Radiance:Life After the Fallout

[RobJN]

The Radiance wiped out the people of Blackmoor and all those who were near the reactors. What life remains in its aftermath? How was divine magic effected? What remains of Blackmoors Legacies? Is Technology hoarded or destroyed by those who would attempt to prevent the destruction of the world yet again? What creatures arose from the wastelands spawned from the aftermath of the Radiance?

This answer is probably as varied as the number of DMs running games on Mystara.... There is very little canon information about the world after the Great Rain of Fire.

A blast of the magnitude to actually shift a planet on its axis outstrips even the dinosaur-killer asteroid or comet from Earth's ~65Mya. We'd be looking at a glancing blow from a planetoid roughly Mars-sized, which is what some scientists think gave us the moon.

So, I'm inclined to think that the devastation is somewhat less than what our real-world models come up with. Then again, the version of the Great Rain of Fire is vastly different from the baseline material, the result of a backblast of magic that scoured demons from the surface of the world, tainted the planet's magical field, and drove the wizards insane, causing them to remade the world in their madness. But the end result would be the same:

Immediate area(s) around Blackmoor are obliterated, continents reshaped, oceans and mountains changing places.
A sickness known as the Wasting takes root among the survivors, and can probably be likened to the various stages of radiation sickness. With the quasi-magical sourcing of the Radiance, one might imagine it would be especially deadly to those races with "magic in the blood."

Certainly, insect life would remain -- perhaps the "giant" variations of insects that seem to scurry around in dungeons had their beginnings amidst the Radiance-laced fallout in the ruins of Blackmoor?

Outlying colonies may or may not have survived the destruction. Would they have been flooded with refugees? Would those refugees-- possibly tainted with the Wasting-- be allowed anywhere near the cities and outposts?

For those with Blackmoor tech, there would be those wanting it for themselves, to start carving out their own city-states, and those who would eschew such devices. Again, the line between have and have-not would be very stark indeed. Would those with the Tech use it to lord over the tribes and clans without? Or would they not bother with those who turned back to "barbarism" and only seek to deal with (read: conquer) other city-states still hoarding other caches of Tech?

As the elves of proto-Glantri show us, some colossal devices of Blackmoor Tech still lie scattered across the expanse of the Old Empire.

Some speculate that the current goblinoid races are the result of Radiance stabilizing the breeds of Beast Men. Or perhaps they are the result of Radiance mutating demi-human races.

On Thorn's Mystara, the wastes surrounding Blackmoor are haunted by Radiant shadows, living spells, burnt-out magitech warrior-shells, demon-infused weapons and armor, great swathes of undead Visions...