D&D General Fantasy Equivalent of the Nuke

[Voadam]

I am a big fan of cold war espionage surrounding nuclear secrets -- mostly the real world stuff (but some fiction, too). I have long toyed with the idea of trying to create a fantasy campaign that fits embraces that genre, but I often get stuck on what the right equivalent of the bomb should be. Assuming D&D-isms (even if the game that I would use isn't strictly D&D), what do you think would make a good stand in for the nuclear weapon in such a scenario?

. . .

What do you think would make a good "nuclear weapon" equivalent in a D&D inspired fantasy setting? Remember, the point of the thing is to drive espionage and fun spy action to try and acquire or preserve such secrets.

Pretty Prince of Parties beat me to it.

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?

Wizard spells are a great tech secrets equivalent as they can be both stolen and researched independently. Also while high level spells are generally restricted to high level casters, scrolls in most editions of D&D can be created allowing lower level casters (or even non-casters with 3e use magic device skill) to deploy them.

Summoning Mythos type entities are a big nuclear bomb equivalent, summon them they do lots of uncontrolled damage on a massive scale.

In Midgard the competing mages of high magic civilizations unleashed the mythos summoning weapons leading to empire devastation resulting in the Wasted West that could have continued to be close to a world ending apocalypse that was only stopped by huge sacrifices to enact mythic time stop spells that slowed down the unleashed entities who are still there warping their immediate areas' realities.

Having super power empires trying to recreate the Necronomicon and sabotaging and stealing each others' research efforts is a good setup.

Fiend and undead apocalypse from wizard spell stuff would work similarly.

 

[Dausuul]

Mind control magic on a massive scale.

I'm thinking of a ritual which makes everyone acknowledge a particular person as King or Queen of some region (size of region determined by various factors). It doesn't force obedience--you can still commit crimes--but the thought of trying to harm, overthrow, or depose the monarch fills everyone with supernatural terror. You can overcome this with a strong will or magical protection from fear*, but neither of those is a practical solution for armies. The result is that kingdoms with access to this ritual tend to be extremely stable.

But. What happens when you use the ritual to anoint a monarch for a region that already has one? Answer: Chaos. Each subject's allegiance becomes a coin toss, so that every town and city gets split fifty-fifty, with the division cutting across families, friendships, religions, everything. Unless the two monarchs can work out a co-rulership arrangement (often sealed by marriage), civil war is almost inevitable. Even in a co-rulership, the smallest dispute between monarchs can trigger an eruption of violence.

The only way to fix the situation is for one of the monarchs to die, whereupon everyone's allegiance flips to the survivor.

*I think it's very important to ensure PCs and major villains have some way to negate the ritual's effects on themselves.

 

[Voadam]

The Greyhawk historical period before the Invoked Devastation and Rain of Colorless Fire works well too.

Two superpower empires (Baklunish and Suloise) with high magic archmage resources and knowledge to pull off magical nuclear attack type things.

This can lead to a cold war detente with lots of proxy battles and espionage. Magical formula and wizard orders standing in for nuclear secrets and programs.

Of course canonically it leads to the nuclear option with pretty much MAD for the two empires and a resulting desert called the Sea of Dust.

 

[TheLibrarian]

A ring of wishes would do the job quite nicely, to be honest, especially in a world where very high-level magic is scarce. Make it a variant that can only grant destructive wishes, but will grant them sincerely and without twisting, if you like.

Haha. Or a Deck of Many Things.

 

[overgeeked]

I am a big fan of cold war espionage surrounding nuclear secrets -- mostly the real world stuff (but some fiction, too). I have long toyed with the idea of trying to create a fantasy campaign that fits embraces that genre, but I often get stuck on what the right equivalent of the bomb should be. Assuming D&D-isms (even if the game that I would use isn't strictly D&D), what do you think would make a good stand in for the nuclear weapon in such a scenario?

The one I keep going back to is dragon eggs. Like, the presumption is dragons are gone but eggs remain behind. Someone has figured out how to hatch them, though, and once hatched the dragons are loyal servants of the crown that hatched them(I am assuming some sort of "land magic" in the explanation). Also, these are not just dragons, but city buster dragons.

What do you think would make a good "nuclear weapon" equivalent in a D&D inspired fantasy setting? Remember, the point of the thing is to drive espionage and fun spy action to try and acquire or preserve such secrets.

The wish spell.

 

[MoonSong]

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

Yes, the original was an ancient artifact and was eventually destroyed, but they have learned how to replicate it.

 

[MarkB]

Because atoms as we known them don't exist. Everything on the prime planes is composed of a mixture the four base elements. Those things given the power of life and growth are animated by the power of the positive energy element, while those given the power of death and decay are animated by the power of the negative energy element.

Okay then, if we can't split elements, what about splitting elementals? Someone's developed a way to divide elementals into multiple smaller ones that quickly grow to full size, which was just an interesting convenience until someone else found a way to do it in a cascading chain reaction that would flood a region with both elemental energy and rampaging rogue elementals.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Recently, our group gained possession of an apparently canon Pathfinder item that is an inkwell that summons shadows.

Shadows being the D&D monster that must only be placed by DMs because their spawning mechanics can quickly turn them into an end of the world scenario if there's a population near them and no adventurers to gank them.

We have sealed it in a hidden vault and designated its existence as a state secret.

 

[Storyteller Hero]

Realmslore has Elven High Magic, which has groups of elven/drow mages collectively casting in a method that is allowed to surpass 9th level spells under the rules of Mystra's Ban.

Elven high magic

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Good call!

From the same source, The Scroll of Tarrasque Summoning also springs to mind. Because assuming the Tarrasque were to stay in the region, it's going to be uninhabitable for a while. And if it doesn't, isn't that mutually-assured destruction?

The Scroll of the Comet from Icewind Dale is like a Tactical nuke.

500' radius, 30d10 damage, destroys all structures and nonmagical items.