Image credit: David Harrington
Wizards are tough to generate quickly in fantasy games. Most basic settings and rule sets provide a generic wizard in their list of monsters or NPCs, but what if the PCs encounter a traveling band of wizards? What if they visit a school that trains wizards?
Here’s a free wizard generator for 5e Dungeons & Dragons and for the Low Fantasy Gaming system to make the creation of a customizable party of wizards easy and fun!
Customize Your Party of Wizards
The key to bringing a party of wizards to life is to make them unique, each wizard with his or her own motivation and whatever shared motivation that has brought them together. And, since the distinguishing feature of wizards is their magic, each wizard should have his or her own list of spells.
- Backstory: The Maker’s Forge Foe Generator will create a backstory for your wizards that you can tweak as needed to fit into the PC’s current situation. What great task has brought these wizards together? What are they up to in this remote location? What do they want? And most importantly: how does what they want conflict with what the PCs want?
- A name and vivid description: each wizard has a name that might be revealed during trade, negotiation, threats, or capture. And every wizard should be unique when you describe it to the player that encounters them. Vivid description is the lifeblood of the roleplaying game. What odd vestments is this wizard wearing? What strange devices does she hold in her hand? What does this wizard want? And what is he prepared to do to get it?
- Weapons and hit points: wizards are not usually known for their weaponry, but that doesn’t mean they travel unarmed. And when push comes to shove, not all have the same hit points.
- Spell lists: each wizard has his or her own spell list that they have spent their lives mastering and perfecting. This should be reflected in how they approach matters that concern them and how they defend themselves in combat.
- High mage or archmage to lead them: most parties of wizards have some kind of master steeped in arcane lore. What does this master of the dark arts want? How does she treat those that have gathered with her?
- Journeyman wizards, familiars, and more: wizards come in all varieties of skill and mastery. Perhaps the party is traveling with a group of new novices who have barely scratched the surface of arcane lore. Or perhaps they have been dabbling with sinister occult lore and have consorted with fiendish imps to gain knowledge or power.
- Loot: should the PCs defeat the party of wizards, what gear, valuables, or arcane implements might the party be carrying? What hints of further adventure might be lurking among the wizard party’s possessions?
Foe Generator for 5e D&D and Low Fantasy Gaming
So what are you waiting for? Go use the Maker’s Forge Wizard Generator to get a jump-start on a party of wizards.
It does all the grunt work for you: stats, names, short descriptions, weapons, and HP for each wizard, and a customized spell list with ready to use combat stats formatted for easy reference.
All that’s left for you to do is to bring the wizards’ goals into sharp conflict with the PCs and let the sparks fly!