The Magic Goes Away

The Warlock's Era (The Magic Goes Away)

The fictional setting of Larry Niven's logical (as apposed to high) fantasy series. Treating magic as a non-renewable resource and set 12 000 years before the birth of Christ, the stories detail how magic was replaced by engineering. In the series, mana is the source of magic. The stories also serve as an allegory for the energy crisis.

Main Characters

• The Warlock - One of the world's foremost magicians. He devised a simple experiment to explain why a magician's power would fade over time.
• Clubfoot - The Warlock's apprentice. A Native American named after a deformity of his foot that he could have cured long ago but it would have cost him half his power.
• Wavyhill - The first Necromancer. Exploiting the mana inherint in murder he invented necromancy.

Other characters

• Orolandes - A Greek soldier, survivor of the sinking of Atlantis.
• Mirandee - A powerful witch, former Warlock's lover.
• Aran - A werewolf who assisted the Warlock in defeating the necromancer Wavyhill.

The Golden Road

Also set in the same universe as The Magic Goes Away is the Golden Road series, co-authored with long-time Niven friend and collaborator, Jerry Pournelle. Set some 60 years after The Magic Goes Away the series begins with The Burning City which takes place on the future site of Los Angeles.

Whandall Placehold is a resident of Tepp's Town, a town that every few years is gripped in a maddness that causes the inhabitants burn much of the city to the ground under the influence of the fire god Yangin Atep, one of the few remaining gods.

His daughter Burning Tower is the main character of the second book, set in Meso-America.

The planned title of the third book is Burning Mountain.

Magical Creatures

Some creatures' metabolisms are based on heat, like humans. Others, like dragons, are based on magic. Some use a combination of the two. Many of the explainations given are firmly tounge-in-cheek.

• Goo - Named after a child's first word, amorphous blobs, these were the first creations of the gods. Once fearsome predators, they grew to be as large as a house, but as magic dwindles so too have they. Eventually they become so small that they are invisible to the naked eye.
• Dragons - Intelligent allies, when magic fades they die and their bones turn to stone (to be mistaken for fossil dinosaurs in modern times).
• Unicorns - In absense of magic, their horns shrink to almost nothing and they become ponies.
• Rocs - Fearsome raptors. In Austrailia in absense of mana they have become neotenous, turning into modern-day ostriches.
• Werewolves, Werebears, Werewhales, Mermaids, etc. - Animals that use magic to adopt human form. Without magic they return to their original state. Werewolves become wolves, Mermaids become dolphins, etc.
• Centaurs - Half-human, half-horse, they perish in mana-poor regions.
• Trolls - Hairy humanoids, thought to be extinct.
• Zombies - Corpses animated through necromancy.
• Frost Giants - A race of 18 foot tall men, guardians of the god Roze-Kattee.
• Afrit - They survive inside jars waiting for someone to release them. They grant 3 wishes, but their favorite sport is trying to trick humans into making bad wishes.
• Mammoth - Use magic to create an optical illusion which causes them to appear much larger than they actually are.

Gods

Most of the gods have gone mythical. But in the far corners of the world some cling to life, just barely.

• Roze Kattee - The God Of Love And Madness. Its power lies in the taking away of love or madness. Enemy Berzerkers are suddenly rendered sane, those who do not worship Roze Kattee never find mates, etc.
• The World Worm - Its spine composes all the world's mountain chains, the Andes, Himilayas, Rockies, etc. It consumes its own tail, along with anything that might be living on it.
• Yangin-Atep - A fire god.
• Coyote, Loki, etc. - A trickster god for many cultures.
• Zoosh - Once a powerful patriarch.

Stories set in The Warlock's Era

Title	Published	Collection
Not Long Before The End	1969	All The Myriad Ways
Unfinished Story	1970	All The Myriad Ways
What Good Is A Glass Dagger?	1972	The Flight Of The Horse
The Magic Goes Away	1978	(novel)
The Lion In His Attic	1982	Limits
The Portrait of Daryanree the King	1989	Playgrounds Of The Mind
The Wishing Game	1989	Playgrounds Of The Mind
The Burning City	2000	(novel)
Chicxulub	2004
Burning Tower	2005	(novel)