Mad Wizard Did It!

Or a demented godling.

This list, culled from a variety of sources, is pretty freaking awesome reading. The comic linked at the bottom pretty much explains everything.

Mad Wizards and Demented Godlings*

There is a reason why my players - including those who run wizards - claim you can't trust any wizards.

To add a few the author, Max, didn't get to because they're from other, non-D&D and non-Palladium sources:

As-Sharak (Dungeon Fantasy 2: Dungeons): "The as-Sharak are elemental sorcerers who sold their souls for power . . . only to be turned into monsters in Hell and returned to the living world to punish similarly arrogant mortals."

Eye Entity (Rolemaster Creature & Monsters): "Eye Entities are formed through a magical ritual and a foul alchemical process [. . . ]"

Eye of Death (Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 1): "It’s also known that reckless wizards
sometimes summon eyes of death into this world."

Flaming Skull (Dungeon Fantasy 2: Dungeons): "The jury is out on whether they’re necromantic creations or free-willed evil spirits who loathe mortals."

Gladiator Ape (Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 1): "Not every mad wizard or strange civilization is satisfied with mere flesh-eating apes (Dungeons, p. 23). These flesheaters have been bred as vicious combatants."

Golem-Armor Swordsman (Dungeon Fantasy 2: Dungeons): "This construct consists of a flesh golem – made from a formerly living swordsman – riveted inside solid metal plates that are also animated, thereby augmenting strength."

Lich (Rolemaster Creature & Monsters): "When confronted by unavoidable death, most Evil Clerics, Evil Magicians, and Sorcerers depart life with one last, dreadful curse. A few forgo this privilege to become Undead, securing immortality as liches."

Shadows (Rolemaster Creature & Monsters): "Shadows are the result of a horrible ritual known only to a few Necromancers and recorded in only the most despicable tomes of vile knowledge."

The Rolemaster ones are supported by many more, as are the GURPS ones. I only picked a few examples from DFM1. My examples don't even scratch the surface of the evidence that, basically, wizards are d***s. Mad gods, not much better.


* By the way, I love that he, too, colored in his monster manuals. Here is my Fiend Folio.