ITT: Magic is real and has been integrated into the modern military. What's that like?Premise: Back in the 80's a decent percentage of the population manifested the ability to wield magic. At the same time, strange shit like interdimensional incursions began happening around the globe with shoggoths and shit causing havok. This led to half a decade of moderate chaos before the world's governments got their shit together and has now gotten enough of a grip on things that a mid-tier local reality warping registers the same as a military coup in some third world shithole.To go along with the Army, Marine Corp, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard , there's now a 7th branch of the US military; the Arcana; a service branch dedicated to magic and mage fuckery. Every soldier is tested for magic capacity during the ASVAB and is sent to Arcana if they prove to have the potential to wield magic.What's the structure like? What ranks do they have? How would they employ magic in a modern military setting? What sort of missions do they specifically deal with? What's their SOF like?
yeah
>>61978836i make magic suck my penos all day
>>61978836>What's the structure like? What sort of missions do they specifically deal with? What's their SOF like?If magic isn't a universally understood/functioning thing and instead exists in many different types according to different cultures/beliefs, shit is going to get hopelessly complicated really fast. Sub-branches within sub-branches that don't even know that each other exist. The cost of bureaucracy alone would bankrupt many small countries. What ranks do they have? How would they employ magic in a modern military setting? Enlisteds would just have generic terms like >E1-E4: Magician>E5: Witch/WizardOfficers would probably have esoteric shit and probably not even have consistent naming conventions or ranks structure. Expect dozens of secret power cabals to form within/connected to the Arcana, all trying to fuck each other over and poach each other's funding.
>>61978836as per tradition the wizards will have submachine guns
>>61978836Sorta comes down to how this shit works. Like if you get better with time, and so magic ability is tied to age and experience, you'd promote people based on that. In this case, the officers corps would probably be nonmagic, both to avoid coups and because giving your most powerful mages a desk job sorta misses the point. Whereas if magic is something intuitive and some people are just better than others, then sorting based on that makes sense. Have elite units taking the people who can make black holes, and leave support to the shitters who can lift feathers with their mind. I suppose distributing your most naturally powerful people among all units would elevate the weakest units, but it would mean some of your best people get wasted sweeping floors.
>>61978836tl;dr>>61978847Based.
Victory goes to whomever is led by Our Most Holy Aspect Emperor and Warrior Prophet, Dûnyain master of the Daimos, Anagogic sorcery, Gnostic sorcery, the Meta-Gnosis, and perhaps even the Psuké, servant of the Absolute.
>>61979503Victory?He died and and the No-god has risen.The second apocalypse is upon us, the ass is in the ass.
>>61979673Everything went according to plan. He went way out of his way to ensure System Resumption. It was clearly part of the plan. His war is ultimately with the Hundred Gods, not the Unholy Consult, which he wields as a tool.Everything is moving towards his reign in (k)hell.
>>61978836>manifested the ability to wield magicWhat kind of magic? How does it work? That is critically important to answering your question. Are we talking D&D magic? Final Fantasy? Harry Potter? LoTR? Crowley? The details matter. If mages are necissarily delicate and they don't have much in the way of combat useful powers then nobody is sending them in the front lines, they would be uses stragegically instead. On the other hand, if they can wear armor, heal themselves or others, have combat useful abilities then yeah they're being used in front line combat. Exactly how they would be best used would depend on exactly how the magic works: how powerful the effects are, how often the magician can perform those feats, etc. Maybe a mage's best job is raining down lighting bolts on the enemy, or it might be hiding in a trench teleporting machine gun ammo and arty shells to nonskilled grunts nearby...or maybe it's using some kind of far-seeing power to spy on the enemy, etc. You need to define the capabilities of the magic before anyone can decide how best to use it.
Necromancers sure would be wanted by everyone. "Oh shit, 6 of ours soldiers died in that attack? No problem, just raise them up again. This time they wont even fear the enemy."
>>61979370If they give them MP5's anyone can become the Bullet Wizard though, its basically cheating
>>61979754>Necromancers sure would be wanted by everyoneThat depends on how necromancy works. If you have to sacrifice two people in order to raise another from the dead it wouldn't be very practical. Also if the thing you "raise" becomes a mindless zombie with a craving for human flesh it might not be a very useful soldier.
>>61979715>>61978836This. What rules are we constrained by? Because if the sky's the limit, the united States has already begun its necromancy age. They send freshly murdered convicts under the care of grand wizards to fight their wars.
>>61979917>>61979896This is where the rules hit. Because if we are going off DnD rules I could get some decent halfway decent machine gunners in the lot.
>>61979715>>61979917Going by the premise, assume Shadowrun rules.
>>61978836>magic is real and has been integrated into the modern military. what's that like?I clap my hands together and shout "armis vos hades" and an enemy tank teleports straight to Hell
>>61978836I’m going to scrap your premise in favor of a teachable/learnable style magic. Due to how utter varied magic is between settings I’ll just go over useful spells. Giving soldiers the capability to create fire quickly without the use of a lighter would be lifesaving. Telekinetic powers would be very useful for opening doors, grabbing mines or drones and lobbing grenades along with any sort of float spell giving soldier more vertical mobility in urban environments. Of course healing magic is invaluable in its ability to regenerate tissue. Projectile defense spells would be powerful but they do tend to have a limited duration. That’s what I have off the top of my head.
Unless a hard system is established its whatever you or the author wants dude.
>>61978836>ITT: Magic is real and has been integrated into the modern military. What's that like?Waging undeclared war against a civilian population, doing as much damage to critical infrastructure while bypassing direct confrontation with their military
>>61978836>Wizards spells may be fancy and very soon people invent killing spells, but the true supreme spells are for transmutation of metals, alchemy, conjuration (William T. Fester conjured to first fully functioning Bradley in 2015) and applied support spells.>The Geneva convention is updated to enforce a blanket ban on necromancy, which is ignore by russia. >Russian wizards routinely use idiotic rituals to revive dead mobiks. Despite thorough research that has proven that necromancy is just shitty conjuration, russian propagandists insist that russian magick superior to decadent western wimpy elf magic.>Japanese wizards start creating the first demi humans. 1990 the first catgirls are born, a year late Kitsune-girls, elves, dwarfs and half-lings(Half chinese, half elf) see the light of this world.>The Dwarfs were co-created with a vindictive danish scientist called Eric Magnusson, who intentionally made future dwarfs to be as vindictive as himself. >Countless soccerbrawls were eclipsed as soon as the first dwarfs came of age in 2015. The most famous were the Copenhagen Riots, were a group of dwarfs burned down a police station, because a cop overcharged them by ten ore. >The dwarfs stopped once the ten ore were paid back, with interest.Elves have yet to come of age, the first generation will reach maturity in 2235.>The secluded Hohetauern(Austria) nature park was given to the elves due to it's secluded position and the untouched nature.>Famous nature Wizard Willi Dungl also created several magical beasts, such as the Alp.>Polish wizards created new magical vodka, that does have the exact same properties as normal vodka, but the taste is random. >The US creates the Continental Wizard association and puts amendments into to constitution to prevent a wizard from achieving ultimate power.>Due to the very studious nature of magic, most wizards never evem consider running for office.
>>61981867>Most wizards and witches get a modest income by providing services to others or selling magical goods.>Many novel inventions and scientific breakthroughs happened this way.>Jonathan Mc Donald wanted to create a spell that would quickly dry his wet trousers, but he accidentially found a way to start a nuclear fusion at room temperature.>Wilhelm Brauchitz invented a blast proof kettle for his experiments but realized later that he also invented metal that is very sturdy but also very light. >Thus the new metal mithril was adopted and new generations of military vehicles, ships and planes suddenly became impervious to standard explosive ordinance.>Arabella Dilorenzo tried to multiply her very well made tiramisu but accidentially invented a new type of explosive that required a simple word for a chain reaction.>While the production of the explosive was trivial, each batch required extensive training to blow up using the proper word.>Studies have shows Single vovel words work the best.>Many enthusiastic gun owners, wizards and nonwizards alike, have started to magically modify their guns.>The most common enchantments are "silent boom" and "elemental attack".>The Former removes the boom of the gun or rifle for the shooter and the latter imbues elementar properties to the ammo shot.>Some more inventive wizards also managed to turn guns invisible or have them appear as trivial items for onpookers.>Deaths related to gun violence declined across the world, but deaths related to missfiring spells or bootleg wands exploded in every sense of the word.>Inner City crime in the US is dominated by Goblins and Orcs, who sell black market wands and traffic new kinds of drugs for mexican cartells.>Nobody has talen credit so far for creating Orcs, Goblins and Trolls. They just showed up, suddenly.
>>61978836
>>61978836Wizards are enslaved and put to work summoning more fuel, bullets, and food out of thin air.
>>61978836I cast MEND BUTT HOLE!
>>61978836they look like how JTACs look now. probably work very closely with their closest JTACs. likely some subdued insignias to specify what sort of magic they cast.since you didn't specify and i play a lot of tabletop systems, here's how good/powerful each one might be, should cover most your bases>DnDone of the weakest for actual combat and damage overall. if we assume that humans scale somewhat reasonably, and aren't all 3hp commoners. the battlefield control is nice on a small tactical level, but range might actually become a huge problem very fast, so they're best in urban environments. your best wizards fly around, invisible, casting spells the whole while that basically make it like you're fighting invalids with turbospeed in your soldiers veins.>World of Darknessfucking run. time mages can cast a spell and make it so your SOF team clears an entire building before a shell has a chance to hit the ground, let alone a body. a matter mage can turn the building into acid, and a correspondence mage can teleport the building into the sky. that's just what a single sphere mage can do. if they mix those schools, you can do shit like teleporting every living being who is hostile into a room with a bomb, or rewriting the enemies in a building into actually being double agents on your side. the NWO is real in this fucking world, and they're mages. their conspiracy works because they're literally rewriting reality, not just saying they are, they actually fucking do it. >Call of Cthulu/Delta Greenkill them. if they are on your side, kill them the moment anything fucky happens.>Shadowrunmages are basically just a dude with a gun who can also throw a fireball from time to time. it's okay, but useless around wifi and EW can actually fuck them up somehow. shamans are much the same, but summoning the spiritual ideal of a bear which can tank shotgun rounds like they're nerf rounds is pretty effective. adepts can make the best SOF in existence, superhuman with a gun.
>>61983073>>61980777Which version? Lol there are key differences from OG shadowrun, and modern.
>>61983086i think the one in my mind is 4th/5th, it's whichever the PAN's were introduced, which just made building a netrunner to do mage shit in combat better than mages in most cases for disabling people, or you could just have an adept which lobbed the appropriate grenade, and it had all the fucking 'wifi makes magic break' rules which means you can just fuck over every mage with that. haven't read 6th fully yet, haven't had much of a want to run anything in it. i don't think i've read OG's rules in years honestly. remember them being super clunky and up to interpretation. always preferred martials in shadowrun myself.
>>61982631>>While the production of the explosive was trivial, each batch required extensive training to blow up using the proper word.>"Fuck!", or its local equivalent, are explicitly banned as use as the trigger word in western-aligned countries>The search for a suitable alternative continues
>>61978847>>61979686Absolutely pristine taste.
