Wizard

[Mr. Cheez-It]

A few unintelligible words and a fleeting gesture carry more power than a battleaxe, when they are the words and gestures of a wizard.  These simple acts make magic seem easy, but they only hint at the time the wizard must spend pouring over her spellbook preparing each spell for casting, and the years before that spent in apprenticeship to learn the arts of magic.

Wizards depend on intensive study to create their magic.  They examine musty old tomes, debate magical theory with their peers, and practice minor magics whenever they can.  For a wizard, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art.

Wizards, like other people who can turn a person into a toadstool with a glance, tend to be well respected or simply feared by common folk.  The mightiest mortals in Faerun are powerful wizards such as Elminster, Manshoon, and Szass Tam.  Extending their lives for centuries (or, in some cases, choosing the path of lichdom and eternal undeath), these dangerous magic-wielders grow ever wiser and stronger in the ways of the Art as centuries pass by.

Most practicing wizards learned the basics of the Art as apprentices to more experienced wizards.  This slow form of education is reliable, and the work an apprentice performs has the advantages of paying for her studies.  Other would-be wizards graduated from on of the universities of magic, common in the lands of Lantan and Halruaa in the distant south but uncommon in the northern parts of Faerun.

North of Halruaa, the best-known university of magic is located in Silverymoon.  Smaller universites of magic are known in areas such as Waterdeep, Sembia, Chessenta, the Vilhon Reach, Impiltur, and Tehtyr, with an illusionist's school recently opened in Damara.  The methods of education used by the Red Wizards of Thay are equally as effective, even if fully half of those who begin such studies die in their torturous training regimen.

Adventurers:  Wizards conduct their adventuring with caution and forethought.  When prepared, they can use their spells to devastating effect.  When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable.  They seek knowledge, power, and the resources to conduct their studies.  They may also have any of the noble or ignoble motivations that other adventurers have.

Characteristics:  The wizard's strength is her spells.  Everything else is secondary.  She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards.  In addition to learning spells, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go further, work betters, or are improved in some other way.

Some wizards prefer to specialize in a certain type of magic.  Specialization makes a wizard more powerful in her chosen field, but prevents her from being able to cast some of the spells that lie outside her field.

A wizard can call a familiar:  a small, magical animal companion, that server her.  For some wizards, their familiars are their only true friends.

Alignment:  Overall, wizards show a slight tendency toward law over chaos, because the study of magic rewards those who are disciplined.  Illusionists and transmuters, however, are masters of deception and change, respectively.  They favor chaos over law.

Other Classes:  Wizards prefer to work with members of other classes.  They love to cast their spells from behind strong fighters, to “magic up” rogues and send them out to scout, and to rely on the divine healing of clerics.  They may find certain types, such as sorcerers, rogues, and bards, not quite serious enough, but they're not judgmental.

[Mr. Cheez-It]

Rules

None