The 5 Classic Spells Any Wizard Would Cast on San Francisco
If a wizard is trying to do the thizzle dance, come through. (Chase Clark, Chris Leipelt)
There are as many wizened, crafty wizards through all the landscape of fantasty as there are origins and styles of the genre itself. Marlon James sprinkles casters like the Moon Witch through his book Black Leopard, Red Wolf and Ralph Bakshi relies on the gun-toting Avatar in his timeless cartoon Wizards. Some magical folk are better left unmentioned, including the author behind He Who Shall Not Be Named, but the magic and allure of life-changing power is still captivating. What might a visiting sorcerer to San Francisco cast to shake things up? The Dungeons and Dragons movie is a West Coast creation — props to Wizards of the Coast — and Willow Rosenberg from Buffy called San Francisco her home after the show’s end. Here are the top five spells any wizard worth their salt would cast on the Baghdad by the Bay.
Magic Missile
From the same Wizards of the Coast camp as the aforementioned movie, this Dungeons and Dragons spell is a basic offensive tool for casters. In the foggy city, the three glowing darts need to be used with care. Salesforce Tower, the reincarnated Twitter building, and the federal reserve building downtown might be a good trio to start.
Shrink
Thinking in terms of whatever wackiness was captured to get Alice into Wonderland, an arcanist could give San Francisco a dose of degrowth. In fact, that’s the name of a school of thought detailing how national economies can scale back their obsessions with scalability and market liberalization. Jason Hickel, professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and visiting senior fellow at the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics, might be just the wizard for the job.
Shapeshift
There’s some famous books about wizarding out there, though I just can’t think of what they’re called, that incorporate a particular potion for transformation. How San Francisco would it be if all its residents could change their shape, gender, or sexuality at the drop of a hat? To say nothing of the code switching many do everyday already, this mass enchantment would be a boon for everything from Hunky Jesus to Pride to Halloween.
Invisibility
Bilbo took a tool from the most evil in Middle Earth to get the dwarves back to their ancestral homeland, consequences be damned (as they were, for the fans out there). With a rampaging national media eye turned toward San Francisco like Sauron himself, a bit of invisibility could go a long way. A murder might be a tragic, solvable crime rather than a parade of capital T takes. A social contract between municipality and citizenry, between city hall and the unhoused, might be mended. A dash of privacy could be just the thing the city needs to solve its problems.
Healing
Any good and just wizard would at least shoot their shot for a happy ending. Who can say how everything pans out for the city by the Bay? But a bit of healing — perhaps in the form of universal basic income to those who need it, perhaps in ridding all the parks of beer cans and cigarette butts at the end of each day — would mean a lot to a city buffeted by COVID’s many detriments and valorization-seeking real estate companies. Roll a nat 20, traveling wizards, and make San Francisco whole again.
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