>>57052746
Make them Warhammer Fantasy wizards.

>I'm tired of adult men in amor with swords and horses. How do you make fighters truly strange?

>>57052818
turn them into anime catgirls

>>57052746
Blue/purple robes with stars and moons alon with a big pointy hat. No need to make everything unique, sometimes it’s best to go back to the classics

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>>57052746
Magic does strange things to ones body and mind.
Also as a rule I make it so all powerful or upcoming power wizards are a magcal terry a davis. Killing peasants because they're glow in the dark fighter halflings

>>57052746
>Find a crazy quirks random table
>Roll

>>57052746

The idea is that such a long a reclusive, paranoid, and magical lifestyle that magic users are themselves a group of strange individuals with their own tastes and quirks that have evolved over the length and breadth of their magically extended lives, each embroiled in study and learning and stealing secrets.

So why would they all be a homogenous group? They'd probably each branch off and become their own thing, each developing their own perks and quirks and proclivities depending on what secret magical knowledge they've gathered.

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>>57052746
Does this count as strange?

>>57052746
Anyone got that picture of the wizard in a diaper with frogs legs and tentacles coming out of his bag as he barfs rainbows into a mug? That. That's how you do wizards right.

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>>57052746
Call of cthulhu wizardry. Like worms that walk and stuff. Or on the other hand, make them lower on the flashy bang power -scale. Something like the slavic/finnish folk tradition shamans/witches/wise men. They mainly curse livestock, heal, scry, change weather and that sort of more subtle stuff.

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>>57052746
Take magic out of the hands of players. Anything you give to players is going to become mundane and boring, this is why elves aren't special anymore, or even more outlandish shit like Tieflings and Dragonborn.

>>57052967
>>57052923
No. Fuck off anthropomorphic figures. Fuck spiky weaboo faggot Final Fantasy armors that would get rekted by average 13th century peasant with a rock. Fuck your stupid derivative Warcraft wizard crap, levitating burning seals on staves, ten thousand pound heavy pauldrons.

It's like stupid Star Wars shit.

>let's make this new alien species that's different from others because they have like elongated noses and stuff
>we'll call them protoss
>uhm, sir, that's from starcraft
>i thought it was from israel

Runequest magic is cool

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>>57053000
Finnish wizards are bards

>>57053214
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, The Man who Hates Fun

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>>57052746
>How do you make wizards truly strange?

dress like a sentai hero

>>57053539
/tg/: the man

>>57053214
Stupid nigger.

>>57053009
If you really go this route, make sure that magic only exists to fuck over the players and their quest is about solving whatever magic fucked up.

>>57052967
>Magic slowly turns you into a sentient tree
>Liches are formed when these sentient trees have enough power to project vessels into the mortal world
>Exdeath was a lich-level wizard who hid his tree-form in a demiplane

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>>57052746
>>57052923
>>57053009
>>57053581

This is why you go low power and folklore-esque. As >>57053000 and >>57053511 said.

Low power Wizards are just as interesting and arguably more fun then high powered ones. Your Wizard doesn't get 'spells' in the same way, the most powerful offensive spell your Wizard might have is the power to turn into a wolf and bite people or maybe through some paralyzing voodoo powder in their face.

Your Wizard is a witch, wise man, shaman. Most of your powers revolve around healing or causing sickness, and are deeply tied with nature and magical laws. You don't conjure random blasts of energy as you trap them in jars and throw them (rarely), and commune with spirits instead of summoning monsters.

Trust me, this will rekindle your love of Wizards. Under this kind of system your Wizard's most impressive magical feat will be breaking their magic staff of fire, which up to this point has only been able to deal 1d4 points of fire damage, and unleashing all its magic at once to turn a dragon's fire breath back into its face. Your entire table will be hype as fuck for it and all it took you was to scale them down and make them grounded.

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>>57052773

>>57053214
God I can hear the chest slapping and frothing trough the screen.

>>57053614
>Trust me, this will rekindle your love of Wizards
It really didn't. The whole "Oooh, magic is mysterious and weird and subtle and dangerous" got tiring as quickly as chucking fireballs did.

>>57052746
Self-experimentation

>>57052746
Make them like real life wizards, disgusting to both morals and the senses and given to insane feuds

>>57053645

Then do you just not want Magic Users at all? Or do you just want to argue instead? I'm more then willing to help people with problems they have about games but you have to at least tell me what you want.

>>57053009

>Anything you give to players is going to become mundane and boring

shit GM confirmed

>this is why elves aren't special anymore

this is a good thing

>>57053614

No, thats going to the other extreme of creative bakrupcy, gimping magic doesnt makes it more interesting, its retarded and boring

>>57053690
Nah, I solved my problems a long time ago. I modeled my wizards after people like Aristotle or Imhotep. Polymaths focused on studying and understanding the world and employing their knowledge for the benefit of many, works well enough for me.

I'm just pointing out that making magic weak, weird and subtle is about as overdone as flinging around fireballs and summoning walking skeletons.

>>57053705
>>57053750
>gimping magic doesnt makes it more interesting, its retarded and boring
>I'm just pointing out that making magic weak, weird and subtle is about as overdone as flinging around fireballs and summoning walking skeletons.

Putting casters down to the same level as non-magic classes =/= gimping them.

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Make them a support class. Fixes literally every problem with magic users, and it's a fresh and unique spin.

>>57052746
This picture is cool. I looked it up and it's a bishop from Roman times.
So that's what a Roman lich cleric looks like.

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>>57053833
I don't know what you looked up, but you're wrong. These are reliquaries from the Waldsassen Basilica in Bavaria. I've seen them with my own eyes. Dressing up skeletons and putting them in reliquaries is an old Bavarian tradition, though usually they make them wear silken masks with human faces drawn on them.

Make it so that if you can only be a wizard if you are completley obsessed with whatever magic you are trying to learn. If you want to be a pyromancer you have to be a borderline insane pyromaniac with fire tatoos and symbols everywhere.

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>>57052982
Here you go friend

>>57053859
You just know he's gonna mind control and fuck her

>>57053859
>tfw I just now realized he's wearing ducks as shoes

>>57053776

>nerfing casters
>instead of buffing martials

You are doing it wrong

>>57053883
These are penguins.

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>>57052923
>Magic does strange things to ones body and mind.
This really. Although it might make it a bit harder to fit into a roleplaying system.

>>57053889
any enterprising wizard should invest into self modification at some point.
You dont want to have to cast a spell to animate your hair every time if all it takes is a thought do ya?

Magic potential is directly inverse to the concept of "how much you have left to lose". And it scales terribly. They also still need to learn to use their power and to practice a lot. It also requires an unbelievable amount of dedication and willpower, to the point that their might only be ~20 of the most powerfull wizards in existence at a time (although more of the less powerfull ones, e.g. due to industrial accidents and stuff)

For example, a person who loses one limb might get enough magic potential to ignite some kindling, or heal a scratch slightly faster than normal, or project a fairly weak light.

A person who loses all their limbs, their home, and their family might be able to cast fireballs or lift moderate weights telekinetically, or other "decent" feats of magic.

And then there are the scary near-invincible high wizards, who stride around on magic-formed limbs and can pull vulcanic eruptions out of the ground, or other tremendous feats. These wizards have paid enormous costs though (and not cliched shit like giving up their soul), and are deeply fucked up as a result - to the point that their motives are basically incomprehensible to regular people. They've long lost sight of everything except whatever originally motivated them to discard their lives for power.

The trick would be implementing such a system without making it impossible to defeat a wizard.

>>57052818
why would you want fighters, who are defined by their mundanity, strange, which is the realm of the magical?

>>57053889
Extensive mutation tables/wild magic tables and encouraging players to do their own shit.

I mean, you're channeling elemental change through your brainmeats, even with the insulation provided by a pointy hat, you're gonna get some spillage.

>>57053614
Finnish wizards are ridiculously high power, though
>creating a swamp
>summoning a battleship full of fully armed warriors
>rapidly growing a forest with golden leaves
>stealing the sun and the moon

>>57053922

>who are defined by their mundanity

speak for your own setting faggot

>>57053922
Who told you fighters are defined by their mundanity?

>>57053925
>finnish wizards

this is pretty neat. I'd like to hear more

>>57053848
Anon probably doesn't know the difference between Roman and Holy Roman Empire

>>57053925
Forget about kalevala and read on the more down to earth stuff. It's really close to slavic shamanism. The basic stuff would be helping crops grow, aid/maim livestock, charms against hostile spirits, cursing with bad fortune, miscarriage etc. There is a really cool thing relating to shamanistic spirit journeys. If a shaman gets lost on a journey, he might end up in a place called "kalan suoli", meaning the gut of the fish. I think it's a primitive explanation for a psychosis maybe caused by the amanita piss they drink.

>>57053705
you're a retard. In a game about adventure and exploration, mystery is the bread and butter. It's neither 'good' to gut a whole race of enigma to unravel just to have another statblock, nor is there anything creativly bankrupt about giving magic more room to be special in the context of the system.

>>57053929
>>57053943
no I'm speaking for fighters in general, you idiot, not my fault you're doing it wrong.

>>57052746
Make them Constantine or Dresden type deals where they just are eccentric and goofy guys who act like drawing pentagrams with goat blood isn't something only crazy people do.

>>57053925
These singer guys were almost god like folks man. The stuff in kalevala is epic tier, more interesting stuff was happening as late as early 1900's.

>>57053885

Depends on the kind of game.

If you want low fantasy or more down to earth games, nerf casters and keep Fighters similar. Don't let Wizards be able to teleport around everywhere and summon powerful creatures and such, keep them mysterious and subtle to keep the theme of the campaign consistent.

If you're going for high fantasy? Buff martials and let them throw mountains at each other and do Wuxia jumps and other crazy shit.

Just don't do what D&D does or what a bunch of faggots on /tg/ think is good where it mixes high fantasy do anything wizards + low powered "realistic" and """mundane""" fighters together in the same setting and expect you to believe it is balanced.

>>57053999

>In a game about adventure and exploration, mystery is the bread and butter.

Ah but of course, only the ashole GM is allowed to harness those mysteries, fuck players having any kind of footing over the workings of the setting amirite?

>It's neither 'good' to gut a whole race of enigma to unravel just to have another statblock

It is when players insist on playing it

>nor is there anything creativly bankrupt about giving magic more room to be special in the context of the system.

making magic into a bunch of vague "realistic" gestures of good will is not creative, an old lady in the curiosity market can do that for you

>>57054004

Sounds more like you are doing it wrong, Fighters are supposed to be exceptional warriors

>>57054004
>man with zero facts convinced he is correct

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>>57053511
>>57053614
>>57053925
>>57053950

Check out Ior Bock, the last famous finnish wise man.

>>57054042
>Ah but of course, only the ashole GM is allowed to harness those mysteries, fuck players having any kind of footing over the workings of the setting amirite?

Won't even adress that because it's not in the least what I said, mong

>It is when players insist on playing it
Then you can give in if you think it'll be conducive for the fun of the group, but the general demystification of elves has been a detriment, not an advantage.

>making magic into a bunch of vague "realistic" gestures of good will is not creative, an old lady in the curiosity market can do that for you
Oh, you just take an opinion you don't like to its absurdest extreme and think that's an argument? Okay great, this surely will be a worthwhile argument!

>>57054040

Im not arguing that, my point is that low-fantasy magic isnt necessarily more interesting than high-fantasy magic

>>57054055
yeah, they're adventurers, which are defined by being exceptional. AMONGST adventurers, they are defined as being mundane

>>57054058
>I'll better greentext, that's a good trick!

>>57054074
your point is that nerfing casters instead of buffing martials is doing it wrong. That's the whole of your fucking post

>>57054072

>Take magic out of the hands of players. Anything you give to players is going to become mundane and boring

"I swear Im not a shitty asshole GM"

>>57054093

I was not the one who brought balancing into the argument

>>57054084

>AMONGST adventurers, they are defined as being mundane

[citation needed]

>>57053950
They're called runesingers, they cast spells by singing to the spirits of the land and the gods, asking them for favours. This might be why music is so extremely important in the Finnish culture, even to this day.

>>57053980
Then you're using the wrong terminology. What you are describing are real life witch doctors, who were similar all across Europe. In Finnish mythology, wizards were these epic level bards.

>>57054392
Might well be mixed in my words, you're right. I'm more interested in the ones called tietäjä (wise man) and voimamies or väkimies (someone with connections to the fae).

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>>57053214

>>57053859
Is...is he sitting ontop of a giant spider?

>>57053875
No. No, man, that guy is on another plane entirely. He’s so far beyond normal human thought that an idea like “mind control her and fuck her” wouldn’t occur to him, and he wouldn’t see the point if you suggested it. This is very clearly a person who has been doing magic for so long that he’s forgotten what social conventions are, let alone what they’re for. He doesn’t see anything wrong with his penguin boots beyond the fact that you don’t have a pair. He finds his spider chair convenient. He doesn’t go anywhere without a cephalopod in his pocket. He doesn’t understand why anyone would bother wearing a shirt. Mundane considerations like sex fled screaming decades ago and they’re never coming within twenty miles of him again.

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>>57052746
>Magic only works if you are sexually aroused with the more aroused you are the more powerful it is.
>If you climax while using magic it's like a perils of the warp and you are injured quite badly if not killed.

Done, wizards fixed.

>>57052746
Have wizards become more and more like their specialty. You're all about fire? Then their hair starts getting more flamelike, they smell like smoke, etc. You a summoner? Parts of your body start to become like the things you summon. Diviner? Your third eye is open, and it's clocks. Acid? Slightly slimy, green tinge to skin, smell like lemons.

Magic isn't a toy, and it corrupts all it touches. The more you use it the more it changes you.

>>57055108
There was a shitty old Diablo clone called Dawn of Magic that was all about it. Using magic turned you into a gross mutant.

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>>57052746
They start out as normal humans, but as they delve deeper and deeper into arcane lore they begin to change.
First, their minds start drifting away from the concerns of mere mortals. Socializing and carnal pleasures are usually the first to go, followed by empathy, conventional morality and most other qualities of the human mind.
At this point most Wizards will be interested in modifying their own body to better suit their new needs. Usually starting with a limb or an eye, the modifications slowly build up, until the Wizard no longer resembles his former self at all.
The end result varies a lot depending on the type of magic, the Wizard's goals and many other factors, from vaguely humanoid golems to biomantic, mutated abominations to beings too abstract for the human mind to fully comprehend.
At this point, the Post-Wizard is free to pursue whatever goal it has in mind, be it achieving godhood, leaving the mortal plane or something completely different.

>>57052746
The more you harness magic, the more your body starts to crystalize. At first, it's just a finger, then your entire hand. To become a truly masterful wizard, you have to conduct a ritual that robs you of your last semblance of humanity, and turns you into a floating mass of crystals.

>>57054685
That's his mount,

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>>57055635
been there done that

Give them pants instead of a robe. I still remember how someone in my play group was flipping out because I dared give my mage pants and a shirt instead of a robe.

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>>57053622
Yeah, grey order looks kinda bland, but it's kinda keeping with the theme

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>>57056111
But they also have a a lot of different orders who look pretty unique

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>>57056125

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>>57052746

>>57052746
naked old men covered head to toe in magic runes & sigils

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>>57053848
c-can you post some more? I love this shit.

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>>57056644
serch catacomb saints on google

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>>57056708
Time to fill up my spoopy skeleton folder.

Thanks anon, have some... interesting stuff.

>>57053925
At the end of Kalevala, a woman gets pregnant from eating a lingonberry and gives birth to Jesus. Väinämöinen sentences Jesus to death, but Jesus beats him in a debate and is crowned king of Karelia. Väinämöinen fucks off on a boat, vowing to return.

>>57056125
>>57056145
>alchemist
>necromancer
So where are those unique designs?

>>57053859
>Hat with dicks on it
>fannypack filled with spiders
>penguin boots

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>>57056820
Hmmm...how about an armoured wizard
Okay it's a sorcerer, but what's the difference really?

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>>57052923
At least post the nice one.

>>57056820
Necromancer that does no necromancy, the amethist order works the lore of death, they do no necromancy at all. Also there's a couple orders of knights dedicated to death who guard tombs and cemeteries while offduty from warring chaos and whatnot.

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>>57056752
My theory is that he found a woman who didn't mind being married to a godlike sorcerer despite fact that the sorceror in question is aeons old

>>57053925
Actually Väinämöinen doesn't really count; he is a demigod older than humanity (and older than trees, actually).

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>>57055331
>>57053000
I like those best. Mythological wizard types are one of the most fragil and also the most dangerous.

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If you want a different take on wizards and how they affect world around them, read The Magicians Nephew by C. S. Lewis, especially the parts relating to Charn and Jadis

>>57059639
Every notable character in the Kalevala did some impressive wizardry, not just Väinämöinen.

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>>57052746
Make them not all-powerful.
Wizards do or know about one thing really really well, like actual fucking scholars.
They tend to be reclusive. Like actual fucking scholars.
They spend most of their time doing research instead of risking their lives. Like actual fucking scholars.
They often have eclectic tastes or strange behaviors. Like actual fucking scholars.
They can't magically fix all your fucking problems because they're actual fucking scholars instead of gods.
If they overstep their bounds, they cause long-term issues like actual fucking scholars.
Pic related.

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>>57059951
So wizards should be constantly hiding from greedy nobles and peasant mobs who think wizards can solve all their problems with magic ?

>>57060011
Absolutely. Why do you think they live in towers in strange and frightening locations?
Any adventurer who's willing to brave the Cliffs of Kaur to meet Bayur the Wizard obviously did his research on what the Wizard can do, has some serious concerns and serious cash to fund the wizard's continued research.

>>57053783
Stop spamming your dumb idea everywhere. It's bad and it makes wizards boring.

>>57060059
The real life reason for that was to observe the stars with clarity. If anyone in your region used a tower for astronomy, chances are, he's a wizard in the local lore.

>>57060150
Then that works on multiple levels
>Isolation from the noise and bustle of ordinary folk
>Access to the stars for astronomy and spell use
>Strong stone walls for last-stand defenses
>Naturally-occurring legend that prevents ordinary plebs from approaching out of fear
>Near a location where collecting reagents and crafting can take place in peace

>>57054070
>In 1984, Bock raised public interest and discussion when he claimed that his family line (Boxström) had been keepers of an ancient folklore tradition that provides insight into the pagan culture of Finland, including hitherto unknown autofellatio exercises connected to old fertility rites.

>>57053614
Hey it's almost like different people like their fantasy in different flavors.

>>57060150
>The real life reason for that...
Wait, were wizard towers based on something real? I always assumed they were just something one guy had come up with in early fantasy literature and it had just sort of stuck.

It being to see the stars is very helpful for me though because in my setting wizards live in towers and derive their magic from studying the night sky.

>>57052746
>How do you make wizards truly strange?
Go the CYOA thread. Pick a different CYOA to make a build for each wizard. If they don't fit into your system, good. That's what magic is: something that breaks the rules.

Or just make your wizard a giant mimic who mimics a wizard tower and puppets a meat puppet around. Or just make them Bowser Koopa.

The world strains under the weight of it's wizards.

>>57052746
The only magic available is potion based transformation. Drink a potion, get claws. Drink a different one, get wings. Drink conflicting potions that weren't made to work together, get fucked up.

Successful wizards look like someone hit a random button on character generator. Wizards who have made mistakes they haven't been able to fix look like they bathe in nuclear waste every tuesday. Novice wizards look like someone wants to make a furry but isn't really committed.

>>57052746
wizards and witches and magic users in general need to be nude because magic needs physical contact and clothes would absorb magical energies interfere with their contact
Or magical energies flow through the body and clothes simply end up destroyed.
At some point it simply became tradition and a symbol of power.
They grow out their beard and hair to try to cover up as much as possible, and wear gold, silver and jewels to cover their most private parts.

>>57053511

Suddenly thinking that the members of Dethklok were all wizards and they used music for their magic suddenly makes everything make a little more sense.

>>57054975
>The cummoner

Lookit up for some decent smut

Wizards in training must find their spirit "animal" challenge it, defeat it and kill it. Only then they become wizards, and they must wear the skin of the "animal". Other than that they dress normally according to the fashion of the land.

If they lose the spirit "animal" will kill them and wear their skin. Despite the name they aren't just animals, they could be mushrooms, plants, or even things like living rock or a living pond.

>>57060271
Yes, most definitely. My city used to have a tower where a local scholar, a mathematician and an alchemist, established the first observatory in the city. Needless to say, rumours arouse pretty quickly the he used it to commune with the Devil.

>>57062045
Damn. How'd he get the funding for that?

>>57062062
He was a noble and a member of the emperor's inner circle.

>>57053886
And that's why the Year of Desktop Linux is never going to come.

>>57061948
>That one wizard who gets a completely mundane flower as a spirit 'animal'
>The poor sap who gets one specific bigass dragon

Dress them in standard armor with wards and runes adorning their armor.

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>>57060869

It always bothers me that people dont recognize that Bowser is primarily a wizard, I blame smashfags for the general public thinking hes just a dumb dinosaur who can only breath fire

>>57062528
To be fair, you don't really get to see him doing magic most of the time in-game, since usually when you see him you're fighting him, and he seems to prefer to fight mostly by breathing fire and stomping on people.

>>57062062
Deal with the devil, duh.

>>57055635
I too have gone sharp, brother. Return with me to Anthe; the sharp of spleen will greatly enjoy not reacting to our tales of this place.

>>57056845
>>Hat with dicks on it
That's hydrogen.

>>57052746
Pair of jeans and a rock band t-shirt.

>>57053705
When a ring that glows in the presence of lies is considered HIGHLY extraordinary, it makes that moment when you finally meet that one truly legendary motherfucker powerful enough to throw ACTUAL BALLS OF FLAME around all the more epic.

You have to start somewhere, and starting low gives you more room to manuevre without having to constantly up the ante with world-ending magic.

>>57063260
Dude, that only works when the players don't already have experience with magical dudes in media. Otherwise, you just think the wizard is out of place in the setting.

Tell me why magic being something available to players is inherently awful; it's not like wizards are the end-all be-all of Mystery and Exploration. If you have to negate magic so players can feel amazed with measly fireball, I just end up thinking you aren't capable of truly fantastical stories. I'm not even baiting.

>>57054946
Anon my famsenpai, just say it if you're uncomfortable with sex or mind control (or both) being on the game. We'll just skip it. No need to be anal about it.

>>57061948
>your spirit is a rock
>you have to kill and skin it to be a wizard
How?!

Make "wizards" be something very different from what PC magic users are. The PC arcane caster class, call them "mages" or something have specific rules and a system for what their magic powers can do. Most arcane-using NPCs would also be this. Having a powerful enemy NPC mate would be a good chance for PC mages to make strategic use of the magic system common to the enemy.

"Wizards" are rare and always NPCs. They do things that mystify even the most powerful "mages" and subvert or explicitly break the rules for magic that the players have learned. You can fluff this as being on the super cutting-edge of magic, or being in contact with obscure and eldritch forces, or being visitors from a higher existence or something like that. Custom abilities and home brew shit out the wazoo for these guys. Fighting them should always feel especially challenging and climactic.

"Mages" may be the guys with robes and staves or whatever. "Wizards" are always unique and striking, and should definitely stand out in a crowd as someone at home with things beyond the understanding of even most mages. They should possess insight so deep that it seems like nonsense to even the most knowledgeable of us. They are curiosity, brilliance, and lateral thinking made larger than life. Their appearances should reflect this.

>>57062528
He just stomped and throwed fire in original Mario. Maybe he threw hammers aswell if I recall? Also for some reason he loved to do it on extremely dangerous bridges built above lava lakes.

>>57063700
Hollow it out and use it as a helmet.

>>57063506
>Dude, that only works when the players don't already have experience with magical dudes in media. Otherwise, you just think the wizard is out of place in the setting.
Only if they're faggots who can't get in character

>>57062602
It depends, if you pay attention you can see a lot of magic he uses.
duplicating things, teleporting and so on

>>57063731

>He just stomped and throwed fire in original Mario.

He transformed Toads into blocks and created doppelgangers of himself

>>57062602

In most of the games he appears he does something explicitly magical in front of you

>>57053584

Exdeath is way, way weirder than you give him credit for.

> Be a tree.
> Have lots of spiritual powers because nature or whatever.
> Be used as a cosmic dumping ground for evil.
> Become corrupted by said evil.
> Turn sentient.
> Initiate project Fuck the World.
> Get eaten by the void because, whoops, even epic level wizard can't handle elemental chaos.
> NED then proceeds to get chopped down by four berserkers.

>>5706528

Too bad Bowser picked INT as his dump stat and only seems to ever pack Enlarge Person as his prepared spell; I'm pretty sure his flame-spitting is innate to whatever race he is.

>>57063750
Ah, so they have to PRETEND to be amazed for it to work... I feel sorry for your sessions. You need to work on your creativity. And if you want to tell me mundane settings can still be like that, then you wouldn't have given me that answer. Don't blame a class for your own shortcomings.

>>57060869
>Or just make them Bowser Koopa.
Hell, I'd love to. Not really a fan of Dragonborn, though, and that's obviously the race you'd have to use, isn't it?

>>57064008
They could be a unique monster created by their own aimless pursuit of power, if you wanted.

>>57064036
Definitely seems preferable.

>>57063531
>second best description of the madness of wizards is somehow anal because not everyone like rape

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>>57052746
>How do you make wizards truly strange?
make them living cartoon characters

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Best example I ever saw was that, in the setting, only elves were meant to be mortal users of magic. The gods by in large abandoned their world when they realized that humans figured out how to use kt, which turned the world into a weird fantasy setting. Humans can't use a lot of magic or else they'll mutate into these horrid things beyond understanding. IIRC, spells per day was actually a conspiracy within the setting; you can keep using your spells over and over; it just hastens your mutation. Liches were originally humans seeking a form of undeath so that magic wouldn't mutate them while they sought a way to make it safer to use. Too bad they either all go mad or kill anyone who seeks them because higher magic in the hands of mere mortals would kill millions with the wave of a wand... or worse.

>>57053214
Not really relevant to the second image.

>>57054084
No, they're not. They're defined as being (usually weapon-using) martial artists. Who says your martial artists need to be mundane?

>>57064430
so when and how did players discover spells per day wasnt the true limit but a precaution? that doesnt seem like something someone would stumble on, or was it just assumed until otherwise noted?

>>57062602
I mean if you're a fuckhuge murderbeast who wouldn't you use your powerful body while keeping magic to the side?

>>57065774
All spells that humans are taught how to cast have a side effect of fatigue. Spellslingers get so use to it (and the weird headaches and odd effects their magic have on things) that they assume that the crash they feel after expending their "spells for the day" is the result of them reaching thier limit. Think of it as you being taught that you can only get 5 gallons of water total from your kitchen faucet every day, only to find out that you can just keep it going, at the cost of any water past the 5 gallon limit is increasingly unsafe to drink.

High mages and unfortunate adventurers know that this is untrue when pushed too far in an emergency or finding and casting Elven magic. Because the consiquences are so terrible, they perpetuate the myth (out of myriad concerns; not all of which are altruistic)

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>>57052746
Base all magic on the zeitgeist of whatever time period your game takes place in.

>>57052746
Naked.
But seriously the classic wizard robe and hat is fucking GOAT and timeless.

>>57052746
Go downtown and look for a homeless man and then wait for him to do something interesting. There is your wizard.

>>57066221
thats an interesting concept. i might use that someday, with increasing debuffs like nausea on limit pushing, straight up quirks and mutations on abuse, that will lead to corruption on "weve gone this far, so why stop now?" mentality.

>>57052746
>I'm tired of old men in dresses with sticks and owls. How do you make wizards truly strange?
Stick men and owls with dresses.

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>>57052923
>>57052967
>>57053859
>>57053889
>>57054946
>>57055331
>>57053923
>you're channeling elemental change through your brainmeats, even with the insulation provided by a pointy hat, you're gonna get some spillage.
This. The longer you Wizard, the more fucked up you become. Tzeench would be a lot more interesting if he was just someone who started out normal, but by the time the 41st millennium rolls around he's been into magic for literally a billion years.

How I make them strange (at least in one of my settings) is by underscoring that magic has a cost. A real, terrifying cost. Obviously failed use of magic will have a cost, but sometimes successful magic is worse.

Magic is basically tapping into an extra-dimensional space and pulling pieces into the physical world. This warps the physical world itself which attempts to lash out due to this change to it's usual, mundane existence. Usually this manifests as a cost from the user to balance whatever magic they were trying to use. Examples I use to help folks understand it are the common healing spell and then a fireball.

When you heal someone, the dimensions the characters are in understands there is damage done and the extra-dimensional energies are breaking that understanding. Once the spell is done the cost is paid. If the mage is not powerful it is almost always paid by them, and sometimes at an exchange that is not even. Heal a 3-inch cut on someone's arm? You finish an a 6 inch gash opens somewhere on your body. You want to sling an exploding ball of fire? Be prepared for the world to either decide to burn you, too. Or maybe it will just freeze parts of you.

When you get to more esoteric magic, the world may start singling you out and actively trying to stop you from fucking with the fabric of reality.

>>57063965
Dude, you’re a fucking moron. I, as a player, know what a cone of cold spell or an adult blue dragon is. That doesn’t make me, as a player, have any less of a ”oh shit” moment of realization when I come up against one at lvl 4.

>>57063700
>How?!
Magic.

Since it's a living rock it might be something like burn or capture its soul.

>>57054975
parhaps you mean that magic is powered by sexual energies, and so you have religions devoted to creating huge orgies that will fill their community with magical energies, and only the most sexually active can become wizards.
Of course in this setting there would also be sex clerics and paladins.

Since wizards are in contact with forces that are beyond human squabbles, they are considered to be very impartial, and the preferred choice for the role of ambassador.
So they have to wear very formal tuxedoes, all the time, as they are considered the ambassadors of the supernatural on earth.
Only wizards can wear tuxedoes.

>>57056708
>chest holes

that was a woman, wasn't it?

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>>57053889
>>57053923
What if being able to cast a spell involves physically changing your body to enable that ability
>Birds can fly and the sign of this is wings
>Fish can breathe water and they have gills
>Dragons exhale fire and they drip venom from their mouths
>divination spells would grow a third eye
>other stuff?

Magic can be channeled by force of will. However, the result of such magic is mostly random - while you can hope to get a specific effect, you would be as likely to get a mutation of the victim's body as a healing spell. The caster is generally shielded from the effects of their magic, but bystanders are not so lucky.

What makes wizards dangerous however, is involuntary magic. If a wizard sneezes, or has a bad dream, or a sudden cramp in their leg, or any number of other reasons, an involuntary magic is performed.

This might result in a wizard waking up one morning to find their wife cooked from the inside out, or stubbing their toe and having everyone in the village suddenly see the exact circumstances of their own deaths.

Understandably, wizards generally live lonely lives or are exiled, although a few manage to achieve the iron discipline required for them to function in normal society (although they would still wear bright robes or some other well recognised sign to identify them, and harassing a wizard would be recognised by most courts as a form of suicide).

On the oppostie end of the spectrum are the unfortunates - the magically gifted who are also afflicted with tics, twitches, seizures, or similar maladies. The areas where these poor souls reside are often best described as "twisted hellscapes" - the constant magical energies twisting the geographies, mutating the flora and fauna, and generally rendering large swathes of land uninhabitable to all but the wizard at the center.

As magic doesn't usually manifest until the teenage years, children with these afflictions are usually not allowed to live to see if they develop a magical talent. But when they do, it is a most serious emergency - thousands of men are levied to charge the wizard en mass, in the hope that enough will get through to slay them and end the threat.

>>57067354
>that was a woman, wasn't it?

No.

The fake armor is meant to display the bones in an effort to decorate and celebrate death.

>>57052967
Yes. Exdeath is one of the strangest wizards I can think of.

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>>57066230
Logan?!

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Magic is something that comes naturally to everyone. Its powered by emotions. Fighters are unnaturally tough and strong because they use instinctively use magic to enhance their bodies as an example. Magic is something that is powered by your emotions but also makes them more intense. A dedicated mage not only trains to strengthen his magic potential but also (ideally) manages to be able to control these emotional outbursts. Practicing magic thats more than just swinging your sword harder because you are angry puts a great strain on your psyche and is hard to control. It also twists your body, mutating you in the process. This is the reason why most mages shroud themselves in cloaks and wear masks. A mage is as much a danger for themselves and his team as for his enemies. Many monsters where once mages whos craft took their toll.>>57053850 This but reversed: Most fire mages have a disposition towards their element be it, in this example, a fascination with fire or heat or a fiery temperament. If you practice fire magic and keep at it however, you will over time turn into an insane fire demon whos in perpetual agony by burning itself until someone puts it out of its misery.

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>>57067564
The last scenario reminds me of akira. I dig it.

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I have a science fantasy setting where magic is unique in that it started on earth, and no one is capable of using it until they've been "infected" by someone who has had exposure to someone who is from earth, or anyone they've been exposed to, all down the line.

Magic also has some side effects, such as inherently mangling your higher functions, so mental illness is extremely common for long term practitioners. Physical changes are also common, small at first but more drastic as time goes on. First it causes weird growths common to your species, like teeth growing in your scalp. Eventually, if you live long enough, it starts to exhibit signs of other animals related to your species, so things like elongated digits or miscoloration(blue, red) is common among humans. Some REALLY old practitioners even have things like scales and feathers.

So a really old, practiced wizard could very easily believe everything he sees is an illusion of his own making, through which he is guided by an ancient black sphere that knows and sees all, all while rambling through a space station looking like a birdbaboon in charcoal robes.

>>57054022
Well with Dresden he doesn’t draw pentagrams with goat blood, but circles with chalk and then imagines the pentagram because otherwise “everyone starts screaming about satanism, including the Satanists”.
Dresden is a hermit because that’s who he is, not because he’s magic. The rest of the Council is far more social. Hell, even the ones who haven’t been around long enough to have 100 years of compounded interest in the bank at least use their powers to fill their pockets.

What makes magic people weird inbox dresden files is that around human practitioners (and no one else) weird shit happens. Before electricity was the standard of tech, it gave them skin blemishes, curdled milk, made cows miscarry, all that Crucible shit. Around the 1940s, this changed to causing technological failure: the more complex the machine, and the more powerful the human, the likelier that the machine would suffer some catastrophic failure. A human of wizard-tier magical weight class can’t use anything taken for granted after like the 50s. Wizards can’t use button phones, they have to use rotary ones. They have actual switchboards from the 30s in their headquarters, which is lit by torches, candles and magical means. Computers of any kind are out of the question. Dresden’s car, a preWW2 VW Beetle, barely runs. He can’t go to the movies because he inevitably fucks up the now-digital projector, so makes do with drive-ins sometimes. He hasn’t been able to keep up with pop culture since the 80s (when his magical talent grew to the point where he couldn’t even watch TV without it constantly going to snow) so his knowledge of references end with Return of the Jedi and Knight Rider.
And that’s just the magic thing. When meeting him for the first time, his attention to and obsession with seemingly unimportant details and refusal to make eye contact (lest he risk soul-to-soul contact) make people think he’s slightly autistic.

>>57052746
Either have them not caring at all about appearance, only about power, or make them realise magic is magical and they can use it to alter themselves however they want.

>>57052746
Give them something like Humanity and similar concepts from WoD. The more they abuse their magic the more they become out of touch with their mundane selves. Human emotions and feelings lose their meaning when you routinely bend them to your will. As you create illusions so great they are allmost real your own grasp of reality becomes shaky. And so on.

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>>57052746
Pimp your mage, pic related, my character.

>>57052746
Dorohedoro had cool magic

>>57054975
You have to be aroused by the change you are trying to cause

>>57070039
Gay as hell.

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Have you ever read the OSR Carcosa? All magic requires human sacrifice.

>>57057488
One's a master, the others a bitch.

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>>57052746
They’re an odd, probably alcoholic, desert hermit that passes the time by learning how to mimic the local fauna

>>57063722
I did something in a 3.5 game. PC's and most NPC "casters" were Psionicists. Wizards and Clerics were purely NPC deals. Psionics was the functional system while Arcane/Divine shit was purely the domain of fluff and arbitrary plot bullshit.

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He's an old man with a stick, but I made my NPC wizard unique by making him look ugly as fuck.
Think about it: Every powerful wizard always looks noble and dignified, this is an ugly fat fuck in a bathrobe and slippers.

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>>57070943
>wizard
>Not being capable of casting a charm that makes you seem regal dignified
Are you sure your NPC is a wizard ?

Wizards are people of wisdomand intlligence, they are not trying to look impressive justfor sake of fashion. They are "scientists" of fantasy universe.
So its only logical that they wear eitehr some "uniforms with the badge of the office" and all bling is prely practical magical stuff.

>>57053922
>>57054084
Wizards make the magical mundane. Fighters make the mundane magical.

>>57052746
Once a long time ago when I was DMing a short game I used a girl who was a wizard/rouge. Her gimmick however was she had been turned into a lich by her magic instructor, I had fun with her too, her face and exposed skin still looked normal but when one of my players who was playing a horny barbarian tried to get into her pants he was in for a fun surprise (Dat undead Pussy), after the rest of the party was able to convince the priest from smiting her she went total Master Magus. She was described dressed in these long flowing red robes adorned with gold crows, underneath she had tight black and red clothing which was enchanted for stealth when she took off the robe. She used her magic through an enchanted pair of daggers I dubbed Cause and Effect. She was one of my favorite characters to date, she was so much fun for my players too, considering a lot of them were playing serious types and her character was snarky and non-serious to a fault.
Pic: I imagined her something like this but lighter skin and robes over her gear also she wears her Phylactery around her neck like a pendant

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>>57074149
forgot to add pic...

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>>57053848
>fabric with faces
That's some quality uncanny valley. Imagine this thing animated and pretending it's not dead while skulking around in dim lighting.

Imagine an entire royal court of these click clacking around at a bathhouse ruin pretending to bathe with nothing but the sound of their bones scraping their joints.

FYI, I have a concept for a video game about abundant magic use, and I may klet it be influenced by these ideas
one of my ideas is that anyone can use magic, just like anyone can be physically fit, it just takes time, patience, practice, discipline, etc.
accordingly there are magic users of all kinds all over the place
I guess where that might get more interesting is in the search (and price talks) not for a mage but a specialist mage, possibly very specialized, but also very very good at what they do
kind of like medical specialties

>>57052746
Wizards are, for the most part, fucking nerds. They tend to have weird hobbies, weird obsessions, utter lack of fashion sense, and poor social skills. Occasionally you'll get a wizard who has a bit more extroversion and charisma, which result in the magic-equivalent of people like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs.

>>57074248
>Imagine this thing animated and pretending it's not dead while skulking around in dim lighting

imagined it like it was a Monty Python sketch, and it was very amusing

>no no, look, I'm alive
>that is obviously a painted veil jiding your skull
>no no, I'm just shy
>I can see your bones
>no, it's just a joke

>>57075393
I really like this idea

>there's a live rat climbing around inside your ribcage
>just a jape, my friend. Do you like it?

>>57052746
Wizards are, for the most part, fucking chads. They tend to have interesting hobbies, healthy interests, great fashion sense and amazing social skills. Their familiarity with esoteric energies gives them great confidence and charisma, and in some way magic could be described as them harming the very fores of nature to do their bidding. Occasionally you'll get a wizard who has a bit more introversion and misanthropy , which result in the magic-equivalent of people like Ted Kaczynski or Charles Manson.

>>57075437
I imagined the dead wizard after the shopkeeper in the dead parrot sketch

>>57075393
>your wig fell off
>ah, I knew this shampoo was suspiciously cheap!
>so did your leg
>is it a leg? clearly you haven't seen many legs if you think so
>what is it if it's not a leg?
>well, clearly it's something, isn't it? What parts do healthy living people like myself have?
>quite a few, really: ears, eyebrows, noses...
>yes, exactly, that was a nose
>why does it look like a leg?
>please, that's what you call a roman nose. my grandpa was a roman LEGionnaire
>I think I died on the inside from that joke
>please leave then, this bath is for living people only

>>57075393
>I can see your bones
"I've been dieting."

>>57063531
>No need to be anal about it.
If we're doing mind control sex then there very much is a need for it.

>>57052923
>Terry
God bless his soul

>>57052966
Because wizards are a bunch of nerds that have terrible ideas about what looks cool, and they're all feeding off the same derivative source trying to be the most 'accurate pure' wizard. The robes and sticks are the same as wearing a fedora, button up shirt opened with sandals and a loose tie.

>>57066486
My own take on it is that magic itself doesn’t cause this kind of change— in principle, it is possible to be a powerful wizard and a normal person. However, nobody ever gets anywhere near “powerful wizard” without becoming strange in the process, because learning to use magic changes you: by the time you’ve done the things you have to do to learn that esoteric knowledge, your old perspective is dead and gone, and you’ll never get it back. It is effectively impossible to look at the world the same way again, and the more magic you do, the odder your outlook gets.

This is also why wizards don’t run the world. Nearly any wizard who splits their time between rulership and magic isn’t as good at magic as those who do it full-time, so would-be mage kings are generally outclassed by reclusive nutcases. The rare individuals who are good at both magic and something other than magic are extremely dangerous.

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>>57052746
Change their minds as well as their bodies.
change their mannerisms and perception

A wizard might begin panicking at the sight of freshly baked bread, claiming to hear screaming.

A wizard might start having dirt or stones adhere to their skin or for plants to start growing from them and removing it causes physical pain.

A wizard might grow incapable of experiencing humor, have their eyes go blind but they can now see out of their hair.

A wizard might grow deathly allergic to the color blue. As in anything blue touching their physical body will burn them like fire.

Get creative. Magic does crazy shit to you.

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>>57052746
related to this
>>57076641
Have reality start breaking down around wizards

Fire now works in reverse whenever they are around. It absorbs heat instead of projects it

Animals are able to speak in perfect fluent common language but still have their own intellect

Spiders grow abnormally intelligent and malevolent whenever a wizard is around

Flowers smell like rotten meat when a wizard is around

Silver emits a glowing light whenever wizards are around

clothing becomes super itchy whenever wizards are around

>>57053214
Weeaboo has two E's in it.

>>57076636
Maybe its because magic is so different, that even learning it normally is a challange, to truly understand and learn something as unbound and unauthorized as magic you need to change with the flow rather than learning where to steer the boat.

Because while its easy to steer a boat if the currents suddenly reverse or go upwards and still keep out of the river it becomes downright impossible when the boat is the river and you are the boat or the river moves into the boats 4th dimension while the boat is refracting into smaller boats. And that's just the basics.

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This is what an Orc spellcaster looks like. Baggy and tattered robes, strange monster tentacle staff thing, necklace of severed phalluses, and screaming the magical chants in the middle of combat.

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Masks are rad, as are strange costumes which may have some sort of religious purpose. Also, don't just info dump out of the gate. A good Wizard sees themselves first and foremost as a scholar, the rest is incidental.

I played a guy in an animal mask with a high collar and a long coat. Polite, identified himself as a scholar. Provided legit advice, identified plants and animals, translated ancient stuff and was generally like a walking encyclopedia.

Until shit got real, and he got down to it. He wore the mask and the coat, to keep the gods from seeing who was stealing "Their" magic for his own ends. It was a disguise against divinity, which he has yet to break.

The generally utilitarian "Scholar", pulled down the thaumatic nuke for the win. Then went right back to doing their thing without explanation.

Wizards and witches both, work best when they are a mystery. Hide who/what/why and focus on what people see only on the outside looking in.

>>57079707
The mask and academic grasp are cool, but the whole ”...without explanation” makes it sound like you’re trying really hard to do a ”cool guys don’t look at explosions” type thing. Bless your heart.

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>>57052818
Give them pimp-ass real armor instead of fantasy shite.

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>>57079803
Naw, I just feel like over explanation hurts more than it helps. Things were revealed in time, but you need to slow it down. Certainly you can make it silly, care must be taken to be professional, self assured and scholarly.

To a wizard, wizard shit is daily life. You neither hide nor show off, it's just a thing you can do. No big deal, we don't feel it necessary to explain the lore mechanics of a warrior driving a sword into some poor soul's noodle bucket.

Magic isn't "Magical" for a wizard. It's their profession, it's been a part of their life for a long time and they did nothing special as far as they're concerned.

The mystery is a side effect of their desire for privacy, they don't need the locals getting all excited over what the Wizard recognizes as nothing special. They don't need all sorts of random assholes pounding on their door.

Mystery for the sake of mystery, is silly. Give these things practical considerations, legitimate reasons. Are they introverted, does their craft require discretion, are the locals likely to have a hissy fit?

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>>57053214
Damn son where'd you find this?
In a garbage dumb?

>>57070408
I dare not enter this magical realm.

http://www.bogleech.com/halloween/hall15-mascots.html
BEST QUALITIES: It used to be that the typical Halloween witch was simply a very old, human woman, but over time, she evolved into something clearly stranger than that, with a pond-scum complexion, elongated facial features and gnarled, knobbly joints. These qualities are by no means new, but hearken more to the oldest portrayals of figures like Baba Yaga and Jenny Greenteeth, mythical "hags" so ancient and so powerful that they're no longer human at all, if they ever truly were to begin with. I'll admit, I used to completely overlook witches as if they were the dullest of the Halloween mascots, but my appreciation for them has really skyrocketed in recent years.

FURTHER POTENTIAL: admittedly, even the gnarliest and weirdest looking Halloween witches are often still passed off as "just really old," sometimes even if they occupy a series where no other human being ever looks that peculiar. It's obvious, though, that breathing in the fumes of all those bubbling, magical brews must just carry a lot of creepy side effects. The green skin comes first. Then you've got the extremities growing a bit faster than the rest of you. Warts come next, and by the time a witch is living far beyond a normal human life expectancy, her body has begun to age in ways the natural human life span doesn't normally permit. Think of witches as "mutated" by their own magic - which they obviously are - and they suddenly seem a whole lot more compelling than just a bunch of very scary grandmas.

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>>57081121
http://www.bogleech.com/halloween/hall15-mascots2.html
BEST QUALITIES: Like witches, mad scientists are often assumed to be completely human, just weird and old. Also like witches, however, they're portrayed with exaggerated, inhuman features just often enough that this sometimes simply can't be the case. Most commonly, a mad scientist has an enlarged head, implying a brain far larger and more powerful than that of a normal human. Do they pursue science because of this advanced mind, or is there something more at work?

FURTHER POTENTIAL: I really, really want to think of mad scientists as monsters themselves, and I don't see why I can't. There are all sorts of ways we could rationalize it; in many classic narratives, an otherwise normal researcher stumbles upon a chemical or even mathematical formula that somehow boosts their intelligence far beyond natural, human capacity, losing their grasp on conventional logic or morality and turning towards more twisted research. Isn't that just as much a transformation into a "monster" as any other? It's almost a mental lycanthropy, a mind turning into some other, inhuman thing under abnormal conditions and wreaking its own form of havoc on the countryside. A were-genius.

>>57053682
>real life wizards
Nigga whut
Also, you described the Telvanni, which are incidentally one of the best depictions of wizards

>>57053951
>implying there is a difference

>>57053558
mesa abest

>>57081091

Which CoC is that from? Cause despite the file name it looks like it could be either.

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>>57052746
by also being a jester
everyone fucking love wizard jesters
especially wizard assassin jesters

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I like to run magic as fickle, with just as much chance of it ripping the user apart from the inside as blowing up their enemies
Wizards in my games are usually covered head to toe in tattoo runes that keep their magic in check, or weighed down by trinkets and charms that stop the font of immense twisting power inside them from turning all their limbs into faces
I also like the idea of wizards having to do rituals every month or so in order to keep the magic inside them calm and controlable, which sort of balances out the meme shit they cam pull at higher levels, since they need to keep themselves in check or basically die
Sometimes some of the magic sneaks through, and the wizard may be changed forever, such as having crystal nails, a third eye, or some other minor deformation
It makes them far more interesting both to play and to DM for

>>57061948
That is something I would totally do for Druids. Not sure about Wizards.

>>57063700
Break it into shards, in case each of these shards in a bezel setting like on a ring, attach these rings to a chainmail gauntlet, and where this odd silver and Stone Gauntlet at all times. In case it in bronze and hang it around a chain on your neck like an amulet. Magically subdue the anima spirit inside the rock, harmonize with it so that it becomes an extension of your soul, then pluck out one of your eyes and replace it with the stone. Carve the stone into a ring. Some types of stone, wind treated chemically, can be molded like putty. Reshape it into a plate, and use it as the centerpiece of a skull cap or yarmulke. Dude, this is basic wizard fashion 101

Every spell must be learned with the use of a focus. Each individual wizard has a specific Focus for each spell he knows, not just a general focus used for all spells. some schools of thought say that the focus itself is the repository of magic and The Wizard is simply using it like a Charged device. Others say that the focus itself is a mnemonic device or a recording. Still others say that each token or Talisman is like a circuit. The wizard provides the power and the token shapes it into the spell . Only the most powerful of archmage's can cast magic without having an appropriate focus in their hand. So every wizard ones up looking like a junk order with dozens of tiny little talismans and random bits of trash in their pocket, each one important for a different spell. Because most of these objects are something that must be soft enough to have rooms or markings carved on them to help the wizard who created and uses them remember the spell, they are often perishable. Bone and wood and Clay are common materials used. That means that these tokens tend to wear out over time. Which means every so often a wizard must go on a quest to find some random material like the skull of a specific type of bird, in order to make a new token or they lose access to that spell completely.

>>57054097
It's fine if they agree ahead of time.

I have a campaign I was looking to run before I abandoned pathfinder that was "human fighters only." After a (magical) apocalypse, humans are coming out of their millenia ragnarok vault and have just started to reform civilization, reaching about feudal age due to retained knowledge from the previous era. War is a fairly new art, and has mostly occured as minor squabbles between human provinces. Arcane magic is new to humans and largely undiscovered except for a few edge cases. Same for psychic/occult. And gods are egregores manifested out of the now ambient magic, none have enough followers to have fully formed but anything with a decent number of worshippers may start exhibiting minor boons. As such, Human Fighter only, but anything you can do using that race/class is 100% legal.

Recently, wives tales about pale, slender, pointed eared, humanoids with solid black eyes "the forest people" have been proven more than superstition after loggers in the east started being serially raided. A temporary truce was established, after some particularly grueling diplomacy, but the King has decided we can no longer afford to be ignorant of the regions around us. As the kingdom's best, probably also weirdest warriors, you have been assigned to explore the unknown world and document it's topography and inhabitants.

I had several players interested before that group broke up due to combinations of relocation, scheduling, and inter-player drama.

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>>57055635
Powerful wizards have to sacrifice a lot.

>>57056069
If it was a damage, forget pants I'd expect a full uniform. Something combat servicable.

>>57062602
>>57062528
Not a wizard. Dragons have innate magic.

>>57064008
I'd go with a half-dragon Tortle.

>>57054634
Bad bait.

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>>57056644

OOOH

THE WEARY TRAVELLER DRAWS CLOSE TO THE END OF THE PATH...

>>57079410
Whenever i see pictures of that artist i think that he has some serious issues to work out.

>>57052746
With wizards in my game, every level up they get also involves a mutation of some sort as the magic warps them. Magic failures grant madness that might be subtle or violent.

The end point is that high level wizards are both twisted physically and mentally, but their survival also meant they were shrewd and merciless. NPC wizards were very dangerous and rare as a result.