D&D 5E (2024) Here's The New 2024 Player's Handbook Wizard Art

 

[MNblockhead]

Prediction: any cleric illustrations will avoid colours associated with real world religions.

How would that be possible? They'll likely avoid actual well-recognized vestments associated with well-known religions, but to avoid whole color palettes?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Well, lessee what the criticisms seem to be shall we? A quick recap:

1. This is a fantasy version of Storm from Marvel. Well, she does have white eyes and she is flying... and... well... she's black. Other than that?
2. This is too superhero because of the pose. Again, how many different ways do we show someone without wings flying? This is pretty much the standard pose for anyone depicted flying in any genre.
3. She's "hypersexualized". That's a fun one. Fully clothed is hypersexualized?
4. Too anachronistic.
5. Too clean.

Did I miss any?

You missed the one that I object to the most: That it's "Not D&D".

And the related argument, that it's "too MTG".

Which of course, misses the fact that (whether you like it or not) Magic worlds ARE D&D worlds now.

I mean, for all we know she is fully intended to be a Stryxhaven Wizard!

I perfectly appreciate, and even relate to, the idea that it might not be one's preference. But what you prefer, and what IS D&D, is two different things. D&D, to me, has to belong to a lot of people and not just me. I don't play Magic, and I haven't played D&D on a Magic world - but it's okay for a D&D Wizard to look like she belongs on a Magic card.

 

[Yaarel]

The magus' eyebrow rose at Kulu's words, watching as he pointed at the platinum coin. Once it lit up, she devolved into giggles, "I do love this spell. Statistically, from your words, you would have chosen the gold coin. You must have a very kind heart for this to be so important to you." After she stopped giggling she tapped her chin, "Now, how to honor your dedication, since you won't let me study you or your more interesting companions..."

She swayed back and forth muttering to herself, "No, they'd kill you for that. That would take too long. What about, no, wrong season..." she traced glyphs in the air, which spun like the gears of a great machine. Within seconds, she was all but cocooned in magical lights, "Tainted data. I'd get an earful. I wouldn't be able to sneak a cream puff. Oh!" The powerful mage snapped her finger and the sigils shifted into a single point.

Nice.

People seem to want this character to be very grounded in the magic they are doing, less flashy, more subtle.

Heh, some players are annoyed she isnt throwing darts or shooting heavy crossbows, like the good ole Wizards did back in the days.

 

[Hussar]

7? On first glance the white and gold made me think cleric.

Right. Sorry, yes. Forgot that one. Gold and white are somehow cleric colors.

 

[Gradine]

Right. Sorry, yes. Forgot that one. Gold and white are somehow cleric colors.

Where's everyone seeing gold and white? Her dress looks blue and black to me

 

[pemerton]

I notice from your chart that MUs are not anywhere near the oldest, either - that's Clerics, by an absolute mile!

Not the human ones.

And the ridiculously old Dwarven, Elven and Gnomish clerics are all NPCs. These weren't playable options at the time that chart was published. (UA changed their playability, but not the chart.)

 

[MNblockhead]

Was in training all week. I saw Jack Vance's Dying Earth series brought up. Since Gary claims Vance as a bigger influence on D&D than Tolkien (though I take his denials of Tolkien's influence with big grain of salt), it is interesting to consider how Wizards are depicted in Vances works. In short, the depictions are all over the map. Well, at least for MALE magic users. Sorceresses/witches tend to be quite sexulized in the Dying Earth Series.

Note that the Dying Earth books seem to describe a strong gender division among Magic users. Perhaps the in-world explanation is that this is that this is due to the War of the Wizards and Witches (which the witches won BTW, leading Llorio to rule as basically a goddess for an epoch) and Sorceress Llorio, also known as the Murthe, who travelled back through time, turning famous wizards from that time into women. She is referred to as a sorceress. The use of "sorceress" just seems to be a gender difference. Wizards in Dying Earth are also alternatively referred to as "sorcerers" or "magicians". The Master Magicians and Great Witches rivaled each other in power, so I don't think the terms point to any D&D-style class difference, other than being gender-based terms for magic users.

In Rhialto the Marvellous, the fourth book of Vance's Dying Earth series, there are a lot of wizard characters. Their descriptions are all over the place. Unlike the Wizard protagonists of the earlier books, the Wizards in the association of Wizards whose exploits are told in this book have god-like power. These are the 4th-tier PC wizards if comparing to D&D. Except, they don't appear to be hindered by the same spell-memorization limitations described in the earlier books. Maybe they just have a lot of spell slots. Maybe their powers have increased beyond "Vancian magic" limitations.

The titular Rhialto is described as a slim man with short black hair and austere features, who wears ostentatious, ornate clothing and is popular with women.

Rhialto on the cover of the French edition:

Descriptions of other wizards of the association include "portly, bald middle-aged man with blue eyes and blond whiskers, which he habitually tugs at when vexed" (Ildefonse); "short and squat with a great puff of white hair" (Barbanikos); "affects an appearance which is, from head to toe, half-white and half-black, split vertically down the center" (Eshmiel); "wears the appearance of a nature-god with fine features and bronze curls" (Hache-Moncour); "appears as a wisp, an aquatic humanoid with green skin and orange willow-leaves for hair" (Haze of Wheary Water); "a small man with large gray eyes in a round gray face, always attired in rose-red garments" (Gilgad); "robust of body with long brown hair and a flowing beard" (Zilifant); "whose iron fingernails and toenails are engraved with curious signs" (Zahoulik-Khuntze), etc. See Foreward, Vance, Jack. Rhialto the Marvellous (The Dying Earth series Book 4) . Tor Publishing Group. Kindle Edition; also Rhialto the Marvellous - Wikipedia.

One of my favorite depictions of a wizard from the Dying Earth setting is from George Barr's cover art for the '76 printing of Dying Earth.

The cover of the original paperback of the first book, Dying Earth, depicts a female caster. I don't know who it is supposed to depict. I'm guessing one of witches encountered in the story:

Some of my favorite art of characters from the Dying Earth books:

Fanart of sorcerer Pharesm from Cudgel the Clever. "Up the trail came a man of imposing stature wearing a voluminous white robe. His countenance was benign; his hair was like yellow down; his eyes were turned upward as if rapt in the contemplation of an ineffable sublimity. His arms were sedately folded, and he moved without motion of his legs."

Imagining the Dying Earth

Illustration for Jack Vance's Tales of the Dying Earth by Dark Prince Skye / Skye Sken / Heikki Kuusipalo.

www.skyesken.org

By Tom Kidd. "Mazirian feeding the carnivorous plants he created in his lab right before T'sain lures him away. From the 2013 Subterranean Press edition." Dying Earth by Jack Vance: Mazirian in his Garden, in Arrik Un Rama's Jack Vance Comic Art Gallery Room

Dying Earth by Jack Vance: Turjan in his lab. Published in the 2013 Subterranean Press edition.

Illustration for the story Abrizonde, in Songs of the Dying Earth.

Illustration for The Lamentably Comical Tragedy of Lixal Laqavee, same book.

Illustration from The Return of the Fire Witch

 

[Paul Farquhar]

How would that be possible? They'll likely avoid actual well-recognized vestments associated with well-known religions, but to avoid whole color palettes?

It wouldn't be easy, but then not all religions go in for the significant colours thing anyway.

 

[pemerton]

*In my opinion; The art direction from Wotc has been gradually turning away from the traditional pseudo medieval fantasy aesthetic of D&D. So there will be inevitable pushback from people that like the traditional D&D aesthetic, and praise from people that like the fantastical look that seems to be currently embraced.

Why is that pushback inevitable? You have the books with the art that you like? What's it to you that some new books get published with different art?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If you look at the very early D&D art, it's mostly black and white, so we can't be sure of the colours. However, the standard Magic User look was clearly inspired by Merlin in Disney's 1963 The Sword in the Stone. So we can guess it is meant to be blue. Cleric illustrations are based on crusaders, especially Knights Templar and Hospitaler. They are shown wearing mail, covered by a surplus - presumably white, with a holy symbol, by inference, red.

The class that does traditionally wear white and gold (at least according to the Victorian revivalists) is the druid.