Let's say some dinosaurs had a civilisation roughly as developed as present-day humans. Industrialised society, electricity and maybe even space flight (realistic satellites and local system expeditions, nothing science fiction). They got wiped out by a meteor.
Some thirty million years later, the world is your typical Pathfinder fantasy land.
What remains of the world that came before? What signs are there that this world once had thriving and advanced industry?
And with the magical expertise of adventurers, what can they do to discover, recover and restore it?
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There's nothing to be restored, unless you count magical preservation. In some places, there's a layer of industrial filth in the sediment, huge isotope signature, etc. But nothing fantasy Golarion-ites would even understand.
Now, a 30 million year old magical civilization could easily have time bubbles, magically sealed vaults and fortresses, etc.
This is assuming the ancient civilisation had no magic whatsoever. No gods, not even magical creatures.
I'm probably going to include this in some worldbuilding, and I want to make sure I'm not setting myself up for some colossal mishaps when players find out and use an ability I forgot about to get stuff they shouldn't be able to.
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That's basically enough time for everything to turn to dust. Only stone work and non reactive metals would be expected to survive that long. And that's only if they are somehow protected from weathering during that time.
OTOH, fossils and anything else buried and then exposed again.
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If they had technological civilization similar to modern Earth the best preserved of their creations would be probably their moon lander module, assuming no random comet or asteroid hit the landing site on the moon in meantime.
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You'd have to go to extremes to find anything recognisable as tech. On an airless moon or sitting at the L4/5 points you might find broken but obviously artificial spacecraft. Gold or platinum jewellery deposited in sediment might be recoverable if you used magic to find it. Some rocks will have regular patterns imbedded in them where buildings or roads have been somewhat preserved by sediment, or where the rust that used to be a ship or something has formed patterns in the rock. Anything exposed to the elements, even if it's made of gold or stone, is long gone.
If the dinosaurs worshipped gods those might still be around, possibly sleeping and waiting to be awakened by someone performing the correct rites.
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Pretty much...a few thousand years would be sufficient to wipe out most obvious traces of human civilization if we died out tomorrow. i don't think anything that wasn't quasi-magical would really survive 30 million years as a recognizable artifact.
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Unusual events similar to Pompeii perhaps.
For the most part, like everyone says, you will have useless rusted hunks of ruins.
Stonework erodes, metal rusts, with nothing maintaining them, buildings and structures crumble.
Unless you come up with some nifty ancient ruins designed to last, with time capsules and information about the past for the humans to discover, perhaps even attempt to reverse engineer the tech?
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Some advanced superstructures made of the most resilient inorganic materials could survive, but they would be covered with sediments, swallowed by earth, and deformed with pressure. Unless they would happen in places with minimal sediment build up, little geological activity...
Hmmm, depending on the setting's structure, you might have more options. For example, say the meteorite has an effect on the planet's orbit or rotation. Perhaps regions that were once hospitable are now locked in glaciers, resulting in relatively intact structures encased in ice. This works great if you're using a Frostburn-inspired setting.
You could also submerge large portions of the ancient dinosaur civilization, burying regions beneath ocean sediment that is for some reason becoming exposed in your setting. This would yield something of a Lovecraftian feel, since you could have ancient saurian ruins covered in foul muck and inhabited by who knows what rising from the depths due to some kind of geological activity or magical phenomena.
You could also have cities sink into the earth, engulfing them in stone and earth through sudden floods, massive sinkholes, or tectonic shifts that accompany the meteorite. Sort of producing the situations that shelter the remnants of this society from the majority of exposure and erosion.
Further, since you're building a setting that goes from a seemingly non-magical setting to a magical one, you could argue that the preservation of these ruins is in some way tied to whatever causes magic to take hold in the world.
So you have a few issues with the concept.
Present-day humans would see the meteor coming. This gives them time to flee to space, go deep underground, or go deep underwater. Those humans would have a significant chance of survival.
Even without the warning, the meteor itself wouldn't do all that much damage. At the point of impact there would be immense destruction, immediately after impact the metal in the meteor would spray up into the atmosphere and come back down molten and start fires in a large radius. But those are the only immediate effects, and immediate effects are the only ones that matter. Long term effects like climate change and the giant ash cloud the meteor would kick up civilization can deal with. There's some mushrooms and deep sea stuff that doesn't actually need sunlight, off the top of my head. And that's not including the long-term food we already have stockpiled. The dinosaurs died off because they couldn't make jerky.
Then we have stuff like the Seed Vault that's designed to survive even world extinction events. Probably NORAD and a few other Cold War era anti-nuclear bunkers would be the same. Many of these would be secretive, but some are designed to be super obvious so aliens can find them after we're gone.
Finally the "new" world (fantasy land). It... well, wouldn't exist. Even assuming all the dinosaurs disappeared. I'm not quite going to argue for Tippyverse but high level clerics and wizards literally do have gods on speed-dial. And the sites leftover by the dinosaurs wouldn't have any magical protection (since magic didn't exist) so after they find the first one (one of the obvious ones) they could literally play hot/cold with a god to track down the rest. Eventually they'll stumble on one with a technology that becomes widespread and now you're looking at something a lot more Schizo Tech (i.e. technology levels all over the place, and mixed together) than standard fantasy fare.
They do include this in Golarion but only in Numeria, whereas in your world it would be all over the place. They also prevent widespread use by making generators mysterious objects no one can possibly understand, which is heavy-handed GM fiat of the highest order. An Int 30 person is probably smarter than anyone living on earth right now. I'm pretty sure they could figure out how a generator works and recreate it.
I'm not really sure how to fix the extinction event thing, you can handwave it away but unless there's like, only one dino city, some are going to survive. You could have easily wiped out, say, the Mayans with a single meteor. If you want to wipe out all humans, you're shattering the planet.
You can at least fix the technology issues by making the dinos 1930s Earth instead of modern Earth. No huge bunkers, fallout shelters, and all the other stuff that came with nuclear war. The stuff that would best survive the extinction would, hilariously, be the artifacts of the ancient dinos that the more modern dinos dug up to study. And without any kind of radiocarbon dating (and probably no desire to question their theories) we'd get the same kind of awful archaeology of Earth's past. Slap some bones together and name it after yourself. Assume all of the artifacts you find belong to the same civilization. Stuff like that.
So... you either need a different extinction event, handwave it away, or have dino overlords. Personally dino overlords sounds awesome, but that's just the little kid in me talking. And dino overlords + schizo tech would turn it into fallout, with the dinos representing the Enclave. And that would be awesome. Personally.
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Bob Bob Bob wrote: So you have a few issues with the concept.
Present-day humans would see the meteor coming. This gives them time to flee to space, go deep underground, or go deep underwater. Those humans would have a significant chance of survival.
Even without the warning, the meteor itself wouldn't do all that much damage. At the point of impact there would be immense destruction, immediately after impact the metal in the meteor would spray up into the atmosphere and come back down molten and start fires in a large radius. But those are the only immediate effects, and immediate effects are the only ones that matter.
...
Then we have stuff like the Seed Vault that's designed to survive even world extinction events. Probably NORAD and a few other Cold War era anti-nuclear bunkers would be the same. Many of these would be secretive, but some are designed to be super obvious so aliens can find them after we're gone.
...
I'm not really sure how to fix the extinction event thing, you can handwave it away but unless there's like, only one dino city, some are going to survive. You could have easily wiped out, say, the Mayans with a single meteor. If you want to wipe out all humans, you're shattering the planet.
Wrong. Ok, present day humans would very likely be able to survive an equivalent of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. (But definitely not by fleeing to space...) But you can easily go bigger to exterminate all of humanity and still be far, far below what is needed to eradicate all live and even farther below shattering the earth.
If meteor impact triggers a brutal series of secondary disasters, most of the dinos could be wiped out by the combination of starvation, flooding, volcanic eruptions ('Ring of Fire'), earthquakes, etc.
30 million years is a long time. There's every probability for axial tilts to cover what was then temperate with glaciers. Most likely a virus wiped 'em out, perhaps one kicked up in one of the ash clouds.
Who is to say that there was only one rock that fell and killed all the dinos?
A Cheyenne Mountain-style safe hole with Obscenely Secret Tech may have held a dino Clone-in-case-of-Emergency facility, one that went into an area effect temporal stasis and just now that has worn off, reawakening the aristocrats of the dinos.
Have fun with that. ;)
Alakallanar wrote: Bob Bob Bob wrote: So you have a few issues with the concept.
Present-day humans would see the meteor coming. This gives them time to flee to space, go deep underground, or go deep underwater. Those humans would have a significant chance of survival.
Even without the warning, the meteor itself wouldn't do all that much damage. At the point of impact there would be immense destruction, immediately after impact the metal in the meteor would spray up into the atmosphere and come back down molten and start fires in a large radius. But those are the only immediate effects, and immediate effects are the only ones that matter.
...
Then we have stuff like the Seed Vault that's designed to survive even world extinction events. Probably NORAD and a few other Cold War era anti-nuclear bunkers would be the same. Many of these would be secretive, but some are designed to be super obvious so aliens can find them after we're gone.
...
I'm not really sure how to fix the extinction event thing, you can handwave it away but unless there's like, only one dino city, some are going to survive. You could have easily wiped out, say, the Mayans with a single meteor. If you want to wipe out all humans, you're shattering the planet.
Wrong. Ok, present day humans would very likely be able to survive an equivalent of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. (But definitely not by fleeing to space...) But you can easily go bigger to exterminate all of humanity and still be far, far below what is needed to eradicate all live and even farther below shattering the earth. I kind of agree. If your sapient dinos are like humans, than I would expect infighting over resources and just the occasional bit of stupid selfishness being a hindering issue. and its not like you can spontaneously create giant mushroom farms and what not over night, nor giant underground cities. There are several recent incidents of near earth passing asteroids that were only detected at the last minute, so I also wouldn't assume the dinos would have advanced warning of what is coming.
And you don't have to wipe out ALL the dinos. Just reduce the population level down to a level where they can't recover. So a few bands of dino survivalists hiding away in bunkers might only delay the extinction, not avert it.
Maybe it was a dino zompocalypse. ;)
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I had a similar homebrew world. Long story short, the insect/dino creatures formulated a plan to survive by using their magi-tech to make the smartest among them a god. When the others died off, the now god fostered evolution of other life forms on the world, and left clues around for them to find the world's history. The first of them he elevated to godhood as well, and thus the pantheon was established. But, the new races started from scratch, with guidance from their patron deities...
Pathfinder Maps Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Sunken R'lyeh eternally dreams, waiting for its Guardian to awaken...
Kryzbyn wrote: I had a similar homebrew world. Long story short, the insect/dino creatures formulated a plan to survive by using their magi-tech to make the smartest among them a god. When the others died off, the now god fostered evolution of other life forms on the world, and left clues around for them to find the world's history. The first of them he elevated to godhood as well, and thus the pantheon was established. But, the new races started from scratch, with guidance from their patron deities... I sometimes use similar idea with the first (or the last) member of the first sapient species around becomes the first god of death.
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Realistically nothing a non-magical, modern equivalent society can do will be recognizable after 30 MILLION years of erosion and natural processes. If you want to tell a story about things like that then hand wave, MacGuffin or otherwise do what you have to to make it possible under the suspended disbelief everyone buys into when playing a game.
Make them a little more advanced than current civilization. Maybe the moon(s) are tectonically dead and there are the remains of outposts/shipyards/research stations on them in sheltered domes or something that are believed to be the residences of gods/holy objects. The PCs are involved in the first attempt to enter the house of the gods as their main campaign goal only to find everything there withered and abandoned. Crisis of faith? Ancient cloning machines that can be magically repaired? Put a Stargate there.
Maybe Adamantium isnt naturally occurring and all deposits are the finally crumpled and ruined leftovers of this ancient society. the wealthiest powers in the world collect these lumps of super metal to display their wealth until a deposit is eventually found that reactivates in sunlight or after first exposure to magical energy.
Maybe all lizardman tribes are the result of an ancient hospital run by AI that churns out clones of the first species but dosent have the ability to teach them anything as it is perpetually on the verge of collapse and probably very insane. The lizardmen are constantly at war for resources to keep their failing machine god alive. Add in a robot facility to make new components for the AI and basic tools for the lizardmen to use to get more resources. Make the whole thing in an insanely deep cave that uses a failing geothermal energy system that doubles as hazards and traps? i kind of want to make this campaign a thing now. Troglodytes are genetically corrupted Lizardmen outcast by their kin as the rejects of their god. The Players are stumped by the spartan but otherwise nearly identical metal works attached to bound bone spears. The robots towards the end of the campaign will be a real treat to throw down :) Thanks for the idea!
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I'm going to disagree with the general consensus thus far... there would absolutely be evidence of the past civilization.
Just as we have 'fossilized' samples of dinosaur skin and footprints, so would a future society be able to discover similar traces left by ancient clothing and equipment. Just as we find small creatures trapped in amber, so too could a distant civilization find nails, bolts, and other small elements of civilization preserved indefinitely.
Elements from industrial pollution would exist in rock strata, but a future civilization might not be advanced enough to identify them as such. Similarly, any large concentration of particular elements could be identified as clearly non-natural... the contents of a massive garbage dump might be unidentifiable, but the unusual concentration of elements from whatever disposable materials the prior civilization used would be detectable.
Now, whether magic could be used to gain anything from these past elements is another question. Could blood from the gut of an ancient amber trapped 'mosquito' be used to resurrect a member of the lost civilization? Could a Wish unlock the mysteries of the deep black stripe in the canyon walls? Those really come down to GM judgement. There is no spell which would unquestionably allow you to reconstitute elements of the ancient past... but there are several which might be able to.
I guess the real question is "What do you want?"
Why is this civilization part of your setting? How are the characters going to find out about it, if they are?
You can find reasons to run it anyway you choose. To me, there seems little point in including it in the backstory, if it's never going to come up in game.
Ancient ruins, entombed in sandstone, exposed by erosion, possibly with air pockets where artifacts could be found. Deeply buried bunkers. Did they have adamantine? Does that decay at all, even with millions of years?
Why so deep in the past anyway?
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It's not that I don't want it to come up.
I want it to come up in ways that challenge the assumptions of the inhabitants of the world, who think they were first, to challenge the faithful of the gods, who think there was no life before them. To give people society-changing ideas, not society-changing toys. And maybe to inspire the artisans and artificers of the world to seek loftier goals; not an instant change, but the beginnings of a renaissance.
In the age of myth (about 3000-5000 years ago), when the divines were much more liberal with their powers, a wholly unprecedented race was created: A small, feathery, lizardlike people: Kobolds.
In truth, the power of a god was used to resurrect the species from discovered fossils, for the gods do not actually have the power to create. They can only use what already is, albeit altered to their purpose.
The newly created kobolds have no knowledge of their ancient origin and assume they were created wholecloth to be servants of the high dragon, Auctol the Forgesire (with help from the god of change).
Auctol later abandons the kobolds, disappointed with them, leaving them to their own devices.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Drejk wrote: Kryzbyn wrote: I had a similar homebrew world. Long story short, the insect/dino creatures formulated a plan to survive by using their magi-tech to make the smartest among them a god. When the others died off, the now god fostered evolution of other life forms on the world, and left clues around for them to find the world's history. The first of them he elevated to godhood as well, and thus the pantheon was established. But, the new races started from scratch, with guidance from their patron deities... I sometimes use similar idea with the first (or the last) member of the first sapient species around becomes the first god of death. This was fun, as the players had the "understood" creation story, and I knew the truth, and left clues around the world to challenge their understanding of what their characters "knew" as the truth.
One of the gods had gone mad, and decided to reverse the process the over deity used to raise them to godhood, just to get revenge on one of the other gods. They had to discover how that was possible, and why it was possible, while trying to thwart his minions, and stop him.
I think it ended well, and as expected, the discovery caused more questions from them than it answered. In the main task, they ultimately failed, and the mad god was victorious, but them learning the truth of their origins was the true goal of the campaign.
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Umbral Reaver wrote: Let's say some dinosaurs had a civilisation roughly as developed as present-day humans. Industrialised society, electricity and maybe even space flight (realistic satellites and local system expeditions, nothing science fiction). They got wiped out by a meteor.
Some thirty million years later, the world is your typical Pathfinder fantasy land.
What remains of the world that came before? What signs are there that this world once had thriving and advanced industry?
And with the magical expertise of adventurers, what can they do to discover, recover and restore it?
Just to give you an example.. if some disaster were to take us out today, there'd be no signs of our civilization after that long a period. What ever wasn't taken out by glaciers would eventually be removed by plate tectonics, or covered up by sediment development. Even the plastics that we flood the oceans with would gone in a thousand years or two. and of course our metals would have long rusted away to granules of ore.
So the only thing you'd expect to find would be special magical exceptions to the rule. Nothing of our technology would survive that long.
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LazarX wrote: Umbral Reaver wrote: Let's say some dinosaurs had a civilisation roughly as developed as present-day humans. Industrialised society, electricity and maybe even space flight (realistic satellites and local system expeditions, nothing science fiction). They got wiped out by a meteor.
Some thirty million years later, the world is your typical Pathfinder fantasy land.
What remains of the world that came before? What signs are there that this world once had thriving and advanced industry?
And with the magical expertise of adventurers, what can they do to discover, recover and restore it?
Just to give you an example.. if some disaster were to take us out today, there'd be no signs of our civilization after that long a period. What ever wasn't taken out by glaciers would eventually be removed by plate tectonics, or covered up by sediment development. Even the plastics that we flood the oceans with would gone in a thousand years or two. and of course our metals would have long rusted away to granules of ore.
So the only thing you'd expect to find would be special magical exceptions to the rule. Nothing of our technology would survive that long. Nothing is a very strong word.
Plate tectonics wouldn't have removed everything by then. (Reminds me of Brin's Uplift series where aliens would deliberately build on the edges of subduction zones so that later species evolving on that planet wouldn't find traces. That's long term planning.)
Things covered up by sediment can be preserved by it, then uplifted and eroded and exposed.
But it would be more like finding fossils and scrap and things like that than finding ruins and working tech.
CBDunkerson wrote: I'm going to disagree with the general consensus thus far... there would absolutely be evidence of the past civilization.
Just as we have 'fossilized' samples of dinosaur skin and footprints, so would a future society be able to discover similar traces left by ancient clothing and equipment. Just as we find small creatures trapped in amber, so too could a distant civilization find nails, bolts, and other small elements of civilization preserved indefinitely.
Elements from industrial pollution would exist in rock strata, but a future civilization might not be advanced enough to identify them as such. Similarly, any large concentration of particular elements could be identified as clearly non-natural... the contents of a massive garbage dump might be unidentifiable, but the unusual concentration of elements from whatever disposable materials the prior civilization used would be detectable.
Now, whether magic could be used to gain anything from these past elements is another question. Could blood from the gut of an ancient amber trapped 'mosquito' be used to resurrect a member of the lost civilization? Could a Wish unlock the mysteries of the deep black stripe in the canyon walls? Those really come down to GM judgement. There is no spell which would unquestionably allow you to reconstitute elements of the ancient past... but there are several which might be able to.
I dont know... it took hundreds of years for people to start piecing together the bits of bone as something more than just "dragon" or "giant" and even then, we have scarcely any partial remains of the thousands of species that lived across hundreds of millions of years. As an example, the most famous dinosaur, the T-rex. It was first discovered about 113 years ago. in that time we have, as a species, found around 30 incomplete fossil sets. It has only been in the last few years that evidence was found of the third finger they likely all possessed. This is with all of our technology and fields of study dedicated to the effort. In a pseudo medieval fantasy setting, these discoveries are... unlikely.
If we wanted to make a thing that did nothing more than last that long, we probably could. There just isn't a need for it, so we don't do it.
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
thejeff wrote: LazarX wrote: Umbral Reaver wrote: Let's say some dinosaurs had a civilisation roughly as developed as present-day humans. Industrialised society, electricity and maybe even space flight (realistic satellites and local system expeditions, nothing science fiction). They got wiped out by a meteor.
Some thirty million years later, the world is your typical Pathfinder fantasy land.
What remains of the world that came before? What signs are there that this world once had thriving and advanced industry?
And with the magical expertise of adventurers, what can they do to discover, recover and restore it?
Just to give you an example.. if some disaster were to take us out today, there'd be no signs of our civilization after that long a period. What ever wasn't taken out by glaciers would eventually be removed by plate tectonics, or covered up by sediment development. Even the plastics that we flood the oceans with would gone in a thousand years or two. and of course our metals would have long rusted away to granules of ore.
So the only thing you'd expect to find would be special magical exceptions to the rule. Nothing of our technology would survive that long. Nothing is a very strong word.
Plate tectonics wouldn't have removed everything by then. (Reminds me of Brin's Uplift series where aliens would deliberately build on the edges of subduction zones so that later species evolving on that planet wouldn't find traces. That's long term planning.)
Things covered up by sediment can be preserved by it, then uplifted and eroded and exposed.
But it would be more like finding fossils and scrap and things like that than finding ruins and working tech. Thirty million years is an incredibly long time. Most of our creations simply won't last even a fraction of that. the metals oxidize and the plastics decompose. it only takes a couple of thousand years before our cities become completely unrecognisable. and one good glaciation would literally scrub them off the map. Even the contents of most time capsules would be infiltrated and ruined in a small fraction of that time. There was a special on that on the Discovery channel, I think it was called Beyond Humanity.
LazarX wrote: thejeff wrote: LazarX wrote: Umbral Reaver wrote: Let's say some dinosaurs had a civilisation roughly as developed as present-day humans. Industrialised society, electricity and maybe even space flight (realistic satellites and local system expeditions, nothing science fiction). They got wiped out by a meteor.
Some thirty million years later, the world is your typical Pathfinder fantasy land.
What remains of the world that came before? What signs are there that this world once had thriving and advanced industry?
And with the magical expertise of adventurers, what can they do to discover, recover and restore it?
Just to give you an example.. if some disaster were to take us out today, there'd be no signs of our civilization after that long a period. What ever wasn't taken out by glaciers would eventually be removed by plate tectonics, or covered up by sediment development. Even the plastics that we flood the oceans with would gone in a thousand years or two. and of course our metals would have long rusted away to granules of ore.
So the only thing you'd expect to find would be special magical exceptions to the rule. Nothing of our technology would survive that long. Nothing is a very strong word.
Plate tectonics wouldn't have removed everything by then. (Reminds me of Brin's Uplift series where aliens would deliberately build on the edges of subduction zones so that later species evolving on that planet wouldn't find traces. That's long term planning.)
Things covered up by sediment can be preserved by it, then uplifted and eroded and exposed.
But it would be more like finding fossils and scrap and things like that than finding ruins and working tech. Thirty million years is an incredibly long time. Most of our creations simply won't last even a fraction of that. the metals oxidize and the plastics decompose. it only takes a couple of thousand years before our cities become completely unrecognisable. and one good glaciation would literally scrub them... Absolutely. You're not going to find cities or working machines. You'll find the occasional thing preserved by freak accident, just like we do find things from millions of years ago today.
Torbyne wrote: I dont know... it took hundreds of years for people to start piecing together the bits of bone as something more than just "dragon" or "giant" and even then, we have scarcely any partial remains of the thousands of species that lived across hundreds of millions of years. As an example, the most famous dinosaur, the T-rex. It was first discovered about 113 years ago. in that time we have, as a species, found around 30 incomplete fossil sets. It has only been in the last few years that evidence was found of the third finger they likely all possessed. This is with all of our technology and fields of study dedicated to the effort. In a pseudo medieval fantasy setting, these discoveries are... unlikely. Really I think we agree;
Traces of the prior civilization would exist
However, the new civilization might not be able to identify them as such
On the other hand, magic might well be able to bridge the gap
'Hey all-knowing god of mine, what is this weird round metal thingy I found inside that amber rock?'
LazarX wrote: There was a special on that on the Discovery channel, I think it was called Beyond Humanity. I believe you're thinking of Life After Humans.
CBDunkerson wrote: Torbyne wrote: I dont know... it took hundreds of years for people to start piecing together the bits of bone as something more than just "dragon" or "giant" and even then, we have scarcely any partial remains of the thousands of species that lived across hundreds of millions of years. As an example, the most famous dinosaur, the T-rex. It was first discovered about 113 years ago. in that time we have, as a species, found around 30 incomplete fossil sets. It has only been in the last few years that evidence was found of the third finger they likely all possessed. This is with all of our technology and fields of study dedicated to the effort. In a pseudo medieval fantasy setting, these discoveries are... unlikely. Really I think we agree;
Traces of the prior civilization would exist
However, the new civilization might not be able to identify them as such
On the other hand, magic might well be able to bridge the gap
'Hey all-knowing god of mine, what is this weird round metal thingy I found inside that amber rock?' Alright, i think i see what you mean. trace evident doesnt really mean much to a typical fantasy society. It hasnt come up before but i would rule in any campaign i ran that divination spells have no effect on something that old, it has lost all connections to its previous nature after so many millions of years so spell fizzles or result is unclear, try again later. at that point though its entirely up to GM purview.
Torbyne wrote: CBDunkerson wrote: Torbyne wrote: I dont know... it took hundreds of years for people to start piecing together the bits of bone as something more than just "dragon" or "giant" and even then, we have scarcely any partial remains of the thousands of species that lived across hundreds of millions of years. As an example, the most famous dinosaur, the T-rex. It was first discovered about 113 years ago. in that time we have, as a species, found around 30 incomplete fossil sets. It has only been in the last few years that evidence was found of the third finger they likely all possessed. This is with all of our technology and fields of study dedicated to the effort. In a pseudo medieval fantasy setting, these discoveries are... unlikely. Really I think we agree;
Traces of the prior civilization would exist
However, the new civilization might not be able to identify them as such
On the other hand, magic might well be able to bridge the gap
'Hey all-knowing god of mine, what is this weird round metal thingy I found inside that amber rock?' Alright, i think i see what you mean. trace evident doesnt really mean much to a typical fantasy society. It hasnt come up before but i would rule in any campaign i ran that divination spells have no effect on something that old, it has lost all connections to its previous nature after so many millions of years so spell fizzles or result is unclear, try again later. at that point though its entirely up to GM purview. Or perhaps even spookier from the all knowing god: "I don't know. Never seen anything like that before."
thejeff wrote: Torbyne wrote: CBDunkerson wrote: Torbyne wrote: I dont know... it took hundreds of years for people to start piecing together the bits of bone as something more than just "dragon" or "giant" and even then, we have scarcely any partial remains of the thousands of species that lived across hundreds of millions of years. As an example, the most famous dinosaur, the T-rex. It was first discovered about 113 years ago. in that time we have, as a species, found around 30 incomplete fossil sets. It has only been in the last few years that evidence was found of the third finger they likely all possessed. This is with all of our technology and fields of study dedicated to the effort. In a pseudo medieval fantasy setting, these discoveries are... unlikely. Really I think we agree;
Traces of the prior civilization would exist
However, the new civilization might not be able to identify them as such
On the other hand, magic might well be able to bridge the gap
'Hey all-knowing god of mine, what is this weird round metal thingy I found inside that amber rock?' Alright, i think i see what you mean. trace evident doesnt really mean much to a typical fantasy society. It hasnt come up before but i would rule in any campaign i ran that divination spells have no effect on something that old, it has lost all connections to its previous nature after so many millions of years so spell fizzles or result is unclear, try again later. at that point though its entirely up to GM purview. Or perhaps even spookier from the all knowing god: "I don't know. Never seen anything like that before." I would never run a god so humble as that. unless it was a god of humility maybe...
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Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Torbyne wrote:
I would never run a god so humble as that. unless it was a god of humility maybe...
I had a Cleric of Humility once. Every time he cast commune to ask his god a question, he'd always get the same answer back.
"I'm not qualified to answer."
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