D&D General Where is magic prohibited in your world??

It seems the majority restrict magic because they want to control who gets to use it or make sure it doesn't cause harm?

So everyone treats it like a weapon or tool basically??
 

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My Doggerland Campaign (17 Century weird Europe) is premised on the rise of the Puritan Protectorate of Doggerland in the north and La Inquisición in the South. Both of those Empires have outlawed arcane magic (the Puritans are fighting a war with the fey and La Inquisición are infiltrated by demons) and thus ‘witches‘ and humanoids are refugees fleeing east beyond the Black Forest and Carparthians.
Divine powers are allowed (Witch-Finder paladins :)) but arcane will get you persecuted and possibly arrested for dark scorceries
 
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It seems the majority restrict magic because they want to control who gets to use it or make sure it doesn't cause harm?

So everyone treats it like a weapon or tool basically??
Yep. Knowledge/ability is power, and magic is essentially the ability to make a wish come true - for good or for ill. Those who don't have it fear it being used against them. Those who do have it don't want to give it up.

Clearly, the attitude is derived a lot from the real world parallels, and is why it shows up in so many people's campaign world.
 

Spellcasting is illegal within the walls of cities, and those who violate it are subject to arrest, fine, and/or imprisonment, depending on the spell being cast and the circumstances. Casting cure wounds on a wounded guard could get you a warning (and maybe a job interview), casting charm person on a merchant could get you arrested for fraud; casting eldritch blast on a citizen could get you imprisoned for attempted murder.

Outside of the city walls, this law does not apply.
 

My campaign is a mashup of a couple different settings and includes Ptolus which has a history of an imperial Holy Lothian Church inquisition in the past against non-church magic (I fleshed it out as being from a history of fighting a secret order of demon summoning wizards who hid among normal wizard guilds, and then being taken to zealous extremes for a long while with witch burnings). Mostly a history flavor thing so that players do not have to worry constantly about going underground with their magic.

This means the previously powerful wizards guilds were mostly broken or went underground or fled out of the empire to places like Freeport.
 
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Fiend summoning is widely, but not universally, banned. Sometimes you can get an exemption if there’s a pressing need and a proven containment plan, but that rarely happens. Of course, sometimes people summon a fiend without realizing it until too late, and different places have their own ideas about how to deal with those people. Most undead are animated by sorrowsworn which are also considered “more or less” fiends, so the same rule applies to undead raising.

Likewise, use of mind affecting spells are likely to require you to explain to a judge why it was necessary, unless it was an obvious case of defense of self or another.

Other than those broad ones, there are lots of magic that one country or another might seriously dislike due to culture. One might denigrate divination because it shows distrust in fate and the divine, while another honors it because it’s always best to be prepared, for instance. It’s a case by case basis whether any of these are outlawed.

For a specific place: Vanalesse heavily persecutes divine and pact caster, and censures primal casters. They see it as the divine “coddling” mortals and giving them what they don’t deserve, brought about by the founding belief that the original Vanalessians were descended from demigods and can one day ascend by force.
 
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I have large places that are magic dead. There is a whole planet that is magic dead and developed technology that brought them to a nuclear war - putting a "Gamma World" into the fringes of my setting. There are also many places in the world where magical experiments went awry, or places where someone decided to sever magic by cutting the Spell Weave. The largest of those is a series of islands where Spell Weave was severed so that people could hide there from the magics of the world.

There are also places where spells are possible, but outlawed or discouraged. A significant city that sits at the center of a continent (called Crossroads in a bit of "on the nose naming") discourages arcane magic use, but not divine, nature or psionic magics. The laws technically prohibit the use of magic on other beings, but anyone using arcane magic is treated as dangerous, and banishment is often forced upon them at the slightest excuse, whether real or made up.
 

I don't use such large blanket laws, rules, customs. Magic is treated like any other set of tools. You don't use combat magic such as fireballs, magic missile or their like with out a good reason, just as you don't go around today and shooting weapons today. But mend, unseen servant, light are spells that are very commonly used everywhere. Of course the classification of harmful and helpful magic varies from place to place.

There is also the question of why would a wizard who lives in a well protected city that has not been attack in a long time even spend the time, cost and effort to learn combat spells?
 

There is also the question of why would a wizard who lives in a well protected city that has not been attack in a long time even spend the time, cost and effort to learn combat spells?
For the same reasons people learn to shoot, use bow, or learn martial arts today; hobby, self discipline, social standing, self-defence, a tool that can easily be used offensively, or because it’s their job to do so.

But the most dangerous magic isn’t really destructive spells à la fireball; it’s the more subtle charms, illusions, and teleporting spells. A society can only be comfortable with those if countermeasures are easy to come by
 

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