Abracadabra
Madden cleared his throat before starting. "Well, I was teaching the third-years the permanency spell with the invocation to the Cat constellation..."
Zaro interrupted. "Yes, yes. Anno feli comprecatus sum. My grandmothers' grandfather invented that spell." The magician next to him stifled a yawn. "It's now the basis for all the magic in the city."
"Anyway, one of students asked what happened when the Cat constellation was no longer in focus, and I didn't know what to tell him."
"You called this meeting to ask a teaching question? The stars don't move. It's not an issue." Zaro looked across the room. "Miranda, you wish to comment?"
"Well, I beg to differ. The stars do move, imperceptibly. Shouldn't we research this?"
Garnof barked a laugh. "Ethereal Astrology is a fairly esoteric subject, hardly something to be picked up in one's spare time. I think there's a group off the border of the Mournlands that may be able to help."
"There is, and I sent a message to them," Madden answered. "I got their response this morning. The age of the Cat ends in 47 days. 46 days, actually, since the message took a day to get here."
No one spoke for several minutes. Miranda broke the silence. "Does that mean..."
"Nonsense," Zaro said. "Not necessarily." And discussion erupted across the table, angry and fearful yells. "But if it does." "The permanency spell powers the rails, the castles, the prisons, everything." "We can't legitimately sell our services if the spell is going to end in less than two months." "The university will fall from the sky."
"Quiet, everyone," Zaro yelled. "I'll...we need...I will set up a committee to research this." He took a breath, glaring at Madden. "Did you mention this to anyone?"
"No."
"Good. What was said here does not leave this room."
"December 31, 1999. The imaginary line of midnight sweeps from east to west across the night-side of the planet. As it approaches, the lights of cities burn a little brighter as celebrations are prepared, champaign corks are loosened, fireworks fuses are set. Behind it, some cities continue to blaze with light. Others, however, are plunged into darkness — and in some places, the lights are the red of burning buildings, the dull glow of melting reactors, or the flash of weapons..." GURPS Y2K
GURPS Y2K may seem like an odd purchase ten years after the fact, but it remains relevant today. It answers the question: "what happens when something civilization depends on fails?" I was thinking about this with the current Eberron game I'm in. Eberron is a magic-punk game setting, where magic has taken over the role of technology today. What would happen if magic suddenly failed?
The answer to that question is how prevalent is magic? If magic is hidden and mysterious, society at large may not care. Of course, the PCs are the star of the game, so some of the question should be how prevalent is magic to the campaign? Of course, in an Eberron-type game, everything would be brought to a standstill; goods and people could no longer get transported long distances, communication networks would be disrupted, and cities using magic for sanitation and services would have problems. Not to mention the poor folks in the middle of a magical disaster.
Captain advertized triple wages this trip, and even then he couldn't get a full set of crew, so we were running from stem to stern, and when I wasn't working, I was in my bunk passed out from exhaustion. Still, as the time came near, we all huddled in the bridge of the airship. The only people not there were the passengers, a dozen adventurers needing to get to the southern continent in a hurry. Janasi was the only one with the seniority and guts to ask the captain, "what about the end of magic?" Only a few of the crew hadn't heard the rumors from the city.
"I had it checked out by the University, everything should be good. The ship's been working fine for eight years, never a problem." The captain peered through the lower portal, a solid shade of blue accented with white, only a few dots of islands visible. It was perfect flying weather: sun bright, no clouds, and a constant wind at our back. "Still, Gregg, lower the ship by thirty degrees." Gregg nodded and I felt the ship slightly shift beneath my feet, leaning forward. The captain looked outside, nodded slowly, and then touched the sending stone linked to the engine. "How are things in there?"
"Looking good, everything's at full power with al," and his voice stopped. My heart skipped a beat, and I hoped it was just the sending stone having problems. The silence was too sudden to think Jonn just slipped or stopped talking. I listened for the fans, heard nothing. Then, I felt the ship lean forward a bit more. I remembered Janasi talking that all the ships were nose heavy; one of the disenchanted ships took a winch and a dozen horses just to make upright. Gregg was pulling at the control stick to no effect.
The Captain yelled, "Abandon ship," and ran to the controls, helping Gregg with the stick. "Try to point the nose to the island over there."
The first few people pulled the hatches out, letting the door fly in the wind, and jumped out, their feather fall tokens in their hand. I saw Brandon break his token, and he should have slowed down in mid-air. He kept falling, faster than the ship. Janasi yelled over the commotion, "Don't leave the ship, the tokens are fel." The ship gained speed, and wind whistled through the open ports. Janasi pulled me aside. "When we get about fifty feet from the surface, jump as far as you can from the ship, and try to make it to the island. And pray the water elemental didn't get out."
"I got a call from a man this weekend telling me he represented my bank and that they were having difficulty meeting requirements to be computer ready for Y2K. He said all bank customers would need to transfer their accounts to a bond account specially designed to protect our money until the bank could fully comply with Y2K requirements.
"He then said to verify that he was talking to the proper account person I needed to confirm information about myself, my account numbers and then give verbal authorization to transfer funds to this specially designed account.
http://www.scambusters.org/Scambusters30.html
The campaign doesn't have to take place at the, if you excuse the turn of the phrase, magical moment. GURPS Y2K talks about the time preceding the event, where everyone was either selling computational cures for Y2K or predicting the death of civilization. Like Y2K, any magical solution is going to be developed by a highly-trained, highly-specialized workforce, and the typical user won't know if a solution will work.
And Y2K was a well-publicized event, partly because it corresponded with a known memorable date and partly because it could be explained easily. If you try to explain the Y2K38 bug to the end-user, you will get blank looks. Likewise, if you disrupt magic on a global scale, you can do it suddenly with no preparation, or you can give enough clues for the PCs and NPCs to react. If it is the latter, then people will take advantage of the situation, from charlatans to companies to nations.
"OK. The eclipse will happen tomorrow. During this time, all the magical locks will be down. Rebekka, we won't need magical assistance, obviously, so you'll need to distract the guards using...other methods." Rebekka grimaced slightly, but nodded. "They won't want to create a commotion in public, so you should be safe. Everyone else sneak in the security entrance during the distraction.
"There will be a door and a staircase leading up. Hans and Junior, you guard the door; they're going to be a lot of guards, so stay alert. Tammi and Rico go up the stairs, Rico picks the lock, and Tammi avoids the traps and grabs the relic." The leader handed everyone a ring, dull brass with a flat polished surface, glowing slightly. "This ring measures magic, and it will turn off when the eclipse starts. It will start glowing when magic starts back up, and I'm thinking you'll have a few minutes before all the locks come back online and you'll be trapped inside. No one's coming back for anyone. Everyone good?"
Rico asked, "And what will you be doing?"
The leader smiled. "I'll be right here, supervising."
"Well it seems to me we ought to be encouraged that in the year 1000 they had to add a new digit, and you had no evidence of economic disruption. And then the millennium before, we had dates going down, and then they started going up, and yet no evidence of disruption or chaos in the economy, so if they could do it then, surely we could deal with it now, it seems to me."
Senator Phil Gramm. http://www.davehigginsconsulting.com/duh-2000/winners.htm
As mentioned before, the player characters are the star of the show. Even if the world doesn't notice the disruption, the PCs may when they find out their swords aren't magical. It's an effective, if dirty, way to handle that uberpowerful magic item that one of the PCs managed to get during the campaign. And, it may spawn a new adventure.
Read to the players: "You walk through the hall, lit by everburning torches. 'Thank you for coming,' the king says in a booming voice. 'Our magical shields are the only thing that stands between us and the goblins to the east. We will all suffer, but if the shields fail, we are all doomed.' An Arcana or History check (DC 18) will tell the PCs that the shields have been there for over fifty years powered by Faerie magic, manned by half-bred mages specifically charged to maintain the shields. 'My advisors tell me that there is a way to keep the shields active. You must go to the northern reaches, past the frost giants, to the Cult Of Blood Over Life. Talk with them and bring one of these COBOL shamans back to repair our shields. They may be resistant to join you, but I'm sure you can be persuasive. Do this, and you will be rewarded greatly.'"
Of course, this is a simple disruption, a mere blip in the aether. What happens when magic ends for good? And what other methods are there to limit magic, other than a reboot? Well, those questions needs to wait until the next column.
