Fluffing wizard experiments

[Pinjata]

Hey guys,

I have things techincally set up for my next short campaign, but I'd need some creative help with a question: What is wizard experimenting on?

Here is a the story: Wizard was performing experiments in his laboratory in a Large city. Experiments were going splendidly, but on more then one occasion, not-fully-sucessful experiments ran off among the general populace, have caused a number of serious afflictions and deaths. Thus, our wizard had moved into badlands and had inhabited previously uninhabited tower, where he continued experimenting.

A few miles off, there was a dirt-poor village and similar distance away a mining camp. As a bonus to wizard's tower, there was a large dungeon connected to it and wizard could funnel his unsucessful experiments into it. With all these precautions, things still did not go as planned. A few of "experiments" have roamed into both village and mining camp, have afflicted many people and forced them to flee.

My question is: What sort of things is wizard experimenting on?

Bonus points if you come up with a good cause as a final goal of his experiments.

thanks

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Growth serum is a classic. You can tell the PC's the town was dealing with dog sized rodents, but when they get to the lair of the wizard he's far enough along to have armies of monster ants and ticks roaming around. The final disaster could be a tarrasque sized (heavily fictionalized) almost invulnerable tardigrade bursting out of the ground below the lab.

The mine could also suggest an elemental motif, rock and coal and steel and even salt based monsters, some kind of golems or something. The wizards ultimate work could be bringing the mountain itself to life.

Plants are also always a classic, though not as fitting for the location.

[S@tanicoaldo]

He wanted to create perfect life but was only able to create incomplete monsters.

He started studying meter, so he created golems, from rock, minerals, flesh and organic.

Then he realized they were mindless so he started to study the mind, have a lab full of brains and viscera, maybe he used prisoners from the local authority, the king wanted them gone and he wanted living minds.

He created a being who had a body made of (____) and a mind but he had no soul and was unable to feel.

So he started dealing with necromancy, ghosts, spirits and souls.

He created a being with a spirit, mind and body but theorized that the soul was a cosmic spark created by the gods themselves.

He started to seek this spark, he wanted to emulate the way that gods did it so he started dealing with dimensional travel; he wanted to take a look at the vortex of life itself and end up stuck between realms.

Now that he's gone the experiments and running loose.

[Goaty14]

More spells to add to his spellbook, duh. That comes off as rather bland, so instead he's practicing his spells onto otherworldly beings (demons, devils, undead, etc) in order to improve his understanding of how magic interacts with the world (also explains the recent disappearance of cows -- those are viable lab rats too). PCs encountering such beasts have a random (rolled) spell effect on them permanently, for better or for worse.

Final goal: Perfect conjuration magicks to craft a sword that changes it's material and enhancements on command.

[Cespenar]

Youtube search "Darkest Dungeon Ancestor's Memoirs" for a slew of ideas and the awesome theatrics to accompany them.

Warning: It's a bit dark.

[Jay R]

If it's creating things that run off, then it's probably summoning or transformations.

Perhaps he's trying to improve on an owlbear, but wound up with these:

Spoiler: hippocat

Show

Spoiler: zebra ant

Show

Spoiler: duckhorse

Show

Spoiler: hummingdog

Show

[PastorofMuppets]

If you want a less sympathetic wizard make him a human obsessed with eternal life( a classic). He’s ruled out the usual live forever plan of lichdom as it lacks the “live” part. He experiments with anything that has lifedrain and level drain effects to try to create an actual youth draining spell so he can siphon life force/youth/time from others.

He also pursues alchemical means of prolonging himself. He pays slavers for long lived creatures like dwarves and elves to try and distill their long lifespans into some form he can imbibe to extend his lifespan. The slave catchers could be his guards and the escaped creatures wolves, bears or other animals that are disturbing druids in particular by being part elf or part dwarf, short angry bearded grizzly bears for example.

If the adventurers are high enough level he may even have some kind of draconic creatures hidden away or escaped since they too have famously long life spans,

[Bulhakov]

How about a "good" necromancer trying to create positive energy undead? His intentions are good (a necromancer can be seen as a healer that is very very late) but the failed effects range from funny to grotesque: roaming vitaghosts bringing random items alive (possibly providing false clues for the investigation), random ageing effects, chaotic regeneration, cancerous growths, animated skeletons in still living beings and finally Thing-like undead.

[VoxRationis]

Any delving into the wizard's lair will find only spells well-known to wizards across the land. What the absent arcanist was working on was knowledge of the true mechanics behind the spells: precisely what the differences are between living beings that transmutation spells emulate; why invisibility spells are able to interpret what kind of contact is "an attack," and how to strip away that function without making the spell higher-level; what principle it is that allows aiming of lightning-based spells (with the hope of making anti-lightning wards).

[TheCount]

He wanted to create animals and plants that have antidotes instead of venoms and piosons after his friend/loved one/child/parent died on thier travel to him with others from the caravan by eating a soup from poisonous mushrooms and toxic animals, knowing they wouldnt want to go on as undead and he couldnt afford/secure a ressurection for them.

he got reasults, more or less along the way, but then diseases also got into the mix he wanted to cure.

the ones that got out
in city:

• a rat that taint everithing it touches with mild stomach ache.
• a glowing cat that makes everyone who look at it see in contrast every colors for a few days
• a flock of sparrows that gathers around the ill

in the badlands:

• a badger that smells like strawberry
• a frog that tries to eat everything made from milk
• a bear with rainbow furr who always seems to be exitedly awaiting something amusing, like a trickster waitng to see the result of thier latest prank. (harmless and stays at a safe distance from humanoids)
• a berrybush that smells minty and cleans the mouth.