Wartime Magic
Magic in War
Six-Eyed Wyvern or Sechsäugigerwyrm
It is a popular, if not entirely accurate, belief that Adolf Hitler believed in the occult. Certainly the National Socialist Party (Nazis) reputedly grew from a German Antiquarian and Occultist group known as the Thule Society. This society held (amongst other beliefs) that the Aryan race should be ethnically pure. What is true is that the head of the Schutzstaffel (SS), Heinrich Himler, believed in mysticism and occult forces. It is claimed that he continued to fund research into the occult until near the end of World War Two.
In a magical world, with such a motivation, might not Himler, have formed a division under his own command into a combat unit as part of the Waffen SS. As a military division it would have had its own insignia to identify it as a separate group.
It is a popular, if not entirely accurate, belief that Adolf Hitler believed in the occult. Certainly the National Socialist Party (Nazis) reputedly grew from a German Antiquarian and Occultist group known as the Thule Society. This society held (amongst other beliefs) that the Aryan race should be ethnically pure. What is true is that the head of the Schutzstaffel (SS), Heinrich Himler, believed in mysticism and occult forces. It is claimed that he continued to fund research into the occult until near the end of World War Two.
In a magical world, with such a motivation, might not Himler, have formed a division under his own command into a combat unit as part of the Waffen SS. As a military division it would have had its own insignia to identify it as a separate group.
The Fleet Thaumaturgical Auxiliary
With the threat of magical forces being created on the side of the enemy, Britains response was to found a counter organisation; the Fleet Thaumaturgical Auxiliary (FTA). Since its operations are, for the most part, clandestine this fell under the overall control of the Royal Navy but reported directly to the Lords of the Admiralty.
Its command structure mirrored the regular Navy however its members were necessarily recruited from both sexes. The most senior officer was assigned the rank of Commodore (not Admiral) reflecting the relative status that was assigned to its role vis-a-vis that of the actual Fleet command.
With the threat of magical forces being created on the side of the enemy, Britains response was to found a counter organisation; the Fleet Thaumaturgical Auxiliary (FTA). Since its operations are, for the most part, clandestine this fell under the overall control of the Royal Navy but reported directly to the Lords of the Admiralty.
Its command structure mirrored the regular Navy however its members were necessarily recruited from both sexes. The most senior officer was assigned the rank of Commodore (not Admiral) reflecting the relative status that was assigned to its role vis-a-vis that of the actual Fleet command.
The stories in the blank magic series speculate what history during World War Two might have been like if magic were real.
The magic in these stories is personal magic. It is limited in its gross effects by physical laws of matter and energy. Wizards can kill, but only on a one-to-one basis and killing by magic is energetically expensive. Similarly destroying small objects is practical, but buildings???
If you wanted to destroy a building using only your bare hands it would take an enormous amount of time and energy. To do the same thing magically, the effort would have to come from the wizard's mind .
"…magic had indeed once been wild and lawless, but had been tamed back in the mists of time by the Olden Ones, who had bound it to obey among other things the Law of Conservation of Reality; this demanded that the effort needed to achieve a goal should be the same regardless of the means used. In practical terms this meant that, say, creating the illusion of a glass of wine was relatively easy, since it involved merely the subtle shifting of light patterns. On the other hand, lifting a genuine wineglass a few feet in the air by sheer mental energy required several hours of systematic preparation if the wizard wished to prevent the simple principle of leverage flicking his brain out through his ears."
So warfare between wizards uses weapons that are, for the most part, non-magical. Stored energy; gunpowder and the like works just as well for wizards and non-wizards. However, there is one area where wizards can use their talents effectively in warfare. Many wizards can perform mental magic: hypnosis and illusions and hence wizards can excel at spying and infiltration.
In addition to the laws of energy conservation another limitation is the availability of suitably talented wizards. The magic pages show that the wizarding population is outnumbered by the normal population between about five thousand to one and ten thousand to one . Now most of the wizards will be non-combatants; too old, too young or disqualified by temperament, sanity or occupation.
Britain, with a wartime population of approximately forty-seven million could muster maybe 3,200 individuals. Germany with a wartime population of approximately eighty-seven million could potentially muster maybe 4,800 individuals.In all, there might be approximately 8,000 potential combatants: compare this with the estimated 28,000 that took part in the battle of Agincourt or the millions that took part in the Somme.
So wizarding warfare between wizards is reduced to one on one or small scale conflicts and, given the secrecy rampant within the magical world, mostly to clandestine operations; i.e. spying, assasination and sabotage.
However, this is not to say that magical devices can't be used to create weapons. Mankind rarely fights with his or her innate weapons: Human fingernails, fists and teeth are positively inferior when compared with the claws, talons and fangs of most predators. So, like their non-magical counterparts, wizards have developed weapons. Some of which can be found within these pages. For the most part the weapons don't try to compete with ones already in use in the normal world (explosives, guns and the like) but use adaptations of the mental and physical abilities of wizards. Of course, magical weapons can be used on the non-magical community as well (see the Quicksilver wyrm)