So there are three wizard, two are in love and the other murders the female wizard for a reason. I want a reason other than petty jealousy; like she had something genetically that the murderous wizard wanted for research. Any ideas? There are no bad ideas, even if its silly it could lead to something else.
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Maybe he murdered her because it would have made the other wizard not want to go with her, then the one that killed her takes her body to try and bring her back to life, but finds that she has like a second heart or something
Depending on ho the magic in your world works, the murderer might need a powerful wizard to âdrainâ their magic energy or to make a worthy sacrifice. Alternatively, it might be a gambit, if the murderer could make the surviving lover believe that someone else is responsible and guide them into fighting this person or group.
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The group were coming back after finding a rare artifact, but the female wizard found it and refused to give it up.
Working off of @WulfyKâs suggestion, I like the idea that she was killed as part of a magic spell that required human sacrifice. Or, depending on his level of psychopathy, maybe he needs fresh human body parts properly removed and preserved for several spells, and theyâre highly illegal or hard to obtain? Rather morbid, but it might work.
Here are some simple ideas:
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The tragic end of love may be the key to unlocking a mysterious artifact.
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The murderer needed to sacrifice a close friend to gain more power.
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Needed her magical organs to animate golems of some sort.
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A ritual required a heart full of love.
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The Killer Wizard received a prophecy telling of a worse future should the other two wizard be together, so the female wizard was killed to prevent this future.
However, killing the female wizard may have created a different butterfly effect, and the future may worsen.
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Killer Wizard is like a researcher right so maybe the female wizard has a special ability, a mutation of magic that allows her abilities wizards do not understand. So the killer wishes to dissect her so he killss her
Why Kill her just for research? I love Pranchett Ringworld point of view about mages political way. You basically has to poison or use assassination to advance in ranks. Because using magic is almost impossible due rival defense. Why just they killed her to advance in the ranks , it has more sense for me . Killing a mage knowing she is in love with other fellow mage who would want revenge is not optimal lol. But I am a bard not a mage I suppose.
Maybe he wanted to wear her skin, for um research.
geez thatâs kinda dark
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You could change the perspective a bit and make it so that the âfemale wizardâ wants âmurderer wizardâ dead for some reason but âmurderer wizardâ turns the table and kills her first and keeps it a secret because he knows âthird wizardâ is in love with her and might not believe in him. Or maybe âfemale wizardâ wanted âthird wizardâ dead, maybe both. Or she did immoral research or magic on the innocent. You get the idea.
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Killer wizard is in love with soon-to-be-dead wizard but s/he rejects him/her and so killer wizard kills her/him. Or killer wizard likes dead wizardsâs significant other.
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soon-to-be-dead wizard knows something about killer wizard so s/he kills her/him to keep her/him quiet.
I also just searched âmurder motivesâ on google and got some nice quick short lists.
Killing the female wizard is just a means to an end and his real target is to cause problems for the first wizard.
The third wizard kills the female wizard to set up the first wizard for murder as well as to cause anguish for him.
Later he uses the female wizardâs body parts in some sort of spell/ritual/whatever to implement the next phase of his plan.
The motive isnât jealousy, but rather drawn out revenge for some minor slight that the first wizard did to the third wizard a long time ago and didnât even realize he did.
Hereâs what I recon.
The two were working together on a potion/spell/incantation whichever, but itâs beyond their skill expertise. It was the femaleâs idea that the two of them could overcome this by working together. (Male wizard 2 could have turned her down already, or not know about it. Maybe he wasnât asked as male wizard 1 is more talented).
Anyway, it back fires and rebounds a death curse (if potions - it could splash onto her, if spell/incantation - she could pronounce wrong or leave out some important part). Either way it kills her, making male wizard 1 the only one who knew what happened. For tension, male wizard 2 comes barging in as she dies in front of him. Wizard 1 gets the blame and a fight can then break out. Leaving male wizard 1 as the target of revenge.
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What if the spell in question was a very dangerous one for the caster (female wizard) and was meant to save wizard 1 (supposed murderer) life from a curse or something. And for even more tension it could be that the wizard 2 (the one in love with fem) barging in was what caused the spell to go wrong and kill her, so each wizard would be blaming the other for her death. Drama! 
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Murdered her because murdering a mage could cause a magical distortion which temporarily opens into the realm of the dead, a world of pure spectral mana, allowing one enough time and power to pull off one reality warping spell. (resurrection, immortality, power-augmentation, ectâŚ)
This way its not nearly as personal, dehumanizing your villain and giving them a logical purpose. Cause who doesnât want more power?
this method should also be taboo and very very secret.
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First off I would like to say that in matters of romance, there is no such thing as a petty jealousy. If jealousy is felt it is felt totally and uncompromisingly (in fiction at least). What I hear is that you donât want the death to be the result of a romantic love triangle.
This is an unusual question, as usually when I write I just sort of know when a character has to die, and thatâs usually because they have committed some moral or narrative transgression that demands their death. The reasons behind a character death should always be logical, even if that logic is temporary obscured from the reader.
A good character death is usually preceded by the victim doing something wrong. In real life we call this (quite correctly) victim-blaming, in fiction we call it tantalizing.
So I would say, think about what your victim could have done to deserve their fate, and think of a way to obscure it from the person they love. That way our hero character (I assume, but the word is fairly appropriate here anyway) has a burning need for vengeance that informs their actions, and a crippling realization when it is revealed that he or she no longer holds the moral high-ground.
Thatâs compelling fiction.
If you wanted a more cut-and-dry good-and-evil scenario without a love triangle? Perhaps the murderer is a powerful practitioner of magic who takes the victim as an apprentice. When the love between the two mages becomes apparent, the Master decides that the apprentice is now âtaintedâ and useless, killing them to protect his magical secrets. The other mage is filled with a sense of vengeance that gives him purpose.
This also works if the survivor is the mageâs apprentice. The Master decides that there is no room in his apprenticeâs world for love, and executes his or her paramour to ensure that the apprentice may focus on their studies. The apprentice flies into a rage, spends years tirelessly focusing on accruing his own power, forging his own plans, the fire of revenge stoking within him.
When the apprentice finally returns to take revenge on his Master, the Master will reveal that this was exactly what he wanted from the Apprentice all along. The tireless need for revenge has made him a stronger wizard, and therefore his training is complete, bar one final examination.
Whoever survives will be the true Master.
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What if both wizards loved the one wizard but she loved the one and the rejected one kills her in a ritual to bind her spirit to him/her so they can be together regardless.
Option two; have the two wizards duel and she tries to stop them and is caught in the crossfire and neither wizard knows truly which spell killed her.
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It just occurred to me that one of my favourite books is about this exact question.
If you can hit 1/10th of the drama and complexity of this triangle, youâve done better than I could.
Nobody liked my Silence of the Lambs type wizard? Thatâs ok I posted that when I was really tired.