, and genetically engineered most of the player races while trying to discover immortality (hence all player races having a longer lifespan than humans). And then they managed to kill themselves in a firey apoclaypse, leaving technological remains of their civilization scattered about, so much so that a religion worshiping machines popped up in the thousands of years since. It made for neat sci-fantasy game when my players could stumble across an ancient mech suit, find a hidden airship hidden beneath a temple, or walk into a tavern where the bards used electric guitars.
More recently (Pathfinder Beta) I ran a space-based sci-fi game that took place years after Earth's destruction, where the human survivors (in slower-than-light colony ships designed to hold generation after generation until they could find a new planet) bumped into friendly aliens who looked remarkably like Elves who happly introduced them to magic, teleport spells, and thus opened the ability to bypass that pesky speed of light issue. Dwarves, halflings, orcs, etc were recycled as alien races. It made for a very cool party when I had a sword-wielding paladin fighting beside a Desert Eagel (+1 Evil-Outsider Bane) wielding ranger. It also involved this whole thing about Avalon actually being an Elven research outpost (Merlin was a half-elf, king Arthur was taken into space upon his death, etc).
I also played in a friend's game where there's been a more "standard" D&D setting, but a magical war had destroyed civilization and left the land tainted by magical fallout, making farming all but impossible. Most aberations and killer plants were the result, making wilderness encounters that much scarier when even the foliage is likely to want you dead. This game actually felt post-apoclayptic, with that fear and survival element (which the above two didn't, being much farther removed from the apoclaypse in question).
I'm not sure why my gaming group and I have such a tendency to repeat this theme. **shrug** But thinking about it, we've used it alot. Hmm.
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Lilith's Thrall,
I'm a huge fan of clockworks and really like this:
One of the things I'm working on now is a Sorcerer bloodline called "the Contraptionist". These people are tormented by ancient spirits which whisper hidden secrets of the old world at them. These spirits have long since forgotten sanity and most Contraptionists end up with mental problems. Contraptionists carve away at their own flesh and slowly turn themselves into "golems" as it were.
A little macabre with the carving and such, but a cool concept nonetheless. They'd make for interesting bard-variants, too.
Many fantasy stories have the conceit that the setting takes place after our modern world has ended.
More recently (Pathfinder Beta) I ran a space-based sci-fi game that took place years after Earth's destruction, where the human survivors (in slower-than-light colony ships designed to hold generation after generation until they could find a new planet) bumped into friendly aliens who looked remarkably like Elves who happly introduced them to magic, teleport spells, and thus opened the ability to bypass that pesky speed of light issue. Dwarves, halflings, orcs, etc were recycled as alien races.
Funny you should mention that... I'm actually working on publishing a campaign setting for Pathfinder next year that is somewhat similar, although the timeline is much farther ahead. Effectively though, the races I'm designing aren't so much alien races as genetically and technologically modified humans.
Of course this trope has been around since the birth of D&D and the incredible influence of Jack Vance and the Dying Earth. Another great heir to Vance is Gene Wolfe who carries on the great tradition of a far distant future setting with almost medieval outlooks. Great literature!