Wizard for Charity: What would you do?

[Saigonnus]

If I was going to have a pro-bono wizard like that; and according to the way my magic works in my principal WIP, likely it would come down to making things and giving them away to people in need. Examples might be:

Insect/vermin repelling charms
Containers enchanted to produce clean water on command
Flat stones enchanted to produce heat for warmth or for cooking
Light producing crystals
Wards against earthquakes/disease etc.
Healing potions/curatives
Blood Purifying Charms

 

[Devor]

Thinking about it a little more . . . .

I think I would have a wizard use magic to try and make an impression, get people to listen, and then use that attention to teach good farming techniques. "You liked my fire display? Here, take these seeds, they're magic . . . . if you grow them every third harvest, they'll make your other harvests more bountiful. They're called peanuts."

 

[ecdavis]

In the books in my series, there is a 'school' of Magic they call "practical magic" and those who engage in it are casting spells for the ease of the population. Sort of like a substitute for technology. Spells that cast insects and vermin out of inns and businesses, lighting spells cast on objects to give smoke free lighting. A large box with an ice-based spell cast upon it to act as a freezer for meat. Of course all of these work only with a spell that makes them permanent and that is where the 'practical magicians' make their living. It is costly and takes quiet a bit of time to cast it.

Some of them do charitable castings. I think this would be a logical evolution in a world where magic was powerful. As a result, it becomes instead of 'steam-punk' more of a 'arcane-punk' sort of world.

As far as charity, think of all the Clerics/healers in most fantasy settings. Especially the 'lawful good' ones (to coin a RPG term). Charity would be expected of them. If they were buddies with a wizard of the same spiritual belief system they had, it would seem logical and natural that they would be doing charitable acts all over and relieving a lot of suffering.

But then you run into the problem of a utopia where magic solves most of the problems. No disease, no famine, all due to the group of kindly mages and clerics who go around preventing trouble.

So it would have to be carefully balanced, either by very costly or complicated castings of spells, or opposition from diabolical groups that cause grief and harm.