Wild Magic, Dead Magic, and You

[Fire Wraith]

In the course of your adventures, you may run into zones of Wild, or Dead, Magic. Since there have been questions by players, here's the basics of how it works in CD at present:

First, the Lore:

These are places, large or small, where magic doesn't work right, or work at all. The reasons can vary, but it often has to do with very powerful magics, or places where the gods fought (or died). Places like the Ruins of Myth Drannor, the Helmlands, fallen mythallars, that sort of thing. The Weave is torn, or even burned out, making the use of magic difficult, unpredictable, or sometimes impossible.

Mostly this is something that will impact only higher level dungeons.

Now, a few key things:
1) This impacts PCs and NPCs equally. They both run on the same scripts, and same limitations.
2) Weave-dead areas do not necessarily impact use of the Shadow Weave, and vice versa. Thus, it's entirely possible that a Shadow Weave caster can function normally in an area where the Weave is dead. There also exist the potential for Shadow-Weave Dead areas, where the Shadow Weave doesn't work but the Weave does, as well as All-Dead areas where nothing does. Thus, if you see an NPC casting in an area you know is Dead, they're probably using the Shadow Weave.
3) Right now these areas don't impact static items - your +4 sword is still a +4 sword, though this is more a limitation we've run into due to various other issues.  Scrolls, potions, etc, as well as items casting spells, will fail.
4) Your buffs will fall when you enter one of these areas. At the moment they won't be renewed on exiting, though that's something we're going to look at in the future.


Wild Magic works much the same, save that it won't affect existing buffs, only things that are cast, by PCs or NPCs. There is a set value, that can vary by area, of what percentage of spells will turn into a wild surge instead, and produce a totally random result - sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes entirely weird.