The post-apocalyptic setting can be qualified as the ending of a past that brings about the beginning of a radically new present. It is essentially the rebirth of a setting; a transformation that shatters the old, predictable paradigms and replaces them with a terrifying unknown. The familiar structures of society become fractured or destroyed and replaced with fear, mayhem and uncertainty. Who you were is less important than what you will become.

There are numerous kinds of apocalypse events, ranging from runaway climate change, such as ecological collapse and resource depletion; natural, such as an impact event like a meteor; man-made, such as nuclear holocaust; medical, such as a natural or man-made plague, virus or pandemic; or imaginative, such as zombie apocalypse or alien invasion.

 

Other themes may include: cybernetic revolt, such as sentient machines that seek to eradicate or subjugate all life; divine judgment, such as biblical or prophetic disasters foretold in ancient lore; dysgenics, such as the creation or discovery of an advanced species that overthrows other dominant life forms; supernatural phenomena, such as the opening of a portal from another world or universe that threatens existence; technological, such as a singularity or the failure of an advanced space station leaving its occupiers stranded and without aid; or some other general disaster.

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Generally, there are three periods in an apocalypse setting: it may involve attempts to prevent the apocalypse event; deal with the impact and consequences of the event itself; or it may be set years after a catastrophic event. The time frame immediately after the catastrophe, could focus on the travails or psychology of survivors as they explore ways to stay alive and work together, or considerably later, where the transformation has been completely adopted as the norm and often the existence of pre-catastrophe civilisation has been forgotten or mythologised. This book will assume that the disaster has already occurred and the characters are attempting to navigate the new situations they find themselves in, or have become accustomed to.

But despite all the doom and gloom, post-apocalyptic settings are fantastic canvases in which to tell amazing stories and forge memorable characters. They are filled with high adventure, exploration, courage, desperation, hope, resourcefulness, and sacrifice. Post-apocalyptic adventures can be relatively modern, set in a kind of quasi 20th or 21st century, very far into the future where a crumbled society perhaps deals with interplanetary technology or interstellar travel, and everything in between. There are literally countless stories that can be explored.