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I have an idea for an adventure that would involve a crazed Rahadoum scholar trying to make a the whole of Golarion magically dead. He sees it as the method by which the gods corrupt and control the mortal races and will got to any lengths to free people from its influence.
I really can't think of a good way how he would do this. Though he is crazy so anything that involves killing a good portion of the worlds population would just be viewed as done for the greater good if it accomplishes his goal.
Dm fiat.
Kill all of the dragons.
Force Groetus to drop while Nethys is having tea with Pharasma?
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The clich... Erm,Traditional way would be to kill the God of Magic. However, that could be a bit on the optimistic side.
Actually, Alexander's forum avatar just gave me an idea:
How about... He's designed a non-magical device that lets you immensely enlarge the effect of spells, and tie said effect to a location - his plan is to travel from country to country, device in hand, and cast Antimagic Field on each location. So... there's a MacGuffin.
Bonus points in that the party could hear strange rumors from far-away lands where magic suddenly ceases to work?
Once the players get their hands on the device, they have some decisions to make. the item itself is not inherently evil and could be used for great good or great evil. A Hallow spell country-wide would more or less stop all future undead. A Control Weather spell would create Golarion's next bread basket. For the somewhat more self-centered PC a nation-wide Charm Person spell would turn you, overnight, into the avatar of Bieber.
Finally, for the truly dastardly amongst us... Earthquake? Meteor Shower?
You could have the BBEG prepare a kind of Spell of Unmaking, which could destroy whatever magical leylines/menhirs might be set on Golarion.
Alternatively, I'm reminded of the recent game Fallen Enchantress (a Fantasy Civ 4 game) where one of the victories is where you construct three towers and one massive furnace, then cast a long duration spell (in the game, it'd be the equivalent of two and a half years), and you'd absorb all of the magic in the world. You could do something like that. Building special towers around the world at certain magical strongpoints/leylines/menhir/whatever, then building a sort of arcane furnace, then casting a ritual to bleed Golarion dry of magic.
kill all the mages
I think that the Pathfinder cannon says that the demon lord Abraxas has something called the 'Final Incantation' that just hits the off switch on all magic. Even if it isn't quite as apocalyptic as that, you could make this phrase common knowledge. A fireball is not quite as threatening if you can just tell it to stop.
I actually really like the idea of the Final Incantation being used to bleed Golarion of its magic.
I have an idea for an adventure that would involve a crazed Rahadoum scholar trying to make a the whole of Golarion magically dead. He sees it as the method by which the gods corrupt and control the mortal races and will got to any lengths to free people from its influence.
I really can't think of a good way how he would do this. Though he is crazy so anything that involves killing a good portion of the worlds population would just be viewed as done for the greater good if it accomplishes his goal.
Sacrificing a couple million souls to resurrect an elder god that then begins eating all the magic in the world, drawing it like iron shavings to a lodestone slowly regaining vitality from it like sauron in hiding as the necromancer with rahadoum parallel saruman.
Gratuitous use of antimagic field?
Mcguffins from Geb or Nex?
I like the Dragon Age approach; recruit plenty of paladins and fill them with jealous righteousness. You'll have to qualify 'destroy all magic' to 'destroy all arcane and evil-divine magic' but well if you want something done right and done for a long period of time, call in the paladins.
Someone does bring up a good point about shutting off both arcane and divine magic, since they do come from different sources. I could imagine a man from Rahadoum probably wanting to rid the world of divine magic, which would be the harder task. Only thing I could think of is essentially disconnecting the material plane from the rest of the cosmos, making deific powers unable to pass into the material plane. This would have the added effect of cutting off souls to the afterlife, and possibly more ghosts in the world.
Mother of god. It's the Ghost-pocalypse...
But cutting off the material plane from other planes would have the added benefit of significantly reducing interference from those planes. The fact that one of the most common types of BBEG are Evil Outsiders could be incentive. Even LG outsiders could be seen as pushy and invasive.
If you are putting into effect a massive arcane project that literally opposes each and every god in existence, then you are probably going to want to equip yourself with resources that could cover the 'no afterlife' problem. Maybe a lotus machine that holds onto souls before recycling them into reincarnation. In the end though, I think you would only end up creating a microcosm of the outer planes and you would need godlike magical beings to actually run the system. So would you actually benefit from anything other than a reset of the system?
I just have to throw this out here, if any mortal tried to seperate the prime material plane from the rest of the planes I can say that the forces of good and the forces of law would end up working together (all of them LG,NG,CG,LN,LE) and probably some others as well. They're going to combine their forces to stop you. The gods have too much to lose by allowing something like that to happen. Not to mention every religious affiliate on the material plane will be trying to stop this. Any plan to make this happen would have to be near instantaneous or you would have more forces trying to stop you than anybody else. Messing with the gods is not something to be trifled with. This would be as big a threat as Rovagug.
I'd be hard pressed to explain why an idiot like that managed to survive this long without some solar casually passing by and cutting him off.
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Magic must exist in the world, but sentient races are deemed unfit to wield magic (both divine and arcane) by the gods. In that same motion, the ebb and flow of arcane and divine energies must manifest themselves in different ways as either a side effect or a law of balance.
Henceforth, the gods bestowed upon the natural creatures of the world with all manner of fantastic powers along with the instincts to use them. Without ambition, the animals make use of their powers to survive, but are not corrupted by the power they wield. Entire ecosystems radically change to acommodate the repurposed creatures of the Material Plane.
In a world where true power is held by nature itself, the sentient races try to come to terms with two forces that were once under their control. Some have deemed this a time to defy the gods openly, and bring both nature and magic back into their grasps by any means necessary.
However, a few individuals have come to the natural and arcane as friends, guardians, or even servants. They throw themselves to this new paradigm with a show of humility, trust, and restraint. As a result, some of these animals have bonded with these individuals. Thus, the first trainers of Golarion are made manifest. With love and respect, these trainers entreat these majestic beasts to perform amazing feats of power. Through their bonds, both man and beast teach one another.
Welcome to the world of Golarion, the world of Pokemon.
Kill Nethys God of Magic.
Kill all the deities with the magic domains and the horse they rode in on.
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Maybe you don't have to make magic non-functional -- maybe you just have to make it non-predictable. Magic power still exists; you just can't make it replicate particular effects anymore. You're as likely to get a fireball as you are a surge of healing energy, or maybe just make a sphere of annihilation spontaneously appear inside your chest.
I wonder, what would happen to creatures with spell-like abilities? Would they lose them? I suppose if sorcerers lose their spells (which they are born with), then creatures with spell-like abilities would lose them too.
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Setting up interconnecting nexus of a massive array of permanancied enlarged anti magic spheres into the atmosphere/earth?
I like where this one is going.
Design magic-devouring 'spell engines' and bury them all around. Any spellcaster within X range of a spell engine must make a concentration check at an increasing difficulty the closer he is, and the radius affected by the spell engine increases the more magic is used around it, so that a spell engine buried in a large city with a prominent wizards guild might end up making the concentration DC impossible within the city limits pretty quickly, and radiate an aura for miles outside of the city where casting spells is just 'really hard.'
As an added bonus, the spell engines increase fertility and health in the area, as the stolen magic is used to enhance the vitality of living creatures, so that the people in the magic-dead area may end up willing to fight pretty hard to keep it that way...
(Yeah, I pretty much just stole that from Revolution. Sue me!)
rocks fall
magic dies
I could actually see the guy using magic, seeing it as a necessary evil to fight evil. He'd probably consider himself a martyr, fighting fire with fire to give his life and save the world for normal people.
To make it more localized to a planet and less to an entire universe, have the planet forced into a large pocket dimension that is magic dead, so that no one can use magic.
Someone told me a good idea. Daisy-chain wishes to add power to one Final Wish (a la Legacy of Fire) to wish for magic to go away. This could take thousands, if not millions of wishes to accomplish.
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If you want a long term plan you could have something similar to the Pillars of Creation out of the seeker of truth series. They were people who are completely immune to magic of any kind and passed it down to all their children. Instead of having it as a genetic trait make it a disease that also is passed down. A spell caster who gets this disease loses the ability to cast any magic. Magical creatures would also be affected.
Abraxas. Maybe set up some overarching plot having the pcs assist Abraxas. unknowingly. He activated final incantation and the pcs need to recitify it.
If you want a long term plan you could have something similar to the Pillars of Creation out of the seeker of truth series. They were people who are completely immune to magic of any kind and passed it down to all their children. Instead of having it as a genetic trait make it a disease that also is passed down. A spell caster who gets this disease loses the ability to cast any magic. Magical creatures would also be affected.
Hmmm....I like this. It could be interesting. A disease that makes people immune to all the effects of magic. Sure it makes you immune to fireball and other spells, but it also prevents you from using any magic items either.
That could get very interesting, very.
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First:
"Dead Magic: These planes have no magic at all. A plane with the dead magic trait functions in all respects like an antimagic field spell. Divination spells cannot detect subjects within a dead magic plane, nor can a spellcaster use teleport or another spell to move in or out. The only exception to the “no magic” rule is permanent planar portals, which still function normally."
From
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/mastery/planarAdventures.html
Magic Traits heading down page
Second
I remember a fantasy story in a place where magic was running out. A Wizard was being threatened by a barbarian with a kill everything highly magic sword (that, for some reason, he could not put down or let go of)
The wizard had invented a spell that caused a disk to spin faster and faster and burn up all magic in the very local area. Part way thru this, it became apparent that the sword was actually a demon with his teeth embedded in the barbarian's wrist and then it went poof. The wizard was incredibly old but stabbed the distracted barbarian in the heart with a real knife and then had his real very attractive assistant get him out of the zone.