Wild magic

Wild magic, also known as primal magic, forms wellsprings from floods of magical energy that pool and linger in certain locations exposed to powerful magical activity that frayed or fractured its lattices of magical power. The Mana Wastes of eastern Garund on Golarion are a prominent example of such a location.✝

Effects

All attempts to cast spells or use magic items in areas of wild magic have a significant chance of creating a wellspring surge, the effects of which are inheretly unpredictable.

Loose magic from spellcasting and wild magic wellsprings can also form highly reactive poison clouds—referred to as such regardless of the natural toxicity of its effects, which depend on the type of spellcasting that created it—that can discharge into a powerful burst resembling a lightning strike. These clouds can also form storms, most often during nighttime off the Obari Ocean coast but also whenever a sufficient amount of wild magic is present.

If the clouds instead coalesce and settle toward ground, they can collect into a miasma that behaves similarly to water. If near a wellspring source, it can form persistent rainbow-hued pools and streams that trickle and seep down into canyons, chasms, and caverns; otherwise, it disspates.

On Golarion

Spellcasting on Golarion typically draws on a lattice-like network of magical power that connects across Golarion. Wild magic manifests only in areas where the metaphysical laws of reality that govern this network have been weakened, most commonly in the devastated area between Nex and Geb known as the Mana Wastes. It might also occur in areas which have suffered the wrath of deities, or when a powerful artifact is destroyed. Natives of the Mana Wastes also find that some effects of wild magic seem to follow them even when far from a source of wellspring magic.

The most prominent and stable miasma pit in the Mana Wasts is Kadiliman, which is believed to be the result of an unknown, but powerful, spellcaster who consolidated nearly all magic in the region before casting a spell. The miasma mutated iruxis who were traveling through the area in tunnels and were exposed to its transmogrifying effects.

Prior discharges of wild magic, the presence and level of satiation of nearby mana whorls, and proximity to miasmas of magic and certain focal points such as settlements and Samsara Oasis, can either empower or reduce the severity of wild magic effects. Areas of wild magic are also inherently unstable, and all are subject to occasional mana droughts when magic ceases to function at all.

Applications

Surges of wild magic in the Mana Wastes can release planar essence containing trace amounts of vitality. Vineyards of grapes in Alkenstar, frozen by magical blizzards influenced by such wild-magic vitality, produce a form of ice wine sought after by the undead inhabitants of Geb, as the small amount of vitality within makes it more intoxicating to them than mundane alcoholic beverages.

Velasco Cueto's wizard gang uses mana droughts to test and improve their skills in physical combat and alchemy. Los Aterradores use the Wastes' unpredictiblity to test their creations, including vials of collected miasma called condensed mana. Special compasses are rumored to point toward stable pockets of magic within areas of wild magic, and such devices are highly sought after in the Mana Wastes.

References

For additional as-yet unincorporated sources about this subject, see the Meta page.