Consequences of war

[Balor01]

My next campaign will mainly be happening in lands, bordering two major powers at war. (including magic, but nwm)
Now I'd like these happenings in neighbor countries to reflect in my setting. I'd appreciate some suggestions how to represent that. So far I have:
- influx of refugees
- rise of crime, prostitution
- increased need for bodyguards
- prices rise

Can I get some more ideas please?

[KineticDiplomat]

-Crops brought in early
-Crops devastated
-Stockpiling begins
-Young men conscripted/volunteer/called up in the fyrd, leaving villages with less work force and more vulnerable
-Excessive taxation
-Increased distrust of outsiders, especially outsiders who might be the other side
-Noble politics split between those trying to earn glroy on the war front and those trying to snap up power while the first group are away
-Legislation, justice systems and administration greatly reduced as leaders go to war (unless you have a bureaucracy to do it for you)
-Money lenders in great demand, can charge higher rinterest rates
More to follow

[Mastikator]

Fortifications and walls built around cities.
Removal of free movement (if there was any).
Privacy infringe increase to find traitors.
Wounded soldiers come home with mental scars, extreme burden on society and families.
Groups may be chosen as scapegoats, increased friction between races and classes.
Suspects may be captured, tortured for information and killed.
Increased gap between rich and poor.

[Morty]

Bands of marauders and deserters roaming around the countryside.

[Morghen]

Dogs and cats living together.
Mass hysteria.

[Kurgan]

-Deserters forming bands of bandits, restricting trade
-Foragers from one or both of the sides (at least close to the borders)
-Disease
-Along with the refugees coming in, people will probably be leaving farms and villages along the borders, seeking safety in the towns and cities. This could lead to depopulation along certain points of the border.
-Influx of mercenary bands, some of which might be formed of the aforementioned deserters.
-Nobles raising small armies to help a distant relation in one of the warring nations.
-Professional mercenary bands using cities, towns, and villages as recruiting centers on their way to join one of the warring nations.

[Balor01]

Tnx for all ideas. Just to add ... this is more of a rocket-tag war. Awesome metamagic'd spells going off, demolishing entire cities, regions, abominations being summoned, entire areas taking extraplanar traits. Ant then there is this third region, whic somehow avoids the worst and where my story starts ...

[Kurgan]

Ah, I thought it was a more mundane war. In that case:

Horrid creatures from beyond the veil do not understand the simple concept of borders, some of them meander into the comparatively safe country during their rampages. Gives you some fun things to throw at the players and npcs: low level? A group of lemures was created from the fallout of one of the blasts, and they have worked their way into Village X, where the players are. Higher level? High end extraplanar creatures, abominations, and so on arrive.

Or maybe the high magics transforms several merchants into vampire-like creatures. They avoid suspicion by keeping on the move, selling their wares/buying supplies, and on their way out, maybe feeding on some people/livestock.

For more fun, a spell has misfired, into the safe country! A volcano is now rising in the middle of the capital, spewing lava every which way. The players must figure out a way to stop it before its too late!

[Mastikator]

Tnx for all ideas. Just to add ... this is more of a rocket-tag war. Awesome metamagic'd spells going off, demolishing entire cities, regions, abominations being summoned, entire areas taking extraplanar traits. Ant then there is this third region, whic somehow avoids the worst and where my story starts ...

Mutually assured destruction then basically.

[comicshorse]

Rationing
Blackmarket for restricted/scarce goods
Spies
Paranoia about spies
Propaganda (which needs heroes to set a glorious example.)
Political infighting
Peace factions (particulalrly if the war is as devastating as it sounds)
Military Coups

[polity4life]

I would expect severe angst against magic of all kinds, even divine in nature. The survivors, whether they be locals or soldiers, probably do not favor their lands being destroyed in such a manner.

Also, perhaps more "adventurer" types being hired to try to do away with monsters and other baddies roaming. Or they hire them as guards to augment whatever official protection is being provided. You could run into the case then where these hired swords take advantage of the locals.

[Ason]

A wise assassination droid once said, "Answer: Oh, master, I could not allow myself to harm another. What if they have families? Or children? We must always think of the children. The littlest ones always suffer in war." (i.e. families are separated as towns are destroyed, children may grow up much too quickly, siblings fighting each other, etc.)

[Randomguy]

Influx of zombies and other undead from the excess corpses (they could be magically animated as the side affects of spells)

VERY high security around bigger towns. Spell components, foci, divine foci and any magic item would probably be confiscated upon entry of a town, or at least left with a guard.

Lots of antimagic and other magical defences.

[Gavinfoxx]

A rocket tag war?

The Wightpocalypse.

[Hanuman]

Racism -

[randomhero00]

Even though there'd be mass exodus (refugees) there'd be mass suspicion, since one dude could be the wizard/nuke that demolishes their town.

I'm seeing some kind of tests and shields/amulets (even if they don't work...I'm assuming there would be a lot of fakes.)

There'd also be a lot more people willing to live in the wild/forest (and i.e. bandits.)

There'd be more of a williness to believe in a hero (robinhood type figure because of the scare.

Just think of things people might do when they're scared.

There'd be more poor people of a course because of all of the above.

[Eric Tolle]

Mages teleporting or astral projecting into the neutral nation in order to use Domination/mass suggestion spells to turn the neutral nation into an ally. They can't stay though, so the next day the other side does the same thing. Get used to your leaders saying contradictory things from day to day.

Planar Bound demons interpreting their orders liberally in order to go rampaging through the neutral nation.

Teleport raids for valuable material components. Like say, 50,000 GP diamonds.

Craftsmen being commissioned or dominated into making the masterwork items to be turned into magic items. Without being paid, of course.

Refugee soldiers fleeing into the neutral nation with some of the logistics magic the spellcasters made- like create food and water traps.

[Tusalu]

Some effects depend on the culture of the nations involved. If nationalism is widespread within a nation it's citizens will turn on the enemy´s citizens. This will be most noticeable in border regions and multicultural communities. In a more old-fashioned feudal state the common folk probably won't care much for the nobles´ wars, and might continue somewhat friendly relations.

Also scarcity of goods might affect both surroundings and players. Some goods might previously have been imported from the opposing nation, or production hindered by attacks.

[Conners]

Not sure how well a massive-spells holocaust would work out.... Either there are magical defences which can be used, or both sides just nuke each other off the face of the earth--that or one side is nuked up first.

[LansXero]

Not sure how well a massive-spells holocaust would work out.... Either there are magical defences which can be used, or both sides just nuke each other off the face of the earth--that or one side is nuked up first.

Or they are in a cold war state, after the initial display of fireworks that torched half the border making it unlivable, and trying to get at each other through proxy kingdoms, in the odd chance they'll waste their nukes first.

[Coidzor]

It's often suggested that sites of particularly gruesome or excessive amounts of bloodshed & killing will become inextricably linked with necromancy such that the dead there will not rest, even if they die there after whatever tragedy set it off. Frank and K came up with a bit to flesh out the idea which has appeared even in Eberron, I believe.

You can also look at what Eberron has come up with in regards to the Mournland, some of the details about the genocide of Xen'drik by the dragons and the way time and space are warped there, such as The Traveler's Curse, and maybe the whole Quori-monoliths in Riedra thing as a manner of protecting against such things and mindraping the populace into being calm and pacified... or just as a tool of the victors for keeping those they conquer in a useful, living state as mostly sapient, docile mind-slaves.

Then again, who knows, maybe this is the ultimate fate of your world?

[Conners]

Or they are in a cold war state, after the initial display of fireworks that torched half the border making it unlivable, and trying to get at each other through proxy kingdoms, in the odd chance they'll waste their nukes first.

Yeah, that sounds like the only way of doing it. Of course, since the war would be with smaller proxy nations, I'm not sure the effects would be so severe as seems to be intended (except in the proxy nations themselves).

[Knaight]

Yeah, that sounds like the only way of doing it. Of course, since the war would be with smaller proxy nations, I'm not sure the effects would be so severe as seems to be intended (except in the proxy nations themselves).

Mundane fire, salted fields, wreckage and rubble coming adrift on coastlines, none of this even needs magic. Toss in fun stuff like emerging plagues, famines, and violence done by displaced civilians and deserters gone brigand and war becomes instantly hellish.

[Lord Raziere]

let see....

probably massive structural damage to politics, government, military, culture, economy, social structure.
disease
famine
drought
supply troubles
hate/revenge feelings
mercenaries
lots of young people dead, leading to a shortage of workers.
bandits
lost people/refugees
a lot of people traumatized
scavengers
the demands of the victors
the needs of the losers
potentially being completely conquered
everything else other people mentioned

war is already a fire that consumes everything it touches and leaves nothing but ash, adding magic in is just spraying napalm everywhere with a flamethrower while laughing maniacally. the end result of that, is either Eberron, or Dark Sun depending on how powerful the magic is.

heck, Eberron with its Mournland is just one person discovering the secret to the Mourning away from becoming something like Dark Sun itself, or something even worse than that.

[nyarlathotep]

Most of the basic ones have already been covered, so here are some ones that would come from a magic war.

-Engineered plagues that have long dormancy periods. This raises paranoia over infection an leads to whole towns being quarantined.
-Constructs, undead, and other magical creatures rampaging through the countryside because their controllers were killed are giving them a generic order like "kill all enemy units in the area".
-Regular identity checks to find magical shapeshifters. This likely leads to everyone being issued personal id papers.
-Terror strikes that consist of a group of soldiers teleporting into a civilian center and killing as many people as they can before teleporting out. These strikes have little immediate strategic value but slow enemy production because it instills the idea that no on is safe.

Some non-magical ones I didn't see mentioned
-Poisoning of water-supplies and crops.
-Immigrants from before the war or the descendants of immigrants suffering discrimination.
-Border families split because some of their relatives lived on the other side of the border before the war, and contact is now lost.

[Andorax]

If you can find it, Forge of War is an Eberron sourcebook that goes into detail about the entire course of the Last War...how it played out, what effect it had on each of the nations economically/sociaially/politically. It's a hardcover answer to your question.