This entry is part 2 in the series Character Hooks
A magic tome speaks to the wizard and tells him to do things at night.

A magic tome speaks to the wizard and tells him to do things at night in exchange for the promise of great future power.

The following ideas could be used for player characters stuck on a PC background and purpose. Game masters could also use them for interesting NPC wizard hooks. If you have any ideas for more hooks, just comment below, maybe we’ll get to 100.

  1. Master’s experiment goes wrong, transforming the PC and cursing the master. PC quests for way to save master’s plight.
  2. To become powerful enough to destroy an evil artifact that has cursed his family for generations.
  3. Impress the local village beauty with wizardly power and marry her.
  4. Bend a powerful, named demon to his service for 100 years.
  5. Seeks immortality, not just for self, but for ailing mother as well.
  6. Raised and trained in a horrible wizard school, he yearns to return a hero with great powers and lord it over his teachers and former fellow students.
  7. To become a god, but not just any god. He wants to stage a coup against the god of magic and control the entire domain himself.
  8. An evil despot enslaved his family. He will pay.
  9. To uncover a whole new source of magic (via a rules supplement you’ve been dying to try out).
  10. He does not understand his powers. They seem to happen at random or when he’s in great danger. Perhaps he will one day learn to control his gift.
  11. To become a benevolent master of several worthy apprentices.
  12. To found a significant and powerful school of magi.
  13. To master the art of magic item creation and quests for ways to make the process quicker and easier.
  14. His master and fellow apprentices were attacked by powerful creatures and whisked away. It’s up to the character to find out where they are being kept and to free them.
  15. To attain the power of wish and use it to undo a great wrong the PC has committed.
  16. The character desires to master illusion to become a spy for the arch-magi.
  17. Magic is dying, fading. The mage must discover the source of magic, learn why it’s diminishing and restore it.
  18. A race of strange creatures who feed and grow on magic are hunting wizards and magic items for food.
  19. The character wants to create an artifact to solve the problem another hook in this list poses.
  20. A thief broke into the master’s tower and stole a powerful item. The PC has been tasked with the item’s return.
  21. The PC is being forced into marriage against his will. He flees instead, determined to use his wits and growing magic powers to make a name for himself in the world.
  22. The character found a scroll long ago with magic writing on it. So far he’s been unable to read it, but it promises to reveal incredible secrets and knowledge. The PC searches for a means to read the scroll.
  23. A mysterious order has recruited the PC in its fight against a powerful cabal.
  24. The PC’s family serves a nearby wizard enclave’s mundane needs. Now that the character has shown some magical aptitude, he’s been assigned the role of ambassador to help with village-magi issues in exchange for ongoing training.
  25. The PC has discovered a secret path to a strange realm and wants to explore it, but he cannot do it alone as the realm seems dangerous.
  26. The PC has learned of overlaps between planes and dimensions and seeks these areas out to explore possible treasures hidden within.
  27. The wizard yearns for fame as the scribe of the world’s most powerful spells.
  28. The identity of the PC’s master remains a secret, and the missions he sends the character on are bizarre, but there must be a grand plan behind everything, which the PC is determined to discover.
  29. The PC wants to travel the planes and explore places never seen before with civilized eyes.
  30. An ancient prophecy predicts a dangerous result but great rewards, and the mage is determined to make the prophecy come true.
  31. The character wishes to learn the source of magic – and then control it.
  32. The PC’s bullying brother is also a wizard but much more powerful, and the PC needs to protect his parents and other siblings from the brother’s brutal ways.
  33. The wizard seeks magic power to gain temporal wealth and mundane power to rule a region.
  34. The PC wants to build a society of scribes who trade knowledge, incantations and scrolls throughout the realm – and to also act as an organisation that fights against evil/good/an enemy.
  35. The character wants to setup a simple alchemist shop, brew potent potions and become a secret power who manipulates the nobility.
  36. The mage quests to learn a whole new type of magic and bring it back to the King to protect the small kingdom from its many enemies.
  37. A demon killed the wizard’s master and the PC now seeks the creature’s identity, its home base, and a way to kill it.
  38. A cult bearing torches and pitchforks drove the magus out of his village and left him to die in the forest. The PC wishes to return some day to drive the cult out so he can be with his family again.
  39. With a lust for magic items, the wizard seeks to collect one of every type of magic ring.
  40. He longs to start a travelling road show that delights folk with the strange monsters, cruel traps and wondrous magic he encounters in his travels and explorations.
  41. He inherited a mighty artefact yet cannot determine how to tap into any of its powers. He must keep the artefact a secret while pursuing all options to learn how to unleash the item’s abilities.
  42. The fledgling wizard has six powerful spells he desires to someday master (such as invisibility, teleportation, etc.) as a matter of personal style (think themed comic book hero or villain).
  43. To graduate from the school where the PC has become an exceptional student, custom dictates he duel another graduating student to the death. The PC has exercised an obscure rule that allows him a two year sabbatical to give him time to gain more power on his own and ponder what he will do.
  44. A secret order of magi who serve the emperor has told the PC he will join their ranks, but the PC has no desire to become a magical assassin and has evaded their recruiters…so far.
  45. The wizard’s youngest sibling summoned a being from another plane who escaped his shackles and now roams free in the land, killing and sowing misery. The being has sworn vengeance upon the character’s entire family.
  46. The spellcaster wishes to merely be an entertainer who uses his abilities to amaze audiences, but the Bard’s Guild forbids magic use and is watching the caster carefully.
  47. The wizard’s noble upbringing gave him the life-long services of a humble servant who is secretly a spy and who has been responsible for many of the PC’s conflicts while growing up without the PC realizing it.
  48. The wizard’s family worships a god who opposes magic, and now the PC is being hunted by his own relatives.
  49. The god of magic is actively trying to recruit the PC, going to more extreme lengths each attempt.
  50. The character craves to join an elite group of warrior mages but he is not tough enough, so the mage quests for ways to make him stronger and a better fighter.
  51. The mage is cursed and is one of the rare few who can fumble while casting spells. (While the PC quests for ways to remove the curse, the DM should make up a fumble chart.)
  52. A battlemage since birth, he is tired of war and went AWOL a few weeks ago. He is uncertain if the military hunts him, but if so, there will be other battlemages as part of the hunting unit(s).
  53. The wizard wants to assemble a great library of arcane knowledge and hire sages and scribes, but agents from the Library of Lore plan to sabotage his efforts and steal away any scrolls and books of value.
  54. With intentions of founding a new arcane guild, the character has created an order that uses colours of robes and styles of hats to establish a hierarchy, but enemies see this as a way to identify the most valuable targets.
  55. The character has studied the planes all his life and now recruits companions to explore legendary locations.
  56. A villain amasses a strange retinue of monsters that the PC has learned consists of thought eaters, rust monsters, disenchanters and other threats to knowledge and lore.
  57. An ancient tome, that has fallen into a young wizard’s hands, describes the incredible and powerful properties of rare herbs whose locations are remote and dangerous.
  58. The character seeks to make his name famous and synonymous with high quality and powerful magic items that he will some day learn to craft.
  59. In a terrifying discovery, the hapless mage now knows the true name of a powerful devil.
  60. Magical locks are his specialty, and he makes good coin with his security services, but when a rash of thefts from his clients occurs, fingers begin to point at him.
  61. The character specializes in breaking magical locks, bypassing arcane barriers and solving the most diabolical guarding puzzles. A villain who depends on his magical defenses targets the mage and his associates to rid himself of a potential security threat.
  62. What would you do with knowledge of crafting various types of golems faster, cheaper or with new capabilities?
  63. The mage wishes to make his young warrior companion the King so he can become the power behind the throne.


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