#What's sexier than wizards? Nothing

[ne0n-and-fucking-garbage]

I blacked out for three hours and came out with like, 15 of these Shadowgast lino prints in all the colors of the rainbow

sooooo if you want one dm me ig

[otdderamin]

Fiction C2 Post-Campaign Caleb's Fancy Magic

Summary:

Essek contemplates Caleb's casting style and what it can teach him about his own path forward.

Also on AO3

What if casting spells doesn't actually have to be very elaborate and Caleb Widogast is just super showy and extra. Like a musician who likes to play at open mics and it's the most mind-blowing thing you've ever heard, but that's just how he is by default. 

And Essek, who used to clothes shop from fashion shows and wear this stuff to buy milk at the grocery store at 10 pm, took one look at his style and just instantly fell in love. 

Magic doesn't have to be that elaborate and showy, especially for every little spell, but Caleb imbues each flourish with the love of creation. The love of weaving the energy of the cosmos into his designs. 

So much magical research gets so rote and utilitarian. The most probing experiments with the Beacons were the only things that felt so delicate and beautiful. Unlocking that love for what it's out there. And here's this man who does it for a Cat's Paw spell. Who has, in fact, taken an ordinary spell like Bigby's Hand and remade it to reflect what he loves in life for no utility but beauty and expression. 

That thing Essek has been driving himself to destruction to find is right there in the most ordinary light spells. How could Essek resist giving Caleb access to his own knowledge and spells just to see what he will do with them? How he will shape them? How he will reinvent them like a fine chef that makes even a simple dish an extraordinary experience? 

And Caleb is not doing this only for his own power, but what he could do to help others with it. Caleb is also generous in what he teaches. Essek has never had someone to just explore what's possible and try things with. Work out the math. See how things connect. Who's excited by that instead of bored. Someone who loved the learning as much as the abilities and results. 

And maybe also someone who knows when to stop. When to get tea and a snack. When to fill your cup with sitting on a couch by the fire reading something totally unrelated for pleasure. Because there's always some aspect of the world you've forgotten to account for, and it's not in research books. It's more essential. It's dinner with friends and silly games and deciding there are shapes in the stars only you have shared seeing. 

And even on the run, living a double life of disguises, how could Essek stay away too long from the man who grounds him in what is real? Who reminds him of the small beauties in all their rituals. Who reminds him why all of this is worth it now when it would be so easy to feel hopeless. 

Caleb's magic wasn't always like this. He had staved off boredom in the Sanitarium for a decade reimagining his spells in his head. When he escaped he finally got to test them and polish them. It was also cover. People knew Bren's style. They didn't know Caleb's. They couldn't see Bren's teacher's idiosyncrasies in them or mark him as from the Academy so easily. 

Caleb has gotten to a place where he no longer feels the need to run and hide. He's no longer being hunted for what he did. Maybe one day he can expose what Ludinus did to Essek, too, and that Essek doesn't deserve death for his part. That he's been doing other restorative work and growing. But not today. 

So Essek leans into how Caleb hid. He starts to figure out who he is and take on his own casting style. Modify his own spells. For the first time make things his own instead of a stripped down sleek efficient version. It's harder than he expects. It demands he figures out who he wants to really be when he's not mimicking what will impress others the most. 

Caleb helps him. Essek watches his sweet, definite hands trace manic through the air. Listens to Caleb teach him what each flourish is doing and why. Essek is entranced by it, and no one's been so entranced with why he does things for himself. There's a deep intimacy and knowing to it. Mapping out the shape of each other's minds. Even the broken shale slag parts.

Caleb jokes about how pumice stone is birthed in fire and toxic pressured gases, but finds new life in conscious hands scrubbing away dead skin to help new life grow unburdened. They were made in rough places and they have been rough, but they can also be used gently and achieve soft things. Carrying pouches of bat guano and running it up your arm is a little weird, but there's some essential spark even in cave shit.

Caleb grows his green beans to remind him what else he's growing. Essek doesn't put down the same roots, but he has an instinct for returning. A migratory bird who knows where his places are, even if he only lingers for a while.

Tonight Caleb has returned and Essek has returned and they have stories to tell about their adventures. Caleb will describe his magic and any new things he tried. Essek will sit with a nice glass of wine conjured from his memories and listen and watch the way Caleb's eyes light up and the way his hands move through his gestures and trace parts of spells. He will feel safe and content even knowing like a spell that it will not last, but it will call some magic of the universe forth that only they ever knew was there.

That is enough when even the things he loved were so cold, so made for someone else or to breeze through them unthinking. Now he is thinking about all of it just for himself. Just for them to understand. And that feels so much healthier. To find the thing he chases so relentlessly, just to see was right in front of him through Caleb's eyes.

[mbirnsings-71]

GNAWS GOD I LOVE SHADOWGAST THANK YOU JAY

Wizards✨️

[quiddie]

I mean…😶

[jiru-chan]

Love me some shadowgast!

Especially with the new lore popping up which makes me so happy!

Guess it’s time to commence with my newest cross-stitch project!

When it’s complete, it’ll be approximately:

9x16.6 inches on 18 count

50,500 stitches

Pattern created by me~

[synecdoch]

hey guys I'm alive (thanks to matthew mercer)

[fjorests-of-wildemount]

This seems relevant again today lol

Caleb Widogast, known wizard-attracted bisexual disaster, would be SO hot for Laerryn Coramar-Seelie, I can't believe I've never thought of this before.

[tinysluttywizardwaist]

@quiddie is just like me fr

[mary-claire-art]

My first Worlds Beyond Number fanart!

This moment was amazing, congrats wizards Sky!

@quiddie

(sound on!! watch until the end please, it's a really cool scene)

[wolfgirlstuart]

“What’s sexier than wizards? NOTHING!” 💜

Happiest of birthdays to Milo @_maple.pokii_ !! 💜🥳🥰

Essek ‘hot boi’ Thelyss will always be my favourite NPC in campaign 2!! Love that socially awkward drow with my entire LIFE!!! 😭😭😭 I need to draw him MORE he was so fun to DESIGNNN!!! 🥰💜

>Instagram< >Bluesky< >Twitter< >DeviantArt<

[jupiter-trash]

[artplague]

📞Guten Tag Caleb. Hier in Aeor ist Donnerstag🏔️

It's Thursday! here's the doodles from Essek's first reappearance as I figured out how to draw him 💜

[glyphknight]

**Hey, friends. What are you planning to do this Apogee Solstice?**

Essek: Knitting furiously to distract me from the temptation to do something very ambitious and stupid and wonderful and I wonder what possibilities...? Maybe we can make a time-warp demiplane and finally learn the secrets of the Lux…no no no! Help Caleb. I’m just helping Caleb. But we could probably look into a few things together. That should be fine…right…?

Yussa: Oh, I am 100% making my own time warp demiplane. *is already casting*

Ludinus: Releasing a god-eater that haunts the moon so I can kill all the gods. This will definitely go exactly as planned and not have any massive collateral damage. And if it does kill a bunch of innocent people or ruin the world as we know it it’ll be worth it. Even though I’ve left a long trail of accidental collateral damage over the past century alone, the face-eating red moon leopard will definitely not eat my face because I am a genius. No, I am not being manipulated. That is preposterous. I refer you to my previous statement regarding my genius.

Astrid: Tapping into my inner Laerryn-meets-Portia to learn some great arcane feat for myself and make my mark on history and also situate myself to take over the Assembly if Ludinus ever gets his face eaten off by some metaphorical or literal magical face-eating leopard. Also spying on literally everyone. (But that’s just a Tuesday for me.)

Caleb: Ja, well, I had wanted to study Leylines and perhaps make a new rainbow castle on another plane for my friends, but I guess I’m stopping all these ****ing wizards now.

Allura: I am also stopping the wizards. *sigh* Kima, I’ll be home late…

Planerider Ryn: I did my part. Got turned into a statue. Think I'm gonna vacay in the Astral Sea for a bit.

Eadwulf: *somewhere, holding a very powerful mysterious glowing MacGuffin that just revealed itself with the coming of the Solstice* *stares at it* Ja, cool. *pockets it*

[friendlygiantmushroom]

ok but where's the bat guano?

(seriously though this is amazing)

This box contains every material component for every wizardcastable can trip in D&D 5th edition. It also contains a book I put together with every verbal and somatic component described. I also made some Scrolls of identify because pearls and feathers are too fun to not have in a box of components. Detail pictures in the next reblog.

[wetcatspellcaster]

Everytime I go to Lenores tower in the underdark and talk to Bernard, it evokes such strong melancholic feelings. It's my favourite place in bg3

hey anon! I agree :) I like the wizard tower as a trope because it leads to the question of why a person would choose to be so isolated, and I really loved Lenore's tower and library and constructs for this reason

my favourite place in bg3 is the mushroom colony but i think that's just bc my D&D game has a bioluminescent underdark society so i felt very seen