The Godfall (Part 1 Setting Overview)

 This is the world and setting for the current campaign I am running.  So feel free to read, borrow or steal.  Convert it to whatever system you want or just cherry-pick ideas.  Overall I just hope it's good brain food and helps inspire your own stuff.

The Godfall: The Elevator Pitch

Countless generations in the past, the peoples of the world had built great empires that matched their endless ambition.  Their cities gave home to millions and their agriculture fed times of times that.  It seems there was no feat that the learned and arcane could not perform at this time.  Evidence of their once-great mastery over the mysterious arts can be found everywhere in the ancient ruins of their world, and their strange machines can be found here and there humming away with unusual purpose.

Those who lived in the old world did truly live in a golden age.  Therefore the question begs, how were they not able to stop it?

One day God or a god (or something else grand and vast as a god) crashed into the world.  The body of this being is so vast that the crater formed from the impact stretches from pole to pole.  The impact of this being striking the planet caused nothing short of armageddon. A shock wave burst outwards from the impact site that broke the world.  The tectonic plates of the land were thrown up and new mountain chains were built.  It also broke civilization, it broke the cities and the people within.  The dust from the sky smothered the world in an era of darkness from which only the very strongest survived.

An untold number of years has passed. The world has forgotten its ancient past, the remains of the ancient cities and great works are either consumed by the jungles or stand defiant seemingly as permanent as the mountains. The body of God lies in its crater, rotting, the juices from its decay mutating the earth and breeding new horrendous life.

It is a time of disparate tribes, dangerous wanderers, and malevolent sorcerers who wield terrible power. There are a few fitful starts of civilization, some even a few places like the city-state of Tul-Gorak can actually claim to wield real power.  However this is a place and time where things plot against the rebirth of civilization, things from other worlds stir and stare greedily at its inhabitants.  The world below begins a long march and ancient, powerful forces are about to be unleashed.

Overview

The Godfall is both the name of the event and the place.  This happened approximately 10,000 years ago, although for even the most astute historian of this world that timestamp has been almost impossible to lockdown due to the chaos after the Godfall.

Godfall (the event) was a cataclysm where some being as tall as the world slammed into the side of the planet.  It is assumed this is God or a god, simply because what other than a god could be of that stature?  It destroyed the old world much like the meteorite wiped out the dinosuars.  At its height, the old world saw advanced magi-tech and had a level of societal progression similar to enlightenment era europe.  It was a world of new innovation and ideas slowly pushing aside old prejudices and concepts.

The world now sits in the shadow of the old.  The architecture of the old world was built to last, the spires and ruins of this lost time can be seen everywhere, they are as much a part of the scenery as the mountains and jungles.  Your average person sees the ruins as a unique type of environment in the same way you and I would distinguish between swamps and grasslands.

Civilizational spread is sparse indeed.  People cluster around arable land or valuable resources and their numbers rarely exceed a few hundred.  This means that there are often great distances between larger settlements and nomadic lifestyles are common.

There are however a handful of city-states.  Places with the resources and organizational know-how to effectively manage people in the 10s of thousands are indeed more.  The largest of all of these is the great city of Tul-Gorak.

The Godfall (the place) is the crater where the corpse of god lays.  It is a great tear in the ground and its faultlines stretch all the way up to the north pole to the south.  Without mystical transportation, it is almost impossible to traverse.  Due to the depth, darkness, and the fact, there is a rotting corpse of God to traverse.

The fluids from the decay of the corpse have unique properties.  They change and mutate whatever they touch.  This means that a vast alien ecosystem is flourishing in and around the Godfall, a place that contains rich resources but great danger.

At the Eastern Edge of the Godfall is Tul-Gorak.  It has grown rich and powerful off the strange resources it gathers from the Godfall.  It has gained a reputation as a site of pilgrimage.  Folk from across the known world come here to climb the Walls and towers of the great city so they may view the corpse of God with their own eyes and mourn its loss.

Regions of The World

The Frozen wastes of the North:

Eventually, where the Godfall tapers thin, the snow falls thick. Rumour has it that before the Godfall these lands sat at the equator, that once it was a rich steaming jungle, thick with life. Now it is a cold death. Here ancient the jungles have been petrified with ice, and the air cuts so cold that in some places it snatches the breath from your lungs.

Here is found the Singing Mountains, which are a great chain of lost cities whose spires touch the skies and dare to reach the heavens.   Was it the hubris of the denizens of these places that caused god to fall?

Life grows thin here but the life that is found here is ferocious and cruel. There are treasures here if you can somehow brace against the cold and against the winds.

Things to find:

• The great frozen and almost untouched ruins of the Singing Mountains.
• Creatures of epic size and epic ferocity.
• Small groups of hunters that work together to take down said, epic creatures.

The Endless Jungles of Hunger:

Life thrives in this thick ribbon of greenery. It is a vast home of astonishing biodiversity and awful horror. The spirit of competition amongst the creatures here has created the perfect crucible for an evolutionary arms race.

Only the most fearless, driven or those promised the most fantastic treasure dare venture into the jungles. Beware its howling cannibals and skulking horrors.

Things to find:

• Overgrown almost untouched ruins.
• Nest of creatures.
• Cannibal encampments.
• Tribal villages.
• Shaman Hideaways.

The Godfall:

A great poisoned fault in the earth. That stretches all the way from pole to pole. It is a place where the corpse of It (god?) lays. Here it rots and the fluids and miasma from its decay change the land around it. You see the rot has the power to change in the most profound of ways. The things that come from here are unlike anything in all of the world's history. There are intelligent beings within the Godfall, nearly all are averse to all other civilized life.

The land inside is sheltered from the glare of the sun and always feels like being in perpetual dusk. Even when it is night, the bioluminescence from the strange plantlife ensures a constant low-level illumination.

It is a strange and alien landscape. Harvesting the plant life and hunting the creatures here brings back trade goods of great value.  But it is dangerous. Things lurk here, like the hateful Maw and the relentless Cacospider.

Things to find:

• Ancient almost demolished ruins filled with magic twisted by the rot of It.
• The wretched villages of the Maw.
• Forgotten grottos of forgotten beasts of eldritch power and mind.
• The deep trench from which no one returns.
• The remains of flesh, bone, and mucus of the fallen god.

The Faultlands:

The land around the Godfall is a corona of change. The impact shattered these lands, created apocalyptic earthquakes, and broke the metropolises of the old world. Nowadays it is a dangerous and varied place.  Life is verdant here, thick with forests, swamps, and other stranger biomes. The land itself is a series of faults, uplifts, and canyons. It is an uneven place full of hidden places between the crags and mountain ridges.  It is through these lands that pilgrims to Tul-Gorak make their journey.

Things to find:

• Ragged towns and villages making the best where they can.
• Bandit encampments.
• Trader caravans.
• Twisting ruins from another age, overgrown with plant and fungal life.
• Fungal Groves.
• Mutant hovels.
• Traveling obelisks and their occupiers.

The Repugnant Deadlands:

The tombs of the old world cites of ancient men and women laid low for eternity.  These are petrified remains of the old world.  These lost and broken cities are full of the riches of the long past. They would also be looted clean if it was not for the things that haunt these lands.  The shambling corpses named "Mostly Dead" are but only one of the horrors found here.  For in these places things from other worlds and times make their nests

Things found here:

• Hordes of almost dead, mockeries of humanoid forms.
• Treasures of the old world.
• Dread sorcerers in there high towers.
• The dark and eldritch monstrosities, which are better left forgotten.