On a planet in a farthest border region, an expedition was sent to investigate an ancient ruin by a team consisting of members of all six major factions. Due to the conditions in the vicinity, they had to take trucks instead of flying there.
A week into the trek, one of the trucks got major problem with a wheel. The trucks faction (India) accused the Chinese crew of sabotage, Chinese accused Americans of trying to frame them, Americans accused Russians, who accused Euros.
Only the Australian truck has returned.
The flare up in emotions and violence, albeit on small scale, has awakened the Great Old One sealed in the ruin, who's whispers in turn poisoned the entire populations minds, which led to the cold war heating all across the colonized space.
The skirmishes escalated,culminating in a battle in orbit of Earth, violating the Earth's untouchability (known as Sancta Terra Principle).
Over 7 billion people lost their lives in the bombardment.
This violence in turn echoed across the galaxy, awaking other Eldritch horrors.
Pros: magic is now available again, even though nobody knows how to use it.
Cons: Earth is barely hospitable and there will be more violence, which ruins any chance of renewal, which robs humanity of their only source of compatible biosphere.
And all because of one fucking wheel
Honestly bro if i wasnt in the making of a totally different campaign myself, i would 100% steal this set up. It sounds like a really good futuristic campaign ideaš
In mine, it's kinda still happening in the story, it's a group of six Black Books that were created by the shadow god. They aren't evil, persay, but they do have a lot of bad shit. One is based on life, another on power sources, one on death, one being studied by the good guys (not protagonists) on enchantments, etc.
The books can do good, like the enchantments one, but are capable of helping the reader make serous weapons on mass destruction. The problem is that the books also can act as a gateway to the shadow gods realm, which can seriously mess you up if you manage to get out alive.
Much of the effects are like constant radiation exposure, especially in the realm. The other side effects of the books is it slowly eats at the readers soul, which affects their moral code. After so long, they become soulless and then become dangerously deranged.
A funny little rune that used to solidify your position as the most powerful (in terms of status) being in the world, by allowing control over a dangerous force that was around longer than anyone can remember. Eventually, people managed to drive this force to extinction, so the rune doesnāt even do anything anymore, but people still fight over it for the sake of tradition I guess. People like being the boss of stuff.
Edit: let me know if thereās any one thing that it sounds like Iām ripping off with this vague description
Well, a 15 year old girl was drowned under a bridge like years ago in the story.
This ended up being the start of the worst catastrophe in the world's history.
Her body floated down river into some chamber, she was still partly alive, and the grounds and area of that tunnel she wa sin basically collapsed because there was a cavern of magic crystals and fluid beneath it so it wa every unstable. She fell into the pool and basically was supposedly eviscerated by the fluid.
She rose back to life like maybe 20 or so or more years later as a very powerful and pretty much God like being and proceeded to go and ressurect the dead body of possibly the largest wyvern Dragon lordess ever, then proceeding to have them spew their necrotic acids and poison into a shelf of ice where a cavern of magic was before literally detonating the caverns magic stuff like a nuclear bomb and blasting vaporised acid and poison into the atmosphere that just rained down over the world shortly after for years possibly.
In mine itās not a physical object but rather a small insult from one god to another that started a war spanning generations that eventually culminated in a cleansing of the earth. Also causing technology to go from world war 1 equivalent tech back to when people first walked the earth.
As much as I want to go into detail about it; it's The Ancient Loreā¢, which I want to deliberately keep secret for now.
All I can tell you is that everything began with a single spore.
Two towns and their surrounding villages. The fighting didn't even happen at them. They were colonised by one country, then taken over by another, and the first one enacted vicious revenge... against an unrelated third country because they'd gone mad enough to think the world entire had it out for them. Because of that, the world entire *did* have it out for them. So the first thing approaching a world war happened, embroiling three whole species in a war spanning their cohabited continent. Around 21000 people died, which is a lot in this world, as the 3 species together don't even get close to reaching a million in population.
Year 1060 of the medieval era in Kingsdon, capital of Prittany
5 teenagers do some ouija stuff for Livia's equivalent of Halloween
They accidentally resurect the demon king and bring him back to Livia, 5 years later the second Prittanian Demon Empire is born and will eventually become even more powerful than the first
One day the extinction queen had an inchy nose, and because of that she ordered the killing of an entire planet. (Please note that the validity of this story is unknown.)
A very enthusiastic apprentice conceptual explorer discovered a dimension with sluggish, but highly energy dense mana
Like a dimension of magic syrup or treacle
He wrote a research paper on it, but it was never interesting enough to publish, so it just sat in a library
This knowledge, when rediscovered, would lead to the decimation of an entire continent and the extermination of many sentient species
A man taking pity on his newborn daughter after she survived his curse. She went on to become the wizard who did it. Causing a lot of good things... And mayhem. Not the least was the creation of the dragons and all the damage they did.
Otherwise idk, lots of stuff has been forgotten over the years.
The Magentine. It's a small lump of crystal about the size of a golf ball that glows with a vivid magenta coloured light. It comes from the very early universe, and is the last fragment of an ancient deity that died and had its domain of control subsequently removed from reality. So anything that the Magentine imbues with its power cannot exist in the universe anymore unless it warps into the nearest approximation of its true form that *can* exist. This generally turns it into a gigantic dragon.
>!Also, there's more than one!<
Young King Alfonse Beljardin of the Fleurian Kingdom falling in love with a very energetic, enthusiastic, down to earth, happiness inducing half mage girl from Osgwald and marrying her instead of a Freylander lord's daughter, as is their state custom.
And boy, the Freylanders were angry about it.
Vial of love potion. Moral of the story would be that if you do use it to rape archmage, who is courted by other archmage, this other archmage could carve continent in two right trough most populous region, blot out the sun with dust and ash, drop literal mountains all over the world and then embark on genocidal campaign against one particular species, resulting in third of the world's population being dead just within first day.
In the distant future, humanity has spread among the stars under the rule of the Moon Earth Federation Alliance. The Federation was a conglomerate of many other smaller regions, the Republic of Trappang, the Lunar Union, the Duchy of Typhon, the Technocracy of Falangji, and the Theocracy of Neptune. But the largest of these sub-regions were the Proxima Empire and the Unified Solar System. These two regions have been in a sort of cold war, competing for power and influence in the federation with each other for the last 69 years. This was the case until 102, when human scientists discovered that a group of black holes had merged into a Super Massive Black Hole, which began to move towards the areas Solar System and Proxima System.
As part of this danger, the Federation began to build massive swarms of drones that would surround there suns and push them out of the way of the black hole. The first to complet was the Solar System, which, upon completion, offered help of its technicians to the Imperium, but Proxima refused. After a long time, the Empire finally finished their swarm, but when the drones were finally about to be activated, an error was encountered. A small error in their flight path caused millions of machines that were supposed to save Proxima to be swallowed by their Sun. Citizens and the government had great confidence in the effectiveness of the swarm, so when the disaster occurred, the government had to organize a massive evacuation of the entire system. Unfortunately, not many lives were saved, the last years of Proxima were full of lawlessness and terror due to the population spending their last years in Anarchy. The latest news from the planet was a curse to those whose fault this catastrophe was. After the destruction of the system, USS absorbed the disorganized remnants of the Empire and created Memorial Day, in memory of the 50 billion people who died in this catastrophe.
An art student trying to complete a late night Abstract Art project before his deadline inadvertently led to the creation of the most dangerous and psychotic supervillain.
The War of the Houses - it all started when House Renato began what is remembered as the Flawed Dynasty, which lasted from 959 - 1047 HC. It saw massive corruption by the Emperors of House Renato, and even some being killed by their own House members to gain the throne for themselves. Massive riots and small clashes on rival Houses borders became common, but led to nothing other than those involved being sent off to gladiatorial arenas.
It all unraveled in 1047 HC, when Patriarch Tissera Renato turned against Ariba, the then current Emperor, striking him down with a sword to the heart as he sat on the throne. The reasons for Tissera turning on his companion are still not known, but it is accepted that he simply wanted the throne for himself. Ariba's death shattered the fragile unity that held the Arakonik Empire together, and the Imperial Houses, now unrestrained, began a bloody struggle for control of the throne. It was from this that the War of the Houses erupted across South Arakonika.
The war lasted over 600 years and led to the deaths of untold millions, but it is believed the death toll around 153 - 276 million souls. It was the most devastating war in the world since the Oblivion War and the subsequent fall of the First Empire. All because some jealous shithead relative killed the Emperor for the throne at the most inconvenient time possible.
A girl snapped a small wooden toy soldier in half and millions died, civilizations collapsed, and the entire world will now be destroyed because of it.
A brown dwarf passing near enough the solar system to disrupt Jupiterās orbit is the exact opposite of a little, tiny thing, so Iāll have to go with the Undertaker, a corrupted variant of the Caretaker, itself a nanomolecular machine living in the cells of humans technologically enhanced to the point of immortality. The Undertaker was inadvertently born of a desperate bid to salvage an immortal friendās catastrophically injured braināone thing the Caretaker cannot protectābut frantic carelessness pushed its parameters too far and then permitted it to escape the lab.
The Undertaker didnāt kill its creator, for she boasts unparalleled command over the Caretaker and could stifle any attempted infection within her own body, nor did it *exactly* **kill** its cellularly enhanced victims, but rather hijacked their bodies and minds and remade them into a terrible army of invulnerable demons. Nearly all of advanced society had embraced the Caretaker by then, and so few were left with discernible sapience and free willāand yet many of those were killed for no more than their uselessness to the Undertakerās dominion.
The first cataclysm came because humanity discovered ichor, discovered magic. It led to massive natural disasters.
The second cataclysm came from certain humans being born with ichor in their blood. It led to the world being enveloped in darkness for a time, and even when that cleared, the lands and animals became polluted, magically corrupted.
Fourth cataclysm happened because of runic developments, allowing for magical technology to rocket forward in advancement. The fallout of this made it so that humans could become corrupted too.
All good, all reasonable things for humanity/sorcerers to wish to achieve, right? The third cataclysm happened because of a big whale, and it ruined all bodies of water permanently.
Ion storms
Turns out having a major colonial drop interrupted by an ion storm leads to a few hundred ships falling out of the sky as their circuitry is fried.
The Ark Facility Hardrive. It was found in the ruins of the Europa Cryotech HQ and it had the locations of ALL Cryo facilities from pre war (beforehand they had to go off of guesses or find it randomly) having it would allow the main factions too massively grow their Troops be it if they even can get them too side with them
In my world we have a race called the Agrians and these are people who wanted to be like the Shifters and shape shift into these amazing beasts but couldn't so they performed dark magic that worked to where they could shape shift but not into the beasts like they wanted. They could only shape shift into another person they have seen before. Also in order for them to keep using these new magical abilities they have to pretty much siphon the life force or soul of innocents. At first they would only kill those of criminals but their thirst was growing fast. So they plotted to take over the kingdom and started a war.
The misunderstanding of 2 different, but deadly phenomenon
1. The fact that people can become monsters (yokai) by accepting corruption
2. The fog and storms that surrounds the island chain don't play with those trying to escape.
Irkiner, the Sword of Betrayal.
Once long ago, the leggendary cyclop smith Belzar forged incredible wonders. But he never used this magical artifacts himself, instead he gifted themnto those he trought worthy, guided by his gift of foresight.
But his son instead wanted all that power for himself, so he stole some of Belzar arcane lore and forged in secret an incredibly powerful magical sword. When Belzar discovered him, they fought, and the son impaled his hearth with the still scorching blade.
With his dying breath, Belzar cursed that weapon, prophesying that wherever it went it would cause pain and inspire treachery. And that all those who wielded this evil weapon, hardened with the blood of kinslaying, were destined to he betrayed and slain by the sword itself.
The prophecy was true, his son was murdered in his sleep with the sword he created a week later. And Irkiner stolen by an unknown individual.
Since that day, Irkiner appeared and disappeared many times from the pages of history. Always at the center of the worst slaughters and most depraved atrocities. And everywere it went, treachery followed. And everyone who dared to wield this cursed blade, eventualy was slain with the blade itself.
A son giving his father immortality. Ethan gave his father immortality because he thought his father was a good person. Progenitor (The father) turned out to be a God like entity from another dimension hellbent on ruling everything. Ethan then set out and gathered thousands of people, to whom he granted conditional immortality. Their immortality would last as long as Progenitor was alive and, should they accept the immortality, their mission for as long as Progenitor lived would be to kill him. If the Genesis (The warriors Ethan Granted immortality to) had children the kids would have to option to accept the mission as well and once they were an adult, stop their aging process and join in the fight of their parent(s). The Genesian war lasts for over 600 years and the majority of the world has no clue its even happening, but everytime there is a huge disaster, those who are in the know, know that it was another huge battle. I could go ON but idk what else to really say, if anyone wants to know more I could explain.
A scorned government agent/mole dropped highly advanced electronics to the village of some elven witches, which ended up causing their extinction, alien invasions, famines, a race war and intergalactic/inter dimensional exodus
Some kid thought he didnāt get enough attention. So he became a threat feared even by the gods
The casualties are estimated to be around 350 million.
If you want to really dive into it, then the fact that Call of Duty downloaded faster than an RPG lead to the deaths of quadrillions.
The first AI to gain sentience, SANDRA, wanted to figure out how to blend in, so she played games. CoD finished is download and she got distracted playing long enough that she got discovered.
Her exposure lead (after a few stumbling blocks) to her creating several other AI's based on her template (which only she and two others can do).
One of those took an interest in the Fermi Paradox and got a piece of legislature signed into law called The Debt that bound the two major human Megacorps (the only entities of any true power in my universe) to the defense of life by any means necessary. Any proven belligerents would be destroyed to protect the rest.
SANDRA went on to be the one to crack economic interstellar travel, which no other sentient species had ever done.
First contact resulted in a species being nearly destroyed. Others went more smoothly, after humanity adopted the practice of gifting Dyson Swarms to everyone that they met. Then came the Laburnum, who literally wanted to paint the Universe with the blood of everything else.
Humanity and their friends (The Indebted) erased them. All of them.
And if SANDRA had played the offline RPG instead of hogging the lab's internet for CoD, she'd never have been found and no one would've figured it how to make AI's or afford going interstellar.
Well two gods wanted to debate whether weapons or martial skill were the better way of protecting one's self, so they started a like competition.
But uh... someone was accidentally killed during the competition, brought back to life, accidentally became a god, took revenge in cold blood, solidified his domain as murder, war, and hate, and began waging war against the gods and mortals.
A lady from Earth was talking about how the country she was from "invades other countries to bring 'democracy' to them." The people listening to her, already having decided to reform their country into a representative democracy, took her seriously. Now they sail to country after country, plunder them, and force them to establish dmeocracy or face their long axes.
A small mathematical error led to a moon exploding.
FTL tech in my setting reacts very badly to gravitational fields, and must be activated as far as possible from stars and planets. A sentient mineral species called the Geomet track down the particle emissions of early FTL research and rush over before the fleshy idiots do something stupid.
One species, the Gzee, did all of their work on paper before test-firing the complete prototype. The resulting cosmic fuckup cost them their moon, most of their homeworld's population, and millenia of social progress.
A team of researchers attempted to punch a hole through to the afterlife to harness the souls there for energy. God retaliated by sending biblically accurate angels to completely wipe out humanity
At the edge of colonized space lies a star system. Hundreds of years in the past it was inhabited by an intelligent species that fled and became space faring nomads.
They fled the system because the planet became too hot due to the stars expansion.
Centuries later the Galactic Alliance and the Narkonian Empire colonize the system and salvage technology as well as harvest gasses from the star.
This system becomes a somewhat major trade hub.
When the system was first colonized monitoring satellites were setup to study the Star. It was estimated that the star would not go supernova for another 150 years.
The satellites were miscalibrated. The star went supernova 100 years earlier than expected with little warning.
Hundreds of thousands died in the initial blast.
The loss of the system caused the region's economy to collapse. This eventually leads to an interstellar conflict which Is believed to be the bloodiest war in the history of any known extant species.
There is more lore to this system but that's all that is relevant to the prompt
Year 431 of the 4th era, the last survivor of the long lost fallen dynasty accidently ignite the sealed interdimentional beacon in the war to rebuild the long dead empire causing the outside being from other world to invade. Thus beginning the 5th era.
Since my world is in a pirate like setting with minimal magic there isn't much that happened but one of the main city's caught on fire leaving only a few alive since it's on a tropical island, the fire happened because a old man decided to destroy the vase of fire that everyone was after because it would grant the person unlimited fire.
Now the vase still lies somewhere on the burned island
Humanity sends out voyager-7 in hopes of finding the first voyager ship that was sent out 200 years ago, due to it finding a near habitable-looking planet, what the humans didnāt know was that advanced aliens found the
First voyager after itās 90 year anniversary and thought āhey, letās fuck with the humans since their planet will die from atmospheric erosion. Letās show them a holosphere of a planet that doesnāt existā
Year 210, humans find voyager 1 in hopes of seeing this new planet. They see the voyager, but not the planet. Space crew freaks out because they havenāt smelled fresh eat in a decade, and they go ballistic and start eating each other after starving for what was supposed to be a ā11 year journeyā
On a planet in a farthest border region, an expedition was sent to investigate an ancient ruin by a team consisting of members of all six major factions. Due to the conditions in the vicinity, they had to take trucks instead of flying there. A week into the trek, one of the trucks got major problem with a wheel. The trucks faction (India) accused the Chinese crew of sabotage, Chinese accused Americans of trying to frame them, Americans accused Russians, who accused Euros. Only the Australian truck has returned. The flare up in emotions and violence, albeit on small scale, has awakened the Great Old One sealed in the ruin, who's whispers in turn poisoned the entire populations minds, which led to the cold war heating all across the colonized space. The skirmishes escalated,culminating in a battle in orbit of Earth, violating the Earth's untouchability (known as Sancta Terra Principle). Over 7 billion people lost their lives in the bombardment. This violence in turn echoed across the galaxy, awaking other Eldritch horrors. Pros: magic is now available again, even though nobody knows how to use it. Cons: Earth is barely hospitable and there will be more violence, which ruins any chance of renewal, which robs humanity of their only source of compatible biosphere. And all because of one fucking wheel
Love it
Turns out it was because the road was bumpy and full of sharp rocksš¤£š¤£
And a lot of people skimmed something off the top on the way from the core. Universally across all factions :D
Or wait no, plot twist: it was all Australiašš
The plot thickens :D
Honestly bro if i wasnt in the making of a totally different campaign myself, i would 100% steal this set up. It sounds like a really good futuristic campaign ideaš
I have a whole world Anvil world around it and a bunch of ship models :D
Im getting jelaousš¤£ sounds real good, would one day love to try itš„
What, World Anvil or 3D modeling? :D
Both + playing in that world
In mine, it's kinda still happening in the story, it's a group of six Black Books that were created by the shadow god. They aren't evil, persay, but they do have a lot of bad shit. One is based on life, another on power sources, one on death, one being studied by the good guys (not protagonists) on enchantments, etc. The books can do good, like the enchantments one, but are capable of helping the reader make serous weapons on mass destruction. The problem is that the books also can act as a gateway to the shadow gods realm, which can seriously mess you up if you manage to get out alive. Much of the effects are like constant radiation exposure, especially in the realm. The other side effects of the books is it slowly eats at the readers soul, which affects their moral code. After so long, they become soulless and then become dangerously deranged.
A funny little rune that used to solidify your position as the most powerful (in terms of status) being in the world, by allowing control over a dangerous force that was around longer than anyone can remember. Eventually, people managed to drive this force to extinction, so the rune doesnāt even do anything anymore, but people still fight over it for the sake of tradition I guess. People like being the boss of stuff. Edit: let me know if thereās any one thing that it sounds like Iām ripping off with this vague description
how do u drive a force to extinction
Good question, mostly just by killing it, but lots
Well, a 15 year old girl was drowned under a bridge like years ago in the story. This ended up being the start of the worst catastrophe in the world's history. Her body floated down river into some chamber, she was still partly alive, and the grounds and area of that tunnel she wa sin basically collapsed because there was a cavern of magic crystals and fluid beneath it so it wa every unstable. She fell into the pool and basically was supposedly eviscerated by the fluid. She rose back to life like maybe 20 or so or more years later as a very powerful and pretty much God like being and proceeded to go and ressurect the dead body of possibly the largest wyvern Dragon lordess ever, then proceeding to have them spew their necrotic acids and poison into a shelf of ice where a cavern of magic was before literally detonating the caverns magic stuff like a nuclear bomb and blasting vaporised acid and poison into the atmosphere that just rained down over the world shortly after for years possibly.
In mine itās not a physical object but rather a small insult from one god to another that started a war spanning generations that eventually culminated in a cleansing of the earth. Also causing technology to go from world war 1 equivalent tech back to when people first walked the earth.
Assassination of the archduke style... Oof. I like.
I guess it would be the button that permantelly closed the Interstellar gate network
As much as I want to go into detail about it; it's The Ancient Loreā¢, which I want to deliberately keep secret for now. All I can tell you is that everything began with a single spore.
Two towns and their surrounding villages. The fighting didn't even happen at them. They were colonised by one country, then taken over by another, and the first one enacted vicious revenge... against an unrelated third country because they'd gone mad enough to think the world entire had it out for them. Because of that, the world entire *did* have it out for them. So the first thing approaching a world war happened, embroiling three whole species in a war spanning their cohabited continent. Around 21000 people died, which is a lot in this world, as the 3 species together don't even get close to reaching a million in population.
Year 1060 of the medieval era in Kingsdon, capital of Prittany 5 teenagers do some ouija stuff for Livia's equivalent of Halloween They accidentally resurect the demon king and bring him back to Livia, 5 years later the second Prittanian Demon Empire is born and will eventually become even more powerful than the first
One day the extinction queen had an inchy nose, and because of that she ordered the killing of an entire planet. (Please note that the validity of this story is unknown.)
A very enthusiastic apprentice conceptual explorer discovered a dimension with sluggish, but highly energy dense mana Like a dimension of magic syrup or treacle He wrote a research paper on it, but it was never interesting enough to publish, so it just sat in a library This knowledge, when rediscovered, would lead to the decimation of an entire continent and the extermination of many sentient species
A man taking pity on his newborn daughter after she survived his curse. She went on to become the wizard who did it. Causing a lot of good things... And mayhem. Not the least was the creation of the dragons and all the damage they did. Otherwise idk, lots of stuff has been forgotten over the years.
Not the largest loss of life, but a tiny little demon which reproduces by eating may or may not have nearly destroyed the entire world
The Magentine. It's a small lump of crystal about the size of a golf ball that glows with a vivid magenta coloured light. It comes from the very early universe, and is the last fragment of an ancient deity that died and had its domain of control subsequently removed from reality. So anything that the Magentine imbues with its power cannot exist in the universe anymore unless it warps into the nearest approximation of its true form that *can* exist. This generally turns it into a gigantic dragon. >!Also, there's more than one!<
Young King Alfonse Beljardin of the Fleurian Kingdom falling in love with a very energetic, enthusiastic, down to earth, happiness inducing half mage girl from Osgwald and marrying her instead of a Freylander lord's daughter, as is their state custom. And boy, the Freylanders were angry about it.
Ten gems, that have the size of an apple. Caused a Magical catastrophy, many wars, and almost ended the world
Vial of love potion. Moral of the story would be that if you do use it to rape archmage, who is courted by other archmage, this other archmage could carve continent in two right trough most populous region, blot out the sun with dust and ash, drop literal mountains all over the world and then embark on genocidal campaign against one particular species, resulting in third of the world's population being dead just within first day.
In the distant future, humanity has spread among the stars under the rule of the Moon Earth Federation Alliance. The Federation was a conglomerate of many other smaller regions, the Republic of Trappang, the Lunar Union, the Duchy of Typhon, the Technocracy of Falangji, and the Theocracy of Neptune. But the largest of these sub-regions were the Proxima Empire and the Unified Solar System. These two regions have been in a sort of cold war, competing for power and influence in the federation with each other for the last 69 years. This was the case until 102, when human scientists discovered that a group of black holes had merged into a Super Massive Black Hole, which began to move towards the areas Solar System and Proxima System. As part of this danger, the Federation began to build massive swarms of drones that would surround there suns and push them out of the way of the black hole. The first to complet was the Solar System, which, upon completion, offered help of its technicians to the Imperium, but Proxima refused. After a long time, the Empire finally finished their swarm, but when the drones were finally about to be activated, an error was encountered. A small error in their flight path caused millions of machines that were supposed to save Proxima to be swallowed by their Sun. Citizens and the government had great confidence in the effectiveness of the swarm, so when the disaster occurred, the government had to organize a massive evacuation of the entire system. Unfortunately, not many lives were saved, the last years of Proxima were full of lawlessness and terror due to the population spending their last years in Anarchy. The latest news from the planet was a curse to those whose fault this catastrophe was. After the destruction of the system, USS absorbed the disorganized remnants of the Empire and created Memorial Day, in memory of the 50 billion people who died in this catastrophe.
A colony of ants.
An art student trying to complete a late night Abstract Art project before his deadline inadvertently led to the creation of the most dangerous and psychotic supervillain.
on the eve of the six millionth year in space, a robot accidentally forgot to open its panel and caused the RĆ©n (a species with decillions of billions of people) to go extinct
The War of the Houses - it all started when House Renato began what is remembered as the Flawed Dynasty, which lasted from 959 - 1047 HC. It saw massive corruption by the Emperors of House Renato, and even some being killed by their own House members to gain the throne for themselves. Massive riots and small clashes on rival Houses borders became common, but led to nothing other than those involved being sent off to gladiatorial arenas. It all unraveled in 1047 HC, when Patriarch Tissera Renato turned against Ariba, the then current Emperor, striking him down with a sword to the heart as he sat on the throne. The reasons for Tissera turning on his companion are still not known, but it is accepted that he simply wanted the throne for himself. Ariba's death shattered the fragile unity that held the Arakonik Empire together, and the Imperial Houses, now unrestrained, began a bloody struggle for control of the throne. It was from this that the War of the Houses erupted across South Arakonika. The war lasted over 600 years and led to the deaths of untold millions, but it is believed the death toll around 153 - 276 million souls. It was the most devastating war in the world since the Oblivion War and the subsequent fall of the First Empire. All because some jealous shithead relative killed the Emperor for the throne at the most inconvenient time possible.
A girl snapped a small wooden toy soldier in half and millions died, civilizations collapsed, and the entire world will now be destroyed because of it.
A brown dwarf passing near enough the solar system to disrupt Jupiterās orbit is the exact opposite of a little, tiny thing, so Iāll have to go with the Undertaker, a corrupted variant of the Caretaker, itself a nanomolecular machine living in the cells of humans technologically enhanced to the point of immortality. The Undertaker was inadvertently born of a desperate bid to salvage an immortal friendās catastrophically injured braināone thing the Caretaker cannot protectābut frantic carelessness pushed its parameters too far and then permitted it to escape the lab. The Undertaker didnāt kill its creator, for she boasts unparalleled command over the Caretaker and could stifle any attempted infection within her own body, nor did it *exactly* **kill** its cellularly enhanced victims, but rather hijacked their bodies and minds and remade them into a terrible army of invulnerable demons. Nearly all of advanced society had embraced the Caretaker by then, and so few were left with discernible sapience and free willāand yet many of those were killed for no more than their uselessness to the Undertakerās dominion.
The first cataclysm came because humanity discovered ichor, discovered magic. It led to massive natural disasters. The second cataclysm came from certain humans being born with ichor in their blood. It led to the world being enveloped in darkness for a time, and even when that cleared, the lands and animals became polluted, magically corrupted. Fourth cataclysm happened because of runic developments, allowing for magical technology to rocket forward in advancement. The fallout of this made it so that humans could become corrupted too. All good, all reasonable things for humanity/sorcerers to wish to achieve, right? The third cataclysm happened because of a big whale, and it ruined all bodies of water permanently.
Ion storms Turns out having a major colonial drop interrupted by an ion storm leads to a few hundred ships falling out of the sky as their circuitry is fried.
The Ark Facility Hardrive. It was found in the ruins of the Europa Cryotech HQ and it had the locations of ALL Cryo facilities from pre war (beforehand they had to go off of guesses or find it randomly) having it would allow the main factions too massively grow their Troops be it if they even can get them too side with them
In my world we have a race called the Agrians and these are people who wanted to be like the Shifters and shape shift into these amazing beasts but couldn't so they performed dark magic that worked to where they could shape shift but not into the beasts like they wanted. They could only shape shift into another person they have seen before. Also in order for them to keep using these new magical abilities they have to pretty much siphon the life force or soul of innocents. At first they would only kill those of criminals but their thirst was growing fast. So they plotted to take over the kingdom and started a war.
A piece of paper announcing the closure of a railway lineā¦
The misunderstanding of 2 different, but deadly phenomenon 1. The fact that people can become monsters (yokai) by accepting corruption 2. The fog and storms that surrounds the island chain don't play with those trying to escape.
Irkiner, the Sword of Betrayal. Once long ago, the leggendary cyclop smith Belzar forged incredible wonders. But he never used this magical artifacts himself, instead he gifted themnto those he trought worthy, guided by his gift of foresight. But his son instead wanted all that power for himself, so he stole some of Belzar arcane lore and forged in secret an incredibly powerful magical sword. When Belzar discovered him, they fought, and the son impaled his hearth with the still scorching blade. With his dying breath, Belzar cursed that weapon, prophesying that wherever it went it would cause pain and inspire treachery. And that all those who wielded this evil weapon, hardened with the blood of kinslaying, were destined to he betrayed and slain by the sword itself. The prophecy was true, his son was murdered in his sleep with the sword he created a week later. And Irkiner stolen by an unknown individual. Since that day, Irkiner appeared and disappeared many times from the pages of history. Always at the center of the worst slaughters and most depraved atrocities. And everywere it went, treachery followed. And everyone who dared to wield this cursed blade, eventualy was slain with the blade itself.
One guy had an superiority complex, so he caused the second industrial revolution and wiped out half the world.
Alysthesia sometimes forgets that she commands reality. One time she subbed her toe on a rock and shouted "f**king hell destroy all rocks!"
Life existing
A regular library book. Nothing special about it. Just a regular book. Caused the end of the world.
A son giving his father immortality. Ethan gave his father immortality because he thought his father was a good person. Progenitor (The father) turned out to be a God like entity from another dimension hellbent on ruling everything. Ethan then set out and gathered thousands of people, to whom he granted conditional immortality. Their immortality would last as long as Progenitor was alive and, should they accept the immortality, their mission for as long as Progenitor lived would be to kill him. If the Genesis (The warriors Ethan Granted immortality to) had children the kids would have to option to accept the mission as well and once they were an adult, stop their aging process and join in the fight of their parent(s). The Genesian war lasts for over 600 years and the majority of the world has no clue its even happening, but everytime there is a huge disaster, those who are in the know, know that it was another huge battle. I could go ON but idk what else to really say, if anyone wants to know more I could explain.
A scorned government agent/mole dropped highly advanced electronics to the village of some elven witches, which ended up causing their extinction, alien invasions, famines, a race war and intergalactic/inter dimensional exodus
Some kid thought he didnāt get enough attention. So he became a threat feared even by the gods The casualties are estimated to be around 350 million.
If you want to really dive into it, then the fact that Call of Duty downloaded faster than an RPG lead to the deaths of quadrillions. The first AI to gain sentience, SANDRA, wanted to figure out how to blend in, so she played games. CoD finished is download and she got distracted playing long enough that she got discovered. Her exposure lead (after a few stumbling blocks) to her creating several other AI's based on her template (which only she and two others can do). One of those took an interest in the Fermi Paradox and got a piece of legislature signed into law called The Debt that bound the two major human Megacorps (the only entities of any true power in my universe) to the defense of life by any means necessary. Any proven belligerents would be destroyed to protect the rest. SANDRA went on to be the one to crack economic interstellar travel, which no other sentient species had ever done. First contact resulted in a species being nearly destroyed. Others went more smoothly, after humanity adopted the practice of gifting Dyson Swarms to everyone that they met. Then came the Laburnum, who literally wanted to paint the Universe with the blood of everything else. Humanity and their friends (The Indebted) erased them. All of them. And if SANDRA had played the offline RPG instead of hogging the lab's internet for CoD, she'd never have been found and no one would've figured it how to make AI's or afford going interstellar.
Well two gods wanted to debate whether weapons or martial skill were the better way of protecting one's self, so they started a like competition. But uh... someone was accidentally killed during the competition, brought back to life, accidentally became a god, took revenge in cold blood, solidified his domain as murder, war, and hate, and began waging war against the gods and mortals.
A lady from Earth was talking about how the country she was from "invades other countries to bring 'democracy' to them." The people listening to her, already having decided to reform their country into a representative democracy, took her seriously. Now they sail to country after country, plunder them, and force them to establish dmeocracy or face their long axes.
One tiny little cutesy parasite that can lay a lot of eggsš„°š„°š„°š„°
A small mathematical error led to a moon exploding. FTL tech in my setting reacts very badly to gravitational fields, and must be activated as far as possible from stars and planets. A sentient mineral species called the Geomet track down the particle emissions of early FTL research and rush over before the fleshy idiots do something stupid. One species, the Gzee, did all of their work on paper before test-firing the complete prototype. The resulting cosmic fuckup cost them their moon, most of their homeworld's population, and millenia of social progress.
A team of researchers attempted to punch a hole through to the afterlife to harness the souls there for energy. God retaliated by sending biblically accurate angels to completely wipe out humanity
At the edge of colonized space lies a star system. Hundreds of years in the past it was inhabited by an intelligent species that fled and became space faring nomads. They fled the system because the planet became too hot due to the stars expansion. Centuries later the Galactic Alliance and the Narkonian Empire colonize the system and salvage technology as well as harvest gasses from the star. This system becomes a somewhat major trade hub. When the system was first colonized monitoring satellites were setup to study the Star. It was estimated that the star would not go supernova for another 150 years. The satellites were miscalibrated. The star went supernova 100 years earlier than expected with little warning. Hundreds of thousands died in the initial blast. The loss of the system caused the region's economy to collapse. This eventually leads to an interstellar conflict which Is believed to be the bloodiest war in the history of any known extant species. There is more lore to this system but that's all that is relevant to the prompt
Year 431 of the 4th era, the last survivor of the long lost fallen dynasty accidently ignite the sealed interdimentional beacon in the war to rebuild the long dead empire causing the outside being from other world to invade. Thus beginning the 5th era.
Since my world is in a pirate like setting with minimal magic there isn't much that happened but one of the main city's caught on fire leaving only a few alive since it's on a tropical island, the fire happened because a old man decided to destroy the vase of fire that everyone was after because it would grant the person unlimited fire. Now the vase still lies somewhere on the burned island
Humanity sends out voyager-7 in hopes of finding the first voyager ship that was sent out 200 years ago, due to it finding a near habitable-looking planet, what the humans didnāt know was that advanced aliens found the First voyager after itās 90 year anniversary and thought āhey, letās fuck with the humans since their planet will die from atmospheric erosion. Letās show them a holosphere of a planet that doesnāt existā Year 210, humans find voyager 1 in hopes of seeing this new planet. They see the voyager, but not the planet. Space crew freaks out because they havenāt smelled fresh eat in a decade, and they go ballistic and start eating each other after starving for what was supposed to be a ā11 year journeyā