#wizard

[disarmonia]

Continuing the Critical Role theme, here's another from last year, everyone's favourite ✨hot boi✨ Essek and his dunamancy shenanigans. Hey, since I just created this page and trying to gain some sort of following here on Tumblr (mainly so my original art also gets attention), please consider following.🥰 k thanx luv you xxx

[gavamont]

Wizard sleeping on a leaf

Smaller than you would believe

Tuck them in with daisy petals

Cottonwood fluff for their head to cradle

And when the sun awakes the mage

Greet him with breakfast cooked with sage

And when they’re ready to once again sleep

Tuck them back in at their leaf

[the-mighty-dalob]

*you hear a knock on the door*

Well, that works better by now.

Hello.

[grangvr]

мσяgαиα ρєи∂яαgσи ι¢σиѕ (мєяℓιи) 🪄

[girlwiththewhiterabbit]

Mark of a wizard: carrying around inconspicuously cursed objects waiting to be Identified whenever they gather enough funds to obtain a 100gp pearl (never). lol jk the cursed objects are pretty conspicuous

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Dismissive Pyromancer

"Burn. Burn. Keep. Burn."

Artist: Bram Sels TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

[merchant-wizard-and-jerry]

Two copies of Fermis approach.

N-number three died in the woods, says one of the two, the number five written in red on the top of his head.

He got blasted to hell with a good Fireball, says the other, labelled one. We don't know how the others will act... they're probably just going to get drunk... b-but... well, four's been acting weird, and...

The two suddenly both speak up.

Where can we run off to until the spell ends?

“Ends?…you did get 1/4th of threes power and memory back right? You can also divide. This is a new ability not a spell. If all but one of you dies then you will become 1 again with 5 sets of memories for the time you were split. And you also will get all your different powers back. But like it won’t end on its own. Also what powers did you two get?”

(If you need me to explain the card effect again I am happy to.)

@yeast-wizard

[dimity-lawn]

[blobbei-art]

Fun isopod slug wizard I doodled

[graciedart]

triton for @seaglassmelody

[internetadvent]

Wizard rambling in class instead of doing work

featuring spells of hollow knight/steven universe

Rain world/TOH

[gavamont]

A wizard that uses the noodles at the bottom of a mug of soup as divination, similar to tea leaves or coffee grounds. A lot of people trust her, but I’m not sold on it, because when I went to her shop, the noodles perfectly formed an illustration of me getting mauled by a pair of hungry dogs.

[mask131]

There is a trope I really like when it comes to magic in fantasy, and it is the "inhuman wizard/witch".

In fantasy nowadays, the origin of magic mostly boils down to two things. On one side: "learned" magic. It is an art and knowledge you can learn, train and develop and anybody can be a wizard, witch, sorcerer, warlock, whatever. On the other side: you are born with your powers, magic is something inherent in you, that you cannot control.

But the third way is the trope I enjoy and I don't see it being brought up a lot: certain characters have magic because they are NOT human. (And I am not speaking of The Owl House style where witches are just a separate species, no, no no).

This trope is literaly as old as time, it being highlighted by folkloric, legendary and mythological characters like Merlin, Circe, Baba-Yaga, Vaïnamoïnen: most of the great enchanters and sorcerers of legend, most of the powerful witches of myth and folklore, were demigods, half-devil or even minor gods themselves. Being a wizard wasn't just a random business, and it wasn't just being born "special" - it was about belonging to an entirely different level of existence.

I do note that it is quite strange for this trope not to have gotten more of a success because it was a key part of THE great work of the fantasy genre, The Lord of the Rings, + The Silmarillion. In it the Five Wizards, the Istari ; but also Sauron (in his necromancer/sorcerer persona), and Melian (the closest thing Tolkien had to an enchantress or sorceress), are all applications of this trope. They literaly are Middle-Earth's embodiments of wizards, witches, enchanters and sorceresses, but they are such powerful magic users precisely because they do not "come from this world" but rather are divine spirits made flesh, angelic beings disguised as humans/elves, minor gods who bound themselves to these appearances. And yet, when you look at the many Tolkienesque imitators or renewers (Shannara, Belgariad, Wheel of Time, Fionavar Tapestry) they all insist on the wizards and witches being... human.

C.S. Lewis, in his Narnia books, also followed Tolkien's trope, by having his wizards be literal fallen stars stuck on Earth - a concept of "astral magic" that will be reused in works such as "A Wrinkle in Time" where the trio of planet-travelling witches are pointed out to have had previous existences as suns and other stellar phenomenon. Lewis' witches also originally were depicted as otherworldy, inhuman entities (half-giant half-jinn entity working as a sort of angel for the fantasy equivalent of God, giant demonic snake taking the shape of a lady) before he gave us a new Jadis backstory making her more "human", so to speak, or at least part of a neat and clear-cut species.

There's also Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, where the two great magic-users, Sheelba of the Eyeless Face and Ningauble of the Seven Eyes, aren't just hyper-powerful and very weird sorcerers, but also strongly implied (if not outright said) to be interdimensional alien entities.

This trope does creep up and shine in some fantasy works from time to time, but it is quite rare. A recent example I ABSOLUTELY adored is the Witch of Sarnwood, from "Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone". The trope is also used frequently in French fantasy (probably because it has closer roots with fairytales and medieval tales, where enchanters and witches are more inhuman) but since it probably won't evoke anything to people here I won't do a full list, just point out the character of The Enchanter in Michel Pagel's great "Les flammes de la nuit". (But it isn't very surprising given Pagel's work is part-Shakespearian fantasy, and Shakespeare was a famous user of this idea of "inhuman magic users", with his Weird Sisters from Macbeth, for example)

And of course, I have to speak about The Lich from Adventure Time, which is probably THE big highlight of this trope in modern day. The Lich is presented as, well, a manifestation of a D&D lich, as just your typical undead "evil lord sorcerer", but then as we move more and more down the story it is revealed he is literaly the embodiment and vessel of a cosmic force of destruction and mass extinction that dates back to the primordial monsters before time itself... This is notably such a Tolkienesque move, because I don't think I ever saw such a big character-exploration/twist reveal since Tolkien slowly revealed the Hobbit's Necromancer was Sauron, and then who Sauron originally was - in fact when you look at Youtube "lore videos" trying to piece out the background and evolution of the Lich, you will notice they do bear a striking resemblance to videos discussing the "Necromancer" of the Hobbit and how it ties to Sauron... Someone should one day point out all the Tolkienesque elements in Adventure Time, but that will be for another day.

Conclusion? It is quite fascinating to see how magic-users started out a lot of the time as these otherworldy divine or demonic beings, these inhuman forces that merely appear human somehow, but today people seem to REALLY like and REALLY prefer their wizards and witches to be human, and I guess relatable? The biggest example being the Harry Potter phenomenon, and even more recently the Owl House because while they are not "humans" per se, they are still basically an alternate humanity, instead of being stars in human masks or unique alien beings travelling time and space like Doctor Who.

(By the way, did you ever notice that Doctor Who was literaly designed to be a sci-fi version of the fantasy genre? If not, then I have another post to make... But yes, the Doctor is literaly an alien, sci-fi version of a wizard/sorcerer, down to the magic wand/sonic screwdriver.)

[monicole-art]

P for Pride Month bc how could I not make a jojo reference ALSO STAN GAY PIGGLES 💖

[meganehaven]

put your necromancer elf in a maid dress. NOW.

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Dark Confidant

Greatness, at any cost.

Artist: Scott M. Fischer TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link