My favorite magic item I ever got was Ring of the Grammarian. Change one letter of a spell…
Me: “Incestation” Dm: “hello, step brother.”
“Tireball”
A massive, industrial strength ring of treaded galvanized rubber smothers the target area, and ricochets with lethal effect.
“Bay of Frost”
An unearthly howl that chills the blood of all in range, literally
“Hole Person”
Transform target into the z-axis mirror opposite of their form: a perfect replica of their volume in the surface they were in contact with at the moment of casting.
Etc.
Time to get busy with https://5e.d20srd.org/indexes/spells.htm
Blade Harrier - bird made of razor sharp blades attacks enemies.
Animate Mead - especially good when someone just drank a bunch.
Crone - create a ghastly old witch who scares your enemies.
Ball Lightning - control a big ball of electricity for level x rounds.
Stoneskim - throw a stone that bounces on water and does level x d10 damage.
One of my wizards specialized in wild magic. I routinely used fireball to produce massive explosions of flower petals, and magical fireworks for celebrations.
I tend to push “wild” magic a bit further, frankly, but love the imagery that “magic explosion of flower petals” conjures, including the looks on all in attendance. 🤣
That said, I like to incorporate not only the degree of intent but the channeled volume of Weave into the unexpected result. In essence, being that rendering a magical change in the local reality causes an equal amount of reweaving, as it were, and “wild” casters are therefore little more than interlopers pulling at threads, unintended results of their fiddling should match the volume of contact.
To shift metaphors: turning on a spigot attached to a pipeline of unknown fluid, one inherently expects something to come out, yet the only control one has is the degree of said turn. The contents are unknown, let alone the pressure or volatility, so it could certainly be a trickle or a torrent of mountain spring water, or steaming dragon piss, or a jabbering cloud of punch drunk pixies straight from a fey hen night. With wild magic, you don’t know shit except how far you turned the faucet on. 😱🤩
