What's the fantasy equivalent of an EMP attack?
>>47011976
Anti-magic field
something that extinguishes all lit flames in an area
>>47012002
Is magic really analogous to electricity?
>>47012016
Depends on the setting.
>>47012016
It is if we're talking about settings with technology powered by magical energy.
>>47012008
the mythical event known as rain
>>47012016
Depends on how reliant the society is on magic. If you have a people like the high elves from Warcraft who rely on magic for fucking everything, then yes.
In a more traditional human settlement, fire would probably be closer, but it's not terribly difficult to just start more fire (is it a right pain in the ass? Yes, but society isn't going to come to a grinding halt).
>>47012016
well otherwise the analog would be fire and the EMP a bucket of water, I don't fucking know.
>>47011976
A massive blizzard or small ice age.
There could be a dust cloud that blocks out the sun for a month.
>>47012058
well, it would include any flames in a house, covered lanterns, candles, and whatnot
ideally, like EMP it would also make it impossible to relight any flames
the main benefit would be that, in a medieval setting, the majority of the population during the night is rendered completely blind, allowing anyone who felt like it able to walk right on into the town without being detected
>>47012133
low quality bait.png
>>47011976
The Sunwell being destroyed as some anon already said.
There was one fantasy book I read once where the magic runs on glyphs based on a physical representation of the land, there was a huge earthquake, causing a canyon to appear and everyone was too thick to realise this marred all their glyphs and the magic stopped working.
Maybe something like the oposite of the obelisk from 2001. An object that stops/reverses development of the humans around it over time.
Basically for your EMP to make sense you need a society that relies on magic for its day to day needs like we rely on electricity. Once you have that it should be pretty easy to write in a lore friendly way for this magic to be taken away.
>>47012139
That's interesting actually. Until you realize that continual light is a 2nd level spell that has 0 components and lasts forever. If your setting is even moderately magical every household is going to eventually have a stick or lantern with the thing cast on it based solely on the usefulness of a never-ending light source. I mean seriously, Last time I spent a modicum of character resources while traveling to make continual light sticks I nearly caused a riot with the demand for these things in the nearest town (which was a dry forest area prone to wildfires, who would've guessed).
>>47012221
welcome to eberron
>>47011976
Hang on thought of a couple more, the episode of buffy where the gentlemen makes Sunnydale mute.
A poisoned well that incapacitates but doesn't kill/waterborne disease like cholera.
An infestation of bookworms that destroys all the recorded knowledge in an isolated town.
Ergot in the bread makes the whole town trip out for a few days.
Depends on the setting OP. Why don't you elaborate on the setting you wanted to discuss, rather than just lumping them all into fantasy?
>>47011976
What was that even in Forgotten Realms when magic decided for a little while that it didn't want to behave and most uses of it backfired horribly, if they worked at all?
>>47012139
Most nights aren't completely pitch dark anyway, and you can discern a lot without any light sources. Also, modern people don't usually consider this, but back in medieval times cities and towns weren't kept brightly lit all night for convenience. That would have taken a lot of resources for no good reason.
It's a really, really minor concern next to the fact that cooking food is now impossible, as well as any industry or craft requiring fire.
>>47012221
Heh. Making 2 light sticks a day as a level 4 Mage must sure be interesting.
>>47012221
>Someone manages to horribly break the economy in D&D by using magic
Wow. Never seen that before.
>>47011976
that many lights in north dakota, you have got to be kidding me.
also, I would actually say it is a good zone of silence or darkness. hurts more than just casters.
>>47012016
The kind of hypercentralized society that can be taken out by the elimination of infrastructure, yeah.
You're not going to get major disruption in an actual medieval society by cutting down anything short of draining the rivers.
>>47012221
>50gp material components
>>47012016
Sort of... in many setting with magic, magic powers are used to do things that we would do with electric technology.
For example, in the "Witcher" books/games, magic users come up with magic devices that allow them to communicate over long distances (megascopes), travel to places a person on foot could never reach (portals)... etc.
They aren't literally the same, but I would say magic and technology are very much analogous in that way.
>>47012429
Newest edition of D&D says that 1gp is about the amount of money a common worker earns in one day, and more or less what is required for the costs of living for one day as well.
So yeah, each of those lights is worth almost two months' pay for the regular people. Somehow, I don't think this will catch on. Rich folk will love it, though.
>>47012221
if they were commonly available, why would people use a light source that burns and readily destroys your house if misused in the first place?
counting in the need for magical replacements for other fire-based activities like >>47012319 there'd have to be some kind of explanation for why fire hasn't been replaced as the main light and fuel source if they were that ubiquitous
>>47012501
On one hand most rich folks would probably have a continual light lamp.
On the other hand they'll probably keep burning candles as a prestige symbol. Being able to was as much on candle for a single party as a your serfs spend in a whole year generally impresses people.
>>47012695
Continual flame isn't actually a fuel source. It doesn't make heat, at all.
>>47012730
it certainly is a required component in those fuel sources, unless you'd like to explain how to ignite oil without it in a medieval society
>>47011976
I liked the plot point in NWN: Shadow of the undrentide where one magician accidentally plugged the source of all magic in the world for a few moments and thereby fucking the cities that floated in the sky on magic. That was a pretty good analogue for a massive EMP attack on a MAD scale had it been intentional.
>>47012753
Continual Flame, the spell, doesn't ignite oil. It's just that it creates a flame-like light visually.
>>47012845
Oh. I just assumed you meant "fire that is lit for a while".
>>47011976
It would be a spell that inhibits fire.
No meals can be cooked, no lights lit.
>>47012501
Nah. Continual light is a AD&D level 2 spell without any casting cost.
>>47012016
In settings like spelljammer and eberron, yes.
Eberron specifically has artifice street lamps, same for stones to heat houses and to power stoves. They have long distant messaging and maglev trains powered by magic and doors in large facilities made of the stuff.
>>47011976
Why would you target the flyover states and leave most of the Bos-Wash corridor, as well as Silicon Valley, Boeing, & Microsoft intact?
>>47013560
Same reason they missed several bases in Florida and all of NY intact, they did not want the navy to flatten their sand fortress within 48 hours.
>>47013560
>>47013602
Because the illustrator wanted to show the blast area without having it vanish over sea.
>>47013602
*wanted not didnt want , fuck im tired.
A field that neutralizes all magic inside it and prevents magic from outside from entering
>>47011976
>>47012002
>>47012016
Literally what happens in a game I played called Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky.
Their whole society is built around a magical energy called "orbal," and someone finds an old object that creates an anti-orbal field which disables every device powered by orbal and prevents all spellcasting within a wide area.
It becomes a pretty big deal later on.
>>47011976
A hail of magical crystals overloaded to radiate unstable magics.
Destroys low-tier spells and items, sets those with standard protection on quadruple cooldown, knocks out mages with prepared spells, and has a tendency to increase instances of dire creatures.
Only way to make dire sapients, who will unfortunately burst out of their mother's wombs in gibblets unless trained healers(who haven't been knocked out by magical feedback) are on hand.
Technically I feel like it would be something equivalent to spammed weaken veil:
Something that, over an area, amplifies all magic to such a level that anything magic near instantly exhausts its power supply and kills the wielder from spell havoc.
>>47012445
Magic users are largely insular in the witcher though. If all their shit broke the lives for most other people would continue no worse for wear.
But if the gori many toun
