Wizard

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 poring over her spell book, and the years spent in apprenticeship to learn the arts of magic.

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 new spells, a wizard can, over time, learn to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, 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 it denies her access to some of the spells that lie outside that field.
A wizard can call a familiar—a small, magical animal companion that serves 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.

Religion

Wizards commonly revere Boccob (god of magic). Some, especially necromancers or simply more misanthropic wizards, prefer Wee Jas (goddess of death and magic). Evil necromancers are known to worship Nerull (god of death). Wizards in general are more devoted to their studies than to their spiritual sides.

Background

Wizards recognize each other as comrades or rivals. Even wizards from very different cultures or magical traditions have much in common because they all conform to the same laws of magic. Unlike fighters or rogues, wizards see themselves as members of a distinct, if diverse, group. In civilized lands where wizards study in academies, schools, or guilds, wizards also identify themselves and others according to membership in these formal organizations. But while a guild magician may look down her nose at a rustic wizard who learned his arts from a doddering hermit, she nevertheless can’t deny the rustic’s identity as a wizard.

Races

Humans take to magic for any of various reasons: curiosity, ambition, lust for power, or just personal inclination. Human wizards tend to be practical innovators, creating new spells or using old spells creatively.
Elves are enthralled by magic, and many of them become wizards for love of the art. Elf wizards see themselves as artists, and they hold magic in high regard as a wondrous mystery, as opposed to the more pragmatic human wizards, who see magic more as a set of tools or tricks.
Illusion magic comes so simply to gnomes that becoming an illusionist is just natural to brighter and more talented ones. Gnome wizards who don’t specialize in the school of illusion are rare, but they don’t suffer under any special stigma.

Most content is Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc..