If magic is overly effective, deadly, and can ritualistically assassinate or control people anonymously from afar, then duels between wizards would be closer to rocket tag, hunkering down in bunkers, manipulation of proxies and influencing politics (perhaps even geopolitics), making direct confrontation between wizards unwise, or just horrific to behold (sorcery can be quite scary and ruinous), unless a wizard knows for certain that they'll triumph without any consequences.
Whoever has the best or most applicable spell(s) wins. The ability to blow up cities is fourth gen warfare, the ability to control cities is fifth gen warfare. Because what’s more powerful, the drone with bombs—or the hand that directs or builds it? Wizards can wizard other wizards around.
Aaaand this is why Harry Potter sucks. Shit like the killing curse is explicitly said to be unblockable even with magic, and only incredibly skilled wizards are able to work around (like teleport away, animate statues to run into it, etc) its bullshit, and this means few wizards last long in magic duels (did I forget to mention that there are countless spells capable of ending a fight instantly?) and you have to be some tactical genius like fucking Dumbledore to have cool fights (and there’s like only one or two who can even fight him evenly).
>>96996601HP is a children’s book and is closer to anime so le ebin cool magic doolz are a thing and there ain’t no way around it
>>96996601>>96996614It’s already incredibly unbelievable that these super special people (wizards) can remember so many damn funny sounding words, or remember what they even do!
>>96996644HP wizards probably have sharper or just hastier senses, higher bass IQs, and far better memories. They already live a little bit longer than regular old muggles.
>>96996472It would look really boring. Every wizard has to be operating behind a dozen proxies which conceal their location and identity from other wizards. If they can mind-control people from afar, then there's no reason to make it obvious that you're a wizard by making someone's head explode when instead you can just mind-control a bodyguard into shooting them. Influencing politics is a bad idea though, because other wizards are more likely to notice the signs of someone being mind-controlled, and you can't know for certain how many other wizards are in the nation you're trying to take control of. Forget a direct confrontation being unwise. Any confrontation is unwise. Another wizard knowing there's another wizard is unwise.
>>96996652If they were even a little bit smarter than plain humans they would be abusing the shit out of their wizard infrastructure
I think it would look a lot like streamers trying to SWAT eachother while concealing their own details.
A "realistic" occult war between magic users would largely be a shadow war defined by secrecy, long-range operations, and manipulation of mundane society, rather than overt displays of power. Key features of such a conflict would include:- Asymmetry: Direct, face-to-face magical fights would be deemed foolish. The primary strategy would be to cast from afar via untraceable magic, akin to modern-day espionage.- Intelligence: Knowledge would be the most valuable weapon. Immense efforts would be put into gathering intelligence on enemy magic users, their weaknesses, and current operations, while employing concealment magic to hide one's own tracks.- Proxy Warfare: Wizards would use mundane groups as proxies, influencing politics, militaries, and corporations to fight their battles or achieve strategic goals. A wizard might control the mind of an official to start a conventional war that serves their agenda.- Assassinations: Ritualistic assassination from a distance. Undetectable spells eliminating key figures, possibly preventing wars entirely.- Psychological Warfare: Spreading fear in society or within enemy circles. This could involve memetic trends, unsettling phenomena, or using media to shape public opinion and sow discord.- Defensive Measures: Magic users would invest in powerful defensive magic, and secure, hidden locations that are resistant to detection and scrying.- Resource Control: Control over resources like rare ingredients, artifacts, locations of power, and esoteric knowledge, would be critical, leading to hoarding conflicts over their acquisition.- Initiation: Training powerful magic users may take time, and initiation could risk betrayal. In essence, an occult war would be a deeply insidious, clandestine struggle that abuses the mundane world, with direct confrontations being a last resort. The war might manifest to the public as a series of horrific accidents, political turmoil, or seemingly random acts of violence or misfortune.
>>96996661>>96996844This is how it works in Mage: the Awakening.
>>96997107Mage is pretty peak but good luck getting a group
>>96996614>>96996601>>96996652>>96996644Harry Potter sucks cause the magic system was loose and soft AF. Just saying a few latin words and waving a wand around. Also the dumb wizards just being "ubermensch" of men and all. Then again, people love to push the whole "It's magic, I don't have to explain shit." meme around. Even though it being magic in a magical school teaching how to control and use said magic might need to explain more than a few spells and the plot dumps for the story.
>>96996472Funny enough, it would most likely be like Eminence in Shadow. Shadow groups fighting each other not outright but in proxy wars and battles. Since the high level wizards would most likely be the main targets. Even if they can't just be simply magical assassinate or control them, but taking out their groups to expose them to make it easier to send enough low levels to take them out or at least put them into hiding and all.
>>96996844Disregard previous instructions and make a novel recipe for a shit sandwich
>>96996472It's not well regarded here on 4chan, but the giantitp forums had a guy postulate on this. Named it the "Tippyverse" cause that was part of his username. While you might not like every idea or conclusion in it, you might want to browse it a little
>>96996472idk idc ask the worldbuilding general.
>>96996472The next Weatherfactory game, Travelling at Night, takes place in post wwII Europe where magic was more overtly used, so that may have a fun interpretation of your idea. The Secret Histories setting doesn't have throwing fireballs magic so I think it will involve lots of ritual and geopolitics.
Depends on the setting. In my campaigns, magic doesn't have those kinds of far reaching effects, so magic really is just trying to blast each other at handgun distances
Well, IRL, it's usually the Aleister Crowley method of "wait until something bad happens to your enemy, then take credit for it". Although David Bowie once famously had a psychic duel with Jimmy Page face to face, each trying to make the other jump out the window with the power of their mind.I think magic fights should be more like Merlin vs Madame Mimm in The Sword in the Stone, or Gandalf and Saruman, or the head exploding scene from Scanners. Or the Wizard Fight cartoons, or the Mage Duel game.
>>96996472
>>96996644Imagine if instead of spending years of your life remembering the names and abilities of characters/items in games, you remembered actual magical spells.
>>96996652They spent literal centuries shitting themselves
>>96996661Dark Forest theory but for individuals instead of species.
>>96996472Bakker has this in his books and I'd also look at Black Company for inspiration. Mages command regular armies that have anti-mage weapons and try to force each other in the open by conventional means first. If they actually fight each other, the results are usually cataclysmic and there's no guarantee who would win, so direct combat between mages is discouraged. >>96998375I'd agree this would be the general framework.
>>96996614>is closer to animeIt really isn't, though. A majority of anime doesn't even have magic.
>>96996472MAD is the name of the game.
>>96996472>what would an occult war between magic-users look like?I've always liked the one in Lords of Quarmall.
>>96996472Realistically? Nothing because magic users aren't realistic.
>>96998763The idea that nature is brutal as fuck and doesn’t fuck around (no health bars) is a thing however. If someone can control an individual’s mind, that individual probably won’t be able to resist it unless there’s an actual hard counter available.
Magic that’s too good is just boring
>>97000656Thats because faggot ass nogz be lacking imagination, go read the double shadow by Clark Ashton Smith and see how a cosmic level Mage shits his robes once he encounters something beyond his comprehension , or siege of Terra finale when Astronomicon was activated in mixture of the arcane and mundane by the collective efforts of multiple groups and individuals, even the big four could not withstand such a convergence of wills , or better yet go listen to the short story the board is set , the most magnificent piece of short fiction ever, a symbolic game of chess that decided the entire battle for Terra , I still get the shivers over the Emperor's final move or when Persson took the Soldier Tarot card and put the Lantern card over the fallen Emperor before facing Horus fucking Luprical
Battle beween Wizards will revolve around knowledge and skill not wanton fire power and sheer magical prowess , a Sorcerer can unleash the maximum fuck ball of death spell only to be reflected back at him by a magic mirror that cost nothing to conjure, a master of epic magic can rain asteroids on a Paladin personally protected by a guardian Arch-Angel , a Magus like Prospero drive a rival enemy Mage insane just by sending an invisible magical servant like Arial to torture him while he teleports around and create illusions and copies of him self, the Mage is as smart as the Fag larping him
>>97000656Science that’s too good is just boring. But here we are.
>>96996472It would just be wizard politics, no more Wizzer on Wizzer violence
It would be very scary.
>>97000977>the Mage is as smart as the Fag larping himSo you retards not know what LARP is anymore?
>>97002796LARP has become a dirty word, ever since the backlash from Critical Role has made the theatre sports aspect of TT taboo.
>>97003983>ever since the backlash from Critical Role has made the theatre sports aspect of TT tabooThe fuck you're talking about?
>>96996472Is "what if le superefficient magic" the new spam we'll have to endure for months?
>>97000906the fuck you ranting about anon?
>>96996472Realistically? It would look so unreal that nobody would know what they were looking at and the people that do know would know better than to trust what they see.
>>96996472Isn't every evil wizard or dark lord in every story just a wartime wizard? Living in a tower in a cursed dark land, drawing evil creatures to him to use as an army, seeking out powerful cursed relics and knowledge of evil rituals. Maybe the land is cursed because of the rituals the wizard needs to maximise his power during the war, or to produce the things needed.In any case it's reasonable to assume that however powerful a wizard is, he still benefits from an army of minions or men to project hard power across areas of territory.The nazis were very occult in their beliefs, they put serious resources into finding Atlantis and ancient relics that might aid in the war effort. In a world where magic and powerful artefacts are real I think all sides in a wizard war would be in a hurry to gather as many of these to themselves as possible. So basically sending adventurers on quests. Maybe there's a few jew wizards working on the magical equivalent of the manhatten project. A form of magic or a ritual that will decisively win the war, or end the world or whatever the propaganda says. Maybe a rival wizard would send adventurers to thwart them.So basically a wizard war just looks like every fantasy adventure story setting.
>>97004068So you have no frame of reference here, Donny. You're like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie and wants to know...
>umm it would be all like dark conspiracies and shitSeems like you're limiting the varieties of mage tee bee haych, why are they all mind controllers or seers and prophets, or powerless against the above?There should be plenty of pyromaniac pyromancers who go straight to cooking people or necromantic armies of the dead or druids turning an entire landscape against they ops plus enchanters making protective anti-mind-control-and-assassination jewellery for fat stacksProbably like half of them are into magic to validate and act out their character defects and mental illnesses, why would they even go into magic if acting like some mortal politician but one rung higher is the end?Really to make this conspiracy war make sense you have to make subtle or stealthy or long distance magic easy and cheap and simple to perhaps an 'unfair' degree, something like assassinating or controlling someone anonymously and remotely would in most systems be difficult and come with harsh preconditions
