Editing Atropus (section)

==Okay, but just how powerful is it?==
Atropus' mere presence can affect ''entire settings'', if their shadow (literal or not) isn't also hanging over the entire campaign. As it draws closer, undeath becomes more prevalent on the targeted world and necromancers get a significant boost in power (if they're not turned into undead or become [[Lich|liches]] to save themselves, though the latter situation does still give them the necromancy boost), while positive energy and thus divine magic is siphoned away by the encroaching moon.

Crunchwise this results in increasingly dire effects as the time of impact draws nearer - starting out small with a +2 casting level to Necromancy spells as well as a 20% chance for someone who died to be raised as a [[zombie]] in 1d4 rounds. Once the shape of Atropus is noticeable in the sky, there's a 40% chance for zombies to rise, and [[Tomb World|the entire setting is now treated as ''desecrated'']], meaning that consecration becomes a temporary nullification instead of its normal effects and permanence. It also means the undead risen by this time become even stronger.

Once Atropus' face is visible (and usually the time people realize it's definitely the World Born Dead), and until impact actually occurs (or is averted), bodies have an 80% chance of rising from the grave and even long-dead bodies resurrect as [[skeleton|skeletons]], [[mummy|mummies]], etc. The entire setting now counts as ''Unhallowed'', meaning Turning is now nigh-impossible and the undead are much stronger - while simultaneously Good-aligned beings and anyone who taps into divine magic are weakened considerably.

[[FATAL|Then there's what happens when Atropus actually manages to touch down]]. As well as the ramifications of a moon-sized body crashing into a planet (spoiler: [[Exterminatus|nothing good]]), this moment is when all the life energy and positive energy of a world is assimilated by the Primordial. Anything that survives impact is killed and revived as an undead horror by this (and if you died in the impact or somehow weren't revived before it, you'll still become one), and all the undead created in this as well as prior to the impact embark onto Atropus' surface to leave the dead husk behind, becoming part of Atropus' surface legions.

The Forgotten Realms gave us proof that Atropus is capable of this, when it was first spotted in that realm; sages in Faerun first identified it after it had wiped clean the world of Glyth, an entire planet of [[Illithid|Illithids]] and their slaves. It was mistaken for a planetoid in the rings of the world, and apparently had been attracted there by the death and destruction the mind flayers inflicted upon the other races. [[FAIL|And the sages only noticed it ''after'' Glyth had been decimated]]. Doesn't bode well for the future, considering that of the select few that know of Atropus' existence, only a fraction of them know that Atropus may have set their sights on Toril next, wishing to purge the lush world of everything on it.