“You asked me if I remember the world before? I can only say I wish I didn’t. The day they came was the worst day of anyone’s life. The image is still burned into my mind. These… shapes descending from the sky. Each of them a mass of tentacles and mouths and eyes; all of it shifting constantly. My descriptions can’t do them justice and you don’t want to hear one that could. They’re too terrible to be described.

“Most people couldn’t handle the sight. They lost their minds. I doubt they even knew half of what was happening to them. They were the lucky ones. The rest of us were either torn apart by fleshy beasts, crushed in the rampant destruction of everything we ever knew, or rounded up and dragged away.

“To where? You don’t want to know. I’ll only tell you that Humanity died that day. All that is left are your kind and those like you.

“And those like me. The few who haven’t been fortunate enough to die.”

Welcome to Rainfall, a post-apocalyptic, Lovecraftian setting for Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition. Here, you’ll find a city destroyed by entitles beyond mortal understanding. Adventure through a world where the weapons of the past are rebuilt using the ruins of the present and the technology of today is the magic of tomorrow.

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Humanity has been punished for its curiosity. In the year 2093, Humanity first detected signs of extraterrestrial life. It came as a radio signal unlike anything ever seen before, a pattern that could only be explained as the work of an intelligent actor.

Over the next 20 years, Humanity worked together on a scale never before seen in an attempt to reach out to this signal. Radio transmitters were built in massive numbers and many manned space missions were planned. Yet Humanity could never predict what the fruits of their labors would bring.

As suddenly as it had been first discovered, the source of the signal arrived on Earth: The Preeminent. Creatures with powers beyond our understanding descended on the world, their motivations unknown. Within a matter of days, the world descended into chaos. Those who survived the initial arrival found only two fates awaited them: to be consumed in madness and wander eternally in their stupor or to become the playthings of these invaders.

The world became subject to these creatures’ strange whims. Humanity was subject to genetic experiments that ranged from psychotic cruelty to odd fixations and fascinations, while the environment itself was shaped into a bizarre mockery of what it once was. Over generations, Humanity was nearly bred out of existence with the products of the invader’s experiments coming to replace them as the dominant life on the planet.

Yet just as suddenly as they arrived, Earth’s destroyers left. What was once Humanity withdrew to the most remote parts of the world, hiding from what they feared would one day return. But they never did.

Generations passed and knowledge of the world before and the catastrophe that ended it drifted into the realm of myth and legend. Slowly, the survivors emerged to find a world of ruins. As they began to piece a world back together, knowledge of iron and stone were rediscovered and society began to reemerge.

What was once Humanity is now taking its first fledgling steps back into the ruins they once called home, scrounging technology that is far beyond their understanding and living in fear of what horrors never left with their masters.

This is the world you live in. This is the only world you have ever known. Looming large above the only home you’ve ever known are the ruins of the city of Rainfall. Your people call out for someone to brave the ruins and bring back what secrets Rainfall holds. The secrets of the world before are waiting for you.

The World After

In Rainfall, the world is split in two: the World Before and the World After. The end of the World Before caused the largest loss of Human knowledge ever. Technology was reduced to the stone age and knowledge of everything before the world’s end falling into the realm of myth. Only recently has technology progressed again and the world’s second medieval era is dawning. Players find themselves in the World After, a world where swords and castles are the norm and where the mysteries of the World Before loom over life. Yet beyond the comforts of home lie The Ruins where Aberrations lurk and the technology of the World Before waits to be restored. This leftover technology has shaped the new age. People seamlessly blend this ancient technology with new magics and modern medieval life. Without electricity, the technology is limited, but what little can be repaired and used is cherished and shapes the new way of life. With the destruction of the World Before, the split between magic and technology has been made far more prominent.

Unlike in other settings, magic is extremely limited in the World After. Only two sources of magic exist within Rainfall: Outer Magic and Old World Magic. Outer magic is the mysterious power wielded by the Preeminent who brought about the world’s end whereas Old World Magic is the use of technology from the World Before in a manner which resembles magic.

The City of Rainfall

The city of Rainfall and its surrounding region is the epicenter of what was once Humanity’s exploration of the World After. Once, the Preeminent laid the city to ruins. Rubble blocks many of the streets and what streets aren’t crowded in debris are heaved and cracked like the aftermath of an earthquake. Those buildings that remain standing are in poor condition and in constant danger of collapse. Glass litters their interiors, tables lay in pieces, and all manner of objects are scattered across the space.

Here, nature has reclaimed the city, turning it into a new environment. Trees grow through the walls of buildings and grass sprouts from the streets. These plants are starved, drawing whatever water they can find from the earth. They are thin with brittle, brown leaves and the grass is barely clinging to life as if in a drought. The city’s once bustling port district has flooded, creating an underwater labyrinth of buildings, coral, and sunken ships. The tops of Rainfall’s towering skyscrapers have become like mountains, covered in ice and snow and distant from the rest of the world. Finally, the tunnels of the city’s sprawling subway system have become a foreboding maze that hide those creatures who can’t stand the sight of the sun.

Aberrations rule the surface of the ruins with Vestiges shambling through the streets as the maddened remains of what once were Humans. Bandits prey upon anyone who they can find and take everything they can get. Demons and their undead servants haunt the abandoned subway tunnels and drag away anyone who approaches. Dragons fly between the buildings, ruling the skies of the new world. Fey walk the city’s ancient park, tending the trees and guiding their elemental allies. Angels work tirelessly to rebuild what they can and impose their own sense of morality on a broken world.

Outside the metropolitan area, what was once suburbs has returned to countryside. These lands are the safe havens of what was once Humanity. Here, kingdoms and nations flourish, bringing society back to the World After. Yet these civilizations crave the secrets of the World Before. That’s where you come in.