Book One – Chapter 11

Among his arsenal, Yves had a go-to duo representing every race found on the continent, from wizards and ker to bormen and shamans, and even humans. Except witches. He did not do witches. Not anymore. Because NO. Twig and Mushroombird were his shamans.

Yes, you have noticed the weird names. No, this is not how shamans typically name themselves. No-one will be able to tell you why, but for some reason, it became an unspoken rule at Emery Thurm that it was not the student illusionist himself, but rather his commilita, who bestowed the names upon any new creation. And for some other random reason, Yves had found himself surrounded by morons who had turned it into a competition to give the most absurd and denigrating names possible to each other’s masterpieces.

That said, Twig and Mushroombird are good names. Believe it or not, they are really good names, especially the former, which is probably the pinnacle of nomenclature you can achieve during your entire student career. Yves had gotten away lightly, as he had typically been among the best and fastest to complete a new illusion deserving of a name. It is simple reasoning, really. If you dared to give a truly horrible name to the creations of the guy who finished the assignment before you, you knew he would be coming for you once you caught up. So you better save all your creativity for the loser who finishes last, because then you can go all out.

So while Yves currently endured the blistering sun next to Twig and Mushroombird, there were other wizards out there dealing with Shitstain, Dwarffucker and a plethora of variations of Iam Fake. Yves’ first human was called Iman Illu-Son. He had never introduced him publicly after passing the assignment.

On the subject of dwarves. With dwarves, the dynamics shift. Obviously, for them you want the names of your creations to be as derogatory and humiliating as possible. The common wizard has no reason to pay respect to the common dwarf, and the common dwarf is too much of a Stumpfist Shortstack, Midget Mudbeater and Lowblow Rockbottom to recognise the superiority of wizard society — Rockbottom was Yves’ first dwarf, and he greatly enjoyed the non-existent subtlety of the pun. His other one was Snotbeard Ironshit, who even got a backstory with the name: his father was called Ironchin, but when recording his son in the dwarven Heritage Book, he was too dumb to spell his own name correctly, replacing the “c” with an “s” and rendering the “n” so poorly that it resembled more of a “t”. The Prince Regent came up with that gem.