The world of Magic the Gathering is full of compelling characters with unique backstories and abilities. Magic's mystical arts are divided into five different colors, each representing a philosophy on life and a general suite of powers. Blue magic focuses on the pursuit of knowledge, logic, and discovery.
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There are plenty of heroic characters that use blue magic throughout Magic's history, but there are just as many villains that use the immense power of blue magic for evil ends. These characters are a great place to take inspiration for a Dungeons and Dragons villain, whether set in one of the many Magic planes or in a homebrew D&D world.
10 Stitcher Geralf Is The Other Half Of A Necromantic Duo
Zombies have long been the domain of black magic in Magic, but the Innistrad block introduced a new flavor of the classic undead. While Innistrad has classic black zombies in spades, it also has the stitchers and their undead skaabs. These creatures were created by combining the remains of numerous dead creatures and animating them with the power of lightning, much like Dr. Frankenstein in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Geralf Cecani was one of the greatest stitchers on Innistrad, and he and his sister waged a secret war against one another with their undead creations. This kind of war, with plenty of innocents caught in the middle, would make a great setup for a D&D campaign.
9 Memnarch Steals People From Throughout The Multiverse
Memnarch is an artifact, so he is technically colorless, but his activated abilities and outlook on the world are decidedly blue. He was created by the golem planeswalker Karn to protect the newly created metal plane of Argentum. Eventually, with Karn away on other business, Memnarch turned to reshaping the plane, populating it with creatures stolen from elsewhere in the multiverse.
A D&D campaign featuring a Memnarch-like villain could feature the players investigating mysterious disappearances, or alternatively could begin with them being kidnapped and sent to a strange new world.
8 Oona Is A Scheming Fae
Oona hails from the mystically divided plane of Llorwyn, which turns to the dark and twisted Shadowmoor through the magic of the Great Aurora. This otherwise natural cycle was manipulated by Oona, queen of the faerie. When the Great Mending, a major metaphysical shift in Magic's multiverse, destabilizing her plots, Oona was forced to enact a series of plots and machinations that would make for a perfect mystical, fey-themed D&D adventure.
7 Laquatus Betrayed His People
Many of Magic's blue villains combine their powers with other colors, but Laquatus is all blue. In a bid to curry favor with the squidlike Cephalids, Laquatus sabatoged a ceremony of rebirth for his native Berbous Merfolk that decimated its population while transferring a huge amount of power to their opponents. Laquatus continued to plot and scheme, using his powerful mental magic to pursue his goals. A D&D campaign could feature a Laquatus-like villain as a former ally bent on pursuing power at any cost.
6 Ixidor Was Driven Mad With Grief
Pit fighter turned reality sculptor Ixidor was banished to the deserts of Dominaria after his love Nivea was killed and he failed to pay his debts. There he discovered that his ability to create illusions had grown, and that he was able to create actual, physical conjurations.
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He crafted a completely personalized world to live in and eventually created the angel Akroma to wage war against the Cabal that killed Nivea. D&D parties are no strangers to facing off against powerful wizards, and Ixidor makes for a solid candidate.
5 Oko Is A Complicated Trickster
Not every villain is directly plotting and nefarious. Oko is a faerie-like planeswalker that resembles trickster beings like Shakespeare's Puck or Peter Pan. Oko is an iconoclast, seeking to take stabs at authority wherever he finds it. While this might not make him an outright villain, its easy to imagine a figure like this coming into conflict with a D&D party. Oko's card was strong enough to be banned in Legacy, showing just how powerful he is.
4 Zur Hungers For Immortality
Some villains have complicated motivations that might make people conflicted over who to root for. Others, however, are pretty straightforward. Zur was a mad wizard obsessed with immortality. He abandoned his home in pursuit of knowledge, and eventually gathered an army of followers to eventually lay siege to his birthplace. After being defeated, Zur retreated to the wilderness to ponder and contemplate his magic. At any point during his story, Zur could make for a fun antagonist in a D&D game. Perhaps he is a dangerous wizard that ambushes the players while they travel the wilds, or he lays siege to the town they call home.
3 Momir Vig Sought To Reform The World
The guilds of Ravnica each have their own plans and schemes, especially in the first Ravnica block. The Simic guild leader Momir Vig took his guild's mission of keeping people healthy to a radical extreme. He worked with his scientists to create the cytoplasts, globules of genetic information capable of mutating anyone they came into contact with.
His ultimate endeavor, Project Kraj, was an attempt to completely reshape the world in a higher form of evolution. This plot could easily be adapted for D&D, with plenty of bizarre mutant underlings to face off against before Vig himself.
2 Jace Beleren Has Done It All
As one of the most prolific characters in Magic's history, Jace has been on both sides of the heroic coin. He is a member of the Gatewatch, a planar protectorate devoted to defeating powerful foes. However, he has also killed people unprompted by stealing the majority of their minds' content and worked for years as a professional blackmailer. He could be a great figure that a D&D party has to work with unwillingly and eventually finds themselves opposed to.
1 Jin-Gitaxias Is A Master Scientist
As the blue-aligned leader of the Phyrexian forces on Mirrodin, now called New Phyrexia, Jin-Gitaxias is about as evil as they come. He was instrumental in the takeover of Mirrodin, but most recently he has traveled to Kamigawa to study the plane's dual nature, believing it to be the key to unlocking a Phyrexian's ability to planeswalk. Jin-Gitaxias is a great looming threat, slowly pulling the strings from behind the scenes. D&D Dungeon Masters looking for a monstrous villain with clear motivations need to look no further than Jin-Gitaxias.