I’m writing a fantasy-themed game that’s going to revolutionize the boardgaming industry and leave me a disgustingly wealthy man, or, failing that, provide me with a cute little hobby from time to time. I need the help of a bunch of geeks (that being you guys) to come up with words for various types of wizard that can be linked to various broad types of ill-defined magic. Examples:
Necromancer - death magic
Shaman - nature magic
Illusionist - illusion magic
Elementalist - elemental magic (possible divided into pyromancer - fire magic, hydromancer - water magic and so on; terms for other elementalists welcome)
Hit me with what you got. A good word for a wizard doing “life magic” would be great, but anything your fevered minds can produce is welcome.
Just for shits & giggles, I got a list of Greek roots. Putting some of them together with “-mancer” (=“divination”, Greek), I get:
bibliomancer- using or controlling books
biomancer- controlling life
demomancer- controlling people (not demons)
not to be confused with dermomancer, controlling skin (to mimic other people, perhaps?)
Or, mimomancer- makin’ copies.
Geomancer- controlling earth
hypnomancer- controlling or inducing sleep
lithomancer- stone
morphomancer- controlling form (oooh, cool!)
philomancer- controlling love
phonomancer- sound
photomancer- light (like Dazzler in the Marvel universe, eh?)
A few of the AD&D specialists haven’t been mentioned so far:
Abjurer - protection magic
Conjurer - summoning creatures
Diviner - informational and observational magic
Enchanter - persuasive magic and/or imbuing inanimate objects with magical properties
Evoker - calling up essential forces and energies (some overlap with ‘elementalist’)
Transmuter - changing something into another
I could do the -mancer theme, but a lot of those sound so science-fiction-y (like biomancer, otherwise a good word) and if I do a lot of them the ones that aren’t -mancer are going to look out of place. I think I’ll stick with necromancer there.
Conjurer, diviner and enchanter are all excellent suggestions, thanks. I might use “summoner” over conjurer, though. Transmuter might make it.
Jinxster is a good little idea, if I can think up cool enough uses for “mischievous magic”.
To me, “Conjurer” would me more of a ‘guy who makes things appear out of thin air’ while a “Summoner” would be someone who makes living things come to him in a “what is your bidding, my master” kind of way.
Mancermancer. Does magic that affects magic.
Mancermancermancer. Does magic that affects magic that affects magic.
Mancermancermancermancer. You get the idea…