If you won't bow before a sultan, THEN YOU WILL COWER BEFORE A SORCERER!!!
—Jafar, shortly before becoming the most powerful sorcerer in the world, Aladdin
Cassana and ol' Zrie Prakis sat on thrones. Mages who sit on thrones always mean trouble, Olive-girl. They take themselves too seriously.
—Olive, The Wyvern's Spur (The Finder's Stone Trilogy)
And finally, high in Loathly Tower, my last brother - Ommadon, the Red Wizard. He is the lord of the Devil's domain, the seducer of darkness, master of that heartless magic the world calls black. Astride the terrible Bryagh he is the absolute ruler of that inferno-like mass of primordial filth that is his domain.
—Carolinus the Green Wizard, describing his evil brother Ommadon, The Flight of Dragons
Magic's there to be ruled, not for ruling.
—Granny Weatherwax, Wyrd Sisters
Kieu Tsu Hsing T'eh Lu Ku has governed Hang Chu with a light but merciless hand. As long as respect is tendered and the law is obeyed, no citizen is harmed. Screams and bones and centipedes appear whenever his rule is questioned. Occasionally, someone tries to flee the province. The woods crawl on those nights, and no one wants to know what happened afterward. Several generals have sent expeditions to Hang Chu, but those who return speak of insects and dragons and a mammoth centipede that devours anyone who draws a weapon.
It is said that in Hang Chu, the law crawls on 10,000,000 legs. No one dares to argue.
—Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade - Infernalism
Thus was born the fortress city of Nagashizzar, an untakeable keep, a laboratory and library of the darkest arts, capital of the vilest human nation the Known World has ever seen. In the centre, like a spider in the middle of a web, Nagash sat on a throne made of skulls and issued edicts that would topple kingdoms and cause the death of nations. He ventured as far as the Plain of Bones and bound a mighty Undead dragon to his will. Ever afterward it would be his steed.
—Warhammer: Undead Army Book (4th edition)
It was the Chaos Dwarf Sorcerers, also known as Daemonsmiths and Hell-Workers, who led their people from the brink of destruction during the Time of Woe and first built the great and blasphemous city of Zharr-Naggrund in ages past, and it is they that still command it today. Their works of sorcery and engineering are legendary, from the great obsidian and basalt ziggurats drawn forth from the earth and the dark iron towers raised up throughout the Dark Lands, to the steam-hissing engines that crush rock in slave mines and the baroque armour which adorns the Chaos warriors of the north. All are their dark knowledge made manifest.
From his bleak throne, the Tenth Seat, as he still affectionately calls it, the Unnamed rules Creation - or what remains of it, at least. Physically, the center of his power is located in Mesopotamia, where once was found the cradle of civilization. In terror and pain, millions of slaves labor to heap glory on his name, living and dying at his command. He is the face of the Void, incarnate upon the Earth, architect of the Universe's despair.
—"Hell On Earth," Mage: The Ascension - Ascension
The Maestro raised its hand to the empty air and commanded, "Let there be light." And there was light. Magic had been unleashed. A new age was born. The Age of the Infinite Realms! An archipelago of worlds, floating on a sea of magic. Every quest and enchanted blade forged, every hero who wins his day or dies trying, every cabal and dark lord rising, do so under the auspices and pleasure of the Maestros. Our family's domain extends form the borders of Evuntayd off the southern slopes of Mount Gothiloon to the Sea of Unrelenting Placidity that lies beyond the myriad sunsets of old Dimarth. Everywhere, the forces of light and darkness battle for supremacy and our regalement. So on and so forth, over and over, an eternal, itinerant bacchanal.
—Meethra Kahzar, Maestros
