Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy

So what's the big draw with esrthdawn, I hear it thrown around but never hear a lot about it.

That sounds like certain areas in Lord of the Rings. Angmar, Dol Guldur, Gondor & Mordor, Forochel, Dead Marches. It is a post-apocalyptic setting which doesn't make a point of it.

As it stands, I have seen places like that and even have one in my setting (Unquiet Lands), but never a whole setting like it.

I also know a blog-like story which could be read and provide inspiration for it. The Sick Land.

Yes, actually. We played a series of games which went through the decline, collapse, and post-apoc of the DM's world.

The post-apoc was really bleak but pretty cool in how different it was.

>Conan the Barbarian.
>Apocalyptic.

I'm running a game in a homebrew setting at the end of time
Everything is unraveling including the laws of physics
All of the parallel planes have collapsed
Sentient races from across the planes have gathered on the one planet remaining near its core in a underground in a massive underground city
Undead and demons roam the surface and the caverns beneath it hunting the living and destroying everything they find in a final frenzy
Beings from beyond burst out of every portal anyone tries to open in an attempt to escape this universe
The party has to find a functioning portal and power source to get the survivors to another universe before the last star dies and reality collapses

Degenesis kind of fits
Post apocalyptic that's 500 years past the apocalypse and gone mostly mediaeval. Not strictly fantasy, but the low tech tribes see the more technologically advanced groups as having godlike powers.

I love degensis actually but yeah its sci go at its heart.

Actually had an idea for a game based around this, combined with singularities time travel thing. It would be set during the final day of a battle heavily based around the last siege of Constantinople

That's fucking awesome, user. I'd play a game or read a story about this setting.

Literally Hiero's Journey. Read it. And it's so Veeky Forums-related that Gygax put it in Appendix N.

>"Hiero's Journey is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by American writer Sterling Lanier first published in 1973 by Chilton Book Co. The novel follows the adventures of a priest by the name of Per Hiero Desteen as he explores the mutant-infested wilderness of Canada and North America five millennia after an event called The Death destroyed civilization."
>"Riding a mutant moose named Klootz, with which he is able to communicate telepathically, Hiero attempts to uncover what has become of some colonies that his abbey has attempted to establish. Hiero's eventual allies include Gorm, a telepathic black bear, and Luchare, a princess from the distant kingdom of D’alwah. On his journey he faces many dangers, including mutated humans, mutant beasts, and the evil forces of The Brotherhood of the Unclean."

Warning: It's back from when the lines between "fantasy" and "science fiction" were blurred, so you've got things like psychic battles and talking bears and princesses in distress alongside rocket launchers and jet planes, so it's not strictly "medieval" fantasy. But it's definitely some kind of fantasy. And it fits the description you're giving to a T.

In terms of aesthetics, yes.

It's interesting in it's own right but I'm looking for something that incorporates a fantasy setting in a post apocalyptic world

wouldn't dark sun the rpg come under this? i'm not sure mechanics-wise but certainly seems a suitable setting.

I'm playing in a Fallout campaign currently. We're about four sessions in and have done exactly fuck all so far.

>wouldn't dark sun the rpg come under this?
No. Dark Sun is meant to be post-apocalyptic but it is nearer to Conan and Hyberia than something like what I'm asking about. Have you read the webcomic, Birdboy? That would be a good example.

Fallout is radically different from something like STALKER or Metro. Fallout is humanity trying to get up on its feet after getting bombed into the stone age, OP is about surviving in a place that has become decidedly against sapient incursion.

Really isn't most of LOTR like this? It strikes me that outside of Gondor the VAST majority of Middle-Earth is highly underpopulated.

Mostly. But OP also said
>but because the land itself is inimical to sapient settlement.
so only some places fit then.

Plagues decimating peoples, ruins, lost continents, ancient technology, dwindling population, destroyed cities... LOTR is full of those.

I did something very similar to this in which a large part of the continent beyond the mountains was very much The Zone, right down to STALKERs and bandits looting abandoned cities and castles for all the riches and artifacts left behind and fighting the horrific monsters a failing reality and each other.

It didn't go well, it was far too ambitious for my GM skills at the time and the campaign has been on indefinite hiatus while we move on to other things.
The failure of that campaign has weighed heavily on my mind ever since.

This fucking movie spooked me so much that I was afraid to go to the loo at night for weeks.
Good, slow burning stuff, thought about using its elements in WH campaign.
eot,

That's exactly what I was looking for. Elaborate please

Torchbearer is like this. The backstory is basically that civilization pushed out against the wilderness, taming it, clearing it, so on. Making cities, temples, yadda yadda. But then the wilderness pushed back. Hard. And people retreated before it, leaving cities behind, perfect places for adventurers to go delve.

I'll try to keep my wordage in check here.
So basically, [continent] is divided in half west-east by a fuck huge mountain range. [World War I] breaks out between the civilizations on the eastern half and a legion of magic-abusing warlocks from across the sea.
Invaders begin exterminating every civilization they come across because the severed head of the alien from another dimension the invaders get their power from ("dead gods still dream" and whatnot) is buried somewhere underneath the eastern half of the continent, and the invaders don't want anyone to get to it before they do.
The sheer amount of eldritch and more traditional magic being fired off, combined with the genociding of entire countries, is ringing like the world's biggest dinner bell for demons and spirits brought to life by the dead alien's dreams. These monsters then swarm in by the thousands, forcing both sides to say "fuck this" and abandon the entire eastern half to the monsters.
Three hundred years later, all the "Old Kingdoms" are all left to rot because they're hunting/breeding grounds for creatures that would utterly wreck anyone who isn't 10th level (by 5e standards) at the minimum.
In addition, all that magical fallout and further magical "radiation" from the monsters causes reality to become like a dream. Entire ghost towns drift in and out of existence, the plants come to life to snare any living being that wanders near, the air burns with invisible fire, scores of zombies possessed by demons pantomime what they think humans were like before the Old Kingdoms were abandoned, so on, so forth.
At work; will continue in a bit

Naturally, none of this deters the brave and the stupid. People desperate enough to get rich or die trying will smuggle themselves past military checkpoints and scavenge the ruins of the Old Kingdoms for heirlooms, old coins, lost knowledge, magical artifacts, and so on.
You have entire mercenary companies, small parties, and determined individuals all competing against one another to loot these valuable relics while still working together against the demons, walking dead, insane fishwomen, and other horrors within the ruins. To say nothing of the dreams of the dead alien that have turned into nightmares because of all the terrible things that happened right above its head.

Basically, my players had free reign to explore all the Old Kingdoms at their leisure in pursuit of wealth, power, a particular artifact important to them, and revenge on another band of looters somewhere out there, respectively.
We had plenty of good experiences with the game, but the sheer scale of everything was exhausting for everyone involved. I take full responsibility for screwing it up, and I've vowed not to let it happen again.

Much appreciated, thank you

Reminds me of Praedor

>I'll try to keep my wordage in check here
Don't. I'm interested in it. What are the races like?

Dungeon meshi fits your criteria.

Doesn't it always?

Something like Mordheim?

I appreciate the kind words and the patience, anons.
I've got a lot of unorthodox races inhabiting the continent (approximately 39.7 million square miles, big place, varied biomes, lots of room for developing species) that would take a while to go through or do justice, so let's just focus on the ones relevant to the post for now and I'll try to keep it simple as I can.
Millions of years ago, the alien's dying body fell into this dimension from its own universe and drifted to an unassuming planet nearby. As it breached the atmosphere, its body broke apart, with its head falling towards one continent and the rest of the body falling towards another. Upon landing, the head was discovered by early proto-humans. To the alien, humanoids were as incomprehensible to it as it was to us. It thought us to be something truly divine, and it dreamed of what illustrious power we must have had. This is how humanity developed the ability to alter or "alchemize" reality and create magic, through the alien's meme essentially.
Through magic, humans used the power of the alien's dreams to create society. But tapping into the dreams had the unintended side effect of bringing some of those dreams to life in the form of spirits. Spirits were alive but not fully real, and craved the "wholeness" that humans possessed. This gave rise to monsters and demons, lured towards humans by the magic they cast.

Cont.

The setting I'm working on is kind of like this. The land was ruled by powerful mages, but a war broke out between them because some of them were dealing with demons. The war devastated the land, with the armies and allies of the orthodox wizards up against the undead hordes, living weapons and summoned demons of the bargainers, as well as magically created plagues and famines that devastated the mortal population. In the end both sides were destroyed, millions of people are dead and the monsters created or called by the traitor wizards still lurk.

This sounds cool, and kind of similar to what I'm trying to do. If you want to tell us more about the setting feel free.

Many years later, on another continent, the alien's body was discovered by a race of neanderthals. They entered the alien's gargantuan body and were exposed to the blood in its veins and the air of its home dimension still in its lungs. This transformed them into the taaghar, beings as red as the alien's blood and ravenous for the power still within the dead alien. They built entire cities within the alien's body, harvesting what they could to empower themselves and their civilization. The taaghar discovered the ability to cast magic by drawing strength from the alien's blood, while the gas in its lungs fueled unmatched technologies that they used to exterminate any non-taaghar that might possibly infect the alien's body.
Eventually, the blood began to run dry, and the gas in the lungs wore thin, and the taaghar became keenly aware of the precarious situation their society was facing.
In a desperate attempt to save themselves, the greatest Warlocks of the era convened and attempted to scry for the location of the alien's head, that they may retrieve and harvest it. The ritual pointed the taaghar east, thousands of miles across the ocean. So they built an army and set sail.

Interesting stuff, mate. Go on

Typing from work, so pardon the delays. Loving the interest, hopefully I can catch a break soon to keep writing what I can.

Now things get complicated from here on out, so I'll have to try and condense it in a way that makes sense and doesn't waste time.

>So what's the big draw with esrthdawn, I hear it thrown around but never hear a lot about it.

Basically Earthdawn is Shadowrun but set in the Lord of the Rings-era Earth.

>Fourth Age (Earthdawn setting)
>Fifth Age (Earth from recorded history up until the beginning of Shadowrun)
>Sixth Age (Shadowrun setting)

All the magical stuff from Shadowrun (mages, trolls, etc.) is in Earthdawn, but it's a gonzo high fantasy setting rather than a cyberpunk fantasy setting.

Things get wonky from here on out, so bear with me.
Humans have access to magic now, giving them a huge advantage over other species. But without any sense of purpose or education beyond "hunt, eat, breed," a caveman is a caveman still.
Not the case for the ograr native to the jungle subcontinent in the south.
Standing at nine feet tall, weighing hundreds of pounds, super strong, super durable, and above all super-intelligent, the ograr are humanoids built like elephants, the first sapients to develop culture, and were the premier apex predators of their homeland--the only threat to the ograr in a jungle of superpredators were the savage minotaur dordin.
In the caverns deep below the jungle, the gulbons toiled away, digging their warrens where the much larger ograr and dordin couldn't reach them. But the gulbons dug too deep and discovered the reeks--cave-dwelling apes that swarmed by the thousands from the center of the planet. The gulbons were forced from their caves by the reeks, right into ograr territory. The two races united against the reeks, and the Giants' Confederacy was born.
From there, the Giants' Confederacy tamed the dordin and used their immaculate sense of direction to explore the seas to the north, eventually discovering an entire continent and all the other sapients that dwelled on it--chief among them the small (for an ograr) humans with such strange abilities.
The giants confederacy enslaves the unorganized, absorbs them into their growing empire, and use their magic to build entire civilizations--centuries of progress in a lifetime. This expansion brings the Confederacy into contact with the horak pigmen dwelling in the frozen North.
After a thousand years of controlling the world (or what they thought was the world), the invincible ograr giants were ruined by a plague that destroyed the empire, sparing only the most remote settlements.

Maybe don't start thread with "I want post apocalyptic thing" and then go "no, I want this thing that isn't post apocalyptic at all really."

Enriched by the giants' culture but free of their demands, the humans and horaks spent the next several millennia fighting against each other, their own people, rogue gulbon warrens, and wandering spirits for control of the continent.
During this time, another tear in the multiverse brought another alien to the planet. Drawn by the original alien's power, this new arrival became a champion for humanity as it waged a one-alien war against the spirits created by the Dreamer. Humans followed its example and a church was founded in the being's honor. Espousing the virtue of steadfast bravery and shunning the use of magic, humanity was galvanized as it has never been before.

Fast forward many, many years. Countless civilizations have risen and fallen under the watchful gaze of humanity's protector, the petty tribes of the horaks continued to squabble and refused to organize, and the Giants' Confederacy endured for all these years through a policy of isolation.

The arrival of the taaghar was a surprise for all parties.

No one believed the rumors at first, that entire countries on the eastern coast had gone silent. Pleas for aid were scoffed at, surely it was just an elaborate trap. No one would be foolish enough to use such evil magics.
Yet one by one, kingdoms fell to the taaghar until their existence could no longer be denied.
The entire continent rallied under one banner as human kings met with horak chiefs and Confederate officials. The combined might of this alliance could only hold the line against the invaders.
Bolstered by the magic and technology developed from the Dreamer's body, the taaghar slowly advanced. Humanity's alien protector abandoned them to their fate.
On the final eve of the war, a brilliant aurora filled the night sky, and from it, legions of spirits rained down upon the land. A white peace was declared as both sides retreated from the endless swarm of monsters.

And that brings us to the modern day, more or less.

There was a 3e DND supplement called "Midnight," which was a fantasy world hundreds of years after not-Sauron conquered the world. So orcs and evil wizards rule everything, black magic everywhere, and so on.

I mean are the rules as obtuse as shadowruns?