What If? (for Forgotten Realms)

What if magic got completely sundered from Forgotten Realms? And by sundered I mean like magic users up and croak so entire races would die. Good bye gnomes and dragons for instance. Shadow weave and its users are gone. The deities who all have magical powers: croaked! Divine magic is not immune from the sundering! Most of the planes are gone and so are nearly all outsiders (most who have some sort of spell-like abilities). I'd figure the elemental planes survive alongwith other "basic" planes but the outer planes are all probably toast. 90% of the uber-powerful NPCs also don't make the cut cause they are generally magic users. Everybody's magic items break. Mythals go off like mini-nuclear bombs eradicating whole population centers and devastating the area around them. Basically we're talking utter chaos. Suddenly the hordes of orcs who generally speaking are simple warriors, barbarians, or fighters lose one of the major checks to their power. Entire nations like Thay lose their ruling class. This is the time for more martial orders to stand up and fight back.

The catch is that psionics would be unaffected. Thus psions, who hitherto are relatively unknown nobodies in Faerun, rise to the top. They fill the role of magic users easily with their similiar powers and in many places rise to power by nessescity or out of simple greed or lust for power. Psions and their various psionic brethren are suddenly the power. In the Underdark this means that duergar and illithids find themselves top dogs in a suddenly much less hostile environment. The drow and dwarves have now lost their powerful spellcasters and rune magics leaving them vulnerable. Entire communities of aberations have probably ceased to exist. Necromancy and all its created minions has ended.

Problems of course are with classes like the ranger who eventually gain spell casting abilities. Do low level rangers survive and simply become a weaker class? Anything with spell casting or spell-like abilities dies. Supernatural abilities are unaffected however so some creatures and races and even classes slip through the disaster unscathed. The natural order shifts. Religion shifts now as religion becomes one of ideas as there are no gods to answer prayers or give powers. Ardents become the powerful clerics while divine minds represent the ideals of now dead gods in a fading effort to carry on their goals in regards to Faerun (or to attempt to revive their dead masters).

This event really turns Faerun into a post-apoclyptic setting as the life and death struggles get much worse for the setting. A lot of the powerful places (especially for good) use magic and their loss generally tips the balance in favor of evil. Of course evil is substantially weakened as well. The first few years probably see little significant change beyond a regional level. As non-magic/non-psionic users struggle to assert control and then as psionics users begin to realize their increased potential.

That's food for thought anyways.