Abracadabra

It seems like AD&D 4th Edition is everyone's punching bag, and I thought to myself, "Myself, how do I hop on this bandwagon without looking like a complete unoriginal fanboy hack?" I still don't have an answer to that, and the fervor has died down anyway. So, I will attempt to restrict myself to a few glancing blows before going to the topic on hand.

And that topic on hand is the use of spells, specifically weather magic. Perusing the weather magic for 4th edition, we have the ubiquitous Lightning Bolt (TM), Wall of Fog, Ice Storm (both regular and Greater), Maelstrom of Chaos, and similar spells. And I would like to see a weather report in the AD&D world. "Well, our soothsayers predict a twenty-five percent chance of Greater Ice Storm, with a chance of Maelstrom of Chaos later this evening, so better pack up your umbrellas and healing potions." The point is these are all localized events used for combat. Even the Spellstorm Mage (where I'm still trying to determine if the storm in the name is a literal or figurative term) can create storms of "burst 10". A massive storm covering 50 feet. Let me repeat. 50 feet. Compared to the miles and miles of damage a hurricane or tsunami can do, I am not colored impressed.

And I might as well be complaining that this finely made hammer is not letting me heat up my sandwich. AD&D has always been a combat game, and 4th edition continues in this grand tradition. And killing a few orcs with a hurricane is a bit overkill, not to even think of the collateral damage. "It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it" comes to mind. And 4th edition does not have to deal with the aftereffects of changing weather, not even with their ritual spells, which seems to be a glaring omission, or perhaps a later sourcebook.

But, their loss. Weather control can be one of the most powerful abilities in a world, especially before an industrial society. It's not a mistake that many gods are patterned after storms. First, there's the obvious -- weather unleashed can do a lot of damage. Lightning can down a tree or kill a person instantly, heating the air around it to 18,000 degrees. Hurricanes can create winds of over 200 miles an hour, and waves 25 feet high. Individuals as well as whole towns can be destroyed, or saved, by weather magic done right.

Agriculture is closely linked to weather, and thus weather magic. Farming requires a careful balance of sun and water. Usually weather balances out from day to day or from area to area, giving a nation enough food to feed the troops. Magic can change this. Drought or flooding can kill an entire season's worth of crops, causing starvation. Going back to combat, weather effects change how a battle is fought -- fog hampers archery and sharpshooters, and extreme heat or cold may affect armor. Weather is also important to sailors; when King James VI was traveling from Denmark back to Scotland, his ship was delayed by storms and forced to shelter in Norway. Those storms were blamed on magic. GURPS Alternate Reality has a few of their realities based on storms that did the unexpected -- the famous Protestant Wind in the Glorious Revolution.

Stuart Ullman: Physically, it's not a very demanding job. The only thing that can get a bit trying up here during the winter is, uh, a tremendous sense of isolation.
Jack Torrance: Well, that just happens to be exactly what I'm looking for. I'm outlining a new writing project and, uh, five months of peace is just what I want.
Stuart Ullman: That's very good Jack, because, uh, for some people, solitude and isolation can, of itself become a problem.
Jack Torrance: Not for me.
Stuart Ullman: How about your wife and son? How do you think they'll take to it?
Jack Torrance: They'll love it.
The Shining

There's other, less definable, effects of weather. Dry weather can encourage forest fires, or exacerbate existing fires. Rain can sour the mood or ruin outside events. Snow can cause people to stay inside, encouraging diseases to spread and cabin fever to strain relationships. Heavy snow or ice will close roads and hamper travel -- this can affect both trade in medieval world or tourism in a more modern era (although some areas, like ski resorts, work on the reverse that snow is a good thing). Airports can be shut down given enough ice and snow, as anyone who has traveled through O'Hare can tell you. A good weather mage can make a fair bit of money not causing rain in certain areas, and competing interests may try to wrestle the clouds from one area to another.

Weather is unpredictable to the point where even today the term weather forecasters seems like a contradiction in terms. In earlier times, weather seemed more mysterious, more out of control, and in desperate situations, people will turn to, if you excuse the phrase, any port in a storm. There's nothing preventing an enterprising young man or woman to put on a pointy hat and say he or she can control the weather. "Pray, and dance around, tell them it'd rain so they'd all go to bed." Extra credit for the quote. If it rains, the rainmaker can take the credit, and if not, then the rainmaker can stall until it does rain. And this isn't limited to those primitive primitives either. Google "orgone cloudbuster" for some modern madness and weather control (of course, it's branched out from merely causing rain to shielding against Microwaves that send Mind Control Beams from the New World Order).

Because weather is unpredictable, it's also seen as punishment. Imagine if gods really did strike people down with lightning bolts. If a storm flooded your land, then not only do you have to deal with lack of food, but the rest of the village starts accusing you. After all, if gods are punishing you, then you did something bad, right? If weather is an instrument of the gods, then changing weather would probably bring their wrath.

Finally, there's the global effect of weather magic, if we look at an epic scale. Imagine a world-wide consortium of druids, pooling their magical energies into fighting global warming and reducing the sea level. Or a group of aquatic elves doing the opposite. Atlantis rises from the deeps, causing a massive shift in weather patterns as wind is slowed down by the new land mass. Evil lightning mages extend their range, causing any storm in the country a death sentence.

The flapping of a single butterfly's wing today produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time, what the atmosphere actually does diverges from what it would have done. So, in a month's time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn't happen. Or maybe one that wasn't going to happen, does.
Ian Stewart, Does God Play Dice? The Mathematics of Chaos

Other systems do more about weather control than 4th edition. In fact, most of them do. But they have problems as well. Chaos theory states that a small change in one area may radically change weather in another unrelated area. Granted, we can go as far as "this mage casted a fireball, which heated up the area a few degrees and caused an updraft, which created eddies and currents which caused storms two hundred miles from here which flooded a river valley and wiped out an army of hobgoblins, so you get 20,000 experience points." But that's a bit ridiculous. More realistic is dealing with the effect of chaos, not necessarily the cause. "I try to create a hailstorm in 10 minutes" becomes problematic if there's something outside that can disrupt the spell.

And that also suggests an interesting parallel between weather and magic. What if, like weather, magic relied on the chaos theory, where a little mispronunciation in a spell could cause radically alter the effects of the spell? Casting a fireball, and you hold a syllable a bit too long, and you end up not failing in the spell, but it teleports you and the group 500 feet due north. Or what happens when an apprentice casts an unauthorized spell that disrupts magic in an entire region?

As noted, this is part one. Next month if all goes well, part two I'll hit plants and animals. Wait, that sounds bad. I'll touch plants and animals. Well, you know what I mean.

Spell Name: Create Drizzle
Components: V, S, M
Casting time: 10 minutes if already cloudy
Duration: 1 hour
Range: 5 miles
Description: Creates a fine mist and makes things slightly wet. Does 1 point of damage to fire elementals, -1 to missile weapons, and causes people in California, Nevada, and Arizona to not able to drive.
Material component: a picnic blanket or an outdoor wedding.