Electrifying characters and items in Tabletop Games.
Card Games
- Magic: The Gathering: Many Red direct damage spells, starting with the classic Lightning Bolt
. - Sentinels of the Multiverse: Tempest's entire race is capable of using lightning among their weather powers. The Slave Mook versions of them in Grand Warlord Voss's deck do this damage type.
- Yomi features Grave Stormborne, who mixes lightning attacks in with his martial arts.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!: Thunder was one of the least impressive types in the early days of the game, though Daemon Summon/Summoned Skull used electricity in the source material. The original "Forbidden Spell" Raigeki is lightning-based, and the type did introduce a few powerful monsters like The Creator and Hamon - Lord of Striking Thunder. But the type itself only began to shine when they introduced Thunder-type archetypes such as the Watts and Batterymen. Then, in 2018, they expanded on Thunder Dragon, one of the oldest and most well-known Thunder monsters, into a full and formidable archetype.
Tabletop Games
- Ars Magica: The "Incantation of Lightning" spell.
- Call of Cthulhu: Members of the Great Race sometimes have Lightning Guns.
- Dungeons & Dragons has always had its share of (usually, but not always magical) electricity-based attacks, to the point where "lightning" is simply another not altogether uncommon damage type in certain editions.
- Multiple spells allows for the direct manipulation of electricity, such as call lightning, which brings down lightning from the sky, and chain lightning, which sends electric bolts arching from target to target.
- Various monsters have innate electric powers. Blue dragons, for instance, breathe lightning instead of fire.
- In early editions, lightning is considered to be a "quasilement" — that is, a secondary element created from the fusion of an element with positive or negative energy. In this case, lightning is created by the meeting of air and positive energy to create a "pure" version of the original element, with an associated plane between the Elemental Plane of Air and the pole of positive energy, alongside an associated menagerie of lightning quasilementals, lightning mephits, and the like.
- Fabula Ultima: "Bolt" damage is one of the game’s elemental damage types, and is typically inflicted by attacks and spells that involve lightning and other forms of electricity. The Elementalist class can learn spells that inflict this damage, while enemies that can inflict bolt damage include the Battlemage, the Static Ooze, and the Lightning Wheel.
- Games Workshop games:
- Blood Bowl: In the 5th Edition rules, rather than the fireballs that regular Hireling Sports-Wizards can cast, Chaos Sorcerer Coaching Staff are able to throw lightning at opposition players with the 'Thunderbolt' spell. While it cannot Knock Down as many players as a fireball, the 'Thunderbolt' spell has a greater chance of Knocking Down the player it is aimed at. In previous editions the spell was available to all Wizards.
- Warhammer:
- Lightning and electricity are traditionally in the wheelhouse of Azyr, the Wind of Heavens, and its wielders can call down lightning bolts and to send masses of crackling electricity to fry enemy forces.
- Dragon ogres are empowered by lightning, whether natural or magically generated, and some can generate powerful electric shocks as well.
- Warhammer 40,000:
- A number of Psychic Powers enable their casters to manipulate lightning, including the Aeldari power Eldritch Storm and the entire 7th Edition Fulmination Astartes Psychic Discipline. The Ethermancy school of Cryptek skills also allows the practitioner to manipulate electricity.
- One variety of Tech-Priest, known as Electro-priests, have microscopic circuitry implanted beneath their skin that allows them to manipulate electricity. A side-effect of this enhancement is that it causes their eyes to melt in their sockets.
- Their mastery of the material universe allows the C'tan to create and control lightning at will, something that is represented in-game by the 'Transdimensional Thunderbolt' Power of the C'tan. In 7th Edition this Power allowed the C'tan to unleash a powerful attack with the same special rules as tesla weapons. The 8th Edition rules for the attack meanwhile give the C'tan the chance of causing mortal wounds against multiple units.
- Tyranids of the Trygon genus produce a strong bio-electric charge, which the creatures use to wreath their claws with crackling power. The Trygon can also discharge this energy in a high-voltage bio-electrical pulse can reduce the enemy to a pile of charred bones. The more powerful Trygon Primes have even evolved various spines along their bodies that allow the beast to harness this electrical energy and unleash it with greater power.
- In Nomine has the Generator Attunement given out by Jean, the Archangel of Lightning. It allows the user to, well... generate lots of electricity and fry things with it.
- Pathfinder:
- Blue dragons breathe lightning bolts, and become surrounded by an aura of electricity as they age.
- Other creatures possess electric Breath Weapons — one of a mukradi's three heads spits lightning, for instance.
- The iron deposits within an ekekeh's body act as natural conducers of electricity, allowing them to generate electrical bolts and project electric fields around themselves.
- Nephlei, also known as cloud nymphs, can naturally use several electricity-based spells such as lightning bolt, ball lightning and lightning arc and can create whips out static electricity, and release powerful bursts of electricity when they die.
- Rifts features a Psychic Character Class called the Zapper, who can shoot mega-damage blasts of electricity and use other electric powers.
- Shadowrun:
- Thunderbirds are Awakened raptors capable of generating powerful EMPs — which, in a world where a significant part of the population has electronics wired directly into their heads, can make them very dangerous animals.
- Eyekillers are large, owl-like flightless birds capable of generating powerful electrical shocks to bring down prey.
- Electric martens are specialized predators of other electrogenic animals and the Matrix-connected technocritters, and can both generate electric bolts to stun their prey and disruptive electrical waves to disable their powers. This disruptive effect also works on man-made technology, making the martens destructive pests in urban environments.
- Summoner Wars: Quen of the Mountain Vargath, the militant Ram-men of Itharia, shoot lightning bolts that sometimes DO strike the same spot twice.
- The World of Darkness:
- Mage: The Awakening has a few Forces Rotes that allow the mage to redirect electricity and throw lightning.
- Promethean: The Created has a whole category of Transmutations called Electrification, which allows the character to manipulate electrical equipment and shoot lightning from their hands. Appropriately, the category falls into the Refinement of Tin, which focuses on spite and revenge — just the category where you'd put the Wrath of God. Notably, electricity usually heals Prometheans... but electricity created through Electrification is fueled by a Promethean's Torment, twisting it so much that it harms them instead. (It takes one of the highest-level Electrification Transmutations to produce electricity clean of Torment.)
- Werewolf: The Forsaken: One of the more powerful Gifts causes a lightning bolt to strike the werewolf's enemies.
