#the misanthropic tech wizard

[fatedroses]

Mateus has escaped gpose hell, is now here to blast anyone he doesnt like (everyone)

[narsh-poptarts]

Old Man* OC Poll

*"old man" being more of a vibe rather than any indication of gender

just wanted to do this for fun haha more info about these guys under the cut

Andromedus (he/she/they) - genderfluid wizard acting as (unwilling) mentor to Barnes, a young apprentice who would very much like to learn magic please. A grumpy misanthrope who loathes having to interact with other people and ESPECIALLY with other mages. She's an incredible stickler for rules and procedures surrounding magic, because they know a mistake can change the result into something unpredictable or even dangerous. Believes in the art of experimentation and doing it well. They dabble in all things potion, illusion, divination, and other Stereotypical Merlin-level Magic not specified. Despite a generally cold exterior, does have a heart of gold somewhere in there. Does genuinely care despite what most people might think, though the approach to this usually has a lack of compassion (except on rare occasions).

Belongs to my wizard+apprentice story I'm temporarily calling Cursed Apprentice (I'm so bad at titles)

Bartholemew "Art" Hykes (he/him) - chief forgemaster of the Carapace Knights, soldiers that don pieces of the large locusts and bugs that terrorize the land in an effort to fight back. The integration of these pieces into armor must be highly monitored to prevent a host take-over of the Knight, and Art is in charge of manufacturing these pieces to their perfection. Uses the nectar sourced from the Locusts to power the forges and after decades of work has gone blind from working so directly with it. A man of few words and fewer cares to give, can occasionally be found grumbling over the state of the world and how they're not ever in a position to be called "winning" against the locusts, but as long as he's got a job, there's not too much to complain about. Wishes the Carapace Knights would be a little less headstrong and worry more about how they're always at risk of being taken over by the Hive.

Belongs to my medieval dragon-slayer type story I'm temporarily calling Locust

Ulada Vertison (she/her) - one of the last remaining mechanics that has a fascination with tech from the old world and is willing to tinker with it along with the new. Was the one to repair the Robot and give it the ability to interact with the rest of the new world and sent it on its way. Has a penchant for stupid jokes and "positive attitudes", much to her assistant's chagrin. Approaches most things like a mad scientist with too much time on their hands and the soul of an old woman. (That is, diving head-first into experimental technology with a grin and emerging out the other side pinching the "experiment's" cheeks and checking to see if it eats enough). On the shorter side of stature, but that's okay, her large assistant has more than enough height for the two of them, he can be the one to fetch the stuff on the upper shelves (and the lower shelves, and the stuff from across the room, and hey also sweep the floor. She's got a bad back, don't you know!)

Belongs to my scifi post apocalyptic robot story I'm temporarily calling Mezzanine

[supersexyactioncomics]

We need to wind back the wizard clock, no more precocious lil magic babies... wizards are weird old bastards with power over reality itself who've grown so entitled to the world bending to there whim that they, without fail, end up either trying to conquer the world or become immortal at the cost of others. Everyone assumes they are super geniuses just because they mastered one weird domain of knowledge and their followers are lapdogs and bootlickers who think that cause this dude has a tower and can read that makes him a good candidate for god-king. Wizards are tech bros, there politicians, they're the rich stem kid who thinks he's better than everyone else because he's a misanthrope. "Are there good wizards?" is a question as laughable as "are there good billionaires?" some are better than others sure but any wizard who was actually decent would have long since ceased being a wizard. I'm saying it's time to re-conan the genre. There is a criminal critique of the "blood and thunder" subgenre of fantasy that says that because wizards are smarty pants and conan is a big dumb dumb that "wizards evil" is an anti-intellectual position. But fuck that, we live in a world ruled by people like elon musk and jeff bezos and bill gates and mark zuckerberg. "Guy with higher education who looks smart" is both not an actual signifier of any real cleverness and even if it was when did we decide that being "intelligent" makes you so much better than everyone else that you can rule the world and everyone who isn't "intelligent" should just shut the fuck up and lick their boots.

Conan isn't a fool, he just doesn't have the trappings of higher education and is a little blunt and to the point. A generation of privileged nerds read Conan and thought "I can't relate to this physically strong rural yokel with a background of suffering and tragedy but I do relate to the privileged nerd who uses esoteric knowledge to secure wealth and power beyond anyone's wildest imagination and then proceeds to vindictively and misanthropicly wield that power over a world he thinks he's better than. Wouldn't it be better if the smart people were in charge and no Conan's came to kill them and steal there treasure?" And now we have a media atmosphere of Harry Potters. Where the superhero headlining marvel for the longest time was Iron Man (not a wizard but a rich smart guy who leverages that wealth and intelligence into inventions that may as well be magic). Midichlorians went from an embarrassing mistake in Star Wars lore to something nerds will cite defensively as they vigorously defend the idea that the force is a congenital superpower and not a spiritual practice.

All our heroes are intrinsically, essentially better than us. There not meant to be achievable, you aren't supposed to make the world a better place- your job is to lick elon's boots and watch as he "saves the world", you worthless peasant. Heck Conan himself often gets flanderized from "a strong, willful, opportunist who seizes every advantage he can get" to "the strongest man ever".

Conan knows exactly what needs to be done to nerdy old dudes with a false sense of superiority. Conan isn't trying to save the world but he'll do it by accident because it turns out contempt for magic is exactly what the world needs.

To quote the only good line from an otherwise awful movie "You know what? Fuck magic"

“what if people were racist towards wizards?” asks Hollywood for the nth time.