I have never resolved this uncertainty, maybe someone can find the words that do that? Doubtful of it, but why not a shot in the dark try?

The quandary comes as: let us suppose someone has championed the mysterious arts of altering reality but has yet to realize it. For a while this person explores simple small applications of this newly discovered art with little precision but a lot of consistency, and ends up discovering he can change the weather with very little effort. After toying with it personally for a while, this person has an encounter one night with entities that are so massive humans are left looking like simple cellular life forms in comparison, and despite the overwhelming nature of the encounter, manages to converse with these entities. Their conversation is very brief, and the entities ask this person to apply what he knows to altering the weather conditions of the entire planet. One of these entities is the life giving sun, which speaks to this person and asked, not demanding, but asks this person to do change the weather. The person figures since his own life is made possible from the light of the Sun, how could he refuse?

The request made was to lower the temperature during winter as much as possible. So this person begins immediately applying what they know about altering reality to this effect. Within a short amount of time, 2 weeks, icy winds take over the entire country 3 months before winter has even remotely begun. This person continues, encouraged by the results. Within a few days it begins to snow, and the winds are colder then ever before for the time of year, as if a premature winter has arrived. This encourages the person even more. The person tells some people, one who is his partner. She has difficulty grasping what is going on, finding herself in chilling winds that rob anyone of body heat much faster then usual, though at first she laughed and thought it was silly. As winter approaches, the cold is mentioned day after day on the news, and everything is covered in a sheet of ice which has layered itself about 5 times or so, leeching the warmth out of everything in sight. The cold almost feels deadly, and most likely is deadly in some places. It just keeps getting worse, and the partner panics, and becomes uncomfortable with the person altering reality this way.

Then comes Christmas, and the winter is ahead of schedule. It is a frigid day, but not so windy. The couple has a fight and separate. The person altering the weather becomes too psychologically detached to go on applying what they learned, and stops. The next few days remain cold, but also free of heavy winds, and don't seem to get colder or warmer. Then comes new years and the partner calls to break up the long relationship they had over many years. Accepting this, the person completely lets go of any desire to carry on with the plans at all. The very next day the ice is melting, drip drip, and within a week there are slush puddles everywhere. The person lets it all go, and suddenly winter just seems to vanish, appearing as if it came completely out of season a season too soon. The following year the country is engulfed in mists, day after day of mist.


When the winter raged, it reached its intended goal of bringing snow to the equator, to desert regions that never see snow, and covered almost the entire northern part of the world in a cold gripping winter. One country reported around 1000 people had died from this premature winter. Damage to property was in the billions world wide. The person who altered reality knew it would bring death, but assumed the sun knew more then it could, and was prepared to carry out the request to the end of that request, but stopped before doing so.


Who is responsible?


Adventures can get very strange, this one has had me wondering who is responsible from a DM's perspective for a very long time now. As a DM who applies the rule of consequence to whatever happens, who would get what consequences from this scenerio? It remains a moral uncertainty.