Prismatic Wasteland

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Wizard Diss Tracks

W. F. Smith

Everyone knows Bigby and Rary, both members of the legendary group, the Circle of Eight. But hardly anyone remembers their legendary beef. Bigby was an accomplished wizard, known for getting a bit handsy, while Rary became infamous for murdering renowned floating disk-jockey, Tenser. It was Rary’s fratricide of Tenser and Otiluke, both also members of the Circle of Eight, that spawned the beef.

Bigby didn’t take Rary’s betrayal lightly, quickly dropping Bigby’s Telepathic Band, which caused the same ballad to be played on repeat in the mind of the target. Morning, day, and night, Rary knew no peace, hearing songs in the artificial voices of the fallen archmages, Tenser and Otiluke. Of course, it was pure illusion.

In less than a fortnight, Rary struck back with Rary’s Irreversible Shrinking Hands. Rary had known Bigby for a considerable amount of time (after all, it was a young Rary who brought along Bigby on his first multiversal tour), so naturally knew Bigby to have some sensitivity regarding the size of his prodigious digits. 

Rary’s Irreversible Shrinking Hands shrinks the target’s hands, almost imperceptibly. However, the sinister aspect is that it causes all spells cast to enlarge the hands to fail, instead shrinking the hands further. To the consternation of clever casters, it does not have any impact on spells that would shrink hands, allowing those spells to maintain their original effect. As a result, if you, for instance, polymorph yourself into a squirrel, the hands don’t return to human size when the polymorph ends.  

A series of further spells followed these, until the wizards grew bored or embarrassed or just plain busy. Some say Bigby, sensing he was losing, asked Mordenkainen to intercede on his behalf and patch together a peaceful accord behind the scenes. But such occurrences between wizards of prominence are in no sense uncommon. This wasn’t even the only instance of such settling of beefs by diss spells (not to be confused with “dispel” magic) among the Circle of Eight (Otto vs Tenser, Mordenkainen vs Bigby, Mordenkainen vs Evard, etc.). 

Rules for Wizard Diss Spell Creation

Blogger’s Note: The following rules are compatible with the rules for “Creating a New Spell” contained in the absolutely must-have supplement, Downtime in Zyan, from my colleague Ben of the Mazirian’s Garden blog. An earlier version of these particular rules appeared in a post on the aforementioned blog.

When a wizard hates another wizard, they can use that hatred to fuel their magic. Such a wizard, if the referee is truly satisfied that the wizard is primarily developing the spell to thwart or annoy a rival with whom the wizard has beef, gains a +1 situational modifier to their rolls to develop the spell. If the rival wizard has previously developed a spell directed at hindering the researching wizard, the number of steps to develop the new spell is reduced by one step for each such diss spell that has been produced by the rival wizard (by no less than one). Any spell produced by this method will bear the name of the wizard who developed it.

Based on the above, wizard beefs can ramp up quite quickly once they begin. Wizards can start developing incredibly niche and aggravating spells in mere days rather than the ordinary process of months. This is why beefs and diss spells are both so dangerous and so tempting at the same time. Wizards who go at each other in such a way can quickly develop notoriety in the wizarding community but often to the dismay of those closest to them, who may suffer collateral damage from the diss spell arms race. 

Wizard Beefs

Wizards are petty creatures. It is why they are so often solitary, alone in their tower. When they congregate, they don’t remain amicable for long. When you are creating a wizard NPC, there is a 50% chance that they have another wizard they loathe entirely. If any of the player-characters are wizards, there is also a further 1-in-36 chance that they are the hated wizard. When the dice indicate there is a beef between two wizards, you may use the table below to generate a backstory behind the beef:

Art from my colleague, Hodag of the No Foes No Traps blog.

d66 Wizard Beefs

d66 Arcane Beef Origin
11 They were best buds at wizard boarding school and even partners in wizard tennis, but their close friendship was shattered by a messy love triangle.
12 A spat caused by one wizard calling the other wizard a grifter for trying to monetize his spell scroll business rather than doing it for the love of the game.
13 One wizard moved in next door to the other wizard and kept him up all night with his constant, outrageous magical experiments. After the first wizard tried snitching to the local lord, it was all over.
14 A respected elder wizard ignored a popular young mage in town, publicly dismissing him for “mimicking my whole style. Everyone knows I started stars and moons,” and alleging him to be using all of his signature cantrips.
15 A proud wizard dropped his first new grimoire in years expecting to earn great acclaim among his magical peers, only for his work to be largely ignored in favor of a new scroll of metamagic feats by the wealthier and better connected royal court mage.
16 One wizard would frequently, obnoxiously brag at court and among his peers about how successful and powerful he is despite none of his spells inflicting direct damage, finally causing a feared battle mage to research a new spell with the unique property of specifically and exclusively dealing damage to the first wizard.
21 One wizard stole the other wizard’s apprentice with promises of power and prestige. They then failed to deliver. The apprentice returned to the original wizard and continued to learn nothing.
22 After defeating a local (innocent) dragon together, one wizard claimed the entirety of the credit (and reward) much to the chagrin of the other.
23 One wizard had convinced the king that they were a “really great guy.” The second wizard arrived and, with a bonk of their staff, dispelled the mind-control spell. The king went from haggard to hot.
24 An old wizard, one of the greatest of all time, took great offense to the young hot shot up-and-coming kid wizard for dating their daughter.
25 One wizard cast a spell that completely removed an entire day from the calendar. It’s just gone. Forever. It was the other wizard’s birthday.
26 The Möbius beef: one doesn't even think of the other most days. But to acknowledge that the one has been sustaining this combat without animosity to fuel it would destroy the other's pride.
31 The one got Magic Missile into every curriculum in the land, relegating the other's (2nd-level, but conceptually pure) Magic Arrow to footnote status.
32 The one made the other travel to their tower to read a rare tome, and didn't allow the other to borrow it.
33 The one didn't do any work in a group project with the other at the wizard boarding school.
34 The one built their tower upstream of an important leyline in the other's tower.
35 The one directed a mob of angry villagers to the other's tower. So offended were the villagers near the other's tower at this invasion that they returned fire (and pitchforks). This was decades ago, now it's more like a bitter sports rivalry.
36 The one had only told lies and the other had only told the truth, until some wise-ass adventurer confused the shit out of the other and they gave up the whole game.
41 Disagreement over whether “please” actually counts as a magic word.
42 They broke each other’s wands (all their spells are now wonky).
43 One started dating the other’s homunculi.
44 Each is convinced the other stole their invisible familiar.
45 They both wanted to use the same abandoned wizard tower once held by a master wizard.
46 No actual beef–they’re just doing this for increased attention.
51 There weren’t enough spots in the semi-centennial wizard orgy for both of them and only one got to go.
52 Once is convinced the other is not a wizard at all but a thief with some clever tricks. The accused is being championed by one of their wizard friends–not because they can’t cast spells or anything.
53 Scholastic split over (a) whether Illusionists belong at the High Academy of Magic, and (b) whether the meeting at which the Illusionists vowed to open their own school actually happened.
54 An argument that came to blows over how Phantasmal Force works and what illusions even are.
55 One wizard had a dream in which his rival was a dickless puddle of slime. Unfortunately as wizard dreams often do it became real in the form of an alternate universe. The original and alternate versions of the rival are now taking the dreamer to wizard court for (checks notes) “demi-slander”.
56 Longstanding dispute over a division of treasure back when they were 2nd-level characters in the same adventuring party.
61 They collaborated on a spell, but after publishing the tome detailing the spell together, there were creative disagreements leading one wizard to make the spell legally distinct enough to avoid paying royalties to their collaborator.
62 Both wizards are nearly identical and were created by a duplication spell. Neither can agree who is the original.
63 Disagreement as to whether or not tomatoes count as vegetables or fruits when brewing potions.
64 One wizard is convinced the other is their best friend and really gets them, the other can't stand the first wizard's presence, opinions or habits and frequently plots revenge or tries to get out of any situation involving them.
65 Messy break-up between the two of them. They still live in the same tower though because neither can afford to move out. They probably still sleep together now and then.
66 They changed the damage type on their rival’s signature spell and renamed it for themselves.

The bulk of these entries were contributed by my colleagues at other blogs. Go check them out, read their posts, start arcane beefs with them.