Greetings, young wizard.

Wizard101 is an online MMORPG originally released in North America in 2008. The main gameplay involves a turn-based combat system with a collectible card game element. The game occurs in a fictional universe called the Spiral, which is home to numerous magical realms that can be traveled to and from. The player begins in Wizard City, a realm built around the Ravenwood School of Magical Arts (much like college towns or university cities in the real world). The player first builds their character and chooses school of magic to study: Fire, Ice, Storm, Myth, Life, Death, or Balance. Each school has its own set of strengths and weaknesses (like Pokemon types) and provides spells in the form of collectible cards that the player earns as they level up.

As players progress through the game, they are able to unlock new areas of Wizard City and worlds/realms to travel to. This is done through either a membership subcscription or purchase of the in-game currency, Crowns. Subscriptions also allow for the player to purchase new gear and upgrades for their characters at no additional cost (assuming they've earned enough gold by questing and leveling up), so most adult players spend the $10 per month for a subscription.

Wizard101 has an extensive and somewhat dizzying amount of lore. Multi-hour video essays on YouTube delve into the finer details, but the very basic plot is:

Merle Ambrose is the headmaster of Ravenwood School. Each magic type has its own professor; Dalia Falmea for Fire, Lydia Greyrose for Ice, Halston Balestrom for Storm, Cyrus Drake for Myth, Moolinda Wu for Life, Dworgyn for Death, and Artur Westerfield for Balance. The schools of Life and Death used to have different professors - Malistaire Drake (twin brother of Cyrus) for the Death school and his wife Sylvia Drake for the Life school. Syliva got sick and died an early death. Malistaire became obsessed with finding a way to bring her back to life (W). Malistaire ripped the Death school from its place in Ravenwood and threw it into an area called Nightside (F), which can be accessed by players with a Death wizard later in the game. Malistaire embarked on a quest to find the Krokonomikon so that he can resurrect Sylvia and become a Master of Death.

As the game first begins, the player confronts Malistaire in a tower (with help from Merle Ambrose and his owl Gamma in the form of a tutorial) as he is trying to obtain a book that will supposedly help him find the Krokonomikon. The player then helps Ambrose liberate an area of Wizard City called Unicorn Way from one of Malistaire's henchmen. By the end of this first story, the player learns that Malistaire found the information he was looking for and is headed to a different realm called Krokotopia. This is the first time the player is able to enter Bartleby and travel through the Spiral.

What? Oh, I never mentioned Bartleby? Or Grandmother Raven? Or Grandfather Spider? Uh... that's a whole other topic.

It may be obvious if you've spent any amount of time on my site, but I've always been a diehard Death wiz - or necromancer, as they're actually called. All schools of magic have actual names for their practitioners instead of the elements/categories they belong to. Pyromancers are Fire, Thaumaturges are Ice, Conjurers are Myth, Diviners are Storm, Theurgists are Life, Necromancers are Death, and Sorcerers are Balance. The school of magic your wizard belongs to also determines what kind of gear you'll be given as you progress through the game, and some items are only able to be equipped by specific types of wizards. Most gear items are customizable, though, so you don't have to look like a doofus if you wear your mismatched strongest gear.