Been thinking a lot about this...
In many of the prominent dnd style fantasy role playing games... we see little to no major repurcussions for magic, and when we do they generally tend to be specific spells and affecting specific populations, the caster, or his targeted area.
But what is magic in these worlds?
Generally in the mythos of prominent systems we see that arcane casters pull their power from other realms/planes, and that divine casters are granted their powers by deities, whom also send them from other planes.
In the definition of "divine" I am not including druidic/ranger magics, but rather that akin to paladins, inquisitors, clerics, and avengers.
The other divine casters I put into a third definition which is terrestrial-primal, magic pulled from the plane that the creature is on.
Druids and Rangers for example often get their powers from nature itself, though sometimes they too are empowered by foreign realms such as the feywild. Barbarians, monks, and shaman generally pull their powers from raw powerful mamofestations of emotion, either from within or from lingering spirits... though again they sometimes gain them from outside sources.
So back on point:
Pulling power from other planes in small amounts is generally harmless to all involved planes, but does in fact weaken the walls between dimensions.
This could function as a global ring type effect, elemental planes seeping in to the fabric of the terrestrial world, imagine the havoc of surging flames from the plane of fire, or massive waves from the plane of water.
To imagine a world plagued by planar rift collapsing, I have a semi functional concept by relating planes to planets.
Earth-Venus, where acid pours down from the sky
Air-Jupiter where massive storms rage for centuries and rushing winds turn solid objects into dust
Water pluto/Europe where massive sheets of ice cover flooded land masses
Fire- the sun... arguably the worst
I could edit the europa typo but I like the idea that Europe is a state of planar apocalypse
Holly Lisle's Secret Texts trilogy+prequel has a world where magic is powered by sacrifice and causes pollution; the nastier the sacrifice, the more power and the more pollution. Magicians use victims not only to sacrifice but to funnel the power through so that the pollution affects the victim and not the magician. Fun! If you want to read a book but don't want to read four, read the prequel, Vincalis the Agitator, in which the world is pseudo-industrial.
What would the repurcussions of this realization do to a fantasy world?
There are various anti-magic archetypes in pf, though most of them are divine casters.
I'm almost tempted to make some sort of archetype set, with themes of spirit magicians, weapon masters, engineers, and psionic casters who wish to repel outside influence and magic from both divine and extraplanar sources
Holly Lisle's Secret Texts trilogy+prequel has a world where magic is powered by sacrifice and causes pollution; the nastier the sacrifice, the more power and the more pollution. Magicians use victims not only to sacrifice but to funnel the power through so that the pollution affects the victim and not the magician. Fun! If you want to read a book but don't want to read four, read the prequel, Vincalis the Agitator, in which the world is pseudo-industrial.
Definitely interested in giving those and dark sun a read
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The scarred lands stuff, from Sword and Sorcery in 3.0 had spells generate actual heat. Arcane casters took extra penalties from wearing armour because of heat buildup.
Presumably, generations of casters could cause regional or even worldwide heat increase, but this was never explored.
I had a crazy idea of how to make an ozone whole using the rules back in 3.5 that used create wheather in the stasophere to make a type of cloud but I can't remmember now.
Meteor Swarms to melt the polar ice caps?
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I have a homebrew campaign going called Zaroznia. I wanted to construct a game that involved critical thinking skills and incorporated real world concepts and ethics as sort of an alternate fantasy world where decisions have consequences. One of the courses I teach is World Regional Geography. I wanted to show how the actions of people have real world consequences and on a grand scale.
The continent I created has three distinctly separate regions. The Southlands were separated from the Eastlands and Westlands by a rather large desert on the scale of the Sahara. Therefore it had acted as a barrier to the movement of peoples, much as the Sahara had been for centuries in our world. Since the Teallan (High Elves) had the magical power to do so, they created a massive stone wall on the western shore of the desert that rose thousands of feet into the air.
This caused the moisture laden air coming in off the ocean via the winds out of the west to rise upwards where it cooled rapidly. That in turn causes precipitation. The precipitation was then channeled into the desert which was mostly a basin. Eventually the basin began to fill up with water, fresh water by the way. This created a huge inner sea of fresh water that eventually filled up and then began to flow to the sea on the eastern shore. (Compare to filling of Mediterranean basin or even the Black Sea).
This also caused major changes to the world's climate, but by then the Teallan had vanished (another plot point) and no one had any magic that could come close to undoing what the Teallan had done (no one has access to 6th Plus level spells at the moment or in the last 600 or so years). The players are dealing with the changes and may eventually have the power to get rid of the wall. However, the question they will face is should they get rid of the wall? Yes, the world changed, but after 600 years people have adapted to it. If they got rid of the wall, what would happen?
Ethics are a major point in the campaign. Actions generate reactions. There are consequences for everything.
The Forgotten Realms 3e had the Shadovar melting a glacier to turn a desert back into a more hospitable place. The effects created major shifts in weather patterns and had some nasty repercussions.