Wandlers

Wandlers are a term used in fantasy and speculative fiction to describe practitioners who wield or craft wands as their primary focus. In many settings, a wand serves as a conduit for magical energy, technological signals, or a combination of both, and Wandlers are the people who design, maintain, and deploy such devices. The word appears in various fictional universes as a class or occupation, with attributes that vary by author. Common features include expertise in wandlore, enchantment, spellcraft, and warding; training often begins in youth at academies or guilds. Wandlers may operate as scholars, combatants, healers, or diplomats, depending on the setting. Social organization ranges from secretive orders to open guilds; some portray Wandlers as guardians of ancient relics, while others depict them as frontier explorers who traverse dangerous loci to recover wand-based artifacts.

In some variants, wands are fragile yet powerful, and Wandlers must balance risk versus knowledge, sometimes at personal cost. Tools include customized wands, focus crystals, and calibration kits; ethics and law often feature prohibitions on wand use shaped by power dynamics within a given world. The concept is used across role-playing games and narrative fiction to provide a versatile mechanism for magic or high-tech power without relying on traditional spellcasters.

Notable subtypes include elemental Wandlers, warding Wandlers, and technomancers who blend wandcraft with machinery.

See also: wand, wandcraft, mage, spell, staff, technomancy.