What is Nightmare Dawning?

[Aaron Ramsby]

What is Nightmare Dawning?

Honestly that is a good question and we are here to answer that. It all started out as a creative idea that expanded into something larger then life. Part of this came from my feeling that there was no adventure left for D&D campaigns, it was all used up and nothing was left to truely explore. Clerics were always clerics and you could play them several different ways but they all felt the same underneath to me. A dungeon dive was just that, any alterations to the dungeon just made it altered from the last part.

What was missing was the mystery of exploring something totally unknown. Explore enough areas and they started to look the same. I wanted, no needed something totally unique to explore and bring back the adventure of finding lost and hidden cities or information that totally changed your out look on what you knew. As this thought pressed heavily on my mind, as always life intruded on my creative life.

Then came Cinder*, a good friend of mine and I were talking late one night about making an RPG and I presented this idea. Fire works, magic missles and several other things fired off and the next thing we knew it was morning and this horrific, adventurous and interesting campaign idea sat at our feet. Over the last year or so we have progressed to the stage where we ran a game of it.

Old players found a spark of adventure so great they would curse openly to and at the DM during the game and then thank him in the end. No longer was the Dragon just around the corner of this next hall way... The players found an area that did not know thier own history, and everything they found hinted at something greater then themselves. As they continued to play, the more they realized that they were honestly the heroes of this story in a way they had never been before. They were finding and writing lost history, every action they did, had a large impact on the world around them. Finding a new town, felt like gaining your own kingdom. They were heroes for just letting a new town know where they started out from... This continued on for some time until the players had life get in the way as all good things have happen.

This is my attempt to share these experiences with you and to get feed back to make this truely an epic game.

Nightmare Dawning...

200 years ago the world forgot the past... And yet we are the ones who are poised to continue the strugle.
Quote From: Cleric Orstle Brills of the Inquisition.

Nightmare dawning is a world where history has been forgotten on a black day. People of all races came too, to find their cities burning or in ruins. All recorded history was destroyed or books burned in mounds of lost information. Everyone lost family or friends that day, with no past no one can truely say who friend or family is. From the size of the cities and villages, and the lack of population... It is guessed that over 2/3rd's of the population went missing at the time of the black day, or possibly before it.
What is commonly asked is what happened? Where did everyone go and who caused this memory wipe? Why were we left with the basic skills to continue life? Many more questions were asked as things fell into disarray. Cities became lost, simply swallowed up in nature. How can one search for others if they do not know if they are the only ones left alive?
Basic towns sprung up given time, and soon became prosperous. But the nagging question still haunts them, what happened that dark day and what is hiding in the world for us to find? Small searching of the areas surrounding towns show signs of a war of such magical power that it blasted away entire cities from the ruins left. Other magical devices have been found, old war machines and golems still doing what they were last told to. Most questions spring up as some questions are answered. Are you a hero in this time? Finding the lost history and using it to help others? Or are you going to rape the past for power to conqure this untamed land?

As you can see... This land is full of wonder and mystery. Most classes have gone back to the basics. Nature has reclaimed the world, and people in this time are a little more back with nature. There is still the full class lists from any books people have wanted to bring in. Part of the mystery is from the exploration of how those classes will work in this new world.

Gods in this world are not as wide spread as one might think (or gods could be taking use of many names but no one really knows.) Worship is built around the town it started in. When you need something to worship and find a statue still standing alot of people have gone to worship it out of fear or need. Many religions have prospered in this dark time, some good and some bad.

"Do not forget your past, or you will be doomed to repeat it..."
This saying is very well used in this world because something hidden is sleeping out there waiting to be found again. Will you find it, or will it find you? On top of that, what relics will you find of this forgotten age? And what of the races? How has this forgotten history affected them?

Any questions posted here I will gladly answer, this is a world where my friends and I are actively trying to put it together and get it published so please be open and honest. Select indiviuals might be asked to join in, but please understand it would be a groups decision on that and all requests will be looked on openly.


Please check here for more information...



* Persons Name changed for obscurity and to protect there Identity in the future.

[realmsofchaos]

Hmmm... I guess that you took out the part about the fiends having destroyed everything. As it is, you have provided a perfect start for a campaign (they wake up in the morning without a memory). It appears as though you have provided almost nothing else. What is in the world. What races, what forms of magic, what pro/antagonists are there, what planes exist. What is the eventual B.B.E.G (a god, a archfiend, an abomination, etc.).

[Aaron Ramsby]

At the current rate people who are beta testing it have most of the information that I have yet had time to give out. Trying to take care of their needs (4 times a week, several hours a day at least) on top of trying to get all of this down has been slowing me down on this. As for extra information there is some here...

Topic: Unofficial history * Warning Spoilers! (DM only)

What I am trying to do is give enough information and still leave room to wonder what else there is, but since there is close to 200+ pages full of information to input, it has been slowing me down a little.

My reasoning is this... There was a role playing game a while back in the 90's that most of your information on the game and the background came from others and their personal views. The more books you got, the more holes you found in the story until you collected them all. Everyone was telling the truth, but the bigger picture unfolded before your eyes when you saw it all. That is the feeling I am trying to capture, but at the same time I want this to go to publication so this can not contain it all sadly... But beta testers will have access to it all and are asked to input any and all information they want.

[realmsofchaos]

What blank canvas?

The time of the great forgetting was 200 years ago. By now, everywhere would have been discovered, every last continent, island, and possibly race.

Also, the history and technology of the people would've been rediscovered in tomes of history or through communication with those on other planes through magic, unless the (not going to spoil) somehow stopped this from ever happening.

By the way, have you put any thought into what is strong enough to erase the memory of every sentient being on an entire plane of existence?

[Aaron Ramsby]

Actually yes, it was in the E-mail I sent you. In a ritual created and performed by over 30 gods, they sacraficed their lives so that the damage could be undone in an open expresion sort of way. In the resulting damage from those deaths, all history was burned or destroyed on the material plane during the time people could not remember. The people them selves got up and started book burnings, destruction of art and any historical object they had access too. Now since only the weak survived, you have to take into account that at least half died before the forgetting and then after that time the problems resulting in lack of knowledge would have been primary. Trying to keep a town from starving to death or small issues we find can turn into big ones with out any knowledge of what happened before. Plus in large scale situations that scare an entire populous, it is easy to think that they were afraid of going too far from their known area because of something like the black day happening again.

[realmsofchaos]

I'm embarrased that I missed that part of the email.

So the meek have finally inherited the Earth, eh?

This in its own right has quite possibly created a new enemy. Let us imagine, for instance, that a Cabal of Necromancers, forseeing this situation with divination, infected themselves with a 100-year plague so that they would survive through the day of forgetting (perhaps calling it the day of Oblivion would be more fiting) and later recover, becoming the strongest beings around.

[John]

Wow, this is a great setting. I like the idea. I actually love it. Is it going to be horror based, fantasy, or modern? I think it would be great if it was horror/fantasy. Keep up the good work!

-John