I'm A Big Fan Of Wizards-as-programmers, But I Think It's So Much Better When You Lean Into Programming

I'm a big fan of wizards-as-programmers, but I think it's so much better when you lean into programming tropes.

A spell the wizard uses to light the group's campfire has an error somewhere in its depths, and sometimes it doesn't work at all. The wizard spends a lot of his time trying to track down the exact conditions that cause the failure.

The wizard is attempting to create a new spell that marries two older spells together, but while they were both written within the context of Zephyrus the Starweaver's foundational work, they each used a slightly different version, and untangling the collisions make a short project take months of work.

The wizard has grown too comfortable reusing old spells, and in particular, his teleportation spell keeps finding its components rearranged and remixed, its parts copied into a dozen different places in the spellbook. This is overall not actually a problem per se, but the party's rogue grows a bit concerned when the wizard's "drying spell" seems to just be a special case of teleportation where you teleport five feet to the left and leave the wetness behind.

A wizard is constantly fiddling with his spells, making minor tweaks and changes, getting them easier to cast, with better effects, adding bells and whistles. The "shelter for the night" spell includes a tea kettle that brings itself to a boil at dawn, which the wizard is inordinately pleased with. He reports on efficiency improvements to the indifference of anyone listening.

A different wizard immediately forgets all details of his spells after he's written them. He could not begin to tell you how any of it works, at least not without sitting down for a few hours or days to figure out how he set things up. The point is that it works, and once it does, the wizard can safely stop thinking about it.

Wizards enjoy each other's company, but you must be circumspect about spellwork. Having another wizard look through your spellbook makes you aware of every minor flaw, and you might not be able to answer questions about why a spell was written in a certain way, if you remember at all.

Wizards all have their own preferences as far as which scripts they write in, the formatting of their spellbook, its dimensions and material quality, and of course which famous wizards they've taken the most foundational knowledge from. The enlightened view is that all approaches have their strengths and weaknesses, but this has never stopped anyone from getting into a protracted argument.

Sometimes a wizard will sit down with an ancient tome attempting to find answers to a complicated problem, and finally find someone from across time who was trying to do the same thing, only for the final note to be "nevermind, fixed it".

Brennen's description of Evan's room was so wild, I had to try my hand at it.

if it sucks hit da bricks <- litany against sunk cost

take it easy but take it <- litany against burnout/apathy cycle

fuck it we ball <- litany against perfectionism

now say something beautiful and true <- litany against irony poisoning

And now, a brief look at the human fucker community on a monster version of tumblr

🐙 WetterThanYou Follow

It's so sad that humans can't breathe underwater, makes bringing them to my lair so much harder

👺Ascetic-more-like-ass-cetic Follow

Was anyone going to tell me humans can't breathe underwater or was I supposed to just learn that from a text post?

🐙WetterThanYou Follow

Please tell me you didn't seriously look at humans and go 'they look like they can breathe underwater'

👺Ascetic-more-like-ass-cetic Follow

I thought they were like lions and how some live in the sea :(

🦁BEaST-MAN Follow

DID YOU THINK SEA LIONS WERE LITERAL LIONS?!

👺Ascetic-more-like-ass-cetic Follow

They're not? 😭😭😭

(10,053 Notes)

🐺HereWolf Follow

Vampires will be like 'I love humans' and then transform every human they know into another vampire. Weak. You are like someone who only watches Marvel movies and calls themselves a filmbuff.

🏏Batass Follow

Hey OP this is an important part of many vampire cultures so you should tone it down because this is really offensive.

🐺HereWolf Follow

You should get a culture that isn't fucking lame.

🦁BEaST-MAN Follow

OP you are literally a werewolf. And into throwing stones in glass houses I guess.

🐺HereWolf Follow

Gurl you don't know the amount of effort I put into keeping my human girlfriend a human girlfriend because I love her for being a human.

(8,000 Notes)

💚CraftedLove Follow

In the club on a date with a human straight up breaking it. And by 'it,' haha, well. Let's just say. His sanity.

(42,069 Notes)

🧙‍♂️ Crystal-Rooster-and-Orbs Follow

Sick of getting added to group chats like 'plots to overthrow our lieges.' Yes, I am both an evil wizard and an evil vizier. But I'm not plotting any treachery because my king is also evil, and so is my queen. We are in an evil polycule and give each other evil night kisses.

🧙‍♂️ Crystal-Rooster-and-Orbs Follow

Also stop telling me about the evil queen's OnlyFans like the king and I aren't helping her run it. Who do you think is taking the pictures? You have no idea how many evil yet deeply impractical schemes it's given us the economic cushion to do.

(48,835 Notes)

🤼‍♂️Bitch-of-Heracles Follow

Need me a human who will hold me like this and just destroy me 😍

♣️HeraclesOfficial✅ Follow

Hey.

🤼‍♂️Bitch-of-Heracles Follow

WHY DID NOBODY THINK TO WARN ME HERACLES WAS ON THIS WEBSITE?!

(33,333 Notes)