Round 4

The previous round had seen a period of warming, leading to a retreat of glaciation.  This round, the glaciers came back with a vengeance.  Beneath a lake created by a widening tectonic rift, a supervolcano erupted with colossal force, sending ash plumes into the sky and darkening the sun for a decade.  The precarious temperature cycled back down into a cooling period, bringing back the glaciers.  All around the globe, the seas retreated, the glaciers crept across the tundra, and the winds shifted.  Large animals migrated down from the mountains, back to the colder plains.  Smaller animals migrated south to warmer temperatures.  Food supplies for humans became hard to find.  Large populations, human and animal, dwindled to tiny populations.  Some went extinct.

It's not far-fetched.  DNA evidence suggests there was a genetic bottleneck in human history, some 70,000 years ago, Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia, erupted with — some say — similar results.  The evidence is far from conclusive that humanity was nearly wiped out by this particular volcanic event, and the winter which proceeded from it, but the Toba Catastrophe Theory makes for an interesting read.

I am getting ready to add in Round 4 and 5.  Watch this space!

Players  

Joe the Leader

Dave the Artisan

Connor the Mystic