I think spells requiring cabals of mages to invoke are a bad fit, as @Oofta points out. BUT, whatever it should be should require powerful mages (or equivalent) to build are on brand. Only really rich nations can make nukes, after all, but they can be stockpiled, stolen, wielded by rogue elements, granted to allies and so on. Maybe something that opens a rift to Hell (or the far realm, or whatever) but can be targeted through clairvoyance. So a terrorist would have to be willing to die to use it to make their statement, but a powerful nation can drop it like a bomb from a safe distance by way of crystal ball.
D&D General Fantasy Equivalent of the Nuke
The mention of mage cabals made it click for some reason but I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this one
The basic premise was that most casters in that world had great control but mediocre power reserves while Lina Inverse had the inverse 
Something I was thinking about: what if it wasn't nations that had access to these superweapons, but big NGOs -- different religions, or competing wizard guilds, or similar. It might be the nations trying to steal the technology or get ahold of one of them. That would change the theme a little bit but might be interesting.
Voadam
Legend
Eberron's Dragonmark House Cannith?
It could be done and work but I think you would lose a bunch of the cold war aspects.
I think the Dragonmarked houses give Eberron a distinctly cyberpunk vibe -- in a good way, I mean. I always unlink them from race, though. It seems unnecessarily tacked on when what is important is the mark.
In an old campaign we played in, one of our players gained a "Negative Material" sword. It was made entirely of material from the negative material plane. Of course, we then had to track down a "Positive Material" sword as a counterbalance. Trust me, it made more sense in the actual campaign... maybe
Anyway, we found ourselves in quite a pickle as a party, ready to be wiped out by the DM's minions (this was in our era of antagonistic GM - players playing to beat the GM phase - fortunately we moved past that), and we decided to, as a last resort, smash the swords into each other. Kaboom. Made quite an impact on the terrain in a pretty good radius (measured in miles) too.
And that, kids, is how I met the sphere of annihilation.In an old campaign we played in, one of our players gained a "Negative Material" sword. It was made entirely of material from the negative material plane. Of course, we then had to track down a "Positive Material" sword as a counterbalance. Trust me, it made more sense in the actual campaign... maybe
Anyway, we found ourselves in quite a pickle as a party, ready to be wiped out by the DM's minions (this was in our era of antagonistic GM - players playing to beat the GM phase - fortunately we moved past that), and we decided to, as a last resort, smash the swords into each other. Kaboom. Made quite an impact on the terrain in a pretty good radius (measured in miles) too.
jgsugden
Legend
What are the essential elements of a Nuclear bomb? Massive destruction. Permanent damage. If unchecked, it would destroy the world.
One option to me would be unleashing the Elder Gods upon the world. Manifesting the physical forms of Cthulhu, Dagon, and other nightmare creatures with alien mindscapes would invoke those ideas.
Another would be an actual bomb. I had a homebrew spell in the 1980s that was essentially designed to be Meteor Swarm on Steroids. This 12th level spell unleashed 25 AD&D Meteor Swarm spells in Sight Range, with 8d6 each of fire, lightning, acid, and sonic damage to everything within 1 mile of the caster. It was used three times in my campaign history, and each time it was the culmination of a campaign and the land where it was cast was never revisited again.
Another is to cut off an entire area from the Magical Weave. In my setting this would make Divine, Nature and Arcane magic impossible.
Finally, the Walking Dead style plague. Unleash an illness that spreads across the land and kills a good portion of the populace - and anyone that is infected is subject to a curse that can only be removed by Wish that raises you as infectious undead when you die.
Redwizard007
Adventurer
If you are looking for a nuke-equivalent, I'd be inclined to suggest something like the Orbs of Dragonkind, a Sphere of Annihilation, Tomes of Golemn Manufacturing or similar. They all make for great arms race type scenarios.
Those are all true but I thik the most important factor is what it takes to create, control and propagate that destructive power. There can't be just one, because it become the Death Star -- which, while interesting, is a different kind of story.
My issue with this and the necrobomb idea is that they would continue on their own ina way that nukes really won't, so a single incident is potentially world ending (as opposed to requiring MAD to kill everyone). Maybe a spell that sends a city to the Far Realm, tho!
As we have discussed previously in the thread, the problem with it being a spell is that while the weapon should need lots of experts (and money and infrastructure) to create, the weapon should, once created, be able to fall into the wrong hands.
This is interesting because while devastating it might no destructive. That region is suddenly living in the mundane medieval period. Ewww. But what if they started developing technology...?
Again, I don't like this one if it can spread. But if it creates a contained zone of negative energy , that's interesting. It would be like those theoretical bombs that left all the buildings and just killed all the people: adventurers could be tempted to go to the necrozone to collect treasure or find secrets or whatever, but don't die there!
Similar Threads
