Post-Post-Apocalyptic North America

Dystopian settings rock if done right. After reading all of these posts I think I would have to run a 'terminator' like setting using the rise of AI that wiped out most of the high technology. Reducing the rest of the world to rely on old world technologies since they are harder to 'track' and to be turned against you. I would leave most knowledge about the world available to the players. They know its 'Earth' with all the known countries, I would obviously wipe a bunch out and create cultural enclaves around the world (much like the resistance in the terminator setting).

So I would first pick a few places like Silicon Valley, Hong Kong, and Tokyo as HQ's for the AI army. Since this was where the rise of electronics occurred and then where they essentially become mass produced. The AI's rose to power via the use of advanced weapons along with nuclear arms. These nuclear arms woke up the slumbering dragons, who (using Breath of Fire lore here) were essentially hidden within the landscape. So Ice dragons would wake up from their eons long slumber breaking through stone and snow atop mountains to climb into the air once again. Fire dragons would surface from active volcanoes around the world. Electric dragons would form from clouds forming in a tempest off the coast, and so on and so forth. This of course could be partially due to radiation (most likely the case for blue dragons). Then other mythical/magical creatures would be the result of mutations/experiments created to combat the AI's. The races of fantasy would be from the same cause......

dear god I would love to run/play in this setting....possibilities are there! hahaha lets all brainstorm this setting into happening!

Couple of thoughts I wanted to share...

On the AI singularity: The final speech for my public speaking class this summer was "Why you shouldn't be afraid of AI." Only a six minute speech, so not enough time to cover it in depth. One of my main points was how Hollywood attributes human qualities to AI, and that's a pretty big leap. AI didn't grow up in the crucible of evolution, so we can't automatically assume it's going to have the will to survive and propagate unless we code it to have that. That's not to say it can't acquire those behaviors on its own, but there's a lot of research already under way on how to safely deploy AI in human society. Check out the Future of Life Institute and read some of the project summaries.

Adventure Hook: Just an idea... Make this Seed Vault a quest objective!

Whipstache I am sure many said that the Warforged were the same.....

AI's could be done in a very similar manner to how the Warforged were created and then that would bring it closer into the fold. You don't have to get super crazy with the tech stuff, it was more of a plot device than actual things in the world.

Either way I apologize if I took this a little off topic lol. However, IF I did a setting like this I would turn the AI's into my version of a Warforged and be done with.

Quick Recap:

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AI destroyed all technology including metals. In the late 21st century, humans successfully created AI. Within months, the AI had not only learned the whole of human knowledge, but had far exceeded it, reaching a god-like status. The AI recognized that if humanity continued on its current trajectory of technology-based progress, they would consume the earth before they had the ability to relocate to a new planet and render every living thing on earth extinct. So, for the sake of biological life, the AI created trillions of nanobots and they broke down all technological components, along with much of the metal that had been manipulated by humans, back into their original molecular forms. For some reason, the AI decided to leave many of the structures standing, although all the internal components (wiring, plumbing, etc.) were removed. Most believe that once the AI hit the reset button, it also consumed itself, so as not to be discovered by future generations.

And, the earth rejoiced.

While humanity was reeling from the shock of their existence being fundamentally altered, the planet acted as though its restraints had been broken off. The earth could breath again, and with that breath it let out a mighty roar. Magical creatures began pouring out of every crevice of the planet. Dragons filled the sky by the hundreds, pouring out of the seas, mountains, volcanoes... seemingly everywhere. Most feared these dragons, some worshiped them. A few even befriended them, and the dragons granted these with magical powers. Before long, an interdimensional rift was opened and monsters, demons, and abominations began roaming the face of the earth, destroying or consuming everything and everyone. For over 800 years, humanity struggled to survive.

Then one day, the rifts closed. While there were still many magical creatures left behind on earth, they weren't infinite. This gave humanity the chance it needed to grab a foothold and begin moving towards some sense of society.

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I think most of the rest of the OP (along with what we've discussed) can remain the same.

I do like the flavor of the elves being more fierce and fearsome, so I'm going to roll with a native flavor for them. I think I'd probably have to eliminate the part about The Communion discovering magic, as it would seem that with this arc, the existence of magic would be common knowledge (if not commonly practiced). Unless you guys can think of a way that everyone would have forgotten about the interdimensional rifts and whatnot.

The dwarves and elves can still have been recently discovered. And, I think it would be fun if halflings were the result of dwarf-elf relations. With both dwarves and elves being relatively recent discoveries, and halflings being a relatively new creation, there's a lot of fertile roleplaying ground. 

What do y'all think?

Great recap post. I like the overall design a lot. You could have anything you want pass away with time during the 800 years of strife that the human race went through. It could all be hearsay and no one really knows what caused it. 800 years is 30+ generations by current standards, but would likely be even more given the volatility of the world during that time, and using history as a basis. More developed half races are always cool to me, as I think that having humans be the only race that cross pollenate, if you will, seems silly.

Would that be half-human/quarter-orc/quarter-goliath?

Ooh... Now I really want to try Numinara! Never looked into it before.