The End Of The World As We Know It

Hey guys - it's not the end of the world. Which is a pity, because the end of the world I can totally deal with.

Buffy Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Basic Information

The End Of The World As We Know It is both a speculative fiction trope and a horror trope. It represents either large-scale devastation over the entire world the protagonists are on, or even total annihilation - or at least the imminent threat of such.

Ways of Causing The End Of The World As We Know It

• Alien Invasion
• Asteroid Impact - possibly caused by Nemesis (star)
• Collapse of Causality
• Dream Apocalypse
• Mysterium (Scriabin)
• Nuclear War
• Robot War
• Zombie Apocalypse

See Also

• After The End
• Earth Shattering Kaboom
• End of Days
• Saving The World
• Post Apocalyptic Decay

Sources

Bibliography

1. TV Tropes Wiki entry

Game and Story Use

• Adventure Seed: The Hunt for the Dreamers

• Such a plot represents the "ultimate threat" in many epic campaigns, and should get pretty much any player character motivated.
  • Of course, there is always the option that the player characters fail. If that happens, the game master can either end the campaign with a bang, or continue in a post-apocalyptic world. He shouldn't give in to temptation by just having someone else save the world, as this will make the actions of the PCs seem pointless.
• The TV series Angel subverts this in an interesting way with the Jasmine-apocalypse. Very definitely the end of the world as we know it, and probably the end of the world, but without anything in the way of shouting or screaming…