The World Without Adventurers”: What Happens When the PCs Disappear

Dear Readers,

What would your Dungeons & Dragons world look like if the adventurers simply vanished? Not because they fell in battle, retired to far-off lands, or faded into legend—but because they disappeared, all at once, without warning. This is more than a thought experiment. It's a storytelling tool, a world-building question, and, when done right, a powerful narrative engine. Welcome to the concept of The World Without Adventurers.

When the PCs Vanish

Player characters are the living, breathing catalysts of your campaign world. They slay dragons, topple tyrants, and stop apocalypses. Without them, what rises to fill that vacuum? What festers in their absence?

This blog post explores that exact premise—not just philosophically, but practically. Whether you're running a new campaign, want to refresh a tired world, or plan a one-shot with consequences that echo across settings, "The World Without Adventurers" can be a powerful framework. And for inspiration, we look at one of the most evocative examples of this kind of world: The Doomed Forgotten Realms.

The Campaign Premise: Where Are the Heroes?

In your typical D&D game, the world assumes adventurers are a constant. There's always a band of heroes ready to charge into danger. The world leans on them. The gods wait for them. Evil trembles before them.

But what happens if they all vanish?

Perhaps:

• The gods themselves are silent or dead, having invested their last divine power in long-forgotten heroes.
• A dimensional rift swallowed every high-level adventurer during a global magical surge.
• A vast temporal paradox reset the universe—minus its protagonists.
• A secret war among the planes claimed every character who ever rolled initiative.

Suddenly, a world that relied on exceptional individuals to maintain balance finds itself teetering on the brink.

The Doomed Forgotten Realms: A Canonical Twist

In The Doomed Forgotten Realms, the designers imagined exactly that scenario. What if the adventurers failed? What if the Sword Coast's champions never saved the day during Tyranny of Dragons, Out of the Abyss, Storm King's Thunder, or Curse of Strahd? What if Acererak succeeded, and the Soulmonger devoured the dying?

The result is a chilling, dystopian Forgotten Realms where:

• The Cult of the Dragon succeeded in raising Tiamat.
• The drow overran the surface after Lolth’s victory.
• The demon lords roam freely after the events of Out of the Abyss.
• Barovia consumed the lands around it, with Strahd now unconstrained.

It’s a world where all hope seems lost—because the heroes never arrived.

Designing a World Without Adventurers

Let’s break down the tools you can use to craft your own world without PCs—or, at least, without the archetypal heroes we’re used to.

1. Establish the Cause of Disappearance

Make it personal. The world needs a reason why the adventurers are gone. That reason becomes your campaign’s spine.

Ideas:

• Temporal Reset: A chronomancer's experiment went wrong, resetting the world to before heroes emerged.
• Planar Migration: Heroes have been conscripted by powerful entities to fight a cosmic war elsewhere.
• Hero Harvesting: A new entity devours adventuring souls, removing them from the multiverse.
• Divine Abandonment: The gods took the heroes with them when they fled the world.

This answer doesn’t have to be immediately known to the new PCs—but it colors everything that follows.

2. Create the Power Vacuum

Who rises when heroes fall? Power doesn’t sit idle.

Consider:

• Warlords and despots who were previously held in check.
• Monster factions emboldened by the absence of resistance.
• Political shifts that prioritize fear and control.
• Cults that fill the spiritual gap with dark dogma.

This isn’t just the bad guys winning—it’s everyone recalibrating in a world without mythic-scale interventions.

3. Redefine Heroism

In this new world, adventurers are more than rare—they’re legends, myths, or even threats. Your players’ characters are stepping into shoes the world no longer believes exist.

This means:

• Low-level characters have outsized impact.
• The world is suspicious or afraid of rising adventurers.
• NPCs may actively sabotage or monitor the PCs.

Imagine a peasant’s reaction to a sword-wielding warlock who reminds them of the last person who accidentally summoned a city-destroying horror.

4. Revamp Factions and Nations

Every institution has evolved.

• The Harpers are broken or underground.
• The Zhentarim openly rule their cities.
• Wizard towers are state-run and monitor arcane talent.
• Religious orders have collapsed—or turned authoritarian.

Even nature itself may rebel. The Feywild could be darkened, the elements enraged. Without champions, the world’s ecosystems may spiral.

5. Introduce the New Stakes

Without heroes, what threatens the world?

• A magical plague spreads unchecked, transforming commoners into aberrations.
• A tyrant god returns to rewrite reality in their image.
• The Nine Hells and Abyss merge, creating a hellscape that seeps into the Prime.

These are cosmic threats—but remember, your new PCs are not yet cosmic heroes. Which leads us to...

6. Scale Down for Maximum Impact

This is not a time for epic-level characters. This is about survival, small victories, and slow rebellion. Let the players feel the weight of being the first sparks of hope in a world gone dark.

Adventuring is now illegal. Healing magic is banned. Gods are whispering to mortals for the first time in generations.

The heroes are not just resisting evil. They're redefining what it means to be a hero.

Campaign Hooks in a World Without Adventurers

To help bring this premise to life, here are a few campaign hooks you can drop into your world:

1. The Ember Rebellion

A network of former sidekicks, familiars, and low-level retainers have begun uniting in secret to revive the memory of the fallen heroes. The players join them to reignite hope.

2. The Last Quest Scroll

The party finds a sealed scroll left behind by a vanished adventuring party. It outlines a final, desperate mission—and names the reader as their successor.

3. The Harvesting Moon

Every full moon, adventuring-capable individuals vanish from existence. The party must discover the force behind the abductions before it claims them too.

4. False Prophets

Charismatic leaders arise, claiming to be reincarnations of old heroes. Some might even be telling the truth. But their intentions are anything but heroic.

5. The Dungeons Reclaim

Once-pacified dungeons begin expanding, forming new tunnels and spilling monsters into the world. The magic that once sealed them is gone. The players must contain them, or die trying.

Integrating Doomed Forgotten Realms Themes

Let’s bring it back to The Doomed Forgotten Realms, because it does something many campaigns fear to do: it embraces the worst-case scenario.

You can take cues from this setting without needing to run the whole thing:

• Let iconic NPCs fall: Imagine Elminster as a madman, Storm Silverhand as a ghost, or Drizzt as a villain.
• Let evil factions rule: The Red Wizards have conquered the Sword Coast. The Lords' Alliance is a puppet regime.
• Let gods change: Lathander has fallen. Bane walks Toril again. Helm has become a silent enforcer god.

By using familiar names in unfamiliar ways, you instantly invoke dread, curiosity, and excitement.

And remember—The Doomed Forgotten Realms isn’t about despair. It’s about resistance. Your players are the embers of defiance in a world of ash.

What This Means for Your Players

Let’s step away from world-building for a moment and talk gameplay.

Character Creation

Encourage players to build characters who:

• Have ties to lost adventurers.
• Are from factions trying to reclaim power.
• Possess forbidden magic or beliefs.
• Were sheltered from the world’s horrors and are now emerging.

Moral Complexity

Without classic good vs. evil lines, morality becomes fluid. Who do the players trust when even the gods are silent? What laws are worth breaking to bring change?

Leveling and Rewarding

Milestone leveling works best here. Tie growth not to XP, but to meaningful change:

• Liberating a village.
• Rekindling a divine connection.
• Uncovering an old hero’s tomb.

Let their growth feel earned, and make the world notice it.

Themes to Explore

• Hope in hopelessness
• Legacy and memory
• Sacrifice and rebirth
• Identity in a world that wants conformity

Building Session Zero in This Setting

Before launching into a campaign like this, your session zero is critical. Here are some questions to ask your players:

• How does your character view adventurers?
• What rumors do they believe about why heroes vanished?
• Who do they fear most in this world?
• What does your character hope still exists?
• What would make your character become a hero?

The answers to these can shape your campaign's tone and help you organically tie character arcs into the central themes.

Final Tips for Running This Campaign

1. Let Failure Have Meaning The players aren't expected to win every battle. Sometimes they escape. Sometimes they lose. But every setback teaches them and leaves scars.

2. Use Downtime for World-Building Let players build rebel safehouses, reconnect divine shrines, or smuggle relics of the old world. These downtime activities become as meaningful as any dungeon crawl.

3. Slowly Introduce the Old World Let the players find artifacts of fallen heroes: a broken sword, a half-burnt spellbook, a pet who remembers them. These items tell the story of what once was.

4. Reward Symbolism A single act of kindness, a vow kept, or a banner raised can become legendary. In a world without hope, these acts ripple outward.

5. Give Players Ownership of Change Let their actions reshape the world. If they free a town, let that town build statues. If they die defending a cause, let their name echo.

Conclusion: Why This Matters

D&D is about heroism, but it doesn’t always have to start that way. Sometimes, it’s about choosing to become heroes in a world that doesn’t believe they exist. Sometimes, it’s about holding the line with a candle in the dark.

The World Without Adventurers gives your players a chance to be the first flickers of light in a setting that forgot the sun.

You don't need to run The Doomed Forgotten Realms to embrace its themes—but you can borrow its haunting brilliance to craft a campaign that’s both epic and deeply personal.



Until next time, Dear Readers...