Interference ward

Interference wards are magical devices that prevent the use of spells within some area. This is accomplished by filling the area with random manatic perturbations. These perturbations render any magic in the area uncontrollable, which usually leads to threshold decay. Occasionally it can lead to spell mutation instead, but this is uncommon as most manatic structures are unstable at macroscopically observable energy levels.

Interference wards have no effect on magic items, as fixed magic is stable and thus resistant to such perturbations. However, if the magic item is a prepared spell material, it becomes vulnerable to such perturbations when activated. This causes the spell to fizzle. In addition, some prepared materials (such as spell slips) are vulnerable to interference wards because they are not as strongly fixed as their permanent magic item counterparts. As a result, a spell slip stored in an interference ward becomes unreliable over time.

Similarly, many ongoing spell effects can survive immersion in an interference ward. Thus, such a ward cannot necessarily penetrate an illusion. Controlling or altering an ongoing spell effect while inside such a ward may be difficult, however, and may cause the spell to collapse.

The most common use of interference wards is to detain suspected magic users, so as to prevent them from using their magic to escape. It has also been suggested that an interference ward could be used to permit complex technology to operate reliably without risk of magic jamming. However, since the Locus does not contain much technology that does not also rely on magic, this solution is rarely used.

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