We were ogling the illustrations in my newest Pathfinder book, Ultimate Combat. There was one picture, meant to represent the spellslinger wizard archetype, that showed a hooded woman holding a gun that was covered in all manner of magical shiny things. Led by my innate impulse to crack wise, I showed him the image and said, “This girl’s like, ‘Screw this wizard bullshit, I just want to play Halo!’” He immediately laughed, stated that this was now a new character, and began to draw her.
The unnamed, relatively underdeveloped character’s story is currently like this: she’s a shallow, selfish, teenage FPS gamer who discovers that she has magical powers. A local wizard-in-hiding who operates an antique shop gives her the “you’re a wizard, [insert name here]” spiel and offers to mentor her. Her reaction is mixed: part of her is delighted to find that she’s really special after all and able to escape from her boring mundane life, but the other part is severely disappointed that this new world of adventure is full of Harry-Potter-in-Narnia kiddie crap. She vows to use her new powers as awesomely as possible, and selects an old Civil War musket to substitute for a wooden staff.
Training is a long and painful process, not only because she’s a terrible student but also because she has effectively set out to reinvent conventional spellcasting. Eventually, though, she learns to channel magic through her gun’s barrel with impressively devastating results. With the exception a small handful of utility spells that she deems sufficiently cool, she’s incompetent at anything outside of this specialty. Her mentor fears and quietly loathes her and what she’s done to the fine art of arcane skill, but he also recognizes that she’s very useful when he can point her in the right direction (which is to say, the direction of anything that needs to be destroyed). Action-packed urban fantasy ensues, and at least one troll is smashed in the face with a rifle butt.
I don’t think this story has a moral.