Every so often, rarely, something is born that looks human but isn't. They have bright eyes and crystal minds, and they can make people do things. The control is usually sporadic, hesitating, violent, and unpredictable at first - over time, usually many years, it becomes perfect; as inescapable as a cage of steel bars or a pit in the earth.
Usually these beings are killed as soon as they are discovered - you have to do this before they become too powerful to kill. Sometimes they learn to hide themselves, bide their time, let their abilities grow into full fruition.
Wizards are a blight on the Barony. Everyone knows that they are monsters, insane, not human. People call them demons. To look into their eyes is to surrender your mind, and expose your soul to dismemberment or utter erasure.
Those that do survive are usually very old, very intelligent, and very evil. Entities (including angels and actual demons) are just as susceptible to their control and domination as humans are, and wizards often have whole legions of slaves spells and guardians in their thrall, alongside their human victims. They are also infamous for hoarding strange, ancient, knowledge, and forgotten artefacts of power.
In the popular imagination a wizard lives in the wastelands, surrounded by slaves, in a tower or a fortress made impregnable by traps and arcane wards. In the very best cases they are eccentric, cold, and without human empathy - in the worst, they are nightmarish things whose only interests are the acquisition of power and the abuse of the helpless.
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| The very very great James Earl Jones, playing the also very great Thulsa Doom. |
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WIZARD
Stats as a human (from 1 to 4 HD) with an infinite CHAR stat. They automatically succeed CHAR checks of all kinds, and automatically win contested checks. If two Wizards contest each other, neither wins.
Battle of Wills
As soon as a Wizard becomes aware of you, it may choose to begin a Battle of Wills. It can do this against as many targets as it wishes. Each target of the battle must make a CHAR save, with +1 to the save for each additional target of the Battle of Wills that turn. A Wizard can do this every turn, for as long as it wishes.
Targets who fail this save will be dominated by the Wizard. If the Wizard is looking directly into your eyes from a distance of 10ft or less, the save is made at -6. A Wizard who chooses to do this cannot target others as normal.
Some wizards may have other methods of active domination (instead of the eyes) - classics are large mirrors, crystals full of swirling smoke, patterns traced in the air, strange paintings, a deep melodious voice, etc. They function exactly as described above to anyone looking into them (or hearing them if applicable).
If you are dominated by a wizard, you treat every spoken command of theirs as a Command. If you have no instructions from the wizard, you may attempt a CHAR save to act normally, making all rolls at disadvantage - otherwise you spend your turn in a stupor.
Additionally, Wizards can do various horrible things to victims that they have dominated. See below for details.
Each Wizard will also have 2d6 contrivances - choose from the list or roll for them, and if you roll, replace as many as you wish with Slave Entities. Multiples stack, unless this would be obviously silly - if so, replace with another entity. See below for details.
Dominations
(A Wizard gets one of these). Each one takes a turn to perform on a single target, which can be done at any range. The process is horrible, and all those witnessing it will take d6 fear damage.
- I'll blast your soul! You suffer Soul Destruction. You die, and will never be resurrected.
- You will crawl your days to an end as a worming thing! You are transformed into a form of the Wizard's choosing - your rough body mass is maintained. This process causes you to go insane, and your new body becomes an NPC.
- You will know endless torment! Your soul is transported to a nightmare plane of winds and fog where black claws rend it in agonising perpetuity. Your still living body is without brain function.
- You are lost to time! None shall remember you! In a flash you disappear. None remember that you existed, save the Wizard.
- Demons of the elder world shall possess your very flesh! Your body is taken over my a monstrous and completely inhuman intelligence. They now control your actions (as an NPC); your conscious mind is 'locked in' behind the eyes that were once yours.
- The black night of aeons swells around you! You live through countless lives, in swirling vortexes of star matter, in boiling volcanoes, in swamps and jungles, in the cities of humans; a million, million lifetimes in an instant. Something takes root in your brain and soul, a parasite of hideous lineage. When your mind returns you have become a 1HD NPC Wizard, with your physical stats maintained, bound forever to serve the one who created you.
Contrivances
- Slave Entity - Create an entity as normal. They are the slave of the Wizard, and will act in exact accordance with its commands. A Wizard can communicate with Slave Entities telepathically. A Wizard can always cause any psychic damage that they suffer to instead be suffered by one of their Slave Entities. Any spells that are cast by a Slave Entity are cast using its own HP, which can kill it. Wizards usually have lots of slave entities around them, which is why they often have access to lots of spells. On mishaps and dooms the spells still work, but the casting Slave Entity is immediately destroyed.
- Poisoner - The Wizard is skilled in the brewing and use of hideous poisons. They have a supply that includes doses all of your world's poisons, including any legendary or rare ones. They also have a signature method of delivery, either a blowgun, a hollow ring, powder in a tube, traps full of it, lipstick or other cosmetics, or their own blood. The Wizard is immune to poisons of all sorts, and any human servants will fight with poisoned weapons.
- Artefact of Power - A gem, circlet, ring, rod, or other ancient artefact that increases the power and majesty of the Wizard. While it survives, all spells cast by the Wizard have 1 additional MD.
- Grimoire - A book scribed with the true names of d3 Kingly entities. It allows for their summoning and binding (by anyone, not just the wizard) - binding is identical to Wizard domination. If summoned and not bound, the entities will seek revenge on the Wizard.
- Traps - The Wizard is a sadist and a master engineer, and has constructed a fortress or tower festooned with mechanical booby-traps and baited with treasure. There will always be some method by which they can watch unfortunate heroes torn apart by their machinations. One of these might well be a narrow well that leads straight down into Chaos.
- Pets - Choose a monster from the Barony bestiary. The Wizard has one (or d6 of them if HD2 or below) dominated and kept in the cells beneath their fortress.
- Acolytes - Human followers, dominated and utterly loyal. 20+d10 with stats as commoners and wave-bladed knives, or 10+d6 with stats and equipment as men-at-arms.
- Banefire - Keeps a fire burning in their lair whose flames kill the soul of those they burn. This prevents resurrection, and inflicts d6 fear damage on those who witness it. The main fire never burns out, and can be transmuted and captured in glass grenades in an arcane laboratory.
- Mimicry - The Wizard can perfectly mimic the voice of anyone they have heard speak, and can throw their voice so that it is heard from a point of their choosing inside the same room.
- Actor - The Wizard is an actor of unbelievable skill. They are extremely convincing when they wish to feign emotions of all kinds. A character with template in the Actor prestige class will note their skill, but never be taken in.
- Contortionist - The Wizard can contort their entire body to fit through any gap the size of their head.
- Dreamer - The Wizard spends most of their time in the dreamlands, and can bring back things and beings that it finds there. Their lair will always contain a mirror-gate that facilitates this. Their sleeping body might be vulnerable. They might dream of you, and bring you out from the dream (your expression is strange, your gait a little off, you never smiled that way at anyone...) to confront yourself.
- Chemist - The Wizard is a heavy user of drugs of all kinds, and keeps a stockpile of every type imaginable, including doses of rare and legendary narcotics. All are of superlative quality.
- Cursed Weapon or Armour - The Wizard has dominated the mind of an enchanted, sentient weapon or suit of armour. Use your favourite, and remember that a Wizard always wins any contested CHAR check.
- Meditation - The Wizard can meditate easily and deeply, and is immune to all forms of psychic damage while doing so. They are also immune to physical pain, and take -1 damage from all other sources. While meditating, the Wizard cannot move, but has truesight of the entire room.
- Weapons of a Lost Age - The Wizard has one of the following: a Warbody; a Duelling Rod (as pistol, but shoots an invisible beam of force that does 2d10 force damage, contains d4-1 charges, never needs reloading, creates no smoke); a perfectly white Sphere of Annihilation that can be commanded to move 10ft per turn.
- Apprentice - A 1HD Wizard, under the main Wizard's thrall. Uniquely among their servants, other Wizards cannot be dominated, so this one will be kept under control with mundane threats and coercion.
- Body Control - The Wizard can control their body to such a degree that they need take only one breath per hour to function normally. They need food and water only once every two weeks. If they wish, they can appear dead - this fools people learned in medicine, although the soul will still be visible if you can see it.
- Political Connections - This Wizard has leverage on the closest serious political player, and is considered protected. Killing or inconveniencing them will have consequences.
- Assassin - The Wizard has a capable assassin under domination. Here are some ideas about what to do with this. And some more, it was a crazy time.
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