Your Wizards Need to be Weirder

When you read what I write, just picture
this but a semi-attractive femme person
Art by Doug Beekman 

 Every so often in the Purple Gay Beholder OSR Server, I will lament the quick death that occurred to the classic Wizard/Magician/Sorcerer/Enchanter/Mystical Man of Mystery look and aesthetic. Those of you who have read pulp magazines or looked at the gorgeous painted art that was the norm for fantasy media until the early 2000s will know what I'm talking about: silver skull caps, starry robes, impossibly shaggy beards... all have been thrown aside in modern media in favor of some relatively handsome 20-something in business casual or a fantasy equivalent of a three-piece suit. If you're LUCKY, they might actually wear a cloak with this as some slight compromise with the old aesthetics.

The major person to blame for this, like many problems with modern fantasy, is a woman in the UK who apparently wasn't content getting away with worse worldbuilding than a Youtube DM with an Appendix N comprised of children's cartoons from the 2010s and a few books that came out when they were in secondary school. Now our manipulators of arcane magic are expected to be well-dressed, well-spoken, and (worst of all) sane people with a formal education and a code of ethics about their mystical ways. Talking heads and people who allege to have run games decry the eccentric who shops at the same store as Boyd Pierce as hokey, overdone, outdated, and more. Horse hockey, I say! If anything, a return to form would be a breath of fresh air after all this time.

Seriously, the man looked like he wore my grandma's drapes

 

Wizards look WEIRD

"Appearances can be deceiving" is an oft-repeated phrase, warning people that their first impression of someone could be completely wrong and baked in either prejudice or ignorance.

If your mage can't serve like this,
should you even get art of them?

For Wizards, this idea needs to go right out the window. Yes, that dude wearing a glittery bathrobe is actually as nutty as he might come off, and yes you will be courteous to him as he also happens to be able to shove a lightning bolt right up your ass and cast Power Word: Hangnail. Your wizards need to look off, very off. Much about their appearance has to differ from "the norm" in your setting: their mannerisms, their shiny pants, their odd amount of guyliner, their propensity for funny hats... All of these things stand out compared to the more mundane soldiers and priests in both the party and the setting. This is a person who has dedicated their life to learning secrets of the universe and manipulating reality to perform what could be considered miracles, that doesn't sound like a job that appeals to the most put together people on the planet, that sounds like the kind of thing that would appeal to a fucking nutjob. As their understanding of the arcane grows, their desire to conform to the standards of the ignorant masses weakens. "I can move mountains, cause floods, and invert the testicles of the guys who bullied me in primary school. Why should I lower myself to the level of mere men when I have become so much more?!"

 

Need inspiration? Look to Bowie, P-Funk (especially George Clinton and Bootsy Collins), Sun Ra, Dr. John, and Dschinghis Khan, and really any Glam Rock that features shiny outfits in far out colors. All are flamboyant, beautiful, and have looks that say they aren't even in the same galaxy as you and they know it.

 

Wizards talk WEIRD

Everyone loves Dr. Byron Orpheus. No seriously, I cannot think of a single decent human being who uses their left and right turn indicators that has both seen Venture Bros. and doesn't get a kick out of Orpheus's entire character and the first bit to sell people on him is often that insanely high-energy flowery speak of his, complete with almost yelling his words in an over dramatic tone and you know what? He's earned it. The man is the show's equivalent of Dr. Strange after all.

Your mages are the same, they've peered into the realm of infinite possibility and ascended past the dreams of most men. Simple words will not suffice, they must speak with gravitas and an overly elaborate verbiage not because they choose to, but because they are compelled to. They are the commanding voice from the top of the mountain, they are the only ones who understand the severity of any situation, and they are going to speak in a prose that would give Gary himself a headache.

Don't want to have your wizards speak as if they're doing Shakespeare in the Park, but still want to get the point across that their consciousness is on another planet? Study depictions of the hippies and the flower children, or grab your favorite wrestler that says a whole lot of nothing (in a believable fashion) and start turning their promos into a sorcerer's primary vernacular. My players will sometimes get very intimately familiar with the verbiage of Handsome Jimmy Valiant and Dream Machine Troy Graham without ever seeing a single video of them.

 

Wizards have WEIRD names

That's right buddy, chew that scenery.
Earn that fucking paycheck.

There's a popular tumblr post that gets around every so often which states the best wizard names are just prescription meds and then for about 2 weeks people who see it will joke about making their next character Naproxen the Enchanter. You know what's annoying? They don't actually do it. One of the most grating developments of modern fantasy is that no one gives their mage-types nutso names anymore and instead just calls them Valerie Brightstar or Derrick. Even a very popular cRPG had its main Wizard named Gale. Fucking Gale. Bland, uninspired, and as much of a wet blanket as the character himself.

In the olden days, a Wizard would eventually take a name worthy of remembering not only to fully shed the unenlightened person they once were, but also as a way to protect themselves from the extra-planar threats they may face. After all, a true name is a powerful tool and no one in their right mind would actually name their kid Kalador. Despite the Dungeons and Dragons movie's sins (and they are legion), one of the few things they got right was Jeremy Irons's character's name, Profion. Now THAT'S a mage name. It's just the right level of stupid and brilliant, something that can be shouted from the heavens by a cool guy with a sword coming to kill him. Unfortunately, we got Justin Whalin and not Darkwolf. The prescription drug method is good, but we can go so much harder. Grabbing random words and European names and adding whatever suffix comes to mind at the end (or just making it sound vaguely Roman) gives you Sorcerer Corneos and Prinzor the Magnificent. The Great Mage Darrux is certainly better than Helen Arugula. These push harder into the weird area because they aren't normal names that even the wilder cultures in your setting would come up with, they're fucking nutball things that only could be dreamt up by the guy who insists that his vest needs to show off his pecs in order for him to properly cast spells.

 

Wizards ARE WEIRD

AND THEY'RE COOL FOR IT! I bagged on it earlier, but it really has to be mentioned how there are infinite possibilities of what can be done with magic and the Wizard School books picked the most absolutely boring, basic, and nothing spells and then the only remotely "exciting" ones happened to be 3 forbidden spells that amounted to removal of free will, torture, and death. But you know, it fits the heavily uninspired and droll world that it takes place in which turns the fun of practicing your magic in a tower full of strange items with your aged teacher into a boarding school.

Think of wizards as the equivalent of New Age adherents and how their practices seem to the average person. Hell, you can even take some of those and apply them as wizardy things (plenty of potential in GOOP and Pyramid Power) that do have some actual basis in reality in your setting. Remember that they go to great lengths in their study of the mystic world, much like some of the nutjob upper class of our world have these strange regiments to keep their skin "flawless" and bodies free of evil outsiders. Our modern day pseudoscience and woo-woo stuff can be their rituals of power.

At the end of the day ask yourself what would be cooler to play: the jive-talking guy in flip flops and a Hawaiian robe that does goofy hand signs to shower his foes with a rainbow of light, or Keith Wilson who looks like he's from the magical equivalent of IT?

 

Not gonna find this dude at Hogwarts
Art by David Mattingly