GDShore

Regardless of the nature of the event, if it takes out more than 75% of the population our technology will crash. I do not know how far back, almost certainly though to being dependent on muscle power, (medieval era perhaps a dark age) the survival rate of the "falling" will be horrendous. When it finally stabilizes the population will fall from 8 billion to some thing like 2-3 hundred million world wide, areas like the New England states could drop to as low as 5,000 to 10,000 total. Technology will go into a total crash, knowledge acquisition is dependent on leisure. An example, we have all seen what happens when garbage collectors go on strike, some personally, refuse piles up so fast that it becomes a hazard medically reallll fast. Asperion writes "you have survived the immediate apocalypse effects" I fear he is thinking a couple of weeks to a couple of months, uhh uhh, try more like 20 to 30 years before things stabilize, we will descend to tribes, clans or if lucky monarchies and feudal aristocracy. Any persons that are +65 likely have a 2 year life expectancy. (I recently had an experience where I ran out of one of my medications, it was only 10 days but the meds were completely flushed from my system and the last couple of days were an embarrassing and painful experience). So, how do I respond, in my case if I survive the initial event I probably die within two years. If you mean how does society respond, ancient technologies will have to be rediscovered, (I have two young friends who worked for me just before I retired, they are now blacksmiths/bladesmiths, have opened their own smithy,, one of them works in the oil patch and plows most of his wages into the smithy. When back in the world he works the smithy. Both trained in the use of coal forge, but they use a propane forge, faster, cleaner, more regulated heat and just plain easier to use) Having relearned the tech you must also have the resources, without them you slide further back. By the time you begin as a society to recover those who may have had the knowledge probably have expired. Finally travel outside of you tribe, clan, village, feudal group will have become hard, risky and near impossible. As a lark when I graduated high school I decide to hike from Calgary to Edmonton, a journey that in a vehicle would take 3 hours, took a healthy, fit, young man 12 days to accomplish (albeit I stopped in Red Deer for a day and a half) and that was in a friendly well policed polity. A traveler will have to fend for themselves, forage for food, water and shelter, if packing same it is heavy, a liter of water weighs a kilogram (not counting container) and if you do not know the ground you do not know where to find it. When you encounter strangers they are most likely to be unfriendly ranging to down right hostile. They will want to protect their resources so you will need trade goods (more weight) that they will be willing to trade for. (and not just take from you and if lucky turn you into unwilling labour or mayhaps fertilizer) You will probably need more than thirty years before some form of social order establishes above tribe/clan. If you are lucky, you will retain some of your technology and be able to maintain it, you will then face the probability of someone wanting to take it from you. A permanent defense force will be needed, with both the benefits and risks therein. Communications will (long range) fail rapidly, modern communication requires power which needs to be produced, then stored or transmitted. Substitutes can be used, drums for instance but drums tell people that you are around, heliograph, smoke and again revelation. Foot travel is slow, travel by animal not much faster though less wearing but forage will take longer and be more work.

A couple of problems with your basic premise, if Lincoln dies in '63 the south's maintenance of slavery is already doomed. First, the south had industrialized, inefficient, yes, but as an independent nation that would have improved, the agriculture that the south depended on was no longer theirs. By 1863, cotton production had shifted out of the U.S. What had been king for the south would no longer be. As such slavery was doomed and would have withered on the vine of its own accord unto extinction within a generation. Next, the south has a massive lead on the north to reach the pacific, they have Texas. There had been a movement in the Dakotas and surrounding to unite the northern tribes, Sioux, Cheyene, Crow and Blackfoot were moving towards an alliance as early as '61, it never fully formed, no such movement existed in the US southwest, while the Arapahoe, Ute and Piute had a loose alliance they would never, never have joined with the Comanche let alone the Apache. (the word in the languages of the afore mentioned nations for Apache was simply the ENEMY.) Thus the Confederacy would Have a massive advantage to reach the west coast and force California into the southern polity, which would mean Washington and Oregon as well. Finally as soon as the Union saw that it was in danger of losing control of the western territories it would be back at war with the south, a decade maybe 12 years at the most. {the history of the U.S. and treaties in the 19th. century is dismal in that of the more than 300 treaties between the US and the Native Americans between 1800 and 1890 the US broke all of them as soon as it became convenient for the US government to do so.} AS for Lincoln's assassination ending the Civil War, nope. It would have become a HOLY WAR for the Union and the aftermath would have hammered the south flat for half a century, not just the decade of reconstruction.

Actually my long running group did about a year and some at 4 hours a week then went to a couple months of intense gaming where I pulled out all the stops and tried to kill them all and failed.

I have been using the apocalypse type story line to find out how players I haven't run before interact. I start out with a growing ZOMBIE plague. I start with a plague starting in a major city and spreading fast, and will likely reach the town that you are living in about three weeks from now. Give or take a day or two. You play you, you have the resources available to you and the skills and talents you possess. It is more a thought experiment than a campaign, your companions determine your characteristics (which can sometimes be a bit cruel, think comeliness) Then we run a session or two, [allows me to see how they work together, who rises to leader, who gives out ideas] The last group didn't last very long, they wasted most of their three weeks arguing about which weapons were best to kill zombies with, they never came up with a bug out plan, a safe destination, food, water, clothes or anything like that. I blocked in a 4 hour period of time for the first game session, there were 3 of them and the last fell at 37 minutes in. Now this might seem gladiatorial, and it was but the longest lasting group went 3 weeks 12 hours a week, did not lose anyone and ended when they expressed a desire to play the real campaign. You see in any real apocalypse the game soon becomes a grind of commit action, survive action, rinse repeat, rinse repeat, ect. ect. ect. . The Fantasy campaign went on to last eight years, 8 glorious years and ended when a majority of them had to leave because there mundane lives had dramatically changed. This kind of campaign can work, for short period of time a month or two at most, because in a real one,, 90% of the world is going to die around you and most of us are not equipped to survive it, not even the survivalists.

Back to the solar flare emp for a moment. yes there is shielding on the things that governments think important, but not much in the non-political/non-military world is. An example, a single transformer the type that steps down the power transmitted over the (along) the giant towers takes six months to build, a crew of about 2000 and a modern factory to build it in. The political's and military might survive for a while, they are nuclear hardened but a Carrington or stronger level of event might blow through those protections too. (By the way what is a quatloo and how does it compare to most coinage.

I have an internet connection, hence I am able to communicate on this forum. (I upgraded from soup cans and string some time ago, although I sometimes still use drums)

Had a cell phone once,,, never again. I had a nice unit, with a three year contract acquired thru the company I worked for, when my contract was up, contacted the carrier and expressed a desire to continue the contract and was assured as long as I paid on time contract would continue. The contract had as part of it, that I only paid for outgoing calls no incoming calls. I Do Not Believe that any phone call should be paid for twice. I received in my last year with them a $900 dollar bill for INCOMING minutes. It seems they changed the parameters 2 years before, and did mot tell me. I saw a lawyer to check my options. There were few, I could dispute the bill but it would cost me more than the bill and still lose. So I paid it and cancelled , at the office I had acquired it 6 years previous. I received another bill, including incoming minutes. I had turned the phone off and removed the battery. I returned to the cell phone office and spoke to the manager, who now told me that in order to cancel, I would have to call the head office between " X and Y' time to cancel. As I already had undergone an attempt to get thru to head office once before and been on hold for 2 hours, I was not about to do that. Before The meet with the manager began I told him I was taping the meet, that I would not be calling, anyone, that I had canceled and if they sent me another bill I would sue. My lawyer would ask for and injunction against them doing business any where in Canada until the suit was settled. I was prepared to go to the supreme court and my lawyer had argued twice before the court and won both, using the injunction once. (she is one very scary lady) I had not been home an hour when I got a phone call on my land line (yes I still have it) with profuse apologies the contract was cancelled and the bill reversed. I hate cell phones, they are an anchor tied around a persons neck.

Some stone does, shist, karst, flint, shale and such like. Yes water does everything that you said it does and it is less than 1/2 the mass of stone, actually it is less than 40% of its mass. Not all stone fragments easily that's why ancient and medieval walls were built of granite, limestone and sandstone, they don't fragment they chip.

Yesterday I said I had no idea where to start looking where to find the density of various objects, and I did not so I called a friend who is a geologist. From him I received the following. Stone, if we assume that it is limestone, sandstone or granite have remarkably similar density. As such the mass at a cubic meter would only vary between 2700 and 2800 kg. Water at the same mass (distilled) is 998 kg. and seawater is 1030 kg. This is 36% and 38% of the density of stone, (body of 19 per hex) and I think would then equate to a body of 7 points. The weight of water for a hex which is approximately 3.5 cubic meters would be 3500 kg. and for 4 hex's - 14000 kg. The amount of air that would have to be processed to extract that much water (air is 1.229 kg. per cubic meter) is extreme water vapor varies between .2 to 4% of the atmosphere (the least amount is found at the poles and the largest at hot tropical zones). If you were to attempt this at one of the poles you would need to process 1,428,571 cubic meters of atmosphere while in a tropical jungle only 71,429 cubic meters. and assuming approximately 2% over North America 142,392 cubic meters. That is a lot of air to be squeezed and wrung out to fill one hex, and four times that to fill four. Gauntlet your figures while massive might still be a little short, as an attack spell fizzelll, as a trap spell with a one way permeable barrier, in but not out, with a top, maybe. I tried building it in a number of different ways, but the numbers hurt my head so I stopped. Good luck to someone.

Mr. Taylor I do mean to question your estimate on the nature of the body of water being but would like to understand your reasoning. On page 112 of Basic Rules 6E. the table on damaging things first column has "stone (per hex) at 19 points of body. Water is considerably less dense than stone and over the same volume would not have placed it at more than 1/2 the body of stone, if that high.

Actually heat does not destroy water, it merely makes it change state, steam is still water when it rises high enough it returns to the original state. Cold also does not destroy water, again causing a change of state, turning it to ice. Only one thing can destroy water high output energy ie. electricity or a nuclear reaction that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. If this is done outside of a secure container the results can be quite spectacular, quite spectacular. I do agree that water in fact must have a body, but to find that body you will have to find the molecular density of water and then the molecular density of more than object that the body of has been established.

You will not just have to move 2000 kg., you have to overcome the resistance of the water you are pushing the displaced water into. I supposed you could change the state of the water to either steam or ice. If to steam as soon as the steam move the water will return to fill the hole and all that will be accomplished is to speed up the evaporation of the body of water. If to ice the ice will act as a barrier until it melts or the pressure of the water punch's a hole thru it. The longer the route the more the effort, unless it has the weight of a god behind the effort.

I don't know if water has body, while it has mass, and resistance it does not function as a substance that has body. If you punch it , it retreats in front of your blow flowing around your fist and arm and when you withdraw it flows back into the hole undamaged. If you shoot a bullet into water it will travel only at most a couple hundred cm. even with the most hi-powered rifles at most a meter. (funny though, a bow will fire an arrow as much as 3-4 meters at 45 degrees and 1.2 -2 meters at 90 degrees , with ice it seems to be reversed). However water does seem to have RPD, and .5 meter of water should stop any projectile except that from point blank range.

If you wanted to do a Part the Red Sea effect Tunnel would be the best effect in concert with Barrier, the tunnel would drill a hole through the water, the barrier would then effectively coat t5he inside of the tunnel. Thus allowing passage through a body of water. The tunnel should be cheaper to buy, as water while dense is far less dense than any land formation. I suspect that there probably exists a table of relative materials density but have no idea where to begin looking for same.

I had forgotten about "gods". The local priest/priestess, monk/nun, or whatever they might be called who serve a god, and do the bidding thereof will do the healing for the tithe of worship. I had only considered magic and its practitioners. To live is to learn, thank you Lone Wolf. When you factor in the existence of active deities the circumstances change dramatically. I had not, I had only considered the nature of man, not the possibility of something beyond the nature of man.

Actually, the feudal society of the Orient is nastier than that of Europe. I am not suggesting that we play from there either. However if your highest technology is the sail or the crossbow and your transportation system is based on muscle power whether that is your own two feet or your mounts four feet or dray animals to pull a wagon or canal boat then you will need a large underclass to produce, transport, process and sell food. If you do not use magic to improve or replace technology then you need to allow that underclass to allow an upper class the time to train or study. A large city of the middle ages Like London, Paris, Bonn or Rome had there service farms within 35 -- 40 km. road wise or 80 -- 100 km. up river of that city or finally an overseas transport sea train of Foodstuffs. Modern technology allows a much smaller underclass farmer class to support a much larger middle and upper class. Even so most feudal societies had a safety valve, if a serf could escape his location, make it to a free city and survive there for a year and a day their serf servitude is severed. But even in a modern technological world like ours there is a large underclass just ask the migrant worker who picks the large majority of our food crops. What I was trying to do in a hamfisted way was that magic if plentiful could reduce that underclass by a very large degree.

Sorry Chris, the only fantasy not underlayed by the peasant/serf is modern-urban fantasy or renaissance-Victorian. All of the early fantasy game were based in the history of the middle ages, D&D, EPT, C&S and FH. This is not a surprise, they were all familiar with this world (history class in school, except for C&S Bakus + Zimbalist were experts having met in university history class, in fact C&S is based on German middle ages). The problem with education in North America both sides of the border is that virtually nothing is taught in history class outside of Europe, as 75% plus of the population is of European lineage this should be expected. I knew Wilf and were friends for 50 years before he passed, was part of his test team for C&S,I exchanged letters (snail mail) with Aronson for twelve [I was complaining about Greyhawk} years, and was an early player of Chainmail the grandaddy of the RPG. So yes the early games were European middle ages, and peasant/serfs were its foundation. It is an unpleasant world for 2/3 of the pyramid but we play in the top 1/3. We play from the upper (sometimes middle) middle class and the nobility, our characters have the time to study, to practice to become good at something other than tilling the soil. We live a good life as compared to that bottom 2/3's but all the tales of the hero's like Arthur and Robin Hood begin as begin as folk tales told in pubs and around fires By The Peasant. For Arthur as aspirational wanting to be him, for Robin also aspirational but for tweaking the noses of the nobility.

Chris you are right it is not pleasant, it is however the underlayment of all fantasy. The party of warriors who arrive at the isolated village and defeats the evil bandits besieging and extorting them, all seven of us. The cleric who stands between their congregation and the all consuming evil holy symbol clutched in their shaking hand and turns it aside. The young untried knight who enters a tournament ands wins so that the princess will not have to marry the base lord forcing her father to give her to him. All these tropes and many more are built upon the foundation of the peasant/serf, I would not want to live as one. Life though as upper middle class or noble is not so bad.

All of that is true LoneWolf, but there is a way for the GM to control the issue. The Gm creates a House rule, a player may build above the racial maxima,,, only with major cost penalty. For the first 3 points above x 2, second 3 points x 4, third 3 points x 8 ect. guaranteed you will not get many supraheros. The trouble is societal, western culture in particular is heavy weighted towards the lone hero, especially in literature and foke lore. The Harry Dresden example is vert apt, for history--myth is littered with them. Arthur and Robin Hood, Charlamange and El Cid, Sobiekski the Fat and Gengis Khan. It is almost certainly in our DNA we follow the guy who successfully lead the hunt without ever getting hurt, who slayed the cave bear monster and acquired the residence out of the wind and rain and snow. We admire the (to an extent worship) the lone hero who rides into town on a black hosre or pickup truck or bus and then cleans out the bad guys. He is the big man who defends us protects us and guides us towards a better tomorrow!

I can understand how most of the original post can be jarring but in any world where magic is plentiful the practitioners, particularly those not so good ones will seek to produce things they can sell to make a living. This in turn will inspire better mages to make new or better products to have a better living and so on. They may not call it the "germ theory of disease" but any healer mage of any notable ability will study disease and one will eventually make the connection and pass it along. What pops my button is slang and puns, bad puns.

Yes in a world filled with magic such amulets and healings are possible but they will cost, and the peasant/serf has nothing, owns nothing and his horizons are limited. He is one step up from the slave, and in some cultures treated worse. Knowledge and its use is expensive, and to the peasant/serf a single copper would be a fortune and medicine or medical help is always costly. I agree with this , in my present campaign magic is wide spread and a great variety of items can be acquired quite easily. But you would still have to have something with which to purchase or barter for them. Everything they have and use is owned by the noble they are tied to, so no magic amulets for him although the middle class will be indulging in them.

We have approached this topic before. The strength of Medieval denizens versus those of the mighty 20th. century. The peasant/serf may have been stronger than the average 20th denizen however his poorer diet and greater susceptibility to disease lessen's the peasant/serf ability to reach and maintain a peak str. maximum. (check out some of the archeology on middle age gravesites, you will find that almost without exception a greater predilection towards arthritis and other osteo conditions) At any rate I have yet to encounter a player who willingly chose to be a peasant/serf, the nobility however probably were on average much fitter and stronger than we are today. AS for the magic types, if you are spending 8 - 10 - 12 hours a day studying or researching spells you will not have the time or energy to also stay fit and study the martial arts. Some exercise would be required, you need a good constitution strength not so much. Anecdote == Richard the Lionheart is supposed to have, in the middle of a battle, split a man a twain, from his shoulder through his body and spine and out his hip, with a single blow from his sword while mounted. Now assuming that King Richard was 6 foot plus in height, mounted on a knights horse 16-17 hands to 20-22 hands at the shoulder [a hand is 4 inches] the victim had to be also mounted {if the victim had been afoot Richard would "only have cut the shoulder off"} this would be a prodigious feat of strength (a number of other Medieval kings are attributed similar feats, Charlemagne for one, and while not a king El Cid as well). I know how much work achieving and then maintaining a high skill level in any martial art (when I was younger, like fifty years younger I could clean and jerk a 100 kg. , a lot of people can do that, at the time I weighed in at 46 kg. soaking wet.). I used to be a fencer and archer, a better than average fencer, and a champion level archer, I exercised two hours a day, shot the bow twice a week for four hours a session, and fenced once a week for five to six hours. I could not have maintained that and studied anything for ten to twelve hours a day. A better man than I am might have, but not me. {I have a problem with the range modification in the rules -- It is out to lunch bigtime.

Hey, L Ron Hubbard wasn't a second rate SF writer, at best he was a third or fourth rater.

I agree with Christopher, I am a traditionalist regarding Wizards and Mages. Additionally I added an inability for magic and iron to peacefully co-exist if you carry iron spells can and will short-circuit. The more iron the greater the problem (i have tables that our group developed over a two year period that are quite extensive and in some cases very subtle). this did not mean that a magic caster could not carry weapons just that the could not be made of iron. This lead to a intense study of Medieval weapons and later fighter styles. Projectile weapons became the primary weapon of choice (it fit the standoff nature of magic). Bows of every description began to make their appearance, then crossbows and slurbows (the later in some very unique formats) then slings & staff slings throwing knives, shurikens and such like and finally bolo's. They also brought in bronze melee weapons, later magically reinforced likewise armor. By the time the group broke up in the early 90's we had quite the array of non-ferrous tools and other equipage.

Yeah, I love the cord too. It was the first car model I ever made, it won't comfortably seat 5 if they are big boys. Besides the Duse just screams money.