Wizards are Weird: Wizards as the Creature

 In the previous parts of this series of posts, I mentioned Toth-Amon and Thulsa Doom from Conan, and how they might not be human anymore, if they were to begin with.

This shows up in other places, the idea that the magic-user isn’t quite a normal human being. The two places I’m going to mention might surprise some, although others are going to shake their head and go ‘we knew that already Spook!’

Arthurian Legend and the Lord of the Rings.

Merlin and Gandalf are beneficent characters, to be sure, but they share that same conceit that ‘wizard’ isn’t something that gets assigned to you by your high school guidance counselor. Merlin is apparently an offspring of one of the fairer or more diabolical folk, and Gandalf is a Maiar, which might be compared to a god or to an angel.

Even Harry Potter presumes some biological differences betwixt witch and muggle. And we often see the concept or conceit of the witch-race or the magic-user-species in science-fantasy.

This ties in with the wizard-as-weirdo thing again, since it means that the wizard is literally not a human. He’s some sort of similarly shaped homunculus who doesn’t quite work the same as the humans he surrounds himself with, and also might contribute to why wizards look down on normal people. They view themselves as the Cro-Magnon in a village of Neanderthal. That assumes the wizard carries any similarity with mankind at all.

In the case of Thulsa-Doom the question one must ask is if his wizardry turned him into a snake creature, or if he’s a snake creature disguising himself as a man.

I think sometimes it’s only the desire to put magic in the hands of the players that kept the wizard out of the monster manual, particularly as they almost always find themselves playing the roles of foe.

Now, from a DM perspective, what does this mean? It means when you have a wizardy foe show up, he doesn’t necessarily need to follow the same rules as normal PC wizards. He can, and perhaps should, have other powers, weird taboos, and behave differently. Maybe he has green hair? Perhaps he breathes flame? Perhaps he can survive in temperatures that are uncomfortable to others (explaining his weird outfit)? Wait, why is his blood literally blue? Did he seem to turn into a featureless white thing for a moment when we struck him?

It is quite remarkable how many things players can accept when ‘he’s a wizard’ is the explanation. This kind of makes them similar to dragons.