Last night the idea came to me of wizards casting a wish or limited wish to remove their magical aging.
It occurred to me that an unwisely worded wish can easily backfire if taken literally.
There are degrees of bad that might happen:
Less bad: Immune to spells that cause magical aging, like haste.
More bad: Can no longer cast spells that cause magical aging, like haste. No longer can they send their fighters into a high speed multi-attack frenzy.
Most bad: Immune to anti-aging potions and effects. This could include wishes that attempt to undo the effect, since wishes cause aging. Even wishes another makes on their behalf may not work.
This has a good news side, as they are also immune to the ageing effect of ghosts and other creatures
Ultimate bad: The wisher dies thus solving all their problems. Or they rise as one of the undead….
Spreading the Bad: Wish is applied to all members of the party, so cleric can no longer cast restore to reverse magical aging.
Spread far and wide: No one is affected or can use magic that causes or reverses magical aging. This might have the effect of eliminating all undead and prevent the creation of more, depending on the exact wording of the wish. Or it only makes creatures that have ageing or anti-ageing effects no longer work.
Conclusion
Limited Wish, Wish, and Alter Reality are the ultimate power players can fiddle with in their quest for wealth, power, and glory. Poorly worded wishes are a gift to the Game Master to twist and mess with the players. Wise players are very careful and precise in their wording of wishes, if they choose to employ them.
Sometimes wishes appear to have no immediate ill effects. An example I have mentioned before is the time players in my brother’s campaign found a Deck of Many things. One person wished for the finest in in the world. It is a strange, magical place that changes size and decorations. The decorations are from the various inns throughout the world who have nicer things, they become part of this character’s inn. When the original owners find out, if they are rich or powerful, that character will have some explaining to do.
One can never anticipate all the ways a player might mis-word a wish, so one must keep some general ideas in the back of their mind when a wish is in play.
Also, don’t put wishes or similar into your campaign if you don’t want the characters to change the face of your world.
More Musings
I have a vague idea that I’ll reflect on a while. But I’d like to have some sort of obvious effect to happen when mortals make wishes.
In AD&D 1e, magic is explained as channeling power from other planes. What might the enormous power of a wish cause to happen?
If such a thing happens, you’ll want some backstory about previous wishes and the “coincidental” happenings that happened about the same time.
I’d love to have more consistent play in my campaign world where players come across wishes, like with a luck blade, ring of three wishes, genie’s lamp, Deck of Many Things, etc. I’m not afraid to let the players, via their characters, alter the face of my campaign world. Why should I? I set my campaign in motion, in media res, a thousand years after the collapse of the last major empire. I have all these ideas for how things were wrecked in the past, why not let the characters be the agents of change for the next cycle?
