I saw a Troll Lord's post on Instagram (which I no longer use; cancelled my account) that said "Three Word: Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy." The poster (Grace, I assume) is referring to the world of Aihrde, Troll Lord's house setting, which I really like a lot. It is a standard fantasy world--they are not trying to reinvent the wheel--but unique enough to be quite interesting. I've read the world's origin story, called The Andunuth, twice now and enjoyed it both times (it's about 150 pages long).
Fun fact: I learned on a podcast yesterday that andunuth is the dwarvish word referring to their oath to the All Father. In return for the gift of life, each dwarf has vowed to create at least one beautiful thing that will outlive them. Aihrde is a very dwarfocentric world, which I like. The elves are not exactly an afterthought, but they are not central to the world the way they are in many fantasy settings (I'm looking at you, J.R.R.!) The world is littered in the ruins of ancient dwarven kingdoms, and the rune magic is connected to the magic of the dwarves (and goblins, interestingly enough).
Without going into too much detail, at the beginning of all things, the All Father had a nightmare which became the a dark and powerful god called Unklar. Unklar dwelled in the deep void of nothingness for epochs. A wizard named. Trigal, attempting to learn and master dwarven magic, contacted this creature, and inadvertently summoned it to the world of Aihrde, beginning a thousand year period called The Winter Dark. No sun, evil reigns supreme, horrible horrible horrible stuff. A band of heroes--and I think this is what Stephen Chenault calls 'the Big Game' i.e. his home campaign--managed to banish Unklar back to the Undeeps of the Void, ending his reign and return the world to some semblance of normalcy.
All of this brings us to the present campaign settings, After Winter Dark. One hundred years after the war that liberated the world, we have what the Troll Lord's refer to as post-'apocalyptic fantasy.' That's not a trope you see too often in fantasy game (there are certainly plenty in sci-fi, like Gamma World or Mutant Crawl Classics). I think The Sword of Shannara, or The Prince of Thorns are examples of fiction, but I can't think of any other ones off the top of my head. I am noodling this through, and asking myself: what would it look like for players in this setting? You could certainly run it as a bog standard fantasy game with little hints and bits for flavor, but that seems like it's missing something really unique. So...then what?
1. Fear. The elder races--dwarves, elves--would remember some of the final war the ended the Winter Dark. Their behavior would be shaped by this experience. There would be blame (Trigal was human), a lack of charity toward any who were seeking rune magic (which is what brought the world to ruin before), and wariness toward men. The halflings, in particular--they were hunted for sport by Unklar's minions--would be very insular and untrusting. Essenetially, these communities are experiencing trauma, which should inform how they act and react.
2. The search for answers. This is a pre-literate society, for the most part. The average person would know about the Winter Dark from stories passed down from generation to generation. This is about four generations removed from the end of the war, so great-great grandparents were children when it ended. I keep thinking about the English king in Vikings who was collecting Roman artifacts, but had no real idea who they were because that knowledge had not been passed down to him or his people. The powers in this world--royals, mages like the White Order, the Paths of Umbra--would know more about what happened but your average human is just trying to survive day to day.
3. The looming threat. The powers that were aligned with Unklar want him to either return, or to replace him with themselves. They will constantly be working toward that end. There would be an alliance of evil: all sentient, evil creatures are, in some way or another, working toward that end. Sewing confusion, attacking nascent powers that oppose that objective, searching for magic to help them further their goal, etc.
4. Mystery. As above: there are things related to the Winter Dark--runes, magic, locations, bits of stories and songs-- that the average character may find, or experience, but not know how it plays into the overarching story of the apocalypse. There are deeper things, too, that pre-date the Winter Dark, that they would have no understanding of unless they very purposefully sought out knowledge.
I'm not sure when or if I'll run a game in this world. I have The Undying War and Beneath the Canopy Green, which are two full-length campaigns in Aihrde. We shall see!
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