What is the coolest thing a wizard could do in a fantasy novel?

[TheWhiteDragon]

If you were a wizard in a fantasy novel, what would be some really awesome things you could do.  Consider if you were bound by one constraint...the magic must be naturally possible.  This means you could make atmospheric changes to cause a tornado on an otherwise calm day, but you could not summon a fire-breathing dragon out of the nothingness.  I am writing a fantasy novel and am at the final 2 chapters.  In the penultimate chapter there is a good vs evil battle between armies of regular warriors with wizards on both sides.  What are some amazing spells that either side might do to cause damage to the opposition?

[Joblin Velder]

Cryovulcanism.

[TheWhiteDragon]

What?  Is that freezing rubber?

[Joblin Velder]

I win typo game.

Cryovolcanism.

[dangevin]

If you're going truly epic, your wizard can alter the moon's orbit so that it comes close enough to make everything go haywire, tidally speaking. Have the final battle take place in effective zero-G, at the gravitational midpoint b/w the planet and moon. Then, when he puts things back, instead of killing his opponent outright he can just leave him banished on the moon. Could be something where the evil guys are trying to ram it into the world, and the good guys are trying to put it back, and halfway between their efforts everyone gets swept up and the final battle ensues.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Ice Volcano...nice.

So far i have used tornado, hail storm, water springs, rain, lightning, wind.

[TheWhiteDragon]

I was considering a comet/meteor being pulled toward the enemy....but it seemed too sci-fi/convenient/unlikely-to-be-pinpoint-accurate.  The moon thing would be a bit too out there too.  The repercussions would be too unforseeable and damaging to both sides.

[bluemage55]

Alter the tectonic activity in the area to create a widening fissure in the earth beneath the midst of the enemy army, as if attempting to drop the enemy army into a hole.  Allow the enemy wizards to counter the fissure, preventing it from reaching any size of consequence.  Unbenownst to them, the fissure actually leads to a local underground coal field.  Alter the geothermal activity in the area such that massive increases in heat forces out huge quantities of coal gas, quickly displacing the air in the vicinity of the unsupecting enemy with toxic, but utterly colorless, tasteless, and odorless carbon monoxide.

Watch as the enemy army, including the wizards, soon experience seizures, comas, and fatalities as carbon monoxide binds with hemoglobin to shut down respiratory systems.  Should the wizards somehow react and counter the carbon monoxide poisoning, simply have a soldier fire a flaming arrow towards the enemy, resulting in a huge explosion.  Any enemies that survive the resulting conflagration will still have to deal with rapid suffocation as all of the local oxygen will be utterly depleted by displacement and combustion, allowing the friendly army to cut them down from afar as they helplessly struggle to breathe.

[DubDub]

If you're going truly epic, your wizard can alter the moon's orbit so that it comes close enough to make everything go haywire, tidally speaking. Have the final battle take place in effective zero-G, at the gravitational midpoint b/w the planet and moon. Then, when he puts things back, instead of killing his opponent outright he can just leave him banished on the moon. Could be something where the evil guys are trying to ram it into the world, and the good guys are trying to put it back, and halfway between their efforts everyone gets swept up and the final battle ensues.

This is Final Fantasy XIII right?  And, like, Majora's Mask?

Forget the moon thing, have a wizard pull the planet towards the star it orbits.  Gogo heliomancy!

[Bill Copes]

Necrosis.  Your wizard points at all the bad guys' dicks and laughs.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Necrosis.  Your wizard points at all the bad guys' dicks and laughs.

It being a fantasy setting, a cleric may be able to fix that.

What about instead "gifting" the bad guys with whale-sized penises (8 ft long) and elephantiasis of the testicles?  And maybe elephant trunks on their faces, too.

[Cthulhu1975]

Some random proposals:
* Thunderstorm with lightning striking furiously down onto the battlefield
* Wall of fire out of which one can summon huge dragons made of fire
* Sinkholes that bury the combatants
* Earthquake
* Fissures/chasms opening in the ground and swallowing the screaming soldiers
* Explosions
* Eclipse (not that dangerous but might fuel some wizard's powers)

[Norm4eva]

This.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52HmleTGQk8

[TheWhiteDragon]

This.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52HmleTGQk8

I have something like that.  In an earlier battle, a wizard forces the water to extract from a soldier's body, turning him into a withered, crunchy husk.

[Bill Copes]

How about spaghettification?

[TheWhiteDragon]

lol...funny.  Not sure how to get that going on a battlefield without killing everyone.

[serracollector]

Just being able to make mini volcano's pop up in the midst of the battlefield should suffice.  What about necromancy?  Kill some wizards, then  just revive and control them.

[TheWhiteDragon]

I was contemplating necromancy for the next book.  The hero and the villain from book 1 get resurrected in book 2....and the villain consequently raises an undead army to fight on his side.  The constraint of naturally possible makes this tough though, so i'm still working through that...whatever killed the guy at first would still be there when he's resurrected.   For example, an impaled heart would kill a guy, but when revived, he'd still have an impaled heart...doesn't make sense naturally.  He'd have to be healed first, which in itself is an issue.  It will take a series of spells, the last being a charm/mind control/hypnosis spell.

Anyway, necromancy isn't until book two.  Anything cool that they could do in close combat?  Anything else?  Vapor geysers seem neat.

[ELD]

Summon a horde of butterflies to cover the enemy troops, then have the butterflies catch on fire in the sunlight.  That's your hidden plot twist too - they ignite because they're vampire butterflies!  You can paypal me the royalties. 

[dangevin]

If you're going truly epic, your wizard can alter the moon's orbit so that it comes close enough to make everything go haywire, tidally speaking. Have the final battle take place in effective zero-G, at the gravitational midpoint b/w the planet and moon. Then, when he puts things back, instead of killing his opponent outright he can just leave him banished on the moon. Could be something where the evil guys are trying to ram it into the world, and the good guys are trying to put it back, and halfway between their efforts everyone gets swept up and the final battle ensues.

This is Final Fantasy XIII right?  And, like, Majora's Mask?

Simpsons did it! Simpsons did it!

[Bibendum]

I'd give them a force style ability, not to manipulate nothingness into bolts of energy but the ability to move parts of terrain and things like that. Being able to hurl chunks of earth at each other would make for an epic last sequence.

[serracollector]

Well you said no crazy summoning dragons stuff, what about calling animals?  A mage that speaks to nature, and calls forth a slew of wolves, bears, birds, and duckbilled platapus's (platipi?) ftw.

[Bakalias]

You said no creation out of the nothingness, but what about the opposit?
Creat things like wormholes, or put each opponent into a pitch black eternity?

(looks more like evil stuff, I know)

[Bill Copes]

Summon a horde of butterflies to cover the enemy troops, then have the butterflies catch on fire in the sunlight.  That's your hidden plot twist too - they ignite because they're vampire butterflies!  You can paypal me the royalties. 

[TheWhiteDragon]

Well you said no crazy summoning dragons stuff, what about calling animals?  A mage that speaks to nature, and calls forth a slew of wolves, bears, birds, and duckbilled platapus's (platipi?) ftw.

They can't call, but they can charm.  I already have a small group of wizards heading to the forest and will come back with a pair of tigers, several falcons, several wooden deer-plants, and a pair of giant snake/centipede creatures.  

The wolves are enemies and will be coming in the next book to help the bad guys.  Also, the wolves are too intelligent to be charmed.  Charming only works on relatively stupid creatures since it is a matter of mind over mind.  For example, only Bill Copes could charm Stephen Hawking.

[TheWhiteDragon]

I'd give them a force style ability, not to manipulate nothingness into bolts of energy but the ability to move parts of terrain and things like that. Being able to hurl chunks of earth at each other would make for an epic last sequence.

They can manipulate matter and energy, but not to the "force" extent.  For example the bad guys are using trebuchets to destroy the fortified wall (it's a medieval feel in the story), and filling the sling with common dirt (cause it's hard to carry boulders across the continent to an open field).  But the bad wizards are solidifying the dirt into solid rock by bonding the molecules with magic.

There's also the ability to disable molecular bonds...so some stones can be enchanted to crumble into dust when hit, then reform to their solid state after a moment (makes for cool secret entrances).

[TheWhiteDragon]

You said no creation out of the nothingness, but what about the opposit?
Creat things like wormholes, or put each opponent into a pitch black eternity?

(looks more like evil stuff, I know)

That's probably a bit to out there for this.  Other than being super sci-fi, a worm hole could just suck up everything, right?  Like a black hole?  I think the science behind it is just too hard to explain and doesn't match the medieval flavor so much.  A wormhole in MTG would just totally change the flavor to Star Trek: CCG.

[Delha]

Summon a horde of butterflies to cover the enemy troops, then have the butterflies catch on fire in the sunlight.  That's your hidden plot twist too - they ignite because they're vampire butterflies!  You can paypal me the royalties.

Vampires seem a lot stupider these days. Those butterflies might just sparkle instead of properly burning.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Summon a horde of butterflies to cover the enemy troops, then have the butterflies catch on fire in the sunlight.  That's your hidden plot twist too - they ignite because they're vampire butterflies!  You can paypal me the royalties.

Vampires seem a lot stupider these days. Those butterflies might just sparkle instead of properly burning.

I don't need any lawsuits from Stephanie Meyers' agent.

[nataz]

looking at my favorite wizards:

Dresden Files (Dresden): gravity manipulation

Black Company (Goblin/OneEye/Silent): Illusion army of dead friends/dead enemies

Name of the Wind (Kvothe): using strong heat source -> conversion of energy -> bad things happening to people