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D&D Ideas — Apocalypse

Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is apocalypse, which we discussed in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST on Nerdarchy Live to talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of apocalypse in Dark Paths: The Chained One a secretive order of monks loses control of the mystical chains binding a terrible being of malediction and if things aren’t set aright can apocalypse be far behind? You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here.

Nerdy News

Watch the week that was! Put an end to campaign fails, discover strange new religions and keep an eye on all those pesky planar intruders plus new live chats with creative folks and industry pros and live game plays round out this week’s Nerdy News. Check it out here.

Delving Dave’s Dungeon

Apocalypse can be a whole theme for your D&D game. Are you trying to stop one, survive one or even bring one about? In 2000 Wizards of the Coast published an adventure called The Apocalypse Stone. It was written by Jason Carl and Chris Pramas, both very well established names in the tabletop RPG space. It’s a high level 15th+ level adventure designed to end your campaign world written towards the end of second edition AD&D going into third edition D&D. You can still pick it up on Amazon and the DMs Guild as a PDF or print on demand. In my experience converting 2E AD&D to 5E D&D is the easiest of the editions to convert.

But that is just one idea for using an apocalypse in your 5E D&D game. We did a video over on the Nerdarchy the YouTube channel called 5 D&D Apocalypse Campaigns You Won’t Survive. As your players advance in levels just saving a village or even kingdom might not feel satisfying anymore. Next is saving the world, plane or even the multiverse.

Another take on an apocalypse for your game is it has already happened and the adventurers are just trying to survive it or maybe even fix the fallout. This would be a much different style D&D campaign. Supplies are rare and hard to come by, with even things like food and water a challenge. You’ll probably have to track things like ammunition, rations and spell components if you don’t already. Normal gear won’t be easily purchased and gold may have no meaning after the end times. Players may find themselves bartering for everything.

What about the evil party who wants to see the end of the world brought about? Has a demon lord, archdevil or god promised them a place of power in the world after it’s been remade into their image? Or maybe the players in your group are the ultimate murder hobos and just want to see everything burn even if it includes themselves.

In 3.5 D&D there was a prestige class called the Waker of the Beast. The whole purpose of the prestige class was to find and awaken the tarrasque. A tarrasque is supposed to be a world ending event. In all fairness they were much tougher monsters in earlier editions of D&D. I’m not sure if it was in 2E AD&D or 3E D&D but the only way to keep a tarrasque dead was a wish spell after killing the monster. Its teeth were all considered swords of sharpness so there was a chance a single bite could end you no matter how many hit points you had.

Then your next campaign could be another group of adventures living in or through the aftermath of what the first group did by ending the world. They could play enforcers or servants to their previous characters and their evil master. Or they could play as a resistance that has sprung in response to the apocalypse causing events.

From Ted’s Head

Oh man, this is a fun one. Years ago the idea of playing in a post-apocalyptic world with D&D would have been the furthest thing from my mind and desire. But as I have grown not only as a player and a DM but as a person too I have come to like more things. I also understand more as well. I never would have thought Dark Sun and the world of Athas was post-apocalyptic but it meets all the requirements and it is one of my favorite settings to read and play in from back in the second edition AD&D days.

When I think about the resource management aspect of D&D and items being scarce, part of me certainly cringes. But regardless of what game you’re playing if you have buy in from the very beginning you can run any kind of game and it is made easier than a DM springing it upon you. I can play games where ammunition must either be found or made yourself or you might just not have any to use.

If you are a player focusing on survival as either an individual or as a group then making your way in a harsh world can be difficult. Finding allies and earning trust from others — and getting others to trust you — are hardships an adventurer must face.

As a DM your world can stand apart from every other world where you typically participate in adventures. Was the apocalypse caused by a monster? Did a magical calamity bring about apocalypse or was it caused by something physical? Your apocalypse can be something else entirely or any combination of factors. You get to ask how communities were formed and how magic effects in the new world. It gives you the power to make or flavor subclasses, spells, feats and magic items all inspired by the apocalypse you create.

If you are looking for inspiration I highly recommend the Emberverse book series by SM Stirling. Dies the Fire is a fantastic first book and the series goes on from there.

We have even used minor apocalypse events in our own games. Dave destroyed an entire city in one game when a huge monster descended upon it with terrible fury. I ended a game by having meteors descend onto the planet causing a major change in the world. It added far more aberrations as well as caused many floating continents to change the path of light into the world. Some areas remain always cloaked in shadow while others were not reachable short of some magical means. The atmosphere now has a ring of planetary debris like the rings of Saturn. The only question is what is the next apocalypse to hit our world in the Chimes of Discordia?

From the Nerditor’s Desk

When it comes to gaming I can’t think about the concept of an apocalypse divorced from survival in the aftermath. In the context of 5E D&D one of my favorite third party creations checks all the boxes when it comes to adventuring in a post apocalyptic science fantasy setting and that’s saying a lot (do you have any idea how many products we see?).

Hellscapes came out in 2017 as a follow up to Hyperlanes, which happens to be another favorite and covers science fiction. Whether you imagine adventures in the shadow of an apocalypse leaving behind a world frozen, scorched, irradiated, overtaken, plagued or zombified Hellscapes covers the hazards each represents.

Dealing with scarcity makes one of the most compelling reasons for adventure in a post apocalypse environment and I dig how Hellscapes approaches this aspect broadly. There’s basic guidelines for scouring the wastelands, scavenging materials, crafting and repairing objects and useful new conditions of well-fed and well-rested.

The book also includes guidance and inspiration for worldbuilding and roleplaying in these apocalypse afflicted settings too, which is tremendously valuable for any sort of niche genre game especially. Evoking the tone and themes of specialized settings helps players get in the right mindset for playing characters whose adventures aren’t exactly the typical 5E D&D experience.

Like its Hyperlanes counterpart there’s a really cool method for creating unique character races, called origins in Hellscapes. I suspect this is more along the lines of what people expected the Custom Lineage idea from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything would be like (myself included). I’ve found the alternatives in these two books awesome many times over the years and players to whom I’ve introduced them love it too.

Hellscapes builds on its predecessor for classes too, following the basic structure of familiar 5E D&D classes but reimagining them in unique new ways to fit the post apocalypse theme. For example Scavengers use creativity and cunning to transform wasteland scrap into amazing new wonders and uses the sorcerer class as a chassis. Both games replace the concept of spells and spell slots with gambits and gambit slots. Essentially they’re the same thing but without the magical component and instead they’re things like gadgets, tricks, special skills and powers.

What I really find endlessly fascinating about Hellscapes is the grab bag quality of all the various sections in the book. It’s a terrific example of 5E D&D modular design philosophy. Taken together as a whole there’s everything I look for in apocalypse themed games — survival, scarcity and vast expanses of dangerous territory. But a campaign doesn’t need to focus on a global apocalypse to include these sorts of elements.

A great way to break state for a party of more traditional 5E D&D adventurers can be a quest taking them from the world they know into a post apocalypse region. The Mournlands of Eberron come to mind, a place where things don’t operate the same as the world outside. Weaving some Hellscapes into an adventure arc where characters suddenly need to worry about more visceral things can really shake a campaign up in a good way.

If Hellscapes sounds like the sort of apocalypse you’re craving for your campaigns there’s a more in-depth look over at Nerdarchy the Website or you can go straight to DriveThruRPG and snag it for yourself right here.

*Featured images — Prepare yourself for the follow up Dark Paths: Chained One’s Animus with an adventure scenario for four 8th level characters. This digital 5E product includes 5 new creatures including an alternative for find familiar and two unique NPCs, a new Bard College: College of Cataclysm, 6 new magic items and a new weapon — the Maw Hammer. Check it out here.

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