Matching Wizard Summoning with Expectations

so you know how its very common for wizards to summon demons? the greek kind of demon thats some sort of lesser spirit, or the dnd kind of demon and devil thats some esoteric otherworldly evil

well, theres a problem

if theres demons and horrible undead spirits and both of these are souls

and souls are valuable for like, magic stuff

how come the wizards are getting them for so cheap

its not just one of the things that they do

its the one thing that they (and clerics) do best, above all others

wizards, capital w Wizards or sorcerers, or warlocks

its genre defining for them as a class

any random person can lob explosions around and confuse people with complicated words

any random person can deactivate forcefields by figuring out the code word in under 6 seconds

wizards are different

Conventional wizard design

A wizard's equipment is interchangeable. All of it is symbolic - once you possess the symbols, you are the wizard. A scepter, or a staff, is symbolic of rank, and might possess great power. People will shrink away when a wand is pointed at them, not even a particularly ornate one, instinctually. So it may be that traditionally, these things are also the carriers of a wizard's power.

In ADand orD, collecting spell scrolls meant that you simply have the spells that are on them. Picking up a wand and learning the word that activates it is as good as casting a spell. So it is with staffs and scepters and particularly powerfully enchanted robes as well. And so it is in further editions of D and or D, and in rogue and all of its successors.

You could be a rogue and still cast spells and wear robes. You could be a fighter and still point a wand at people. These are all accepted, although in future editions they tend to be toned down. Spells and powers and equipment in the 5th edition have been moved to the "wizard only" because they felt a little too weak, and even this has an exception made for rogues. Not arcane rogues, mind you, but thief and liar rogues.

So then, what is a wizard?

Wizard: Smart person

Wizards create magic. They carry magical equipment as an instrument to do greater magic, but without it they are still wizards. Knock all of the spells out of their brain and they can still decipher and learn old ones from lost lore. (See: read magic, d and or d 3e) They can still experiment and invent new ones with time.

A wizard, even the lowliest true wizard, brings their rank up and earns it, while the rogue in wizard's robes only inherits rank and imitates other wizards.

Wizard: Wonder worker

Wizards are people who gained their power by making deals. Being bequeathed powers from spirits and gods (conventionally), being those things embodied and invested in the flesh (gandalf), or making those things serve you directly. The wizard's equipment is only part of the package that comes with those deals. Wizards are summoners at their core - the mission to find more and new magic, by summoning more spirits, is never over for an active wizard. Other people may have a wizard's equipment, but the only reason the magic continues working is because the spirits haven't noticed yet that it's already left the wizard's hands.

If not, then where do the intelligences that drive a wizard's animated objects come from? Where does the hate and malice of a skeleton come from, if not from a spirit?

Borrowed power

If all this was true, then even the least wizard would be an extremely powerful force. But all of them can be defeated and none of their powers, many as they are, are as vast as the world. So they would have to have limits.

A wizard could be limited by the extent of their own soul. After all, there is nobody you can trust more than yourself. Everybody knows the story of that person who conquered too much land to rule over, and was overthrown. The soul is a territory, and it could be conquered just as well.

Perhaps, every demon that a wizard borrows, they have to return in more or less good shape. These bindings can be for hours, maybe years. To do anything else would be to tear a piece out of that mystical world, which is connected to this world in mysterious ways. Maybe it's too hard to do that more than 3 or 4 times. Maybe it's too dangerous.

Platonic interpretation

But if your demons are truly so easy to dominate, like they are in skyrim and D and/or D, then where is the struggle in mining and burning them up them like particularly cursed coal? If an imp is a soul and an imp is easy to defeat, why not just keep getting more imps?

It helps to think of magic as subjective, constrained to the interpretations of each viewer. It helps to see their spells as only one of two things, a spirit or a simple parlor trick that anyone can replicate.

Wizard needs money. Wizard sees a rich man.

Wizard summons a spirit.

The money is in his hands now.

Man seeks advice. Man asks wizard, who previously only had 5 wands, none of which can help the man.

Wizard summons a spirit.

He now knows how to make the 6th wand, and hands it over to the man.

At the right time, when, just by happenstance, the right inflection on the command words is struck by the man, the wand does something pretty cool. Like an explosion or something.

In quantum mechanics, there is the idea of virtual photons, and actually not just virtual photons but all kinds of virtual particles. These begin and end with the process that needs them. They stop existing entirely otherwise.

The "spirit" of the wizard's strange transactions work the same way, it was only needed in those liminal moments. Even the ones that appear to be long-lasting are not really ensouled the way that a person is. Even the ones that were summoned from the afterlife, that speak with your grandfather's voice.

If you wish to obtain these things and hold them captive, you are deceived, and there is nothing.

If you persist regardless, then you are deceived, and there is only something else, some particle-anti-particle exchange that was ripped from elsewhere in reality. The work put in is equal to the work out, which sometimes looks like a real object. Energy is mass and mass is energy. And energy is relative to the observer - kinetic energy is always relative to some reference frame, charge and magnetic energy, and even gravitational energy is as well.

Trying to interact with these spirits as if they had real souls is as effective as trying to cut a knot out of a rope, while keeping the rope in one piece. They are not of this world, true, but these tricks that wizards use as their bread and butter are not of any other world at all either. Just the same as photons are of the electromagnetic, not of the material, and photons can be virtual too even in the electromagnetic realm. Not that spirits cannot exist outside of wizards, but that their existence is uncertain when wizards interact with them.

Wizards are not powerful. They deal with things that do not exist, and these illustrations on reality are exactly as powerful as they are perceived to be. Only the results matter in this subjective world - the process is an illusion just as much as reality.

Conclusion

What if wizards are powerful and not powerful? What if they are summoners and not summoners? What if they are both creators and lying about having created something?

Then,

@iaq4ew q43  lg vda.> Gndh sdfd ndcdf fda.>

Wizards are not real. They were never real. Not even in DND or video games.

At the same time, good programmers and engineers wizards are real. You know you are one. You see them every day. It has to be true.