What objects are related to wizards as weapons or tools to cast their magic? Scepters, wands, staffs, staves... I need more options
Cards, magic imbued cards! But really, you shouldn't limit yourself, just be creative. Anything that can channel magic should work, maybe.
A real wizard doesn't need anything, really. The wands, knives, cards, crystals, etc., etc., are basically just tools--although if one uses a tool long enough it does get to be a "friend". Some magicians will create a tool like a staff and imbue it with a personality; they will keep the tool and cherish it, and use it over and over again. Some magicians (like yours truly, for example) will create a tool for a specific purpose and then never use it again, or use it only sporadically after that, or even destroy it. (One of my athames does double duty as a letter opener. A cop confiscated my first ever athame, and so once I got out of that situation I ran home and neutralized it.) Doing magic without tools is called "open-handed" magic. Lots of magicians have "familiars" which are corporeal (cat, frog, bird, etc.) or non-corporeal (sprite, demon, imp, faery, etc.)--the familiar is something that acts as an agent to help the magician gain information, break through barriers, create strategies, spy on people, and so on. I hope this was helpful. yours in Chaos, Scarlett
I was hoping someone would mention familiars. I'm only recently growing more- familiar (forgive, me, that was cheesy, I know)- with them, and they seem very interesting for writing. It seems to break monotony if the aid that the magician relies on has a mind of its own.
Traditional tools like chalices and plates rarely make it into the kick-in-the-door sword and sorceries-- and I can kind of see how difficult it is to get creative enough to include them. The Holy Grail and the Chalice of Mannan mac Lir come to mind, but those seem to be stuff you only go out to get when you've settled into an ordinary successful life as king/overlord and just want a little improvement. A plate or pentacle can make a decent throwing discus, I guess. Swords and daggers, while more often given over to the Tank or the Thief With A Heart Of Gold, is actually also a magician's tool. Otherwise... amulets, runestones, cauldrons that never run out of food, bottles that never run out of wine, potion bottles that always run out when you need to throw them like grenades, trunks and bags with extra-dimensional space inside, spellbooks and scrolls, magic mirrors, cloaks and robes of invisibility, enchanted boots, enchanted rings, enchanted belts (or just ordinary belts that hold enchanted stuff), crystal balls that don't have to be enormous and can come in pairs or threes to clack together in his/her palm during times of stress, chalk and drippy candles, are all pretty varied staples. Maybe throw a red herring in there-- it's an enchanted scabbard, but an ordinary sword; an enchanted chain of fish scales and cat footsteps, but a purely decorative amulet that hangs on it.
Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber series features a tarot that serves the princes of Amber as a means of transdimensional travel and communication. Prince Corwin also makes use of a semi-sentient garrote--I think it's a garrote, but it's been an awfully long time since I read those books. They're great books, though. xoxoxo
Bones is another. Don't think anyone's mentioned them, might be a bit dark but druids back in the old stonehenge days used a lot of bone. Another is semi-precious stones. There's a lot of lore behind those and they are said to possess different 'properties' like heminite is said to protect, rose quartz to heal so on and so forth. Hope you find something that works!
Special stones, normal stones, stones that look normal but are special, stones that are special but look normal. Special stick, normal stick, sticks that look normal but are special, sticks that are special but look normal. I could go on. A magician could use any type of object to cast spells, to improve spells or as a target for his spells. It all depends on your kind of magic. And, as such, it depends on the writer. Most of the obvious things have been handled above (I count familiars as the obvious, mainly because I used to play a lot of D&D), escept for precious stones (although Edi mentioned semi-precious stones). As for the uncommon spell components; blood, water, any other kind of liquid (liquids are unpopular for some reason), glass (which was uncommon in the ol'days) and maybe the most potent of all; words.
Just about anything can serve a "wizard" (or anybody who practices some sort of "magic") as long as it fits into the world you've created. There's no need to limit yourself to anything, really. In my fiction based on Ojibwa mythology and culture, the bad medicine men make use of little wooden dolls and some part of a person's being (fingernails, hair, etc.), similar to a voodoo doll, to manipulate that person. Others use the power of elemental spirits that they either ask or coerce into assisting them to manipulate things like fire, wind, etc. It goes on and on. Really, whatever works for your story as long as it's consistent and makes sense in that world.
