The short and terrible reign of the Antediluvians leaves the world in ruins. Fewer than one in 100 humans survived the end of civilization and the battles of the undead. Starvation, plague and cold killed most of them. Of a population that exceeded six billion, now less than fifteen million remain, scattered about the world.
—Vampire: The Masquerade — Gehenna
The destruction wrought by the Wyrm in itsefforts to escape the Pattern Web is total. Every building on the planet has been turned to dust, and what's left of humanity has a hard time ahead of it. All the supernaturals in the world have been destroyed; the ones who weren't cut down during the Weaver's purge were torn apart by the Wyrm's roar, their spirits reduced to their Triatic elements. Most of the Garou still exist, after a fashion; their spirits have shed their flesh, and they are functionally identical to the ancestor-spirits they have venerated for so long.
All of humanity's knowledge and power are gone. The things they knew, like the buildings they inhabited, are dust. Humans are as they were some one hundred thousand years ago; intelligent, capable, and filled with promise, but not yet tainted with the Weaver's insanity.
All of humanity's knowledge and power are gone. The things they knew, like the buildings they inhabited, are dust. Humans are as they were some one hundred thousand years ago; intelligent, capable, and filled with promise, but not yet tainted with the Weaver's insanity.
—Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Apocalypse, "Weaver Ascendant"
YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP! AH, DAMN YOU! GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!
— George Taylor, upon discovering that the eponymous planet was Earth All Along, Planet of the Apes (1968)
They said it was the end of the world, and they were mostly right. The planet is still here, and even some of the people, but nothing is like it used to be. The cities still stand, but their occupants are all dead — standing, walking dead. Maybe there are fewer than there used to be, but then again, there are also a lot fewer of us.
—"No Room in Hell — Post-Apocalypse," The End of the World: Zombie Apocalypse
When all is said and done, the world writhes in the throes of Descent, damnation seemingly everlasting. Magic still lives, though the numbers of its practitioners are much diminished, save for the Fallen. Demons, dark spirits and Unspeakable Horrors from Beyond walk the Earth with impunity, and some lord over scattered enclaves of miserable survivors as dread taskmasters and cruel barons. The Fallen revel in what they have wrought and settle in to enjoy an eternity of ruling over a helpless human race largely reduced to Iron Age civilization and subject to depredations unknown since the worst excess of the priests of the demon-gods of the ancient world.
—"Hell On Earth," Mage: The Ascension — Ascension
Tenmyouji: Nobody's sure how Radical-6 got there in the first place, but one of the subjects might have been infected when they entered, or the virus itself might have been an intentional part of the simulation. The test site deaths became the index case for a pandemic. Anyway, prevailing wisdom says it got out somehow, and once it was out, it spread pretty quick. All across the planet.
Phi: And it killed six billion people?
Tenmyouji: Well, not directly. Best numbers put only a third or so of those deaths as directly caused by Radical-6. The other four billion died from the collapse caused by the first third. The whole world just...fell apart.
Phi: And it killed six billion people?
Tenmyouji: Well, not directly. Best numbers put only a third or so of those deaths as directly caused by Radical-6. The other four billion died from the collapse caused by the first third. The whole world just...fell apart.
