Wizard Wednesday: The Wizard Wednesday

Or: yes, I do think I'm very clever.

Albert Arbiea ("just call me Al") was a mage experimenting with time. He was meeting with some success: he had mastered a powerful spell, which could send things up to a day into the future, and sometimes into the past.

And then everything went to shit. Hey, sometimes you mess with the timestream, and sometimes the timestream messes with you.

Now he's stuck in Wednesday. 11:59 PM he'll spend in February 3rd, but at 12:01 AM he's jumped to February 10th. It's very annoying, and he can't stop it. Since the locals only see him around on Wednesdays, they've taken him to calling him the Wizard Wednesday. He's grown to accept it.

It's tough only being around for 52 days a year. His clothes and accent grow ever older, and he has a hard time keeping up with current events. Too much happens in his friend's lives. Sometimes his birthday lands on a Wednesday and that makes him very happy.

In addition to his other magic, Al Aribea can literally punch you into next week. Indeed, he can send anything into next week. He's fairly certain he's somehow casting the spell onto himself every midnight: maybe it's burrowed into his head. To test his theory he's looking for an exorcist or an anti-magic circle, no order of preference.

Adventure Hooks

1. Al Aribea knows who did this to him: Vrydag, a colleague of his now known as Mr. Friday. It's *very* difficult to catch a man who is never around when you are. So he's hired you: he has very good intel that the two faced incompetent is sleeping in the Rat & Barrel, two days ride from here. Al won't make it there in time, but you can. He wants you to take Mr. Friday alive. And on his very careful instruction, he wants you to interrogate him. Fun fact: Mr. Friday has, on his person, a spell that can send you back in time one full year. You can fix a lot of mistakes in a year, make a lot of smart moves. If you do manage to trap him, it's his first bargaining chip.

2. Or maybe the Wizard Wednesday and Mr. Friday have always been good friends, working together to solve their plight. They're working in the woods right now, mostly through very well written notes. The entire area is getting slowly saturated with time magic: some animals are permanently hasted, others permanently slowed. Some start and stop in strange fits. The ogre has fallen apart: his body is in one place, the howls come from somewhere else, and the club and claws strikes in a third place. Everything but the wizards seems to be caught in a loop: everyone does the same thing everyday, as if a giant clock keeps resetting itself.

And all the cats are dead. Fun fact: a cat is the temporal equivalent of a canary. Near a bit of time magic they start yowling, and near a lot they just drop dead.

3. The Wednesday Wizard lives in town. He has a nice house, and it's filled with all kinds of experiments. He's hiring you to house sit: he's gone six days a week, after all. Water the plants, keep the potions from bubbling over, feed the thing in the basement once every three days. Buy this list of groceries. And please deal with all the weirdoes who inevitably show up between Wednesdays.

4. Al Aribea's old castle is time-fucked. Sections of it only appear on particular days; dungeon is only here on a Friday, the moat shows up on Mondays. Most pertinently, the top of the east tower only appears on Wednesdays, floating in mid air: it's connecting bottom half only appears on Tuesdays. Getting from one to the other is... tricky. And Al Aribea left his wand, the one he thinks can stop all of this foolishness, up in the east tower. It's not his fault: he fell out when the floor disappeared.

Like this, but with more missing.

Beware: time moves six times faster in the castle. Al didn't tell you this because he doesn't know. But the other adventuring party he sent in? They know. And they know that when the castle pieces disappear, they go somewhere outside of time. Somewhere filled with horrible things that are currently killing them.

5. FUCK IT FUCK IT FUCK IT FUCK IT. He's done with trying to stop this thing. Hey you! Here's a magic wand. Whatever you zap with it only appears on a Wednesday. I WANT YOU TO ZAP EVERYTHING HERE YOU GO TELL YOUR FRIENDS.

5.5. You know it's the oddest thing, there's an entire town that only appears on Wednesdays now. What's up with that?

6. His birthday is next Wednesday! He wants you to get him a party. Get some tables out here, a cake, and invite all of these people. He'll gladly teach the wizard a little time magic in return. Things like haste, slow, time stop: the trivial, easy to learn stuff.

Wizard Wednesday: Abrax the Terrible

Like this, but with the spikes facing out, and the face is a scarier.

A metal sarcophagus floats towards you. Whatever is inside screams and gibbers in it's madness, and all around magic erupts, incinerating anything that stands in it's way. THIS is Abraxas the Terrible.

But his real name is Carl.

Carl Ingsbell was an adventuring wizard, up until an ogre threw him across the room. When he woke up two days later, he was paralyzed from the neck down. For one sad, bitter hour he cried, cursing his friends for pulling him out of the dungeon at all.

It is surprisingly hard to find pictures of levitating doom coffins. I can't understand why.

And then he got over it. Carl is an optimist, you see, and that means quite a bit when you're a wizard. He would 't let something as trivial as being unable to move his limbs stop him from adventuring. He spent most of his adventurer's loot on an enormous metal coffin, tougher then any armor, and locked himself inside. Tenser's Floating disk moves him around. Prestidigitation keeps the coffin clean. A tight metal grate in front if his mouth lets him cast spells, and unlocks come meal time. He's got a few apprentices now who feed and buy shit for him. He delights in dressing them as deranged cultists.

Because Carl knows he's freaky, and he figures he might as well use it. He screams, he howls, he speaks in a strange and terrible voice. He's bolted on an entire mess of spikes to his sarcophagus, casted the head to look like a demon, and liberally decorated everything with skulls. He loves how stupid the name 'Abrax' sounds.



When he's not striking fear in the hearts of his enemies, Carl likes to talk politics and play chess. He loves intelligent conversation and adventurers; they remind him of the good old days. His current plan is to find someway to fix his back. He hasn't met with a lot of luck, but remains hopeful. If he does, he'll give away the sarcophagus to the first asker: he's sick of the bloody thing.

Abrax's motto is "I WILL EAT YOUR SOULS." 

Carl's motto is "THIS WON'T STOP ME I'M A WIZARD."

A note on his armor: Normal weapons can't pierce Abrax's metal coffin. They can pound his mouth grate in, which has 10 HP, but you need to roll 15+ to hit. While Abrax can float, he moves a measly 10ft per round, and turns pretty damn slow: it takes him a whole turn to spin 90 degrees.

Adventure Hooks

1. The Party encounters Abrax in the dungeon. He's fighting a bunch of orcs. The orcs see the party and cry for help. 
2. The Party encounters Abrax in the dungeon. He's currently sleeping and his apprentices are out. His sarcophagus is creepy but still. 
3. The Party encounters Abrax on the road. He interrogates your cleric, asking if they have a spell that can fix his back and let him leave his coffin. 
4. The Party encounters Abrax in his Sarcophagus, lying on the floor. He's yelling for help: he's in an antimagic field and every monster in the dungeon has been banging on his coffin. The thing will take at least ten men to move, but Abrax can tell you a lot about the dungeon. 
5. In someone else's evil lair, you find Abrax. The guy who owns this place is a douche: he cured Abrax of his broken back but locked him in his coffin. Abrax begs you to find the key and let him out. Or at least get that fucker in front of him: Abrax still has a fireball ready for that son of a bitch. 
6. Some dudes in bloodstained robes approach you. They ask if you'd be willing to talk their boss about current events. It's not weird I swear.

Wizard Wednesday: Ur of the Iron Fist

UR IS REALLY MAD

Ur is from Carcosa. Ur got something wrong and now Ur is stuck here. Ur is not particularly troubled by this.

Ur is a yellow man. Ur, like all yellow men, does not sleep, but instead can enter a state of torpor for 1d10 hours, during which he cannot die. Ur can talk to men in their dreams if Ur knows the man's name.

Ur has a metal hand. Ur likes to hit people with it. Ur loves the sound it makes when it smacks against a skull. Ur made his hand better and now it can shoot a laser; it deals 1d20 damage! Ur can't find any batteries here so it only has three shots left.

Ur is a sorcerer. Ur sacrifices men, women, and children to control horrible things from beyond time and sanity. Ur is okay with this. Ur messed it up once and lost something important. Ur can't remember what it was.

Ur has one minion left called Fred. Fred has thirty hit points because Fred is very big. Fred is invisible and silent. Fred eats people and they become invisible and silent too; Ur likes how they just disappear. Fred is acidic on the inside so people who Fred eats take 1d8 points of damage every turn. Ur has a powder that will make Fred not invisible, but Ur forgot where he put it.

Ur talks to Fred a lot, but isn't sure if Fred can understand. Ur is scared of Fred, but Fred cannot hurt Ur. Ur does not always remember this.

Ur would like to summon more monsters and open a portal back to Carcosa, but Ur needs red and green and orange men for that. Ur is rather peeved that there only seems to be jale men around here. Ur laughs at them; they think Ur is stupid but the jale men do not even know what color jale is.

Ur thinks that maybe dyeing people will work well enough. Ur will pay a lot for red and green and orange dye, and for people to dye. Ur likes that the people he will dye are people that will die. Ur thinks this a fantastic joke. Ur wants to shoot his laser at people who don't laugh at it, but that's why Ur's batteries are almost empty.

UR WROTE THIS HIMSELF!

Adventure Hooks

1. The PCs have found a fantastical technological item. Ur can fix it, but he's going to charge in slaves.
2. Ur wanders into town and starts trying to buy slaves and dye. He doesn't understand why all the jale men are screaming. It's very rude.
3. The sky burns with letters made of fire, 200 feet tall. They spell out 'UR WILL PAY A FORTUNE FOR A TWINKIE'. Pretty soon the entire continent will erupt in people trying to find Ur and trying to figure out what a twinkie is.
4. A band of barbarians have started dressing like Ur, complete with his stupid helmet. They go around punching people with metal gauntlets. Ur thinks they are pretty cool. Maybe these guys find and punch the PCs, or maybe they are paid by someone to find out what the heck is going on.
5. People have started growing tiny holes in their bodies, through which the darkness and cold of space seeps through; without help they slowly freeze to death. The disease seems to have started when the yellow stranger came through town, riding on an enormous centipede. Ask Ur and he can tell you it's actually incredibly common on Carcosa, and the cure is drinking onion juice. Ur drinks a glass every day, but not to keep away the disease; he just likes the taste.
6. The PCs find that gold is suddenly worthless; every peasant seems to have pocketfuls of the stuff. The economy is crashing and everywhere men set their brothers in shackles and march them to a terrible metal mountain, where Ur has finally fixed his matter transfigurer.

Fun fact: I have never seen Heavy Metal, but this guy looks pretty cool regardless.

Wizard Wednesday: Grandmother Um

From this...

Grandmother Um scares children and insults adults. But there exists a mystery about her that attracts rumor and gossip. Is she needlessly rude because she is horrible, or has the world committed some injustice upon her? Much speculation exists as to what exactly goes on in her hut in the woods. The woods are very dangerous, filled with wolves and fouler things, but she always makes the journey to town safely.

Grandmother Um is much fiercer then the beasts in the forest; she is firecer then any beast in the world. In truth she is a demon, disguised by a set of magical clothing. The more she wears, the more man shaped she appears. As she discards them she reveals her true form, a sea of hair and eyes and limbs.

... to this.

Each of Grandmother Um's clothes grants her a magic power.
Each piece she removes restores part of her demonic form.

Her brass rimmed Glasses

While wearing her glasses, Grandmother Um can see through lies.

Grandmother Um takes off her glasses 'to see you better deary.' Her body bursts into eyes, opening across her flesh like wounds. She can see through darkness, and can no longer be surprised.

Her delicate silk Gloves

While wearing her gloves, Grandmother Um's touch rots wood and rusts metal.
Grandmother Um will take off her gloves 'because my nails itch.' Her hands and feet grow into claws, long and terrible. They cut like swords, and she attacks with both every turn.

Her great fur Coat

While wearing her coat, Grandmother Um doesn't make a sound.
Grandmother Um takes of her coat since 'it's much too heavy.' Free from it's weight, she stands up straight, a full eight feet, and is overgrown by hair. Her hands gain reach like a spear and her hide becomes tough as leather.

Her red checkered Headscarf

While wearing her headscarf, Grandmother Um can change her voice to whatever she pleases.

Grandmother Um will take off her headscarf because 'it hurts my jaw.' Her head becomes a crocodile snout, her throat lined with backwards facing teeth. If she catches your arm she won't let go; you remain grappled, and your friends have a 50% chance of hitting you instead of her. Ripping your hand out leaves it as so many ribbons of flesh, ruined forever.

That mouth? It belongs to a TURTLE. A bloody freaking turtle.

Adventure Hooks

1. The PCs find one of Grandmother Um's pieces of clothing. She wants it back, and soon she will find them.
2. Grandmother Um hides in a cave. She asks the PCs to find and return her clothing; she enjoys her life in the village. If they do, she promises to serve them for a day, whichever day they want.
3. The PCs must defeat a monster that far exceeds them in power. If they could trick it into wearing Grandmother Um's clothing, it would become a simple human. The trick is getting Um to part with her clothing.
4. The PCs find Grandmother Um sitting in the Goblin Market. She offers to sell you her clothes, extolling the virtues of each. A freely agreed upon sale is the only way she can remove them. Afterwards she will be very grateful to the PCs, and won't harm them, or indeed anyone at the market. The next day her trail of destruction and devastation will be clear and easily followed.
5. Grandmother Um's clothing is scattered through the dungeon. She has cast it off, for the wearer is cursed to obey the words of the wizard Zaibon. Help her kill him and she'll teach the PCs how to remove it. But first she'll mock them for being fool enough to put it on. If anyone mentions that she wore them first, the offer is retracted.
6. The PCs befriend a monster. It tells you that Grandmother Um makes magic clothes which can hide it's form and let it walk as a man.

Edit: It seems I am really bad at knowing what a Wednesday is.

Wizard Wednesday: Xamir the Faceless

Xamir is never seen without the white rag that covers his face. He sleeps with it, he talks with it, he eats and drinks with it. When questioned as to how he eats and drinks with it, Xamir seems perplexed as to why anyone would be fascinated by basic bodily functions.

Even in bright light, you can't see his eyes. He doesn't have any. When he takes a drag on a cigarette, the smoke comes out the eye holes of his white rag. If he took the rag off you would see that his head ended with his face.

Xamir styles himself as a bottle wizard. Are you in need of magma? Acid? Oil? He is a hollow man who can transport any of these in abundance. For things living, he wears a cast iron mask, which locks around his head. His prices are exorbitant, but his services are unique.

Xamir is currently filled to the brim with,

1. Flesh Eating Beetles
2. Tawny Port
3. Tar
4. The Elixir of Youth
5. Mercury
6. Holy Water
7. Dragon Piss
8. Molten Iron

If you stab Xamir you will not actually hurt him, but his insides will splash everywhere. He has enough magical bandage on his person to recover from five such wounds, but after that he will leak. If dealt over 30 damage with slashing weapons, Xamir will be reduced to ribbons, unable to move but not dead. He will curse the party as they leave.

If you truly need to kill Xamir, you must find his lair. Inside will be a man shaped glass bottle, contained a person flayed of everything but his face. This is Xamir's real body.

Adventure Hooks

1. The PCs meet a drunk(?) Xamir inside of a bar. He boasts of his wizardly prowess and how valuable his cargo is. He will soon pass out into a stupor.
2. Someone hires the PCs to find and cut Xamir into precisely measured ribbons. These will be fashioned into unbreakable shackles.
3. Xamir is expected to meet in high society. Extremely busy, he hires you to buy or craft a suitable mask.
4. The PCs are hired to find Xamir and invite him to their employers home. Xamir is currently carrying a valuable cargo, and is  being hunted by a party intent on taking it and killing him. If unopposed, they will succeed. Xamir will mistake the PCs for these hunters.
5. The PCs return home grumbling about how much loot they couldn't carry out of the dungeon. Xamir overhears and offer's his services (for a modest fee).
6. The PCs hear about a bag of holding in nearby dungeon. It is actually Xamir. He can't make such a thing, but is willing to teach you his craft (but only when he's between gigs).

Sometime after the PCs first meet Xamir, he will have advanced in his craft. A zipper by his chin allows his whole body to split in half, and instead of being merely hollow, his insides are now a portal that links to some far off place. Currently that's

1. A Distant Swamp
2. A Begemmed Mine
3. His Lair
4. The Bottom of the Sea
5. A pocket dimension, inside a tiny Dead World
6. Hell

Meet him again, and he can now swap between three such places with the use of a magic sliding ring, which he constantly seems to drop.

Wizard Wednesday: Mr. Bati, The Slow Wizard

This entry is totally late, so I have written a wizard who's power is being late.

When Mr. Bati's father was a young man, he wandered into the tower of a mighty sorcerer. Enraged by this trespass, the sorcerer flung upon a mighty curse: that his image forever will precede him. After his father died, Mr. Bati inherited his curse.

Divorced from his image, Mr. Bati is effectively invisible. Wherever he goes, his image arrives about 20 seconds first. It's a bit like a vision of the future: whatever his illusion is doing now is what Mr. Bati will do in two turns.

As one can imagine, this is terribly inconvenient. His image is intangible: people try to hand him things only for the item to fall straight through his hand, for his hand isn't actually there yet. When Mr. Bati's image takes an item, it also takes the thing's image. Which means that a sword, for example, will appear to be in his hand while ACTUALLY still remaining on the counter top. Two turns later, this now invisible sword will be picked up by Mr. Bati. It's all dreadfully confusing.

It is for this reason that Mr. Bati avoids any physical contact; it's too difficult to explain. His is a lonely life.

For the last five years Mr. Bati has been seeking a way to break his hateful curse. He cannot find the sorcerer who cast the spell, but revenge remains foremost on his mine. If he ever found him, he would probably say "Hello. My name is Rajul Bati. You cursed my father. Prepare to die." In the mean time he hunts for other wizards. Some he has polite chats with, others he blackmails, and a few he beats black and blue. He's found one lead: the sorcerer who cast this spell is named Xong the Inscrutable (read: whatever you want), and he resides in the city of Ramhknal (read: the biggest city in your campaign). He is heading there even now.

When not hunting for wizards, Mr. Bati moonlights as an assassin. In combat, put his figure on the matt, but remember where he was two turns ago. That's where he attacks and that is where he can get hit. His illusion is immaterial and cannot be harmed (or harm anyone), but if he is hit will reflect his wounds. Hopefully your players will catch on after stabbing him to no effect and getting hit by invisible swords.

Oh and did I mention he has a magical turban? He totally has a magical turban. It moves like a snake and shares his curse. For the most part, it trips people.

A final note: Mr. Bati isn't actually a wizard. People just assume he is, and the name has stuck.

Adventure hooks:

1. Mr. Bati wants to question the party's wizard. Depending on how the player takes it, the encounter may turn violent.
2. Mr. Bati has been hired to assassinate someone in the party. He will attack by night and pretend to be a ghost.
3. The man who cursed Mr. Bati's father is a good friend of the PCs. They may or may not know that said friend is a (former?) wizard.
4. Mr. Bati purchases something that the party NEEDS to have and refuses to hand it over. Taking it from him will prove difficult.
5. A sorcerer hires the party to find Mr. Bati and eliminate him.
6. The party wants to kill an evil wizard. Mr. Bati selflessly offers to help.

Wizard Wednesday: Abad-Alwahsh, Gorilla

I mean obviously he's a wizard. It says so right there in the title.

Outcast from both gorilla and man alike, Abad-Alwahsh serves a demonic master. He has traded his soul in exchange for his sorcerous strength. His master has carelessly misplaced this knick-nack, which takes to form of a bottled purple flame. Now Abad-Alwahsh roams tirelessly trying find his soul, so that he may escape his bonds, free to rack ruin upon mankind and all his works.

When among gorillas, Abad-Alwahsh forms petty kingdoms in his service, maintaining order with his gun, a weapon unknown amongst his kin. He assembles war parties to comb the jungle and raid human settlements.

When among men, Abad-Alwahsh acts with more subtlety. He hypnotizes this rich and powerful, using their resources to look for his soul while hiding within their manors. When he has determined his soul is not to be found in this city, he is gripped by fury and bursts from the shadows, smashing these incompetents with spell and fist. After a rampage across the city he departs and tries again.

His soul is a fragile thing. If the bottle was smashed, the flame would go out and Abad-Alwahsh would die. If someone were find it, they would be able to control Abad-Alwahsh by writing instructions and burning them in the flame.

He is an eighth level wizard and a fourth level fighter.

Adventure Hooks:

1. A wealthy friend of the party has started acting oddly. He has been hypnotized by Abad-Alwahsh.
2. Mobs of treasure hunters, petty crooks, and surly sailors are tearing the city apart, asking everyone and searching everywhere for a bottle of purple fire. Several con-men have started to disguise themselves and sell fakes.
3. Abad-Alwahsh has thrown a rampage and then escaped. The king has placed an astronomical price upon his head.
4. While resting in the jungle the party are kidnapped by a war band of gorillas. They bring them before Abad-Alwahsh to be interrogated.
5. A tribal chief begs the party to stop the gorilla raids.
6. The party find the soul of Abad-Alwahsh for sale in a muddy shop. Abad-Alwahsh will not serve willingly.

I think that last one is my favorite. Here, have a dude with more levels then the entire party combined. He hates you. Have fun playing literal genie!