Blight of Ages: Tolkeen's Doomsday Weapon. What happened?

[MidnightNova]

In the write up of the Blight of Ages spell of legend, it is mentioned that Tolkeen was holding the spell in reserve to use against the CS crop fields in Missouri. This was for leverage in negotiations or as a final strike. So what happened?

Blight of Ages would have been DEVASTATING to the Coalition, effectively annihilating most of their food supply. So when Tolkeen was going down, why didn't they execute the existing plan they had for using this spell? Did they suddenly gain a conscience after metaphorically sleeping with ever demon and evil monster in the Megaverse?

It should have been pretty easy to deploy and while it would not have "saved" Tolkeen, it sure would have avenged it.

Conversely they could have taken out say 25% of the CS food supplies and then said "Prosek, BACK OFF or your people will all starve."

Instead they just dropped the ball. Interested in knowing why. I doubt it was ever mentioned.

[glitterboy2098]

the tide of war changed too rapidly for them. they were winning, pushing back the CS and reclaiming territory.. then got hit with the one-two punches of a CS counteroffensive (which caught tolkien by surprise and caused them to lose a lot of their recently reclaimed territory), and then the Deus ex machina that was General Holmes's army appearing in their rear.

so they went from not needing a doomsday weapon to win.. to not having the time to deploy it.

[Grazzik]

It's a spell of legend.

A 10th level mage would devastate about 12k acres - that's about 10 large family run farms according to a rough Google search.

So would a dragon draining its PPE repeatedly casting this spell as it flew up and down ley lines, soaking in more PPE, sow havoc? Oh yes. Would it turn the tide of a war? Not in the least if acting alone. The CS probably has at least several million acres of farmland carved out of the wilderness producing everything from grain to cows.

Even a small army of greater demons let loose in the breadbasket of the CS would have to strike in a repeatedly coordinated fashion before local first responders quickly removed the threat. However, demons aren't exactly known for their collaborative skills.

Also, to start handing out thousands of scrolls to meer mortals to use like tiny paper-based bioweapons... who's to say they won't sell the scrolls... no self respecting master mage would want to see their masterpieces sold in a common market stall...

However, post-war, could a small cache of scrolls be found as a last resort bundle that was never deployed? Hmm, a neat mission objective.

[ngocnhungplaza]

Great question. I've wondered the same thing. Strategically, using Blight of Ages would’ve made a ton of sense, especially with Tolkeen already spiraling. But I think the writers leaned into the theme of tragic hubris — Tolkeen made so many moral compromises that maybe by the end, they lost clarity or unity on how far they were willing to go.

It’s also possible that the spell was too unstable or required specific conditions they couldn't meet in time. Or maybe the command structure was too fractured near the end to authorize something so extreme. Still, it feels like a massive missed opportunity for some narrative payoff or at least scorched-earth vengeance.

[Nekira Sudacne]

The problem with mass deployment of a WMD in bite sized chunks is that it's difficult to scale participation. When droping nukes, you only need a few bomber pilots or people willing to push a big red button to devistate vast swaths of real-estate.

Mass deploying Blight of Ages would require the co-ordination and co-operation of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of spellcasters. Who then have to travel into enemy territory to deploy them.

So let me ask you this: if you walked into a town square, and asked how many people would be willing to carry a suitcase nuke and personally destroy a small farm, because the nuke only hits a kilometer or so?

You'd run out of volenteers pretty fast. What's more, some percentage of anything with that wide deployment would have Moral Objectors who would likely warn the CS on the basis of not wanting to mass devistate civilians.

There's a reason that the coalition death camps had to be kept secret. Most people are not on board with WMD's, even if they wouldn't lose any tears if it was done, asking them to willingly and knowingly particpate, including incurring substantial personal risk of death going behind enemy lines, is a much bigger ask.

[darthauthor]

Well written Nekira Sudacne.

[glitterboy2098]

It's a spell of legend.

A 10th level mage would devastate about 12k acres - that's about 10 large family run farms according to a rough Google search.

So would a dragon draining its PPE repeatedly casting this spell as it flew up and down ley lines, soaking in more PPE, sow havoc? Oh yes. Would it turn the tide of a war? Not in the least if acting alone. The CS probably has at least several million acres of farmland carved out of the wilderness producing everything from grain to cows.

Even a small army of greater demons let loose in the breadbasket of the CS would have to strike in a repeatedly coordinated fashion before local first responders quickly removed the threat. However, demons aren't exactly known for their collaborative skills.

Also, to start handing out thousands of scrolls to meer mortals to use like tiny paper-based bioweapons... who's to say they won't sell the scrolls... no self respecting master mage would want to see their masterpieces sold in a common market stall...

However, post-war, could a small cache of scrolls be found as a last resort bundle that was never deployed? Hmm, a neat mission objective.

yeah, the book over sells the spell as a 'wonder weapon'. if it was used in Palladium fantasy or other medieval level society, it could devastate a whole kingdom. but against the CS it would need to be cast so many times just to hurt just one of the CS's agricultural focused states, that the CS's defenders would certainly be able to catch the mages doing it before the blight actually caused the CS to start loosing the ability to feed its people.

[Plane]

If a mage's plan to do this was going to succeed it seems like the kind of massive impending disaster which would trigger dozens (hundreds) of nightmares among Psi-Net's clairvoyants and give them guidelines as to what areas to guard and cues for when to expect the attack so they can intercept it.

Given the twice-per-day limit on RUE pg 172 my guess is Psi-Net tries to keep track of any non-military psychics (minor or major) with this ability and incentivizes them (monetary rewards?) to use it every day and give them all results to process and then they just cross-reference the input to see if there are commonalities.

At most this takes 36 melees (9 minutes) to attempt - a worthwhile hobby for a Coalition patriot or any person wanting to safeguard their communities! Near the end it mentions something about 2D4 melees of concentration to create the image though, so maybe the 6D6 under duration is actually the length of the vision trance?

In that case if it's 8 melees to activate (2 minutes) plus up to 9 minutes of vision that's 11 minutes total, or 22 minutes a day people might dedicate to this to get possibly useful intel.

With most Psi-Hounds having a slew of sensitive psionics they are probably just outright OBLIGATED to do it.

Clairvoyance can target "people or places thousands of miles away" and we're told the advance notice can range from 20 minutes to 1 week.

It's also implied this can be targeted with the "thinking of his/her friend Janet" example. Friends get a +5% to the skill roll. Not sure if you'd add IQ to that. I don't think you even get false positives here since we're told a failed skill roll just means no vision - so they're always what's going to happen unless the vision induces a change.

We also know these flashes sometimes happen w/o activating the power usually during sleep (a dream or nightmare) and occasionally when awake.

Another idea here - if a CS psionic has both Astral Projection and Clairvoyance... the 5 minute increments of projection are each (per RUE 171's Astral Time) more than a month (1 minute = 1 week) meaning even a 1st-level projection using 5 minutes is getting 35 days worth of clairvoyance attempts - 70 attempts!

For those with the power overlap they're probably paid during times of strife to spend long periods getting intel like that and to convey those astral visions to Psi-Net and Psi-Bat to adjust their strategies.