History Literature / TheMagicGoesAway

* SuperweaponSurprise: The Warlock Wheel was first intended to test a hypothesis the Warlock had about why his power seemed to fade over time, unless he moved to a new place. The wheel was considered a simple toy that revealed a terrible secret, but nothing more than that. Until later, when it was used to defeat an otherwise unstoppable demon, and then after that, [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu a god.]]
** The device is terribly simple: A simple copper disc with a pair of enchantments on it. One protects the disc from damage caused by wind resistance and centripetal force. The other makes the disc spin increasingly fast, with no upper limit. The disc spins non-stop, constantly accelerating beyond the point that it would ordinarily melt away or explode, until all the magic in the area is used up.
*** Wavyhill finds ways to improve it: He makes it directional, and of very precise scope. He uses this to create a dead zone around each of his homes, with a zig-zag path of non-dead zone through it. This makes his homes unscryable, as scrying only works in straight lines and doesn't work through a dead zone, but you can still go safely through it even if your life depends on magic, ''provided you can find the path'', which is harder than it sounds.

* WeaponOfMassDestruction: The Warlock Wheel is treated as this. Warlock kept the Wheel secret for years because he was horrified at how destructive and easy to make it was. Every time it's used, the area goes magically dead, forever.

* WhenThingsSpinScienceHappens: The Warlock Wheel. Its unbounded, ever-accelerating spinning is the crux of the spell.

* NobleSavage: subverted in "The Magic Goes Away". << He was a barbarian, of course. A civilized man would have had more sense than to touch Glirendree, and better morals than to stab a sleeping woman. >>

* MeaningfulAppearance: The witch Mirandee's hair has one, which is a sign her youth spell is failing from lack of mana. It gets bigger and smaller depending on the mana in the area. In mana-rich areas, it's small or not there at all. In dead zones, her hair goes completely white. Orolandes is warned to keep a close watch on its waxing and waning.

* SympatheticMagic: In the short story "What Good is a Glass Dagger?", The Warlock laughs out loud on hearing that the wizard Wavyhill was known for carrying a sword. When asked what was so funny, he explained that no competent wizard would ever need a sword as a weapon - the only reason he would have one is as Sympathetic Magic to enhance his ahem 'sword'. Of course, it does mean that he has to bring the sword into bed with him when he wants to perform...

SympatheticMagic: In the short story "What Good is a Glass Dagger?", The Warlock laughs out loud on hearing that the wizard Wavyhill was known for carrying a sword. When asked what was so funny, he explained that no competent wizard would ever need a sword as a weapon - the only reason he would have one is as Sympathetic Magic to enhance his ahem 'sword'. Of course, it does mean that he has to bring the sword into bed with him when he wants to perform...

* SkunkStripe: The witch Mirandee's hair has one, which is a sign her youth spell is failing from lack of mana. It gets bigger and smaller depending on the mana in the area. In mana-rich areas, it's small or not there at all. In dead zones, her hair goes completely white. Orolandes is warned to keep a close watch on its waxing and waning.

* WrongGenreSavvy: barbarian warrior Belhap Sattlestone Wirldess ag Miracloat roo Cononson thinks he's a noble hero freeing a woman from being an evil wizard's captive. Actually the wizard is not evil; the woman is with him willingly, as his apprentice; and he is a brute who casually murdered another woman in her sleep to get a magic sword. [[spoiler:Which isn't actually a sword at all, and the Warlock speculates it might have inflamed the sorceress' libido specifically so that she'd end up taking a lover who'd be ignorant enough to pick it up.]]

* CruelAndUnusual: Wavyhill ends up having his flesh bitten away one bite at a time by a werewolf.

* WrongGenreSavvy: barbarian warrior Belhap Sattlestone Wirldess ag Miracloat roo Cononson thinks he's a noble hero freeing a woman from being an evil wizard's captive. Actually the wizard is not evil; the woman his with him willingly; and he is a brute who casually murdered a woman in her sleep to get a magic sword.

** The Warlock's Wheel. It's a simple bronze wheel with two spells on it; one to make it spin faster, accelerating without limit. The other spell prevents it from destroying itself. This wheel rapidly eats all the mana in the area, turning it into a dead zone where magic no longer functions at all.

** Glirendree stops hostile magic from reaching its wielder, which is part of what makes it so effective. You know, until it kills you.

* BackgroundMagicField: The TropeCodifier in literature. The series treats magic as a non-renewable resource that drives civilizational advance, then causes collapse when it is consumed, as an {{anvilicious}} allegory for modern civilization's reliance on fixed resources. Later less [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusian_catastrophe Malthusian]] stories in the series have humans smoothly making the transition from mystical resources to biological and technological resources.
* BlackMagic: "There's mana in murder." BlackMagic used to be too dangerous to use at all, until mana began dropping. Wavyhill the Necromancer develops a system for using murder-mana safely, inventing necromancy. By which we mean he murders boatloads of people.

* ClingyMacGuffin: In "Not Long Before the End", the barbarian warrior Hap is rightly proud of his magical sword, Glirendree, and the fact that he cannot put it down or let it go doesn't really bother him... until the Warlock informs him that Glirendree is actually a demon forced into sword-form, and the reason he cannot put it down (or even transfer it from his right hand to his left) is that the demon has already sunk its fangs into his hand.
* ColonyDrop: During "The Magic Goes Away" novel, the heroes are hoping to revive a god and have him drop the moon on the Earth to provide a new source of magic. [[spoiler: The heroes have no idea how large the moon actually is, and freak out when they realize that doing it will utterly destroy the world and leave the god as the only survivor. The god has absolutely no problem with this, thinking it's a wonderful idea. They're forced to kill said god and stop the drop.]]

* FunctionalMagic: Magic has specific rules, but the rules seem to run partially off [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve belief]]. The moon is magical because "everyone knows that". Strong emotional reactions can generate mana, but this is largely limited to mana being generated by murder (But not war, which is different). There's rules for making spells and whatnot, but they're not heavily explained.
* GlassWeapon: In "What Good Is a Glass Dagger?", it turns out that a glass dagger has one significant advantage: [[spoiler:it can be hidden in water.]]

* HereThereWereDragons: Lack of mana mutates mythical creatures offspring, if they're lucky. Dragons turn to stone or mutate into various things, unicorns are born without horns, giant slimes grow small, werewolves cease to be "were", and generally turn to "mundane" creatures. UNLUCKY mythical monsters simply keel over, going extinct. Merpeople, centaurs, and many others simply die off in mass extinctions. (Although the short story "The Lion in His Attic" suggests that merpeople entering low mana areas sometimes turn into "[[SapientCetaceans bottlenosed mammals]]".)