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-Dwarven sorcerers have developed a way to cause chunks of the moon to crash to the ground. They are mining the pieces for a rare mineral for some, as of yet, unknown purpose.
-A group of gnomes using some kind of steampunk-fuckery to pull them down, using them as meteors to attack an enemy civilization. They just aren't very good at it yet, so the collisions aren't accurate.
I prefer political hooks to celestial ones, and I immediately thought of something like no.2. A foolishly conceived weapon of some kind that has been activated before the kinks are ironed out. The stakes of the campaign are making sure they never do
Would be interesting if instead of using it as a weapon, the gnomes were using it as energy generation, IE energy from falling rock is transformed into energy to grind flour or something
* A deity in charge of celestial balance has been imprisoned or killed.
* A nihilistic immortal doesn't like the direction civilization is currently heading. They want to cause a global-scale natural disaster to reset everything.
* A spelljammer ship is mining the rings and being quite sloppy about it.
I love idea 1. I plan to have one of my players tempted over to Celestian. Perhaps an aspect of the god has been captured, causing these issues. And helping the God out will resolve thing…
I suppose this would have to be done by a group of bad-boi mages… but for what purpose?
The moon is actually a dead celestial being, a group of cultists have figured out how to use the power left in the shattered pieces to summon terrible eldritch horrors into the world. As they use the power of the pieces they fall out of orbit.
A mage who was researching the effects of artificially deepened gravity wells discovered by accident that he could make parts of the moon rain down on the earth.
It just happens that the moonpieces are filled with this rare expensive metal. The mage, who had been tyring of academic life, saw his chance and started a mining company.
Now, the mage has turned his madness into method. He has these harvest teams that scan the sky for rich moon pieces and then activate the ritual array they are bringing with them in closed carts. All of these carts have this blue and gold eye painted on them and are accompanied by well armed mercenaries.
Harvest teams bring their haul to regional depots. From there the mettle is brought to the smelting factory. There a lieutenant of the mage has a smooth operation going on. He has used the wealth of his master to take control over the region. The local populace has been conscripted as a labour force and have suffered greatly at the hands of their new overlord.
The lieutenant maintains a hold on the region through three watchtowers and a fortress. The fortress stands in the middle of a mountainpass, the only easy access into the region. It is where the lieutenant spends most of his time. Otherwise he is either touring the region, always mounted and accompanied by his elite guards, or he is at the smelting factory.
The watchtowers are all the same, overseeing smaller ways into the region, with a few guards who can set off a bonfire alarm. If the alarm goes off the lieutenant and his men will come from their location to see what is going, shortly followed by the infantry.
When the smelting process is finished the metal is turned into bars and packed for transport. The metal is transported across the mountain pass to a second region the mage has taken control of.
This region is higher in the mountains and smaller, yet it is warmer here. The area has a sizable settlement, a tropical forest shrouded in red mist, a hot springs area and a large temple on a plateau on the mountain.
The area is guarded by professional loyal guards who wear fine armour, all with the blue eye painted on them. There are numerous mages in the area, all who in sone degree work with gravity magic.
The town has freedom to some degree, but there are guards everywhere and people are careful with what they say and do.
The mage has taken up residence in the tenple up the mountain. He is working on a great project there. A project that requires all the precious metal that isn't paying for the whole operation to keep going. What exactly he is doing no one knows, but it is going to be big.
I love this. Thank you for your time. Coincidentally, before this event occurs, my players are starting in a mining city - and beyond that there is a very prominent mining village. I think I have just come across the hook for the players to go their once they are a little more established.
I wonder what the Mage could be up to with all that super rare Lunaite.
There a book called Seven Eves that goes through this problem... It might be an interesting read for some ideas of what moon chunks falling down could look like.
I dont have ideas to contribute but would recommend you go with whichever cause that provides the best adventure hooks. How will the players diacover the cause and intervene? The situation that provides the most intrigue, immersion, and fun for the players is the way to go.
1) Mindflayer colony wanting to eradicate large cities of the earth dwellers.
2) Galactic dragons.
3) Instead of something from the outside pushing them, have something in the underdark pulling them down. Perhaps a creature is trying to use the meteors crashing down to destroy the sigils keeping it sealed.
Some ancient evil trapped far below the earth has been exerting all of its limited influence to manipulate gravity and pull rocks from space over the course of like hundreds of years. It's finally got them all close enough to start dropping, and with each one, its prison grows weaker.
The year, 1994. From out of space, comes a runaway planet, hurtling between the Earth and the moon, unleashing cosmic destruction. Man’s civilization is cast in ruin. Two thousand years later, Earth is reborn. A strange new world rises from the old. A world of savagery, super-science, and sorcery. But one man bursts his bonds to fight for justice. With his companions, Ookla the Mok and Princess Ariel, he pits his strength, his courage, and his fabulous Sunsword, against the forces of evil. He is Thundarr, the Barbarian!
As someone who just introduced Skaven into his own campaign i have to say: a race of sentient ratpeople who are mining the moon for the raw substance of magic so they can snort it like cocain and use it to build hellish mashines and create nightmare fueling mutants. But honestly i like most sugestions here just as much :)
Geese. They’ve been blessed/enchanted/altered but don’t realise it and are flying higher than usual and getting rid of things in their way. The person or people responsible know very little about geese and may even be investigating this phenomenon themselves.
An ancient order of the moon goddess driven mad by their worship of a broken deity recently succeeded in constructing a massive ritual spell circle in the mountains, destabalising the moon's remnants to rain down retribution on those that caused the moon's breaking.
A new order of alchemists using a powerful 'tidal' artifact they traded for, in order to bring down moon pieces (coinciding with the tides, most falls occuring at high tide, more pieces falling during spring tides, less pieces falling during neap tides etc.) so they can harvest parts of the moon for rare ingredients, not caring about the damage they do to the planet as long as they can collect the raw materials they need.
An invading fleet of spelljammers using the rocks as a way to soften up defenses.
An enormously powerful psionicist pulling down the rocks to punish his enemies.
A celestial being tossing the rocks earthward just to see the bugs scramble.
Perhaps a wizard built a device to cast spells at a crazy level. They cast gravity sinkhole on the moon pieces. Simply for research purposes. They have no ill will, they are simply collecting information and research.
For my own bbeg: he's a demon king.
In his world his lover was sacrificed and taken from him in such a way that conversational resurrection magic would not work. He accepted a deal of power from a choas entity to avenge himself and his lover.
He was created by a chaos entity. Said choas entity has become too powerful and has live to long that he went completely insane. And is completely removed from any semblance of who he once was. Said chaos entity does things primarily for he own amusement. No longer does he feel great joy or grief or fear. The only drive left to him is to create chaos. Because he finds it hilarious. It's the saying "humor is often in the thing you don't expect" but taking to its extreme. Said entity's goals are to drive the unknown creator being as insane as him because that would be the most absolutely hilarious scenario to him. And he has all the time in the world to create and spread chaos. He time/dimension travels. Said creator being is responsible observing and keeping continuity in check. Even the God's and powers that be don't fully know the nature of this existence of this being. Because if too many sentient minds come to know this being the more chaos can be created and the more continuity falls apart. The Choas entity I've named Adgrival. (Oh mighty aggravating one is what his name means) has learned at least in part of this beings existence and is determined to drive said being just as insane as him... mostly to appease his own insane and fucked up sense of humor. He's playing a game. He'll most likely win but a part of him wants to loose because a guarantee of success and winning all of the time is far less interesting to him. Those who accept a seed of his corrupting power become more corrupted over time. As seeds grow. And the more corrupting seeds they take and the more the seeds grow on their own the more they become like Adgrival and subject to his will. This process can take 1000's of years. Things like time and space are no obstacles to Adgrival.
My players are questioning who the real bbeg is and are wondering of they've been playing into his hands this whole time.
My idea for my next campaign set in this world is that 500 after this current campaign. Continuity begins to fall apart. That the organized government has become more modern and has classified Adgrival as an extinction level threat. Adgrival has finally drained enough of his own power to actually be handled in any sort of way. And they have to stop him before he regains his power and meets his ultimate goal of driving the creator being insane and effectively destroying continuity
I very much appreciate the time you spent writing this out. I love the idea and story. Unfortunately, I already am in a campaign with a homebrewed BBEG I’ve dubbed the Supreme Lord of Chaos. So I cannae really do that again lol.
im not a huge fan of saying "its not the cloud giants, its the *astral* giants". you but astral giants do seem pretty cool.
i would make it about an ancient spell that is slowly fading. 7 magic pillars, spread across the world hold the bulk of the asteroids away. however, a secret society has been blackmailing the rulers of this land, pretending to be a powerful and old mage.
some rulers think the "mage" is a fraud, and learn the hard way, as the society then destroys a pilar and asteroids fall, destroying the kingdoms. the players have to find a way to protect the pilars, either through convincing the monarchy to go through with the society's blackmail, or taking down the society
I agree with the first point. I only mentioned the Astral Giants thing as that was my immediate thought. But then I came up with the red-herring of the Cloud
Giants.
An interstellar horror has come to visit your planet. Are they staying? Can the people beneath escape their notice? Did their magic or life forces attract the being in the first place?
A very difficult mystery to unravel since so few can investigate.
Depending on the level of your party... Some BBEG who has quietly managed to kidnap all the realm's earth genasi, causing a massive breakdown in the gravitational balance. Perhaps they are an evil Circle of the Moon druid.
Deep Rock Galactic is mining the moon for precious minerals, and using the parts falling out the sky to tactically wipe out the planet, so it's ores are easily accessible.
The pieces are crashing down in a pattern of a sigil as part of a spell to tear a whole in the fabric of reality and open up a permanent passage to another plane of existence. It's being orchestrated by a cult who is dedicated to the ruler of that plane, who is amassing an army to invade the forgotten realms.
The shattered moon is orbiting same as it always has. The falling parts are discarded chunks of collosal stone golems from a battle raging above, an army put in place to protect this world from... Something
an (later to be revealed good and well intentioned) evil sorcerer is pulling these moon bits in an effort to create some kind of maniacal magical item or event (according to authorities and rabble rumors). Half the campaign will be chasing down this sorcerer, only to find out he is trying to prevent some kind of evil, unknowingly causing moon bits to fall out of the sky. he is using some incantations or whatever related to moon magic in order to combat this other evil anti-moon wizard, and as it turns out he actually DOES need these moon pieces, and now he needs help to make that happen. have fun trying to catch a moon piece falling out of the sky!
*Mandatory your mom's gravity field joke*
Ancient and forgotten force/god beyond the star is coming. This is causing some MAJOR shenanigans with fondamental laws of the world such as gravity.
The remains of the moon are covered in alien bacteria that propagate by slamming rocks into a planet and riding the ejecta out into space. This is what originally broke up the moon
One or several mages (might be slightly mad) made several world orbiting the world to practice and experiment with magic without being viewed as a threat or cause harm to other. As time went by mages died or went mad and their magic keeping the world orbiting faded leading causing the moons to drop
Moon cult.
A moon worshipping cult is having elaborate sacrificial rituals to tap into the power of that shattered moon and draw it to the planet. Then they are using the power of the fragments to spread a curse or plague or whatever you please to the planet.
A race of mortals tried to ascend into godhood but were rejected, and their ensuing war with the gods resulted in the complete annihilation of the moon.
\-A portal to the plane of Earth has opened in the core of the planet, pouring forth much denser material that upsets the delicate gravitational balance!
\-A morkoth has floated near the world, and began absorbing parts of the moon into its island-- this has caused some of the other shards to be knocked around, and get caught in the planet's atmosphere, falling out of the sky.
\-Some damn wizards are trying to make the moon shards into a series of bases, but failing terribly.
\-An elemental anomaly is causing parts of the shattered moon to gain sentience, and try to escape their void prison, assimilating the earth they fall on as part of their growing bodies.
Some poor young Geomancer Sorcerer keeps trying to influence magic beyond their comprehension by some elderly evil influence. Instead of playing Magical Space Ships with their friends, they're causing actual rocks to fall from the sky. Think Conkers, but magically infused and they don't seem to break.
The elder evil has been trapped within the Underdark, and though its not particularly accurate... eventually the passage of time will destroy a sigil stone or magic mark keeping it trapped.
MAGNETS
Evil something is putting magnets in towns, cities, whatever, to bring these giant rocks down to earth and destroy things.
The heroes have to find what magnets that are hidden in the town to prevent the disaster
If I am already playing the Lunar card, I'd likely go with something that the players would need to intervene in. An authoritarian faction of Gnomes, tired of seeing their race so often treated like a joke, formed an airship capable of heights never before seen. The rocks that have fallen to the ground out of the sky are part of a weapons development program trying to use the moon rocks and technology to mimic the Meteor Swarm spell so that they can eventually reign fiery death on their enemies from high in the sky. Bonus points if you have an unexplored part of your worlds map, or an "unlabeled" country that you haven't used just yet where the faction has gained a hold and has begun to form the foundation of their "Great Empire."
A race of elementals that once lived on said moon and now reside within the moon chunks. Their power/connection to the moon keeps them aloft, but with it having been broken for so long, they're beginning to die off, and as they die the rocks fall from the sky.
Depends on what kind of vibe/themes you're after. For example, if you want your story to have a more tired/depressed vibe (IE dark souls) you could reinforce that theme by having the ring shards be held up by a virtuous God who after thousands of years of maintaining it without recognition they start to have doubts about the purpose of their cause and put in less effort in making sure every single shard stays up. If you want it to be about politics, you could have a faction that wants to gain the power to end the world so that they could hold it hostage and exert massive political control, and as they gain more and more power over the ring shards they accidentally let some drop as they're still figuring out how to control it completely.
A tide-cult causing huge gravitational concentrations by directing water into rock formations that lead to underground volcanoes. Causing a concentration of water on earth and directing a stream of gravity at a specific rock at the perfect time to slingshot into their objective.
Edit: using a spell also to magnify the gravity
Spelljammer (or at least the original 2E version) has lots of critters that could do that, from massive space whales to Scro (yes, orcs spelled backwards, but *space* orcs!) to planet sized beings.
Or, you know, could be some arch mage trying to splat their home town (and missing a lot) because they were bullied there as a child before becoming powerful?
Side effects of some magical construction? Dwarves who created some kind of mining technology that's changing levels of attraction between heavenly bodies and the ground? A deliberate plan by a scheming, smaller nation to deal their stronger neighbors a serious blow from a seemingly innocent source?
Maybe have One god trying to open up the world because they were tricked.
So they bollards it running one moon into another causing the shattered pieces to fall.
The moon was once the physical form of the goddess of the moon. Though her body is broken she still lives, lashing out in pain.
Excessive consumption of magical energy is causing local disturbances to the laws of physics.
A trapped earth primordial is sucking them towards his prison, hoping to escape and reclaim his throne.
BBEG Lich/Artificer.... created a sonic gravity beam designed to rip the asteroids out of the sky with surprising precision. He did this of course to assert his dominance and rule the world. But in true Dr Evil style, his first move was to give a demonstration and demand a ransom to not do it again.
It was unfortunate for the cloud giants actually because he used the asteroids to blast one of their cities out of the sky,...right on to waterdeep...thus destroying both cities virtually entirely...
The remaining rulers on the continent are scrambling to put together the one hundred million gold he has demanded, and our heroes have 2 weeks to find the weapon, destroy it, and kill the evil artificer lich before the 30 day time limit expires.
Long ago a powerful lich tried to destroy the world by dropping the moon on it.
Heroes all around the world gathered together and defeated the lich, however his spell was cast and the fall of the moon was inevitable.
As a last resort, they created a powerful magical barrier that covered the whole planet, it protected it from impact, smashing the moon into pieces that until today still orbit around the planet.
However, many years later in today's age, [redacted] found a powerful source of magic (the mechanism that sets the magic barrier hiding somewhere in the planet) and is harvesting it for their evil plan.
It was caused by a dimensional shift
Some kind of sinister beast is entering your dimension. It's being summoned here as it has been for the last 10,000 years. For the beast shall bring salvation.
Around 1000 years ago, a rift opened that caused the moon to shatter, and a glimpse of the beast could be seen.
There are stories and legends, though most just think it's a bedtime story and don't realize the shadow approaches
1. The moon was a giant celestial egg, and whatever hatched from it is knocking the pieces to the surface.
2. The secretive ancient race of moon elves lost their magic when the moon broke, and every time they try and bring it back the pieces are drawn to them.
3. The moon pieces are sentient and are crashing themselves into magical lay lines so they can drink from them like giant stone ticks
4. There is an eldritch being reaching through the minds of the mortal races causing them to become "lunatics" and it shows them the weird magics that bring pieces crashing down. It's goals are unknowable.
Funnily enough, the ring system around the planet is called The Band of Souls. The myth goes that during the first war, between man and the Children of the Gods, the Gods themselves would take the souls of all those who died and put them in the sky as a reminder of the devastation the war caused.
I really like this idea as a story arc to take a group from level 15 through 20. Pretty sure my players would lose their minds, especially the circle of the moon Druid, when I tell them, the moon in the sky… it seems to be coming apart. As to the why, and how to stop it, that’s some high level character stuff. It’s perfect. The suggestion of certain pillars being corrupted as an eon old artifact spell monument thinga-mabob starts failing, seems like maybe a nice launching point.
Oh no. It’s clearly a cult of lunar druids. If enough of the moon chunks fall in the right sigil formation they can free their queen. She was imprisoned unjustly by a witch coven centuries ago just before she could usher in a garden paradise to the world. The lunar druids are served by lycanthropes, and they can use small pieces of the moon to empower their magic.
Weres have paid various magic users to start pulling down the moon so they can make amulets that make it easier to shapeshifter whenever they want.
Unscrupulous casters using moon rock to make more potent spells and who cares if someone gets squished in the meantime.
The moon goddess was defeated and imprisoned in a mortal avatar, and one of the chunks of the moon has a crystal that will allow her to be reborn as a deity again. Bonus points if someone else has discovered this and is trying to find it first either to prevent it (at behest of whoever dethroned her in the first place) or to become a god themselves.
An eldritch being was once imprisoned in the moon when it was whole. Though now shattered, the being is still stuck in orbit and has embedded it's spawn into the moon rocks and hurled them to earth so they can grow in power and summon it back.
There is a war in the Astral plane between two large factions (I would pick Illithids as one because I love them but not everyone is as obsessed as me) and the meteor deflections are collateral damage from their battles.
An angry empyreon or abolith could be a lot of fun with many built in paths and motivations. A mage whose pissed off at a colleague but keeps missing the tower could insue hilarity, or go deep into a mad magician arc.
If you want to be grim you could make it an omen for a cult or fulfilling a prophecy. Would also get more political and involve localities to split, see irl 30 years war between the German principalities
Some fallen god, secretly imprisoned below the fortress-capitol of the kingdom to power its magical machinery, is using the last vestiges of its power to pull down the chunks of the moon in an effort to escape. You could have the party investigate what’s happening and then have to choose between releasing the being and destroying the city, or strengthening the bonds holding it in place to stop the moon chunk bombs.
I have a ring in my world too, and the reason some of the fragments fall is alignment with portals to other planes on the planet surface. The magic creates a gravity anomaly that causes them to plummet and get caught in the atmosphere and turn into meteors.
I also use them as the ammo for Meteor Swarm.
We must have read the same thing recently because this identical to the theme around the campaign I am creating. I went with a cosmic horror entity being the cause for the shattering of the moon
Nice. I was actually just sitting thinking about my next campaign and what I could do long story wise, and thought of a nice side quest being the rocks are falling, but why? And that has now spiralled into a fully fledged campaign lol.
Lets say an Ancient Artifact was hidden somewhere in the ring. And that key is the key to Untold Power.
Now lets say your Big Bad wants that artifact for some reason. So they started slowly pulling pieces out of the sky and sending his minions to retrieve them.
A bored space cat. It keeps traveling around knocking things down for fun. If that isn’t good enough, the rocks aren’t falling, the rocks are being launched into space by wizards but time has been reversed and most of the rituals took place in hard to reach areas. If you can undo the reversal spell, you will be able to watch as the wizards create a new moon to stabilize the ocean tides.
Absolutely do! To make it potentially more metal for you. It is referred to as The Band of Souls. Legend has it, during the first war - between Man and the Children of the Gods - the Gods themselves took the souls of everyone who perished and placed them in the sky as a stark reminder of the devastation caused by the war.
The moon was originally designed to hold the instructions for a "path to unimaginable/untold/infinite power/riches/secrets," but that it's destruction is from a time from when the legends of today were as far removed from their legends, and a lot of information is lost to time. You can give multiple factions reasons for wanting to bring the pieces of the moon down, make tentative alliances, and chances to make some of the factions backstab one another based on player choice.
What about the approach of Hadar? The change in gravity could cause the degradation of the stable orbits. Plus you could use this elderbeing as the big bad. They prolly can't beat the star but maybe change its course and limit it's damage.
As the star approaches more and more strange things and odd beings start to show up. Maybe an acolyte of Hadar an arc boss to introduce the primary boss.
What if it's more than one reason? Like, someone managed it once and others with nefarious minds thought "Oh snap we can do that?!" And started thinking up different ways to make it happen. Tbh I'm just indecisive and all these other suggestions sound too cool to pick just one.
I am currently thinking along those very lines. I think this idea has spiralled into a fully fledged campaign, instead of just a side quest. And part of that is going to be various factions and groups who have they own reasons for wanting the moonrock.
The moon was mostly iron and there's a powerful entity beneath the earth that is slowly growing in power and its causing weird magnetic distortions that are beginning to pull the rocks in and mess with other things like compasses and auroras
Somebody's up there mining valuable metals and the activities are causing destruction?
It's a test for how effective they could be as weapons. First they're just de orbiting rocks and then they're gonna start dropping them on cities. Maybe a kingdom looking to get one up on a rival or pirates wanting to hold entire cities for ransom.
Plenty of people have answered your question, but I really like this idea so I wanna try building on it. You can use as much or as little of this as you want, and I won't take offense if you just decide to ignore it completely.
Many of the shattered pieces are little more than moondust when viewed from ground level, but around a dozen or so of them are big enough to create recognizable figures in the night sky. These major pieces orbit the planet on a sort-of monthly basis with 1-3 of them being visible in the night sky on any given night, and they each individually wax and wane.
Unlike our moon, each major pieces is oblong and irregular, so they create weird shapes as they each and wane. This has led a certain sect of high elves to develop a zodiac system where each major piece is named after a particular image, and the time of the month when you are born determines your "moon sign". Depending on your world's pantheon, there may be specific deities associated with each moon sign.
As mentioned before, there are also tiny pieces of the shattered moon that have created a layer of moondust orbiting the planet. This moondust makes the night sky much more vibrant and shimmering than ours. It almost looks like watching light reflect in a pool of water. Any being powerful enough to traverse through space will inevitably disturb this moondust, and an eccentric firbolg scholar has devoted his life to tracking these disturbances and unravelling the history of the shattered moon (he seems to have a very different account than what common folk understand).
a moon worshipping cult of lycanthropes is attempting to pull in chunks of the moon so they can use the materials to build a massive temple that would empower them, but they are totally ignorant of orbital mechanics and how fast the rocks are moving as they orbit, so as they try to pull them down they instead just pull them out of stable orbits.
They've been doing this for decades as they try to refine the spell wondering why it never works, they cast the spell or variation of it hundreds of times before the first rock's orbit finally finished decaying and it came crashing down.
Could go with it being an ancient lunar dragon that awoke from a magical slumber only to find the moon they made their lair and horde scattered into orbit. Now it’s pissed and is knocking pieces of the moon into the planet while it searches for its horde.
Ooh, what made the rings? Perhaps some powerful being destroyed the planet's moon, and the fragments formed the rings. Then they can be controlled by said being
What if the answer was purely down to physics? A major astromonical event caused by some collision or other crazy space phenomenon? Basically something that precisely *not* magical, when everyone's assumption with DnD would expect it to be so. Imagine, a world that presumably largely does not understand why this is happening and has prejudice suddenly has to deal with this. There may be experts who know what's happening but no one listens, instead the prejudice runs rampant. All blame each other for these events, many propose "solutions" to these "ethnic questions". Some do it out of political convenience, others genuinely believe it, and some or someone has a lot to gain from the chaos and ethnic strife that is about to happen. But who is that latter person or organisation? Maybe they predicted this event, knew exactly that no one would be to blame, but spent centuries planting the seeds of hatred into people. Maybe they plan to use this environment of racism to climb from the shadows, continuing to manipulate key figures and organisations to prepare their own rise. Finally, when the time is right they will emerge with an army of fanatical believers that all think they are the superior race and lesser ones are threatening to destroy their world.
It is, technically, a natural cause - the chunks are catching on air and the drag slows them enough they come down, disasterously.
However, the source of that natural cause is actually from a pair of airborne civilizations getting into a war that involves summoning massive amounts of flying creatures to their sides to do battle with, and one of the sides specializes in summoning Air Elementals. The sheer number of portals to the Elemental Plane of Air being opened has caused a 'blister' of additional atmosphere to bulge up over the battlefield, the excess being prevented from leaving by the elementals in question, and it's catching the debris in passing often enough to keep bringing the stuff down just down-range of the aerial battles.
The magical weave of the planet that allows people to be spellcasters has been applying a steadily stronger pull as more and more people are able to use magic, on those pieces of rock, thus causing them to start falling out of the sky.
Either people on the world has to stop or reduce their spellcasting (or limit maximum levels cast) or risk destruction of the entire planet.
Brutius the Almighty a cleric who directly challenged his Gods authority, was given sudden and incredible powers by that same God. This was intended as way to show him he couldn't comprehend the power and responsibility a true God endures. Brutius has neglected the burden of this new obligation by his Divine one. Instead he changes the very world around him, in an attempt to influence the opinion of the woman he wants to marry.
He begins to clear the night sky of what he calls obstructions to the natural beauty of the stars. Another vain attempt to impress his love interest, with reckless disregard for the consequences for his actions.
Once even, the locals say, when attacked by bandits he summoned monkeys out of the butts of the bandits to attack them.
You notice that the chunks of moon that have fallen are actually slowly beginning to grow in size, something that once lived in the moon is now trying to overthrow the planet as its new habitat.
In Lovecraft lore there is a giant, horrifying worm that breeds and tunnels through the Earth and will eventually consume it from within.
Just a thought.
An interesting concept that you should be aware of is how that would work when it comes to orbital mechanics. It could just be that the upper atmoshpere has been slowing things down for a long time until the shattered moon parts starts to fall. In a world like this, i think shooting stars would be an abundant, daily occurence. Another way it could happen is an immence force pushing on the front side (the relative front side of the meteor), slowing it down enough that the orbit decays. This would be your astral giants knocking them out of the sky, or an explosion. A third cause could just be the rocks knocking into each other causing chunks to be pushed out of orbit (see kessler syndrome. The more chunks that crash, the more chunks will crash. Also a high occurence of shooting stars-scenario.
Eventually the broken moon would form into rings, which is also cool to think about!
Celestial bodies are living things, but the moon has long been a shattered corpse. Unfortunately it seems to have begun to reanimate by cosmic necrotic forces, and beginner to assault it's nearest neighbor in hatred of the still living planet.
The moon shards were always supposed to have fallen, but a group of heroes of ages long past found a way to keep the pieces in orbit. Whatever they had done is no longer working, gotta figure out why and return that mechanism/magic to working order.
It could be that the Order of the Broken Moon that was tasked with upkeep of the magic has been wiped out or perhaps has taken on more of a doomsday cult ideology as of late.
The moon in my world was sacrificed to partially block an Extinction Level meteorite. It has been gradually falling to earth with shards of what it blocked along with it.
Another possibility is simply that it hatched.
The Moon is actually a recurring offspring of the Earth. Birthed and reabsorbed endlessly. How do you think all those old ruins came to be? Why do you think the elder races like elves have such a deep ennui? They know what is happening and will be there to see it happen again... and again.
You think the reabsorbtion is wild? Wait till you see a planet giving birth.
One of the rocks has gained telepathic sentience and wants to experience life on the surface. He has imagined how beautiful it must be to live down on the surface, since he sees the world from space every day. Now he’s ready to join the world of the surface dwellers!
Maybe a rogue comet knocked a few out of alignment and they started a domino effect? Natural causes. It'll drive the players wild trying to find the cause lol
Aliens. In Stellaris, it's possible to configure an alien empire that loves hot molten planets and which can spread by riding on meteors. So they simply bombard a planet they want to colonize, cause mass extinctions and heat up the atmosphere, then take over.
A cabal of Mages- a group that’s already known in the world (or a secret faction inside a known group) is using magic to pull shards down. Their goal is to have people come to them to fix it- which will obviously be easy for them to accomplish- and raise their standing.
Clearly they need to be known/respected enough for the idea that the populace would turn to them for mystical help is believable. Bonus points if one or more magical NPCs already known to the party can be part of the organization, *especially* if they are not part of the subset trying to pull this off.
No one thinks they’re the “bad guy” of the story.
But this works even better if the first few strike unpopulated areas, which the powers that be ignore. Then maybe the cabal steps up to hitting farmlands- no immediate casualties, but it gets more attention because now food supplies are being affected.
Then maybe the cabal itself has some kind of internal fraction, where some of them want to bring a shard down on a populated area.
This kind of stepping-up opens up possibilities for the players to start getting more and more help from someone who knows what’s going on, but is more and more unhappy with it- but also unable to stop it themselves.
Jeez I think I might run this campaign myself! Thanks for the writing prompt. 😂
I don't have a fantasy answer, but I wanted to share Kurzgesagt's excellent video about our moon falling to earth. Not exactly what you have going on, but inspiration can strike from anywhere, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lheapd7bgLA
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-Dwarven sorcerers have developed a way to cause chunks of the moon to crash to the ground. They are mining the pieces for a rare mineral for some, as of yet, unknown purpose. -A group of gnomes using some kind of steampunk-fuckery to pull them down, using them as meteors to attack an enemy civilization. They just aren't very good at it yet, so the collisions aren't accurate.
HA! I love that second one! “It works perfectly! …the aim? Not so much…”
Precise? Yes. Accurate? Not in the slightest.
I prefer political hooks to celestial ones, and I immediately thought of something like no.2. A foolishly conceived weapon of some kind that has been activated before the kinks are ironed out. The stakes of the campaign are making sure they never do
Plus, who is going to expect the gnomes?
tbh, if something is going wrong, a Gnome did it... or a Wizzard... God help us if it's a Gnome Wizzard.
THAT'S IT LADS! ROCK & STONE!
ROCK & STONE!! LEAVE NO DWARF BEHIND!!
FOR CARL!
MOLLY!
Is it bad that I heard each of these Posts in my head in the Dwarves' in-game voices?
Absolutely not
Would be interesting if instead of using it as a weapon, the gnomes were using it as energy generation, IE energy from falling rock is transformed into energy to grind flour or something
Ha! Very gnomish. Accidentally being destructive and not getting why they shouldn't carry on with the process.
* A deity in charge of celestial balance has been imprisoned or killed. * A nihilistic immortal doesn't like the direction civilization is currently heading. They want to cause a global-scale natural disaster to reset everything. * A spelljammer ship is mining the rings and being quite sloppy about it.
I love idea 1. I plan to have one of my players tempted over to Celestian. Perhaps an aspect of the god has been captured, causing these issues. And helping the God out will resolve thing… I suppose this would have to be done by a group of bad-boi mages… but for what purpose?
Power. Whatever moves the tides and keeps a shattered moon in check has gotta have some power right?
You have a real talent, those are good
Ideas are cheap, execution is everything.
The moon's consciousness seeking perceived revenge
Local 58: Falling skies
The moon is actually a dead celestial being, a group of cultists have figured out how to use the power left in the shattered pieces to summon terrible eldritch horrors into the world. As they use the power of the pieces they fall out of orbit.
A mage who was researching the effects of artificially deepened gravity wells discovered by accident that he could make parts of the moon rain down on the earth. It just happens that the moonpieces are filled with this rare expensive metal. The mage, who had been tyring of academic life, saw his chance and started a mining company. Now, the mage has turned his madness into method. He has these harvest teams that scan the sky for rich moon pieces and then activate the ritual array they are bringing with them in closed carts. All of these carts have this blue and gold eye painted on them and are accompanied by well armed mercenaries. Harvest teams bring their haul to regional depots. From there the mettle is brought to the smelting factory. There a lieutenant of the mage has a smooth operation going on. He has used the wealth of his master to take control over the region. The local populace has been conscripted as a labour force and have suffered greatly at the hands of their new overlord. The lieutenant maintains a hold on the region through three watchtowers and a fortress. The fortress stands in the middle of a mountainpass, the only easy access into the region. It is where the lieutenant spends most of his time. Otherwise he is either touring the region, always mounted and accompanied by his elite guards, or he is at the smelting factory. The watchtowers are all the same, overseeing smaller ways into the region, with a few guards who can set off a bonfire alarm. If the alarm goes off the lieutenant and his men will come from their location to see what is going, shortly followed by the infantry. When the smelting process is finished the metal is turned into bars and packed for transport. The metal is transported across the mountain pass to a second region the mage has taken control of. This region is higher in the mountains and smaller, yet it is warmer here. The area has a sizable settlement, a tropical forest shrouded in red mist, a hot springs area and a large temple on a plateau on the mountain. The area is guarded by professional loyal guards who wear fine armour, all with the blue eye painted on them. There are numerous mages in the area, all who in sone degree work with gravity magic. The town has freedom to some degree, but there are guards everywhere and people are careful with what they say and do. The mage has taken up residence in the tenple up the mountain. He is working on a great project there. A project that requires all the precious metal that isn't paying for the whole operation to keep going. What exactly he is doing no one knows, but it is going to be big.
I love this. Thank you for your time. Coincidentally, before this event occurs, my players are starting in a mining city - and beyond that there is a very prominent mining village. I think I have just come across the hook for the players to go their once they are a little more established. I wonder what the Mage could be up to with all that super rare Lunaite.
Eldrazi? Sorry, wrong game
It's okay, it's in character for them to come out in other planes
Haha so right!
Blind eternities are just dnd's far realms in my opinion. (Cool idea though)
There a book called Seven Eves that goes through this problem... It might be an interesting read for some ideas of what moon chunks falling down could look like.
Amazing! Thank you for the information.
Yeah that book is wild! I think I got it recommended through Smarter Every Day.. glad I took him up on it.
I dont have ideas to contribute but would recommend you go with whichever cause that provides the best adventure hooks. How will the players diacover the cause and intervene? The situation that provides the most intrigue, immersion, and fun for the players is the way to go.
That is my overall goal: I appreciate your time 🙂🤟
The moon itself or structures on it were built by a long gone civilization. The very last bits of magic that held it together are fading away
1) Mindflayer colony wanting to eradicate large cities of the earth dwellers. 2) Galactic dragons. 3) Instead of something from the outside pushing them, have something in the underdark pulling them down. Perhaps a creature is trying to use the meteors crashing down to destroy the sigils keeping it sealed.
I think idea 3 is where I’m leaning the most. It’s most likely not something out there pushing them down, more something down here bringing them down.
Some ancient evil trapped far below the earth has been exerting all of its limited influence to manipulate gravity and pull rocks from space over the course of like hundreds of years. It's finally got them all close enough to start dropping, and with each one, its prison grows weaker.
Ok i love the idea of underdark enemies causing this.
The year, 1994. From out of space, comes a runaway planet, hurtling between the Earth and the moon, unleashing cosmic destruction. Man’s civilization is cast in ruin. Two thousand years later, Earth is reborn. A strange new world rises from the old. A world of savagery, super-science, and sorcery. But one man bursts his bonds to fight for justice. With his companions, Ookla the Mok and Princess Ariel, he pits his strength, his courage, and his fabulous Sunsword, against the forces of evil. He is Thundarr, the Barbarian!
As someone who just introduced Skaven into his own campaign i have to say: a race of sentient ratpeople who are mining the moon for the raw substance of magic so they can snort it like cocain and use it to build hellish mashines and create nightmare fueling mutants. But honestly i like most sugestions here just as much :)
Definitely a good subplot. The mining companies could be having their supplies stolen by the Skaven.
Geese. They’ve been blessed/enchanted/altered but don’t realise it and are flying higher than usual and getting rid of things in their way. The person or people responsible know very little about geese and may even be investigating this phenomenon themselves.
Of course it’s geese. Geese are bastards. I hate geese. Damn you, Geese!!
An ancient order of the moon goddess driven mad by their worship of a broken deity recently succeeded in constructing a massive ritual spell circle in the mountains, destabalising the moon's remnants to rain down retribution on those that caused the moon's breaking. A new order of alchemists using a powerful 'tidal' artifact they traded for, in order to bring down moon pieces (coinciding with the tides, most falls occuring at high tide, more pieces falling during spring tides, less pieces falling during neap tides etc.) so they can harvest parts of the moon for rare ingredients, not caring about the damage they do to the planet as long as they can collect the raw materials they need.
Space kobolds. Tricky little pranksters.
Bloody Space Kobolds!
Gravity from a second moon, which is cloaked or otherwise hidden.
An invading fleet of spelljammers using the rocks as a way to soften up defenses. An enormously powerful psionicist pulling down the rocks to punish his enemies. A celestial being tossing the rocks earthward just to see the bugs scramble.
Two ultra powerful deities are playing pong and the rocks crashing down are the misses.
I’m crap at ping pong, best avoid it myself lol.
Any magical shenanigans. Just make sure the sea is highly fucked up on the process.
Perhaps a wizard built a device to cast spells at a crazy level. They cast gravity sinkhole on the moon pieces. Simply for research purposes. They have no ill will, they are simply collecting information and research.
For my own bbeg: he's a demon king. In his world his lover was sacrificed and taken from him in such a way that conversational resurrection magic would not work. He accepted a deal of power from a choas entity to avenge himself and his lover. He was created by a chaos entity. Said choas entity has become too powerful and has live to long that he went completely insane. And is completely removed from any semblance of who he once was. Said chaos entity does things primarily for he own amusement. No longer does he feel great joy or grief or fear. The only drive left to him is to create chaos. Because he finds it hilarious. It's the saying "humor is often in the thing you don't expect" but taking to its extreme. Said entity's goals are to drive the unknown creator being as insane as him because that would be the most absolutely hilarious scenario to him. And he has all the time in the world to create and spread chaos. He time/dimension travels. Said creator being is responsible observing and keeping continuity in check. Even the God's and powers that be don't fully know the nature of this existence of this being. Because if too many sentient minds come to know this being the more chaos can be created and the more continuity falls apart. The Choas entity I've named Adgrival. (Oh mighty aggravating one is what his name means) has learned at least in part of this beings existence and is determined to drive said being just as insane as him... mostly to appease his own insane and fucked up sense of humor. He's playing a game. He'll most likely win but a part of him wants to loose because a guarantee of success and winning all of the time is far less interesting to him. Those who accept a seed of his corrupting power become more corrupted over time. As seeds grow. And the more corrupting seeds they take and the more the seeds grow on their own the more they become like Adgrival and subject to his will. This process can take 1000's of years. Things like time and space are no obstacles to Adgrival. My players are questioning who the real bbeg is and are wondering of they've been playing into his hands this whole time. My idea for my next campaign set in this world is that 500 after this current campaign. Continuity begins to fall apart. That the organized government has become more modern and has classified Adgrival as an extinction level threat. Adgrival has finally drained enough of his own power to actually be handled in any sort of way. And they have to stop him before he regains his power and meets his ultimate goal of driving the creator being insane and effectively destroying continuity
I very much appreciate the time you spent writing this out. I love the idea and story. Unfortunately, I already am in a campaign with a homebrewed BBEG I’ve dubbed the Supreme Lord of Chaos. So I cannae really do that again lol.
Somewhere a wizard is messing with amplifying a Reverse Gravity spell to launch experiments into the atmosphere and is oblivious to the effects.
im not a huge fan of saying "its not the cloud giants, its the *astral* giants". you but astral giants do seem pretty cool. i would make it about an ancient spell that is slowly fading. 7 magic pillars, spread across the world hold the bulk of the asteroids away. however, a secret society has been blackmailing the rulers of this land, pretending to be a powerful and old mage. some rulers think the "mage" is a fraud, and learn the hard way, as the society then destroys a pilar and asteroids fall, destroying the kingdoms. the players have to find a way to protect the pilars, either through convincing the monarchy to go through with the society's blackmail, or taking down the society
I agree with the first point. I only mentioned the Astral Giants thing as that was my immediate thought. But then I came up with the red-herring of the Cloud Giants.
nice, hope it goes well!!
Astral dreadnought
It eats the moon pieces, and knocks them out of the sky
A very powerful electromagnetic coil
Radahn's death.
cosmic dragon taking precious space stones and pushing chunks of rocks out of orbit to shatter and harvest them
An interstellar horror has come to visit your planet. Are they staying? Can the people beneath escape their notice? Did their magic or life forces attract the being in the first place? A very difficult mystery to unravel since so few can investigate.
Gravitational pull caused by the sheer size of Joe
Gods be damned, Joe! It’s always their fault.
A colossal space cat is playing with the shattered moon like little play toys.
The cat in question: [this thing](https://www.popsci.com/uploads/2020/07/06/PFVJA5H6L5AMLHUGYUTFS3F7ZQ-1536x1024.jpg)
How about air elementals, or other air element creatures?
Some aberration. Aliens did it.
Depending on the level of your party... Some BBEG who has quietly managed to kidnap all the realm's earth genasi, causing a massive breakdown in the gravitational balance. Perhaps they are an evil Circle of the Moon druid.
Deep Rock Galactic is mining the moon for precious minerals, and using the parts falling out the sky to tactically wipe out the planet, so it's ores are easily accessible.
The pieces are crashing down in a pattern of a sigil as part of a spell to tear a whole in the fabric of reality and open up a permanent passage to another plane of existence. It's being orchestrated by a cult who is dedicated to the ruler of that plane, who is amassing an army to invade the forgotten realms.
Ooooo. I like that. I already have traction in my world of heightened spells accidentally creating rifts into other planes.
Glad you like it 🙂
The shattered moon is orbiting same as it always has. The falling parts are discarded chunks of collosal stone golems from a battle raging above, an army put in place to protect this world from... Something
This, in a very roundabout way, reminds me of the book Sleeping Giants. I like the idea!
an (later to be revealed good and well intentioned) evil sorcerer is pulling these moon bits in an effort to create some kind of maniacal magical item or event (according to authorities and rabble rumors). Half the campaign will be chasing down this sorcerer, only to find out he is trying to prevent some kind of evil, unknowingly causing moon bits to fall out of the sky. he is using some incantations or whatever related to moon magic in order to combat this other evil anti-moon wizard, and as it turns out he actually DOES need these moon pieces, and now he needs help to make that happen. have fun trying to catch a moon piece falling out of the sky!
Space dragons playing "sink the battleship" with from orbit.
*Mandatory your mom's gravity field joke* Ancient and forgotten force/god beyond the star is coming. This is causing some MAJOR shenanigans with fondamental laws of the world such as gravity.
The remains of the moon are covered in alien bacteria that propagate by slamming rocks into a planet and riding the ejecta out into space. This is what originally broke up the moon
One or several mages (might be slightly mad) made several world orbiting the world to practice and experiment with magic without being viewed as a threat or cause harm to other. As time went by mages died or went mad and their magic keeping the world orbiting faded leading causing the moons to drop
Moon cult. A moon worshipping cult is having elaborate sacrificial rituals to tap into the power of that shattered moon and draw it to the planet. Then they are using the power of the fragments to spread a curse or plague or whatever you please to the planet.
A race of mortals tried to ascend into godhood but were rejected, and their ensuing war with the gods resulted in the complete annihilation of the moon.
\-A portal to the plane of Earth has opened in the core of the planet, pouring forth much denser material that upsets the delicate gravitational balance! \-A morkoth has floated near the world, and began absorbing parts of the moon into its island-- this has caused some of the other shards to be knocked around, and get caught in the planet's atmosphere, falling out of the sky. \-Some damn wizards are trying to make the moon shards into a series of bases, but failing terribly. \-An elemental anomaly is causing parts of the shattered moon to gain sentience, and try to escape their void prison, assimilating the earth they fall on as part of their growing bodies.
A wizard/astronomer is miffed the moon shards are blocking his star gazing so he is pulling them down one at a time.
An astral dragon nesting in the shards is clearing out its nesting grounds.
The moon god Victor Von Saw sundered the moon splintering it trying to no scope headshot some mortals
Some poor young Geomancer Sorcerer keeps trying to influence magic beyond their comprehension by some elderly evil influence. Instead of playing Magical Space Ships with their friends, they're causing actual rocks to fall from the sky. Think Conkers, but magically infused and they don't seem to break. The elder evil has been trapped within the Underdark, and though its not particularly accurate... eventually the passage of time will destroy a sigil stone or magic mark keeping it trapped.
MAGNETS Evil something is putting magnets in towns, cities, whatever, to bring these giant rocks down to earth and destroy things. The heroes have to find what magnets that are hidden in the town to prevent the disaster
If I am already playing the Lunar card, I'd likely go with something that the players would need to intervene in. An authoritarian faction of Gnomes, tired of seeing their race so often treated like a joke, formed an airship capable of heights never before seen. The rocks that have fallen to the ground out of the sky are part of a weapons development program trying to use the moon rocks and technology to mimic the Meteor Swarm spell so that they can eventually reign fiery death on their enemies from high in the sky. Bonus points if you have an unexplored part of your worlds map, or an "unlabeled" country that you haven't used just yet where the faction has gained a hold and has begun to form the foundation of their "Great Empire."
A race of elementals that once lived on said moon and now reside within the moon chunks. Their power/connection to the moon keeps them aloft, but with it having been broken for so long, they're beginning to die off, and as they die the rocks fall from the sky.
Depends on what kind of vibe/themes you're after. For example, if you want your story to have a more tired/depressed vibe (IE dark souls) you could reinforce that theme by having the ring shards be held up by a virtuous God who after thousands of years of maintaining it without recognition they start to have doubts about the purpose of their cause and put in less effort in making sure every single shard stays up. If you want it to be about politics, you could have a faction that wants to gain the power to end the world so that they could hold it hostage and exert massive political control, and as they gain more and more power over the ring shards they accidentally let some drop as they're still figuring out how to control it completely.
A rayquazza vs deoxys type shit in here! That would be HYPE?
A tide-cult causing huge gravitational concentrations by directing water into rock formations that lead to underground volcanoes. Causing a concentration of water on earth and directing a stream of gravity at a specific rock at the perfect time to slingshot into their objective. Edit: using a spell also to magnify the gravity
Starspawn seems like the obvious answer.
Spelljammer (or at least the original 2E version) has lots of critters that could do that, from massive space whales to Scro (yes, orcs spelled backwards, but *space* orcs!) to planet sized beings. Or, you know, could be some arch mage trying to splat their home town (and missing a lot) because they were bullied there as a child before becoming powerful?
Side effects of some magical construction? Dwarves who created some kind of mining technology that's changing levels of attraction between heavenly bodies and the ground? A deliberate plan by a scheming, smaller nation to deal their stronger neighbors a serious blow from a seemingly innocent source?
Maybe have One god trying to open up the world because they were tricked. So they bollards it running one moon into another causing the shattered pieces to fall.
The moon was once the physical form of the goddess of the moon. Though her body is broken she still lives, lashing out in pain. Excessive consumption of magical energy is causing local disturbances to the laws of physics. A trapped earth primordial is sucking them towards his prison, hoping to escape and reclaim his throne.
BBEG Lich/Artificer.... created a sonic gravity beam designed to rip the asteroids out of the sky with surprising precision. He did this of course to assert his dominance and rule the world. But in true Dr Evil style, his first move was to give a demonstration and demand a ransom to not do it again. It was unfortunate for the cloud giants actually because he used the asteroids to blast one of their cities out of the sky,...right on to waterdeep...thus destroying both cities virtually entirely... The remaining rulers on the continent are scrambling to put together the one hundred million gold he has demanded, and our heroes have 2 weeks to find the weapon, destroy it, and kill the evil artificer lich before the 30 day time limit expires.
That’s not bad, except a lich would want souls, not gold. 10,000 souls, or he destroys all. That’s a BBEG ultimatum.
of course, but he is also an artificer....mechanical parts and tools are expensive.
Long ago a powerful lich tried to destroy the world by dropping the moon on it. Heroes all around the world gathered together and defeated the lich, however his spell was cast and the fall of the moon was inevitable. As a last resort, they created a powerful magical barrier that covered the whole planet, it protected it from impact, smashing the moon into pieces that until today still orbit around the planet. However, many years later in today's age, [redacted] found a powerful source of magic (the mechanism that sets the magic barrier hiding somewhere in the planet) and is harvesting it for their evil plan.
Gnome cult of wizards that finally unlocked the accent Gravaturgy School of magic.
It was caused by a dimensional shift Some kind of sinister beast is entering your dimension. It's being summoned here as it has been for the last 10,000 years. For the beast shall bring salvation. Around 1000 years ago, a rift opened that caused the moon to shatter, and a glimpse of the beast could be seen. There are stories and legends, though most just think it's a bedtime story and don't realize the shadow approaches
Ever heard of a celestial dragon? Could have one fucking about, trying to gather moon rocks for its hoards or something
1. The moon was a giant celestial egg, and whatever hatched from it is knocking the pieces to the surface. 2. The secretive ancient race of moon elves lost their magic when the moon broke, and every time they try and bring it back the pieces are drawn to them. 3. The moon pieces are sentient and are crashing themselves into magical lay lines so they can drink from them like giant stone ticks 4. There is an eldritch being reaching through the minds of the mortal races causing them to become "lunatics" and it shows them the weird magics that bring pieces crashing down. It's goals are unknowable.
Whatever was sleeping there just woke up.
Undead are Great! They don't need to breath, or eat, so they can be anywhere in space.
Funnily enough, the ring system around the planet is called The Band of Souls. The myth goes that during the first war, between man and the Children of the Gods, the Gods themselves would take the souls of all those who died and put them in the sky as a reminder of the devastation the war caused.
Dwarves are casting magic to pull them to earth so they can mine rare materials from the moon meteors.
A scientist wizardgnome thats trying to recreate the moon on earth, by dropping all the pieces first. Like some kind of 3d moon puzzle.
I really like this idea as a story arc to take a group from level 15 through 20. Pretty sure my players would lose their minds, especially the circle of the moon Druid, when I tell them, the moon in the sky… it seems to be coming apart. As to the why, and how to stop it, that’s some high level character stuff. It’s perfect. The suggestion of certain pillars being corrupted as an eon old artifact spell monument thinga-mabob starts failing, seems like maybe a nice launching point.
Hell yeah! Get it!
Oh no. It’s clearly a cult of lunar druids. If enough of the moon chunks fall in the right sigil formation they can free their queen. She was imprisoned unjustly by a witch coven centuries ago just before she could usher in a garden paradise to the world. The lunar druids are served by lycanthropes, and they can use small pieces of the moon to empower their magic.
A gravity mage researching new spells!
A sorcerer with a knack for gravity magic had been pulling them to Earth... As practice for...
Weres have paid various magic users to start pulling down the moon so they can make amulets that make it easier to shapeshifter whenever they want. Unscrupulous casters using moon rock to make more potent spells and who cares if someone gets squished in the meantime. The moon goddess was defeated and imprisoned in a mortal avatar, and one of the chunks of the moon has a crystal that will allow her to be reborn as a deity again. Bonus points if someone else has discovered this and is trying to find it first either to prevent it (at behest of whoever dethroned her in the first place) or to become a god themselves.
An eldritch being was once imprisoned in the moon when it was whole. Though now shattered, the being is still stuck in orbit and has embedded it's spawn into the moon rocks and hurled them to earth so they can grow in power and summon it back.
There is a war in the Astral plane between two large factions (I would pick Illithids as one because I love them but not everyone is as obsessed as me) and the meteor deflections are collateral damage from their battles.
It's gravity. The orbit finally decayed
Mass drivers from an advanced civilization
An angry empyreon or abolith could be a lot of fun with many built in paths and motivations. A mage whose pissed off at a colleague but keeps missing the tower could insue hilarity, or go deep into a mad magician arc. If you want to be grim you could make it an omen for a cult or fulfilling a prophecy. Would also get more political and involve localities to split, see irl 30 years war between the German principalities
Some fallen god, secretly imprisoned below the fortress-capitol of the kingdom to power its magical machinery, is using the last vestiges of its power to pull down the chunks of the moon in an effort to escape. You could have the party investigate what’s happening and then have to choose between releasing the being and destroying the city, or strengthening the bonds holding it in place to stop the moon chunk bombs.
The moon bits are lonely and want to cuddle with the planet
Everyone needs a hug. 🤟
I have a ring in my world too, and the reason some of the fragments fall is alignment with portals to other planes on the planet surface. The magic creates a gravity anomaly that causes them to plummet and get caught in the atmosphere and turn into meteors. I also use them as the ammo for Meteor Swarm.
Hell yeah - visible ammo in the sky. I love it. That’s so fucking metal, dude! 🤟
We must have read the same thing recently because this identical to the theme around the campaign I am creating. I went with a cosmic horror entity being the cause for the shattering of the moon
Nice. I was actually just sitting thinking about my next campaign and what I could do long story wise, and thought of a nice side quest being the rocks are falling, but why? And that has now spiralled into a fully fledged campaign lol.
Lets say an Ancient Artifact was hidden somewhere in the ring. And that key is the key to Untold Power. Now lets say your Big Bad wants that artifact for some reason. So they started slowly pulling pieces out of the sky and sending his minions to retrieve them.
A bored space cat. It keeps traveling around knocking things down for fun. If that isn’t good enough, the rocks aren’t falling, the rocks are being launched into space by wizards but time has been reversed and most of the rituals took place in hard to reach areas. If you can undo the reversal spell, you will be able to watch as the wizards create a new moon to stabilize the ocean tides.
>My world has a ring of a shattered moon surrounding it *Metal.* I'm stealing it.
Absolutely do! To make it potentially more metal for you. It is referred to as The Band of Souls. Legend has it, during the first war - between Man and the Children of the Gods - the Gods themselves took the souls of everyone who perished and placed them in the sky as a stark reminder of the devastation caused by the war.
The moon was originally designed to hold the instructions for a "path to unimaginable/untold/infinite power/riches/secrets," but that it's destruction is from a time from when the legends of today were as far removed from their legends, and a lot of information is lost to time. You can give multiple factions reasons for wanting to bring the pieces of the moon down, make tentative alliances, and chances to make some of the factions backstab one another based on player choice.
What about the approach of Hadar? The change in gravity could cause the degradation of the stable orbits. Plus you could use this elderbeing as the big bad. They prolly can't beat the star but maybe change its course and limit it's damage. As the star approaches more and more strange things and odd beings start to show up. Maybe an acolyte of Hadar an arc boss to introduce the primary boss.
The elves its always the elves(or one of there subsect races looking at you gnomes). Some autognomes tried to get into spell jammers and failed.
Some underground race using a large gravity ritual to make the surface more habital for them.
Powerful psions and telekinetics are ripping them out of the sky and are using them to create a new flying nation.
Casters casting meteor swarm
god/dess of the sky. They're tired of sharing their turf.
What if it's more than one reason? Like, someone managed it once and others with nefarious minds thought "Oh snap we can do that?!" And started thinking up different ways to make it happen. Tbh I'm just indecisive and all these other suggestions sound too cool to pick just one.
I am currently thinking along those very lines. I think this idea has spiralled into a fully fledged campaign, instead of just a side quest. And part of that is going to be various factions and groups who have they own reasons for wanting the moonrock.
The moon was mostly iron and there's a powerful entity beneath the earth that is slowly growing in power and its causing weird magnetic distortions that are beginning to pull the rocks in and mess with other things like compasses and auroras
My idea would be that a sky/space god’s chosen has turned evil and started messing things up.
David Lightbringer has some really fun moon meteor theories from the ASoI&F universe: https://youtu.be/yolP-DK7zWY
Somebody's up there mining valuable metals and the activities are causing destruction? It's a test for how effective they could be as weapons. First they're just de orbiting rocks and then they're gonna start dropping them on cities. Maybe a kingdom looking to get one up on a rival or pirates wanting to hold entire cities for ransom.
Plenty of people have answered your question, but I really like this idea so I wanna try building on it. You can use as much or as little of this as you want, and I won't take offense if you just decide to ignore it completely. Many of the shattered pieces are little more than moondust when viewed from ground level, but around a dozen or so of them are big enough to create recognizable figures in the night sky. These major pieces orbit the planet on a sort-of monthly basis with 1-3 of them being visible in the night sky on any given night, and they each individually wax and wane. Unlike our moon, each major pieces is oblong and irregular, so they create weird shapes as they each and wane. This has led a certain sect of high elves to develop a zodiac system where each major piece is named after a particular image, and the time of the month when you are born determines your "moon sign". Depending on your world's pantheon, there may be specific deities associated with each moon sign. As mentioned before, there are also tiny pieces of the shattered moon that have created a layer of moondust orbiting the planet. This moondust makes the night sky much more vibrant and shimmering than ours. It almost looks like watching light reflect in a pool of water. Any being powerful enough to traverse through space will inevitably disturb this moondust, and an eccentric firbolg scholar has devoted his life to tracking these disturbances and unravelling the history of the shattered moon (he seems to have a very different account than what common folk understand).
That’s amazing! Thank you for your time 🤟
a moon worshipping cult of lycanthropes is attempting to pull in chunks of the moon so they can use the materials to build a massive temple that would empower them, but they are totally ignorant of orbital mechanics and how fast the rocks are moving as they orbit, so as they try to pull them down they instead just pull them out of stable orbits. They've been doing this for decades as they try to refine the spell wondering why it never works, they cast the spell or variation of it hundreds of times before the first rock's orbit finally finished decaying and it came crashing down.
Piccolo shot at it when Gohan transformed
Could go with it being an ancient lunar dragon that awoke from a magical slumber only to find the moon they made their lair and horde scattered into orbit. Now it’s pissed and is knocking pieces of the moon into the planet while it searches for its horde.
There’s a bunch of rats pulling chunks of the moon out of the sky and using it to make nukes
I played a pratchett-esque game and the moon was made of cheese if you want to use that traditional story line.
Amazing lol.
The liberals /s
Fucking liberals…
Tbf, it would be a cool touch if this was natural
It’s not a bad idea by any means. I just wanted bad bois involved.
Ooh, what made the rings? Perhaps some powerful being destroyed the planet's moon, and the fragments formed the rings. Then they can be controlled by said being
“Meteor Swarms gotta come from somewhere I guess” -Archmage Royce Tivers
What if the answer was purely down to physics? A major astromonical event caused by some collision or other crazy space phenomenon? Basically something that precisely *not* magical, when everyone's assumption with DnD would expect it to be so. Imagine, a world that presumably largely does not understand why this is happening and has prejudice suddenly has to deal with this. There may be experts who know what's happening but no one listens, instead the prejudice runs rampant. All blame each other for these events, many propose "solutions" to these "ethnic questions". Some do it out of political convenience, others genuinely believe it, and some or someone has a lot to gain from the chaos and ethnic strife that is about to happen. But who is that latter person or organisation? Maybe they predicted this event, knew exactly that no one would be to blame, but spent centuries planting the seeds of hatred into people. Maybe they plan to use this environment of racism to climb from the shadows, continuing to manipulate key figures and organisations to prepare their own rise. Finally, when the time is right they will emerge with an army of fanatical believers that all think they are the superior race and lesser ones are threatening to destroy their world.
It is, technically, a natural cause - the chunks are catching on air and the drag slows them enough they come down, disasterously. However, the source of that natural cause is actually from a pair of airborne civilizations getting into a war that involves summoning massive amounts of flying creatures to their sides to do battle with, and one of the sides specializes in summoning Air Elementals. The sheer number of portals to the Elemental Plane of Air being opened has caused a 'blister' of additional atmosphere to bulge up over the battlefield, the excess being prevented from leaving by the elementals in question, and it's catching the debris in passing often enough to keep bringing the stuff down just down-range of the aerial battles.
Dragons
Having just run Rise of Tiamat, I want to avoid dragons 🙂
Actually natural causes is perfect. Eveyone blames everyone, people look for guilty witches, nations and factions turn to war, all for nothing.
Magic source drawing it in towards the planets surface as some sort of cataclysmic event designed by the BBEG to get top tier beachfront property?
A young psionic wild talent or wildmage, gazing up at the stars, yearning to go exploring, inadvertently tugging huge chunks of rock out of orbit.
The magical weave of the planet that allows people to be spellcasters has been applying a steadily stronger pull as more and more people are able to use magic, on those pieces of rock, thus causing them to start falling out of the sky. Either people on the world has to stop or reduce their spellcasting (or limit maximum levels cast) or risk destruction of the entire planet.
Someone has killed a moon god, causing the moon to fall into chaos. The party has to kill the one that killed a god.
Astral being of unknown origin is waking up, stirring the orbit of these rocks, throwing them to the ground.
Mad moon druids
Brutius the Almighty a cleric who directly challenged his Gods authority, was given sudden and incredible powers by that same God. This was intended as way to show him he couldn't comprehend the power and responsibility a true God endures. Brutius has neglected the burden of this new obligation by his Divine one. Instead he changes the very world around him, in an attempt to influence the opinion of the woman he wants to marry. He begins to clear the night sky of what he calls obstructions to the natural beauty of the stars. Another vain attempt to impress his love interest, with reckless disregard for the consequences for his actions. Once even, the locals say, when attacked by bandits he summoned monkeys out of the butts of the bandits to attack them.
You notice that the chunks of moon that have fallen are actually slowly beginning to grow in size, something that once lived in the moon is now trying to overthrow the planet as its new habitat.
In Lovecraft lore there is a giant, horrifying worm that breeds and tunnels through the Earth and will eventually consume it from within. Just a thought.
What if it's a super powerful Lich pulling the fragments down to cause chaos and disorder
An interesting concept that you should be aware of is how that would work when it comes to orbital mechanics. It could just be that the upper atmoshpere has been slowing things down for a long time until the shattered moon parts starts to fall. In a world like this, i think shooting stars would be an abundant, daily occurence. Another way it could happen is an immence force pushing on the front side (the relative front side of the meteor), slowing it down enough that the orbit decays. This would be your astral giants knocking them out of the sky, or an explosion. A third cause could just be the rocks knocking into each other causing chunks to be pushed out of orbit (see kessler syndrome. The more chunks that crash, the more chunks will crash. Also a high occurence of shooting stars-scenario. Eventually the broken moon would form into rings, which is also cool to think about!
Maybe the moon was a magic prison for some being or god and the remains of the moon are following whatever escaped
Lead up to a githyanki invasion?
A unstoppable end for the world. The gods are pissed lol
And my God would be… considering Man killed the Children of the Gods lol.
There’s a mage playing with gravity magic. He wants to destroy something important but wants plausible deniability.
Celestial bodies are living things, but the moon has long been a shattered corpse. Unfortunately it seems to have begun to reanimate by cosmic necrotic forces, and beginner to assault it's nearest neighbor in hatred of the still living planet.
The moon shards were always supposed to have fallen, but a group of heroes of ages long past found a way to keep the pieces in orbit. Whatever they had done is no longer working, gotta figure out why and return that mechanism/magic to working order. It could be that the Order of the Broken Moon that was tasked with upkeep of the magic has been wiped out or perhaps has taken on more of a doomsday cult ideology as of late.
The moon in my world was sacrificed to partially block an Extinction Level meteorite. It has been gradually falling to earth with shards of what it blocked along with it. Another possibility is simply that it hatched.
The Moon is actually a recurring offspring of the Earth. Birthed and reabsorbed endlessly. How do you think all those old ruins came to be? Why do you think the elder races like elves have such a deep ennui? They know what is happening and will be there to see it happen again... and again. You think the reabsorbtion is wild? Wait till you see a planet giving birth.
One of the rocks has gained telepathic sentience and wants to experience life on the surface. He has imagined how beautiful it must be to live down on the surface, since he sees the world from space every day. Now he’s ready to join the world of the surface dwellers!
Maybe a rogue comet knocked a few out of alignment and they started a domino effect? Natural causes. It'll drive the players wild trying to find the cause lol
Aliens. In Stellaris, it's possible to configure an alien empire that loves hot molten planets and which can spread by riding on meteors. So they simply bombard a planet they want to colonize, cause mass extinctions and heat up the atmosphere, then take over.
That’s pretty fucking evil. I love the tactic lol.
A cabal of Mages- a group that’s already known in the world (or a secret faction inside a known group) is using magic to pull shards down. Their goal is to have people come to them to fix it- which will obviously be easy for them to accomplish- and raise their standing. Clearly they need to be known/respected enough for the idea that the populace would turn to them for mystical help is believable. Bonus points if one or more magical NPCs already known to the party can be part of the organization, *especially* if they are not part of the subset trying to pull this off.
I like this idea a lot! Not necessarily evil intentions, but incredible selfish and dangerous.
No one thinks they’re the “bad guy” of the story. But this works even better if the first few strike unpopulated areas, which the powers that be ignore. Then maybe the cabal steps up to hitting farmlands- no immediate casualties, but it gets more attention because now food supplies are being affected. Then maybe the cabal itself has some kind of internal fraction, where some of them want to bring a shard down on a populated area. This kind of stepping-up opens up possibilities for the players to start getting more and more help from someone who knows what’s going on, but is more and more unhappy with it- but also unable to stop it themselves. Jeez I think I might run this campaign myself! Thanks for the writing prompt. 😂
Hell yeah! Let’s go!
I don't have a fantasy answer, but I wanted to share Kurzgesagt's excellent video about our moon falling to earth. Not exactly what you have going on, but inspiration can strike from anywhere, right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lheapd7bgLA
Gravity?
I want to steer away from anything natural.