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Letting your world burn can be a lot of fun.
Hear me out.
There’s a good reason why the threat of an apocalypse is commonly used in Dungeons & Dragons campaigns (and stories in general). It instantly creates simple, yet high, narrative stakes. As a Dungeon Master, when you foreshadow a world-ending event, your players may naturally assume that saving the world is the campaign’s end goal. And while there’s nothing wrong with that assumption, it is possible to have a gratifying and memorable experience while letting your heroes fail, or even pitting them against an unavoidable apocalypse.
Let’s explore how to have fun with the end of the world in D&D.
Picking the Perfect Apocalypse
Here are six possible events to kickstart the end of your world as you know it and some D&D sourcebooks that contain helpful material on these subjects.
End of the World Scenarios
Fiends and Fire
Fire rains down from the sky while armies of fiends rise from below. Solemn prayers go unanswered. Demons gorge themselves on the innocent, while devils subjugate others in service of foul deities.
Consider this: The chaotic nature of demons can be diametrically opposed to devils, who tend to follow laws. In the Forgotten Realms, the Blood War between devils and demons has been raging for eons. If you choose to end your world with fiends and fire, consider how your players can exploit this divide. After all, devils can be reasoned with, but demons … maybe not so much.
Inspiration
Divine Wrath
Malevolent gods locked away for eons have been unleashed, thirsting for vengeance. Or perhaps the dire warnings of benevolent deities have gone ignored for too long. How far can mortals venture toward godhood before their divine pantheon chooses to wipe the cosmic slate clean?
Consider this: In this apocalypse scenario, all events tied to it are DM fiat. If you want to end your world via divine wrath, consider what ominous events will herald this doom, such as the Thirteen Warnings in Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen and the Cataclysm that followed.
Inspiration
Aberration Invasion
Unknowable entities from beyond have invaded your world. Whether mind flayers, aboleths, star spawn, or something else, these alien creatures view the inhabitants of your world as nothing more than fodder for their unknowable agenda. Aboleths dominate towns, bodytaker plants supplant everyone they digest with podlings, and Dyrrn the Corruptor twists and sculpts living flesh like an artist molds clay. Whatever their method, they are here for a reason.
Consider this: While their agenda may be unknowable to players, it’s helpful for the DM to know. And what’s truly horrifying about these invaders is that their agenda doesn’t have to make logical sense. They could simply be ravaging resources like a swarm of locusts, or they could see twisting other lifeforms as an expression of love.
Inspiration
Note: Ensure all your players are on board with horror, particularly body horror. This is a good topic to bridge during a session zero.
Elemental Tumult
Oceans can envelop entire continents, gale-force winds can wipe a city off the map, and a single volcano can choke the world in ash. An elemental apocalypse can be ripe with encounters that require creative problem-solving rather than just hacking and slashing a bad guy. How will your players respond if an undersea earthquake triggers a titanic tidal wave that’ll wash away an entire town in an hour?
Consider this: If you’re using elemental tumult to end your world, even something as simple as traveling from one location to the next becomes increasingly more dangerous. Let the environment around them be an enemy they can’t defeat with combat. That said, you also can’t go wrong with an elemental kaiju attacking a city. Maegera the Dawn Titan is a personal favorite of mine.
Inspiration
Undeath Unleashed
The cycle between life and death has been irrevocably altered, creating hordes of zombies and rendering resurrection spells useless. Your players may need to find, or establish, a stronghold to repel this hungry herd. But as resources dwindle, the living may become even more dangerous than the dead. Using undead to end your world gives you access to a great mix of gripping combat, dramatic tension, and strong narrative hooks.
Consider this: To keep your story focused, it may be helpful to pick a single type of undead and tailor your campaign around them. Are they zombies? Vampires? Specters? Additionally, establish the rules for your particular undead apocalypse. For example, do your zombies run fast or slow? Are these undead creatures mindless or capable of complex problem-solving?
Inspiration
Cosmic Chaos
Consider this: Cosmic chaos and an invasion of aberrations both dip into cosmic horror, but there is one key difference between them: A cosmic force has no agenda. A forest fire doesn’t burn to create a new home for itself; it burns because fuel made contact with an ignition source. Cosmic chaos is no different. If you choose to end your world with cosmic chaos, consider how your world is being altered and make one or more of your player characters connected to it. Perhaps you have a warlock that unknowingly made a pact with a Great Old One, a sorcerer born with unexplained lunar powers, or an Alchemist artificer experimenting with novel compounds.
Inspiration
What Role Do Your Players Have in the Apocalypse?
Your players’ roles in this apocalypse will greatly affect their power levels, goals, and tools at their disposal. Here are four possible roles your players’ characters could fill in this apocalypse.
Characters’ Role
Commonfolk
Examples: Merchants, farmers, low-ranking soldiers, hermits
Level recommendation: 1-4
Commonfolk allow you to narrow the scope of your story because your players likely lack the power to save the world. They may not even know anything is amiss until fire starts raining down. Your campaign could center around a band of dogged townsfolk defending their home from undead or a family trying to escape their village after it’s been taken over by podlings.
Champions
Examples: Seasoned adventurers, knights, scholars, acolytes
Level recommendation: 5-9
These capable, mid-level characters have access to a broad array of abilities, which can widen the scope of your story. A party made up of champions would undoubtedly have a group patron assigning important missions to them. They could be tasked with keeping a powerful artifact away from a demon lord or rooting out a cabal of cultists.
Leaders
Examples: Nobles, generals, archdruids, spymasters, high priests
Level recommendation: 10+
Leaders give you carte blanche to go as big as you want with your apocalyptic campaign. They may know the apocalypse is coming long before anyone else, giving them time to prepare. They could be brokering deals with pirate lords to provide a means of evacuation or uncovering a dastardly dark bargain struck between a monarch and an archdevil.
Participants
Examples: Anyone who knowingly, or unknowingly, brought about the apocalypse
Level recommendation: Any
Your party could actually be responsible for the apocalypse in some way and are working to correct their mistakes. Contrarily, if you’re feeling spicy, maybe ending the world is your party’s end goal! Running an “Oops! All bad guys!” campaign can be fun! It can also serve as a spicy prologue to your main campaign, establishing the who, what, when, where, and why behind your apocalypse.
The Catalyst for Your Apocalypse
What was the inciting incident that triggered your world’s doom? Here are six possible catalysts for your perfect apocalypse. Choose one or two:
Apocalyptic Catalyst
Contacting the Beyond
Someone somehow came in contact with something they shouldn’t have, and in doing so, alerted an entity to the presence of your world and that it is ripe for conquering.
War
The drums of war have stirred something ancient and primeval, and it is very angry. Or perhaps a novel arcane engine or ancient artifact was used on the battlefield and had unintended consequences.
Ascension
A mortal has ascended to godhood, an act of hubris so unspeakable that it’s caught the attention of the entire pantheon. Can the gods trust that other mortals won’t follow in their footsteps?
Industry
A greedy consortium’s mining operation stumbles upon an unknown element from another world. Or maybe an alchemist’s new “miracle elixir” starts turning every bird in the world into a furious, feathered menace.
Dark Bargains
A powerful leader makes a pact with an archdevil, promising them souls in exchange for the power to crush a rival nation. If only this leader had read the fine print…
Prophecy
Perhaps the apocalypse is triggered by someone misunderstanding a certain prophecy and attempting to stop it. If you want to use prophecy in your apocalypse, check out how it’s used in Eberron with the Draconic Prophecy. It functions more like a mathematical “if/than” equation rather than a definitive statement, making prophecy easier to use as a story hook.
Make the End Meaningful
While there is no way to win D&D, if your party fails to avert an apocalypse and dies in the process, your players may feel like they’ve lost. That’s why it’s important to thoughtfully craft a meaningful death scene for your players.
The best endings always take us back to the beginning. You could think of a way to callback to how the player characters were introduced and illustrate their growth. Maybe the former runaway urchin sends a message of forgiveness to their family, or the stoic knight finally confesses their undying love for the flighty alchemist.
The characters may fail to save the world, and they may die in the process, but you can still give them tons of ways to “win” overall. Just because an apocalypse occurs doesn’t mean the world won’t bounce back. Maybe the fact that the world does bounce back is solely because of the sacrifices the characters made. They could safeguard ancient records of the old world or ensure enough people survive to repopulate. The fallen characters could be remembered as legends who inspire hope for generations.
Hope should always be the core of your apocalypse campaign; that’s why stories about the end of the world are worth telling in the first place.
Also, letting your world burn can be lots of fun.
Kyle Shire (@kyleshire) is a contributing writer to D&D Beyond and a producer for Critical Role. In the past, he worked as a producer, writer, and host for Machinima Studios and Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment. He’s appeared on HyperRPG as the Mayor of Kollok and the Saving Throw Show. He currently lives in Los Angeles.
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