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Great Fires
It was the 2nd of September 1666 that a fire in Pudding Lane destroyed enough of London to become known as the Great Fire of London. There’s a Monument to mark the site that stands to this day.
Have you ever imagined what, if anything, could take out a large city in a high fantasy world? I think it’s possible because in RPGs (at least), harmful magic is more common than curing magic (beyond fixing wounds).
1. The Crimson Plague
A magically engineered disease would be far more terrifying than any natural pestilence.
- The Disaster: A disgruntled hedge-wizard, a cult, or a state-sponsored agent could design and release a magical plague. Unlike a natural bacterium or virus, this affliction could be designed with malicious intelligence. It might not spread through conventional means like air or water, but perhaps through sound, by looking at a particular arcane symbol scrawled on walls, or even through the ley lines that might run beneath the city. Symptoms could be gruesomely magical: victims might not just develop sores, but sores that weep shadow-stuff, or their coughs might produce not phlegm, but swarms of biting insects.
- Why it would be devastating:
- Imbalanced Magic: While disease-making magic is common, the magical knowledge of healing, purification, and diagnostics is rare. The few true healers or clerics would be overwhelmed, and their magical reserves would be no match for a self-propagating curse. They might even become targets themselves to sow more despair.
- Incompetent Leadership: A figure like Sir Thomas Bloodworth would initially dismiss the outbreak. “A touch of the ague,” he might declare, “Nothing a good leeching won’t solve.” He would refuse to quarantine districts, especially the wealthy ones, for fear of disrupting trade. By the time the magical nature of the plague is undeniable, its sigils are carved on half the city’s doorframes, and the dead are piling up faster than they can be burned.
- Urban Environment: The city’s tight-packed nature, poor sanitation, and abundance of rats and other vermin would provide a fertile ground for both the primary magical infection and the secondary, mundane diseases that would inevitably follow in its wake.
2. The Endless Deluge
Where fire consumes, water suffocates and erodes.
- The Disaster: Instead of a fire starting in a bakery, imagine a prolonged, unnaturally intense rainstorm summoned by a powerful mage, perhaps to settle a mercantile dispute or as an act of magical terrorism. This wouldn’t be a normal storm; it would be a focused, unrelenting downpour over the city for days or even weeks. The river running through the city would swell, not just with water, but with magically-infused effluent that corrodes stone and poisons the earth.
- Why it would be devastating:
- Imbalanced Magic: Spells to create water or summon rain might be relatively common forms of elemental magic. However, the ability to control weather on a massive scale, to abate a storm, or to magically reinforce structures against water damage would be the domain of archmages, who are few and far between.
- Incompetent Leadership: The Lord Mayor would at first welcome the rain to “dampen the dust”. As the river crept up its banks, he would issue pointless proclamations for citizens to “stay indoors and keep dry”. He would fail to organise the evacuation of low-lying districts, the magical reinforcement of the bridges and embankments, or the rationing of food until the city’s wharves and warehouses were already submerged, destroying the food supply and halting all trade.
- Urban Environment: The makeshift buildings, many with shallow foundations, would become waterlogged and collapse into the mire. The primitive sewer system would back up, flooding the streets with a foul, disease-ridden soup. The city would effectively drown from the inside out.
3. The Whispering Rot
A disaster that strikes not at buildings or people directly, but at the very means of survival.
- The Disaster: A subtle but devastating curse is laid upon the city’s food supply. This blight, created by a bitter druid or a rival city-state’s battle-mage, targets stored food. Grain in the city’s granaries turns to black dust, salted meat liquefies in the barrel, and even the wine in the cellars turns to vinegar and then to poison. It could spread silently, contaminating everything it touches.
- Why it would be devastating:
- Imbalanced Magic: Magic that causes decay, blight, and corruption is a staple of the “damage-causing” schools. In contrast, magic that purifies, preserves, and encourages growth would be a rare and specialised art. A single curse-master could undo the work of a thousand farmers.
- Incompetent Leadership: The Lord Mayor would be the last to know. His larders would be well-stocked. Early reports from bakers of flour turning to dust would be dismissed as incompetence or blamed on damp. By the time mass starvation sparks food riots in the markets, the city’s entire reserve would be gone. The Mayor’s response would be to dispatch the town watch to “restore order”, treating the symptom while ignoring the catastrophic cause.
- Urban Environment: A pre-industrial city is an island of consumption in a sea of production. It relies on a constant, steady flow of food. With its internal reserves destroyed, the city would face city-wide famine within a week. Starvation would lead to riots, disease, and a total breakdown of the social order far quicker than a fire.
In each scenario, the true disaster is the same as the Great Fire of London: a deadly combination of a hazardous environment, a force multiplier (in this case, accessible destructive magic), and the crippling inertia of human complacency and incompetence.
