[3.5] How would a wizard make his magic the ONLY magic?

[bihlbo]

In an upcoming game I'm going to run one of the main plot points is a wizard attempting to make all divine magic impossible. The only germane houserule is that all divine casters must worship a specific god and cannot get their power from nature, a cause, or any fluffy stuff.

I'm trying to find a way to do it that involves the least amount of hand-waving or deus ex machina. Any advice?

[Saxavarius]

Have him researching an arcane ritual that will sever the link between the material plane and the gods.

[phaedrusxy]

Research a spell to cover the world in Black Rain?

[bihlbo]

I don't see a lot of difference between saying "The gods just got mad or something" and "A wizard made up a spell you've never heard of that does something you've never heard of." If there's a better way than just researched handwaving I'd like to find it.

[ariasderros]

Have the Wizard be an Elder Evil with the Divine Enervation property?

[veekie]

Research a spell to cover the world in Black Rain?

You don't necessarily need to do that if you could make contact with some force of the lower planes to systematically interdict divine influence.

Or you could use a Mythal. A ridiculously huge one.

[sirpercival]

[bihlbo]

Is there a more intelligent and cleaver way to kill all the gods than a good old-fashioned epic-level planar romp to stab them in the face? I can simply hand-wave it and say "Lots of people higher level than you are killing gods and taking their stuff" but I'd just prefer it to be coming from one guy.

Or, failing that, I'd like to come up with a plot reason why the epic-level dudes of the world decide the gods need killin, aside from your basic partisanship.

[kitep]

The spell Divine Interdiction (SpC-70) interferes with a cleric's connection to her diety.  As written, it stops turning/rebuking undead, but does nothing with gaining spells.

But take this spell, tweak it, and mix it with Genesis.  End result, you get an area where clerics can't gain spells, that grows as time passes.  Cast it in all the big cities, then wait while it encompasses all the Earth.  The players have plenty of time to stop it and can even regain divine spells if they do it outside the affected area.  And the spells should still work inside the area, they just can't regain them inside.

Don't even have to kill a single god.

Good luck!

[Kajhera]

Build an empire, take a conquered people, kill their god, reanimate him under your control, then declare yourselves monotheistic, and evangelize heavily.

[Halinn]

Build an empire, take a conquered people, kill their god, reanimate him under your control, then declare yourselves monotheistic, and evangelize heavily.

The Roman gambit. Classic.

[Kajhera]

Build an empire, take a conquered people, kill their god, reanimate him under your control, then declare yourselves monotheistic, and evangelize heavily.

The Roman gambit. Classic.

Tis the season.

[Braininthejar]

Live on Krynn during the right period

Use large scale manipulation / mind control to make large masses of people abandon religion, trying to starve the gods by denying them faith.

[bihlbo]

Build an empire, take a conquered people, kill their god, reanimate him under your control, then declare yourselves monotheistic, and evangelize heavily.

The Roman gambit. Classic.

Don't be ignorant. Romans didn't reanimate Christ under their control, he resurrected on his own. Regardless it's hardly an applicable suggestion.

Live on Krynn during the right period

Use large scale manipulation / mind control to make large masses of people abandon religion, trying to starve the gods by denying them faith.

What? The gods of Krynn starve if they don't get worshippers? That's bizarre, I didn't know that.

[veekie]

In Krynn's case, one god stole the world away from the others, denying people access to divine power in general. I think that was two examples, not one.

[Kajhera]

Build an empire, take a conquered people, kill their god, reanimate him under your control, then declare yourselves monotheistic, and evangelize heavily.

The Roman gambit. Classic.

Don't be ignorant. Romans didn't reanimate Christ under their control, he resurrected on his own. Regardless it's hardly an applicable suggestion.

Well of course it didn't happen how I said, but actually becoming monotheistic 400 years in the future isn't exactly a helpful approach for the wizard in question.

[Halinn]

Build an empire, take a conquered people, kill their god, reanimate him under your control, then declare yourselves monotheistic, and evangelize heavily.

The Roman gambit. Classic.

Don't be ignorant. Romans didn't reanimate Christ under their control, he resurrected on his own. Regardless it's hardly an applicable suggestion.

Of course the Roman wouldn't say if they had done it. It's better publicity to tell people it was on his own, then take control of the religion.

[Braininthejar]

Yes, that were two examples. The rule about gods needing faith works in many worlds. Though actually starving a god to death is very difficult (still trying to do so will require so much interference with the society, it will probably cause a nice civil war or something - even if it doesn't succeed, it may provide the players with something to do for the whole campaign.) Oh, and some gods have worshippers over several worlds, so they will be unaffected. You can't pull that on Lolth.

And Krynn had no gods for a long time. (Well, they were there but after the cataclysm they decided not to meddle with humans for a couple centuries.

[phaedrusxy]

I don't see a lot of difference between saying "The gods just got mad or something" and "A wizard made up a spell you've never heard of that does something you've never heard of." If there's a better way than just researched handwaving I'd like to find it.

Of course there isn't one that doesn't involve any handwaving at all. I mean, what did you expect? Someone to say "Oh yeah, just use that spell on page 36 of Complete Arcane." ?

[Halinn]

In 2E, there was the 12th level spell (and the only 12th level spell ever) Karsus's Avatar, that stole a god's power. Karsus himself cast it on Mystryl, the god of magic, which was a bad idea (Netheril: Empire of Magic and Powers and Pantheons both have more information on the event). When Mystryl was reincarnated to Mystra, she banned all spells that were too powerful.
There's a good reason to decide to go godkilling - You want to be able to cast the immensely powerful spell that can transform you into a god in your own right, and damn the consequences.