D&D General Fantasy Equivalent of the Nuke

[Umbran]

Especially in a world with a really evil DM.

And old style Wishes. 5e Wishes, not so much.

 

[Reynard]

Time travel magic.

Oof. That's a whole nother genre.

 

[Davies]

Summoned meteor strike.

 

[Reynard]

MTG has the Silex, an artifact that when activated can decimate or even erradicate a plane. The strength of the blast depends on the user, and can go from nuking a small island to a huge explosion that causes a nuclear winter.

Spoiler

Specifically the user pours all of their emotions and experiences on it, the more intense the stronger the explosion.

Can it be replicated, because that's key from a genre perspective.

 

[Reynard]

Summoned meteor strike.

This would work if it involved a complex, esoteric ritual. But it still feels a little mundane.

 

[Umbran]

Oof. That's a whole nother genre.

The genre depends on when you set your campaign - during the struggle to be the first to develop it, or during the struggle after it has been developed.

 

[Pretty Prince of Parties]

Midgard from Kobold Press has The Wasted West (Midgard: Wasted West - Kobold Press) which came about through competing powers summoning increasingly powerful Cthulhu mythos type creatures that devastated the region.
So the espionage could be around the rituals, material components and individuals required to summon such things. If the control of such creatures is fleeting or patchy it could have the mutual destruction vibe that nukes have?

 

[Bacon Bits]

In 2e AD&D's Al-Qadim there was the spell Unleash Monolith, an 8th level spell that takes a day to cast and summons a gigantic 36-48(?) HD uncontrolled elemental which cannot be dispelled or banished. The elemental is nearly mindless, too, so all it does is lash out and destroy things. I don't think there's a duration on the summoning (I think they remain until destroyed) and I can't remember their stats, but I'm fairly sure they require +3 or +5 weapons to hit. It doesn't really matter what kind of elemental you summon this way; it's going to destroy any city it's been called to. I specifically remember noticing that the elementals called with this spell were more powerful than the elemental princes of evil (Imix, Ogremoch, etc.).

In 3e, there was the epic spell Rain of Fire which deals 1 point of fire damage each round. For 20 hours (12,000 damage). In a 2 mile radius. A successful save negates the damage, but you must save each round.

 

[humble minion]

That's interesting. What's the mechanism for making rings of wishes such that the information can be stolen?

EDIT: What's extra interesting about this is if the wishes aren't restricted to being destructive. A cold war of people trying to stop their rivals from creating a better/perfect world is a neat idea.

The mechanism/secret could simply be the ritual for binding a powerful efreet to the Ring (which is what gives the Ring its power, and which also explains why the wishes tend to go wrong/destructive, because a bound efreet it not a happy efreet!). Once you know the ritual (the bomb schematics) you can copy it and repeat it many times, but each time, you need a new efreet to act as payload (the plutonium)

You would of course also have a flourishing black market/espionage industry in old tomes, research etc that will yield the True Names of suitably potent efreet to be bound by the ritual. And of course the efreet themselves might get involved, vengefully for anyone who tries to bind them, or sneakily if it might be useful to let slip a rivals True Name to a ringmaker.

I think the reason i suggested that the wishes could only be destructive was to keep the Cold War vibe, but also because it eliminates a bunch of temptation on behalf of the individual engineers, spies, middlemen etc in the process to just turf all the spying business and just wish themselves a long happy life on Bikini Model Island if they ever get their hands on a ring. If all a ring can do is destroy, its utility to fulfil individual desires is limited.

 

[Reynard]

The mechanism/secret could simply be the ritual for binding a powerful efreet to the Ring (which is what gives the Ring its power, and which also explains why the wishes tend to go wrong/destructive, because a bound efreet it not a happy efreet!). Once you know the ritual (the bomb schematics) you can copy it and repeat it many times, but each time, you need a new efreet to act as payload (the plutonium)

You would of course also have a flourishing black market/espionage industry in old tomes, research etc that will yield the True Names of suitably potent efreet to be bound by the ritual. And of course the efreet themselves might get involved, vengefully for anyone who tries to bind them, or sneakily if it might be useful to let slip a rivals True Name to a ringmaker.

I think the reason i suggested that the wishes could only be destructive was to keep the Cold War vibe, but also because it eliminates a bunch of temptation on behalf of the individual engineers, spies, middlemen etc in the process to just turf all the spying business and just wish themselves a long happy life on Bikini Model Island if they ever get their hands on a ring. If all a ring can do is destroy, its utility to fulfil individual desires is limited.

I kind of like that temptation though. Sure, your mission is to kill the efreet and stop the production of the ring, but you could also let it go forward and then steal it so you can wish your dead spouse back to life..

That feels compelling to me.