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Referring back to https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/2781/magic-came-back-catastrophes

In the interest of narrowing questions down, I am splitting these into particular elements and element combinations.

In summary, Ley Lines have just become active again on Modern Earth, and are wreaking natural and unnatural havoc on the world.

This question will focus on the Water ley lines, and their interactions with the world around them, including the interaction between Water and the other 3 elements not yet covered: Air, Earth, Wood. Ley lines are not restricted to a particular area, but exist across the entire world. Some places have denser concentrations than others. (Interactions with Fire are covered here).

What are catastrophes that could be caused by very high volumes of Water magic going rampant, and clashing with other elemental magics also going rampant? Again, this can be of any scope, as long as it does not result in a mass extinction event. And I'm quite okay with every combo not always producing the same results.

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  • $\begingroup$ Guess I need some boundary definitions here...to me, rampant water ley lines implies the formation of rifts to elemental plains and bring in water elementals into this equation. Is the formation of rifts from the leylines in scope, or are we talking only the energies effect? Huge Oceanic elementals would have no issues throwing tidal waves at shore lines. $\endgroup$
    – Twelfth
    Commented Oct 17, 2014 at 20:38

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Effects of water magic going rampant

The most obvious effect could be torrents of rain, probably also thunderstorms, and floods either caused by this, or just caused be rivers/lakes getting more water than normal through magical causes.

However water does not only come in liquid form, but also as snow and ice, so in cold areas there could be large snowfalls and huge snowslides.

Also, it will tend to make things wet, even if not in direct contact with water. Electronics will likely fail due to electric shortages by condensed water. Clothes will get moist and unhealthy to wear. Also wood will get moist, thus enabling moulds to grow and destroy it.

Interactions with other elemental magic

Air

Thunderstorms and snowstorms are the obvious effect here. Also hurricanes are caused by the interplay of air and water, so expect more extreme wind than with air alone.

Earth

Since you associated earth with cold, this would likely cause mist, and the snow catastrophes rather than liquid water catastrophes from above to dominate.

Wood

Water is needed for growth, and plants tend to keep moisture, so those two elementals would likely amplify each other

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Earth + water: Minerals mixing with the water can create some nasty effects including:

  • Acidification, desalinization, silting.

Wood + water: since you said that the wood was linked with diseases, you could consider it could spread disease like the legion fever, or it could make the water poisonous.

I don't know a lot about diseases. I just used the legion fever as an example but I don't know if the disease is appropriate for this.

You could also consider expanding the aquatic flora. Entire forests could grow, floating on the waters without touching the earth. You might end up with living floating islands.

Water + air: Following a fluctuation of energy, the temperature could drop very quickly, freezing instantly those unlucky enough to be caught in the energy flux.

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Are the elementals actively hostile? If so, there's going to be a tremendous amount of water (humidity) in the air. If the elementals inhabit / can control it, they could literally drown people on 'dry' land. The only humans who would survive would be those who live far away from water ley lines which I would assume means Death Valley and various deserts.

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If in conjunction with Earth, tidal waves (Tsunamis) caused by earthquakes?

Sea-level rises (in conjunction with Fire, earth warming, Methane problems??)

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