Wizard (creature)

The occult world which surrounds wizards can open the way to temptations of power, wealth or the satisfaction of perverse curiosities - and it is not altogether uncommon for mages thus tested to fall to depravity. Such men and women often display a callous disregard for human life, seeing others as obstacles to their success or as fodder for dark experimentation. These ill-intentioned sorcerers have been a plague to numerous worlds since time immemorial.

Description
Mondain's seeming triumph through wickedness has perhaps proven the summit to which many evil Sosarian and  Britannian wizards have aspired - complete  control of the world through whatever means necessary. In the early Age of Darkness, many magicians fell to the lure of Mondain's power, joining with him and taking to the roads as wandering warlocks, that they might spread terror and strife throughout the realm. Such occurrences, strangely enough, led to a lifting of legal bans upon magical practice which were in place before Mondain's rise to infamy, as it was believed that sorcery was a necessary weapon to secure the wizard's defeat.

In later ages, such enchanters could still be found in various corners of the land, although their numbers appeared to dwindle over time. The capabilities and motivations of such evil wizards vary from case to case, but many have employed dark creatures such as skeletons or daemons as their servitors. Such magic users often can often be found far from civilization, such as that their dark arcane inquiries might be hidden from the eyes of the populace. Some select few even go on make the transformation into liches, abandoning life itself for the sake of their pursuits.

Evil Wizards on Serpent Isle
Many of the magicians who came to settle on Serpent Isle did so that they might escape the regulations which Lord British saddled magic with in declaring Honesty the mages' signifying virtue. As a result, illegal and dangerous magical experimentation became a common practice in the mage-ruled city of Moonshade - a trend dangerously complemented by the discovery of bloodspawn, a dangerous reagent composed of human blood and  stoneheart. While few adepts took their research to truly wicked extremes in this realm, the differentiation between "good" and "evil" wizards was rendered into disconcerting shades of gray by the extreme levels of corruption which enshrouded the mystic arts.

Notable Examples

 * Mondain: author of the First Age of Darkness and primary antagonist of Ultima I; eventually slain by the Stranger
 * Minax: Mondain's pupil and paramour; primary antagonist of Ultima II; also eventually slain by the Stranger
 * Elistaria: the dark lady of Windemere in Ultima V; a noted practitioner of the dark arts, particularly regarding the summoning of daemons.
 * Tyball: fratricidal villain of Ultima Underworld I; attempted to summon the Slasher of Veils into the world to harness its powers
 * Selwyn: a mage living in Dungeon Despise in Ultima VII who appeared to be involved in or at least complicit with a conspiracy to murder Lord British
 * Teldrono and Lorthondo: two mages in Ultima VII Part Two who willingly journeyed to the Mountains of Freedom to gather stoneheart
 * The Fiend: formerly the good magician Shal, who crafted the Ring of Reagents; corrupted by Chaos to such an extent that he lost his mind and sought to overtake the world, renaming himself the "Fiend"; appears in the Silver Seed
 * Mordea: the vain and arrogant master of tempestry in Ultima VIII who ruled over the city of Tenebrae