The Magician
Resourceful, Mastermind, Knowledgeable, Conman, Charlatan, Manipulator, Skillful, Collector, Yard-Sale, Who Wants to Buy a Double-Ended Buttplug?, Infinity-Brain, Also a Surprisingly Talented Gardener, We Are Number One
Now this is someone who’s got their ducks in a row. They’ve got all four of the Minor Arcana symbols on the table, there, arranged in front of them: cups, wands, swords, and pentacles.
The Magician is an operator, someone who is ready to take their complex plans and schemes and will them into fruition with a lot of tools and know-how. Thus the infinity, the ouroborous belt, the table full of tools, and the action pose.
A modern reimplementation of this card might be named “The Mad Scientist1” or “The Executive”.
It seems that the Magician — master of the occult in the modern Tarot — is derived from earlier versions of the card where they were a juggler, a mountebank, charlatan, a master of the cups-and-balls. Given my opinion of the nature of the occult, I don’t regard this as too far out-of-scope for the Magician. This is the card of a deceiver. They have a bridge to sell you.
The Wizard in the Wizard of Oz is a absolutely perfect Magician, for a number of reasons:
He’s manifested quite a lot of very impressive stuff out of sheer force of will.
He’s very technically competent.
It turns out, he’s completely full of shit.
Friends & Foes
an Unpredictable Engineer, with a workshop brimming with exciting tools that may or may not work.
a Stage Magician. That’s right, just... the thing it says right there on the card. Cards. Top hats. Abracadabra. Poof.
a Cryptid Collector, with a notepad (or laboratory) filled with wild and henceforth-unknown flora and fauna. May attempt to collect the player characters.
a Snake Oil Salesman rolls into town with a straw hat and sells miracle cures and curative elixers that (of course) do not actually do anything.
a Gentleman Thief, a smooth operator, cunning master thief, and magnificent bastard who has never been caught.
a Corrupt Chancellor, skillfully manipulating power from behind the scenes.
an Eternal Lich, willing to put anything and everything on line in service of their own quest for immortality.
a Cunning Witch, with tricks, curses, hexes, potions, and a very visible jar filled with assorted eyeballs.
Hooks
Your players must accumulate a collection of powerful objects2:
i. A powerful sword guarded by difficult puzzles. ii. A magical grail from a realm of literal nightmares. iii. A valuable treasure protected by a wealthy cartel. iv. The cudgel of the leader of a powerful tribe.
An important council vote is coming up! Your players are asked to influence an important councillor. This might involve blackmail, bribery, or intimidation.
In order to distract your players from an actual problem they should be solving, they have been sent on an impossible quest to find something called blinker fluid.
Locations
The Bazaar has about anything you could possibly want to buy, for prices you couldn’t possibly afford to pay. Some of the vendors only accept payment in incredibly obscure or abstract currencies, like “dreams” or “memories”.
The Hotel Ballroom has been rented out by a clever stranger with a unique sales pitch and a very memorable show.
The Potemkin Village looks like a town from the outside, but nobody lives there. Why, then, was it constructed?
The Mock Storefront appears to be a legitimate business, but serves mostly to conceal an entrance to a much more clandestine endeavor.
The Secret Laboratory, laden with vials, charts, notes, things preserved in liquid, and incomprehensible machinery.
Okay, I’m having trouble coming up with a pithy name for this one, you know the Fireplace Near a Sconce And When You Pull On The Sconce The Fireplace Spins Around Like a Trap Door, that thing. One of those.
Treasures
The Manifold Multi-Tool has seemingly every tool that you can imagine packed into one compact, convenient package.
The Eternal Handkerchief is tied to another handkerchief, which is tied to another handkerchief, which is tied to another handkerchief...
The Disappearing Act blanket can cause the things it covers to become invisible, very briefly.
Names
Celeste, Millicent, Glinda, Cereza, Ashley, Elphie, Ursula, Wanda, Agatha, Sarah, Samantha, Dion, Beryl, Circe, Lydia, Harry, Frank, Siegfried, Penn, Fergus, Ponzi, Willy,