PRACTICAL MAGIC IV: Magical Mentors Are Useful Tyrants

🎨 David Mattingly You know a wizard mentor would teleport into your home, drink all your beer, & eat your snacks

For more in the Practical Magic series

In most editions of D&D, the relationship between NPC mentor and PC magic-user is only vaguely defined and perhaps a missed opportunity for world-building. 

OD&D says nothing about the relationship between a magic-user and a possible mentor. Only noting that MUs should have 1 spellbook per level of magic- one book for level 1 spells, one book for level 2 spells. Looking at the stronghold section, we see that a magic-user is 9-12th level, attended by 1d6 monsters, 1d6 low-level apprentices, and 3d6x10 men-at-arms led by Fighting-man lutients. And importantly is neutral or chaotic but not lawful.

In the Rules Cyclopedia, it is noted a level 9 magic-user with a stronghold will attract 1d6 MU level 1-3 and 2d6 normal people of above-average intelligence who want to become MUs but will quit after 1d6 months- discouraged.

While in the AD&D DMG, a DM is instructed to inform a magic-user player that they have just completed a course of apprenticeship with a master who was of unthinkably high level (at least 6th) and was presented with a spell book containing read magic and 3 other spells chosen by the DM or rolled randomly. And noted later that a MU will gain 1 spell, and only one, upon advancement, and will have gathered others from found scrolls, captured spellbooks, and or learned from other party MUs.

Most of the understanding about this relationship is really a collection of practices and assumptions perpetuated through play culture (and shared media) rather than deeply proscribed in the rulebook. In general, the MU mentor is the source of the starting spellbook, often the source of the MU's new spells, and, occasionally, might be called upon to provide a plot hook or identify a magic item. Or serve some other function under the general heading of "mouthpiece for the DM".

At my own table, I'd like to better clarify the costs and benefits of a mentor because it's an important relationship that the player should be able to understand in a more choice-oriented manner: Should I play apprentice or strike out on my own? If the PC chooses to undergo mentorship, we should contextualize the mentor and the relationship in the game world and beyond someone who just automatically provides spells. For the DM, this is a great opportunity for a connection to the game world and setting, providing another digetic avenue to convey information about the world without a lore dump.

Boons

• Known spells: The apprentice MU can choose the spell they want to know from the master's book
• Item identification: The vast knowledge of the master will easily identify most magic items
• Fully stocked arcane distillery: At level 2, the apprentice MU will be able to make the 7 basic potions: diminution, ESP, growth, gaseous form, healing, invisibility, & levitation
• Minor wand manufacture: At level 4, the MU will be able to use the facilities to make a wand containing 1d2 levels of spells; can cast in melee; recharge uses a component found in spells
• Got yourself in a bit of trouble: The mentor will help undo a curse, the effects of poison, or other malady (but not simply heal HP- just sleep it off), however, it comes at a cost below or some other task.

Banes

The mentors are going to want something from each apprentice. They aren't training people in dangerous arcane arts for a hobby. Each week, roll a 1d12 and consult the following table:

1-9 | Your service is not required and you may do as you wish.

10 | Esoteric needs: Mentor desires the gathering of something seemingly innocuous or inconcequential- Touch this amulet to these 3 spots, make rubbings of this relief, or gather dungeon mushrooms from three corpses.
11 | Demands a body: Mentor desires a body for...reasons. It can't be a skeleton, zombie, or rotted corpse. Humanoid is negotiable or might be the specific goal. If the mentor is "chaotic", it might be important that the unfortunate victim is still alive.
12 | Summoned to the tower: You will be required to take a week off from adventuring to help the master with something. On the upside, you get a free roll on the magical carousing table without the expenditure of coin, but you must make a save to avoid a negative outcome.

As the PC gains levels, the mentor might require further activities that take them wider into the wilderness. They might be envoys to fay kingdoms or intelligent monsters. Or have to perform some act on the master's behalf. And if the mentor is chaotic, that act might be an attempt to bump off the apprentice (shrug). Or something as mundane as tax collection. 

It could also be that the mentor wants magic items that a high-level PC is now capable of bringing back.

Insta-Wizard

Let's synthesize the above D&D sources into a unified table to create an interesting NPC mentor that is both a sort of regional lord and an institution. 

And again, ktrey's d100- Mercurial Mentors & Weird Wizards will help kick things off with who or what exactly this mentor is.

To establish a Mentor roll:

• 1d2 for Cosmic alignment:to determine MU Master alignment: odd- Chaotic even- Neutral
• 1d4+8 for Sorcerer, Necromancer, or Wizard: equals the level of the Mentor
• 1d6 for Those who serve: to establish the number of open apprenticeships, the remainder is the number of current apprentices (i.e. a roll of 2 indicates two open spots and 4 other apprentices)
• 1d8 for Monstrous patronage: to establish the rumored, but never seen, monsters that serve the mentor 1. Chimeras 2. Spirits 3. Dragons 4. Elementals 5. Gorgons 6. Minotaurs 7. Demons 8. Gargoyles; all at # encountered in the wilderness
• 1d10 for (Mostly) Trusted Right-hands: to establish the number of levels of fighting men serving the mentor; none higher than level 4 (i.e. a roll of 6 indicated six levels of Fighting-men, so one level 4 and one level 2 Fighter)
• 1d12+2 x10 for Foul Foot-soldiers:to establish the number of men-at-arms (if neutral) or beast-men (if chaotic) that serve the mentor

Reason the Mentor is Left Alone by the Crown & Church

It is foolish of me to list all the ways a mentor might be connected to your setting. However, one question we might want to answer immediately is why the Crown or Church not taken action against someone so dangerous? The results here can simply be a reason OR a seed for a subplot involving attempts by NPC to make the apprentice turn double agent.

Maybe because the wizard:

1. Defeated the Great Beast of the Fell Swamps
2. Made a 99-year pact with the Church
3. Has ensorcelled the Crown- a few advisors suspect something
4. Killed the last two commanders that tried and keeps a third as a songbird
5. Threatened the Crown with blight and the Church with plague
6. Pledged to revive the sleeping prince
7. Threatened to revive the sleeping princess
8. Knows the Crown is their bastard child
9. They keep a secret about an atrocity committed by the Church
10. Romantic entanglement with the Crown- so spicy!
11. Keeps the true child of the Royal Family
12. Helped get the new head of the Church the seat of power
13. The Fay only observe the Truce if they are alive
14. The Church requires yearly renewal of a particular set of arcane wards
15. Is the only one who can read the terms of the demonic licence
16. Has been building a great War Machine, wanted equally by the Crown & Church
17. Maintains the undead Council- former rulers & adversaries who give advice to the Crown
18. Enscorcelled all the animals in the kingdom to go mad upon their death
19. Is a child of the Pit and their death will bring forth a legion from the Fortress of Rust
20. Sends nightly dreams that depict terrible outcomes if they are removed

Mentor Example

Elizabeth the Lucky decides to seek a new mentor in the lands of the Rose Swamp. During downtime, the DM rolls: even, 4, 6, 7, 4, 3 + 78 on ktrey's table. And informs Liz the Lucky's player of the following:

Vertel the Absent has achieved mastery in the 12 dynamic orders (magic-user level 12) and concerned with cosmic balance. Which is why the magus is said to have stopped a great dragon from raveging the land not by killing it but by challenging it to a game of dreamland chess- a game which continues to this very day. Folks in the immediate area claim that luck has been upended and all for miles everyone's fate is connected to this game.  Being wholy occupied by this contest, and in accordance with the wizard's great power, no less than 8 spirits who travel to and from the tower on moonless nights doing the great mage's bidding. In addition, a hero (fighter level 4) of renown leads the wizard's personal guard. This captain and guard (50 strong) are said to be the knight and company sent to slay the dragon, but pledged fieldy to the wizard once Vertel's deft solution brought a sudden end to the creature's rampage.

Vertel is willing to accept any who desire apprenticeship along as they first pass through a wall of flame that guards the front door.* And why had the Crown not knocked down the tower? Vertel has threatened the Crown with blight and Church with plague.

If you want more on magic, just check out some other posts about running Magic-Users in D&D 

D20 REPLACEMENTS FOR THE ARM THAT BUGBEAR RIPPED OFF: And May Work For Other Limbs Too

BERSERK by Kentaro Miura

Prismatic Wasteland posted a bunch of potential blog topics, which I collected into a list of 34 possible posts to keep in my back pocket when I feel uninspired or bored or want to exercise my creative thinking. Here is the previous one: EYE OF NEWT AND A DASH OF STARDUST: Ingredients for Fairy Tale Adventures

In general, limb replacement can be performed with regeneration or with some interpretations of restoration or in extreme cases, by getting the PC killed and going with reincarnation. For the options below, I tried to come up with rituals that would require folk lore, magic of Old Gods, obscure rituals, bargains, and commitments to those giving this “gift”. In a game, they would be an option the PCs could research, require a new contact with an NPC, and have a twist that makes it cheaper than paying the 2000-5000 gp cost of orthodox routes.

It might be fun to roll below 3 times and have those be the only option for arm (or limb) restoration as a method of world-building or reinforcing the occult nature of magic. Meaning magic is not tailor-made like modern medicine but was established through routes that work, not routes that are efficient/”clean” aka magic as fantasy science- bleh.

Also, don’t forget that each of the below can be riffed on depending the situation, so maybe you want to replace a leg but get the arm-replaced-by-goosehead & neck, well that could be changed to the leg of a mule/goat but it will try to always kick nobility.

1d20 replacements for the arm that bugbear just ripped off your torso & may work for other limbs too…

1. A hook forged by the famed cannibal Malic the Toothsome, noted amputator, gourmand, and prosthetics fashioner; payment is eating your own limb at a dinner for two with a paired wine chosen by you

2. The stone arm from a statue of Ishtar after you have prayed incessantly for 7 days and to permanently gain function PC must prosthetize as a cleric of Ishtar

3. A trained stygian python from the cult of Yg, but you have to let it loose in downtime to hunt giant rats make a 2d6 reaction check to see if it comes back and in what disposition

4. The amputated arm of your shadow, severed & stitched back on with spider silk by a witch; children, goblins, and clerics will notice your one-armed shadow easily

5. Domesticate slime, pudding, or ooze beaten within an inch of its “life” and cast charm monster on it; lose dexterity and might dissolve whatever it touches as per the monster of the same type

6. The arm of a scarecrow that has seen at least 1 season from planting to harvest; graft functions using living pumpkin roots smeared with 3 crushed lizard tails jammed into the wound and the scarecrow limb

7. Any piece of a troll or hydra grown and shaped, like an ornamental plant, into an arm, but every level up, make a save vs spells, two successive failures means monsterification, otherwise works quickly

8. Sew a jacket, with one arm taken from a different jacket and terminating in a glove taken from somewhere else, using the seinew from an animated corpse, flesh construct, or undead; when wearing the jacket, the “empty” arm is highly flexible, looks real, but can’t hold more than a purse of coins

9. A beam of light passing through a stained glass window after continual light & phantasmal force have been cast; arm glows as candle light, can pass through objects, but only allows the faintest of touch and hold barely a feather

10. A charmed giant centipede, after charmed monster has been cast, will always appear at inappropriate moments in an unsettling way (negative to negotiate, positive to intimidate)

11. The severed neck & head of a goose or swan after giving an offering to the petty god of serpentine things of 500 gp in value; vicious and surprisingly able to manipulate a dagger expertly when used for dark purpose.

12. Intact arm of a zombie, ghoul, or wight; save vs paralysis to not strangle any priest, cleric, or good-aligned religious official you meet and might awkwardly salute evil religious figures, icons, and/or gods

13. A planted seed of either an oak or a rose bush, which will rapidly grow into are arm in 4 weeks; oak arm adds +1 AC if non-sword arm, while a rose arm gives +1 to reaction rolls

14. Clockwork prosthetic make from the dwarven artisan Able Ticker Tink after payment with 5 gems of 5 different colors, each worth 250 gp each; winding required every 3rd downtime action

15. Your reflection’s arm severed with a silver dagger from a mirror catching the moonlight after hold portal has been cast; every full moon, said reflection must be given an offering for its “loss” or else…

16. Make an offering to benthic gods of 500 gp for a giant octopus tentacle or 250 gp for a giant crab claw; both can be eaten with butter in a pinch, but it is a blasphemous act to said god(s)

17. The arm of a demon/devil you win in a game of chance, while another better body part (or a friend can bet one for you); the fiend will go double or nothing for a second go if pairs of parts are bet (exclude fingers/toes)

18. Trained monkey or particularly clever parrot- nothing crazy here, just an expensively trained animal (500gp) that will require a loyalty check to grab anything dangerous and won’t fight.

19. Arm-y ants who are protecting the queen you buried in your shoulder; resists severing as ants reform but 2x damage to fire after a year, save vs paralysis or you are actually a colony of sentient ants!

20. An arm gifted by one of the fay courts after a season’s salon will come with a court-specific quirk (always snap when walking or roll a glass orb) and a court-mandated purpose (may only hold weapons of beauty or used in the pursuit of lost objects)