39,327
edits
World-Wrecking Wave: Difference between revisions
update links
mNo edit summary |
(update links) |
||
Line 3:
Natural disasters are scary enough, but what about ''super''natural disasters? One way to kick-start a story or motivate characters to pick up [[The Call]] is to threaten the setting with a '''World-Wrecking Wave'''. The Wave can have any of a number of triggers; it may happen when the [[Sealed Evil in a Can]] is released, some [[God of Evil|overwhelming evil force]] unleashes a powerful [[Curse]], the [[Cosmic Keystone]] is stolen or corrupted, or a scientific/technological device meant to better things [[Goes Horribly Wrong]]. The wave can have any or all of the following effects: natural disasters will be triggered, [[Mutants|mutations]] will affect animal, plant, and even human life, areas will enter the [[Dark World]] or become haunted and toxic, and millions of [[Mooks]] will roam the land and [[Everything Trying to Kill You|attack all humans]].
Once the wave stops rippling, the heroes will be faced with a world gone topsy-turvy. The effects can range from a [[
On the plus side, heroes can often [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]], by a piecemeal process involving healing the land one acre at a time, or all at once by healing the [[Fisher King]], going back in time to prevent the event, or using an opposing [[World-Healing Wave]]. Also, a World-Wrecking Wave may end up helping the heroes by serving as a [[Mass Super-Empowering Event]]... though some of those may be [[Lovecraftian Superpower]]s.
{{examples}}
Line 34:
* ''Dark Conspiracy''. The release of extradimensional evil on of Jupiter's moons leads to an invasion of modern day Earth, resulting in the creation of areas called Demongrounds.
* ''[[Wraith: The Oblivion]]'' had six such events, called Maelstroms, ruin the Shadowlands. They were triggered by huge disasters or wars in the world of the living that caused huge numbers of ghosts to be thrust into the world of the dead at once. The sixth, final, and most destructive of them was quite different: a series of events triggered a [[Nuke'Em|relic nuclear bomb]] near the mouth of Oblivion. The Sixth Great Maelstrom was so catastrophic it not only took out most of the Shadowlands, but set into motion the events that destroyed the rest of the [[Old World of Darkness]].
* ''[[Monte Cook's World of Darkness]]'' kicks off with such an event after an [[Eldritch Abomination]] tries to penetrate our dimension. The effects can be scaled to make things better... or ''worse.''
* Several of these happened in the backstory of ''[[Exalted]]''. Two notable events include the imprisonment of She Who Lives In Her Name, who decided to erase two-thirds of the things in Creation from existence [[If I Can't Have You|out of jealousy]], and the Balorian Crusade, when [[The Fair Folk]] harrowed the borders of Creation and drew vast chunks of the border back into [[Reality Is Out to Lunch|the Wyld]].
* ''[[Rifts]]'': The Great Cataclysm. A nuclear war, during [[When the Planets Align|a planetary alignment]], on the Winter Solstice, equaled a massive burst of magical energy akin to millions of human sacrifices. Every [[Ley Line]] activated at once, creating a catastrophic surge of natural disasters... which meant more people died, which meant ''more'' power flooded into the ley lines, which meant ''more'' disasters. In the end, humanity was left standing in the ruins of civilization, with aliens, other-dimensional beings, and demons all dragged onto Earth by the newly-opened portals, wondering what the hell just happened.
* 4th Edition [[Dungeons
== [[Video Games]] ==
Line 45:
* The different armageddon events if ''[[Fall From Heaven]]'s'' Armageddon counter rises, though spread out more over time.
* This is what happens in ''[[Mortal Kombat]]'' when Shao Kahn takes control of a realm. In ''[[Mortal Kombat 3]]'', he takes control of Earth, resulting in the series going into post-apocalyptic mode.
* In ''[[Okami]]'', removing the sword sealing Orochi causes all of Nippon<ref>"Nippon" is "Japan" in Japanese</ref> to sink into darkness. Large swatches are filled with toxic smog that petrifies humans, plants and animals all over die, buildings are destroyed, and demons roam freely. Thankfully, Amaterasu's first celestial brush techniques, Bloom and Mend, allow you to repair a lot of this damage.
* Guess what the ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' expansion ''[[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Cataclysm]]'' is named after.
* The plasma wall that surrounds the otherdimensional Schwarzwelt in ''[[Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey]]'', capable of "disassembling any matter that it touches down to a molecular level." It started as a [[Pillar of Light|1m-wide cylinder that stretched upwards in the middle of Antartica]], but it has been expanding steadily ever since. Should the mission to investigate and destroy the Schwarzwelt fail (or should the Main Character die in combat), the wall will suddenly expand so rapidly as to engulf the entire world in ''seconds'', annihilating everything in its path and leaving behind a world of demons. (This is a World-Wrecking Wave rather than an [[Apocalypse How]] (though it counts as that too) because if the Schwarzwelt actually did what it was said to be capable of, the result would be more along the lines of "Earth ''vanishing from existence''".)
Line 56:
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]:'' Phoenix King Ozai attempts this manually with the arrival of Sozen's comet. Through amplified [[Playing with Fire|firebending]], he wanted to burn the Earth Kingdom to the ground from a fleet of airships.
* ''[[Bionicle]]'': the Great Catacylsm.
* ''[[DuckTales]]'' has the Golden Goose, an [[Artifact of Doom]] that can turn things to gold. If left outside its protective fountain too long, it comes to life and starts randomly turning things to gold. It then sheds its golden coating, which spreads through the ground and threatens to turn the entire world to gold. Only returning the goose to the fountain [[World-Healing Wave|reverses the effect]].
* The arrival of [[God of Evil|Trigon]] in ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'' had this effect, turning the entire world into a volcanic wasteland and turning all life on Earth to stone. Raven killing him (or rebanishing him, it's not exactly clear) triggers a [[World-Healing Wave]].
* ''[[The Fairly
* Invoked by Jackal/Anubis in the ''[[Gargoyles]]'' episode "Grief", as beams of dark energy that age objects and living things into dust, rust, and bones.
* Mainframe Entertainment was fond of the concept, using it in both [[Re Boot]] {{spoiler|to spread Daemon's infection}} and ''[[Beast Wars]]'' {{spoiler|creating the Transmetals and Fuzors}}
Line 67:
{{reflist}}
[[Category:This Index Is Cursed]]
[[Category:
| |||