"What?" you cry. "Wizards sometimes must endure torture?" And it is
true, for being a wizard does not exempt you from any of the trials and
tribulations experienced by other humans.
But I would ask you to consider just what you mean by "torture." What of
those occasions when you save a kingdom and then are forced to sit there and
listen for hours to endless numbers of boring elected officials extolling
your praises while the kingdom's tax collectors repossess nine-tenths of
what you gainfully earned at your task? Is this not torture? What about the
times when you are on the verge of creating a spell that will give you inner
peace at last and your spouse bursts into your study and tells you to clean
up the mess because all of your in-laws are coming to stay for three weeks,
and we will have to set up a bed in here because Aunt Sadie needs a place to
sleep? Is this not torture? And say you are attending a wizard's convention
and are sure that your gold production spell will win first prize in the
competition, and then they give the award to the animal husbandry spell of
some part-time wizard because the judge has a particular fondness for pigs?
Is this not -- but why belabor the obvious? By now you surely see my point.
Laugh in the face of torture! It is, after all, no worse than what they do
to you every other day of the week.
-- Ask Ebenezum: The Greatest Wizard in the Western Kingdoms
-- Answers the Four Hundred Most Asked Questions about Wizardry, 4th edition
Wizards are constantly subject to negative publicity. A case in point. One
elderly wizard of my acquaintance, whenever he was bothered by unexpected
guests, would immediately cast one of three spells upon them, either turning
them to stone, transforming them into segmented worms, or blasting them
entirely out of the kingdom....
