The issue the staff is currently arguing over comes down to how magic wll be handled on the server. It's much harder to have the mysterious "No one knows, it just is" that tends to surface more often than not in Planescape considering we have multiple DMs and many players with conflicting view points. So we require an ironbound staff ruling on how magic is handled, even if the PCs don't ever need to find out.
So the issue comes down to two major questions the staff is pondering even now as we speak in a staff meeting:
1) Is magic finite in Planescape, or is it infinite in amount. Can one continuously drain the magic from an area if such a thing were possible until one remained? Or would such an act continue on forever or until the object draining it reached it's full and exploded or similar.
2) Do deity, nature, and arcane magics come from different sources? And therefore are they of completely different spheres? Or does all magic regardless of type stem from the exact same place?
Those are the questions. If anyone can city Planescape books or passages that would be excellent and is really mostly what I'm looking for. Thank you for your time.
1) Is magic finite in Planescape, or is it infinite in amount. Can one continuously drain the magic from an area if such a thing were possible until one remained? Or would such an act continue on forever or until the object draining it reached it's full and exploded or similar.
Entire worlds have gone magic-dead before. The world of Mystara had a curse on it that was slowly draining it of magic (Principalities of Glantri, page 79), and Oerth is slowly being drained of magic by the god Tharizdun (Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, page 167). Toril went magic-dead when their ancient goddess of magic, Mystryl, died (Netheril: Empire of Magic, page 12).
So if the question is whether an area on a plane could be drained of magic, the answer is yes. Could an entire planar layer go magic-dead? I would say yes, but it would require changing the layer's planar trait. On a divinely morphic plane like Baator, only extremely powerful beings would be capable of it.
2) Do deity, nature, and arcane magics come from different sources? And therefore are they of completely different spheres? Or does all magic regardless of type stem from the exact same place?
If magic is drained away, it affects all kinds of magic equally, whether divine or arcane. That includes druids. See the rules for the Spire (A Player's Primer to the Outlands, page 6; Sigil and Beyond, page 20; 3rd edition Manual of the Planes, page 147). See also the description of the dead magic trait (3rd edition Manual of the Planes, page 13; d20 SRD, 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide 150).
Sorry, but it's not possible for just arcane magic to be drained, or just divine magic. If magic's gone, it affects everyone.
2) Do deity, nature, and arcane magics come from different sources? And therefore are they of completely different spheres? Or does all magic regardless of type stem from the exact same place?
Those are the questions. If anyone can city Planescape books or passages that would be excellent and is really mostly what I'm looking for. Thank you for your time.
Well, now, I would be inclined to believe that if the use of one type of magic gets cancelled, they all get cancelled out. However, it also seems likely that the source of arcane and divine+nature magics could be thought of as different (or at least it was so in 2nd ed).
Exactly where arcane magic would stem from is not entirerly certain (or I just haven't scoured enough sources to find where it says it comes from). The demi-god Vecna of Greyhawk fame at one point, during his imprisonment in the Demiplane of Dread, is said to believe that a being known as "The Serpent" is the source of arcane magic (as he calls those less in touch with it than himself by the names used for arcane spellcasters), but it's not entirerly clear if he in this was either A) correct, B) being metaphorical, C) wrong, or D) just plain had gone out of his mind from the many, many strains that the ages would have taken on it (since Asmodeus is sometimes referred to as a giant serpent in more dubious materials, and the campaign is set in Baator, I suppose you could go wild and claim that he is the source of all arcane magic, though the "canon-ness" of such claims would be highly unlikely).
As for divine/nature magic (back in the day there was not really any difference as far as I can tell), well, it's clear that aside from the powers themselves, belief itself was a strongly contributing factor. In fact, it was in itself enough to grant spells of the two lowest levels if it was fervent enough. If it was strongly enough tied to some abstract concept, powerful entity (such as Yggdrassil), or thing unlikely to be a deity in the traditional sense (such as the Godsmen's Source, the quasi-atheistic Athar's Great Unknown, or the Transcendent Order's Cadence of the Planes), it was enough to make the believer a full-fledged priest. Of course, this distinction was muddled pretty thoroughly by the fact that the beliefs of certain faction members gave them powers more aptly described as arcane-like in nature, and to my knowledge this relation between the two was never closely examined, or at all.
So, well, in conclusion: I... I have no idea.
