History Main / BlueCollarWarlock

%%* ComicBook/DoctorFate becomes one in UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks.

* ComicBook/MadameXanadu, also a professional fortune teller who operates out of a shopfront in Greenwich Village taking walk-in clients.

Whenever we think of [[WizardsAndWitches wizards, sorcerers, or mages]], the first thing that pops in our minds are [[WizardClassic old wise men]], [[MagicStaff long staffs]], [[MagicWand magical wands]], [[RobeAndWizardHat pointy hats]], and [[WizardBeard long beards]]. The blue-collar warlock is a different kind of magic-user. He lives in no [[MedievalEuropeanFantasy medieval fantasy setting]], but instead lives in [[UrbanFantasy something more contemporary]]. They are sorcerers who modernized and you may cross paths with one on the streets. They might live among us and [[ParanormalMundaneItem use magical artifacts that look like mundane items]]. Unlike contemporary warriors, they fight with the use of old-fashioned magic and the occult. Streetwise in the face of danger, some may be good, while others are sinister. Sometimes they are {{Occult Detective}}s or {{Stage Magician}}s. See also TrenchcoatBrigade. Compare MagicalHomelessPerson; contrast GentlemanWizard.

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Whenever we think of [[WizardsAndWitches wizards, sorcerers, or mages]], the first thing that pops in our minds are [[WizardClassic old wise men,]] [[MagicStaff long staffs]], [[MagicWand magical wands]], [[RobeAndWizardHat pointy hats]], and [[WizardBeard long beards]]. The blue collar warlock is a different kind of magic-user. He lives in no [[MedievalEuropeanFantasy medieval fantasy setting]], but instead lives in [[UrbanFantasy something more contemporary]]. They are sorcerers who modernized and you may cross paths with one on the streets. They might live among us and [[ParanormalMundaneItem use magical artifacts that look like mundane items]]. Unlike contemporary warriors, they fight with the use of old-fashioned magic and the occult. Streetwise in the face of danger, some may be good, while others are sinister. Sometimes they are {{Occult Detective}}s or {{Stage Magician}}s. See also TrenchcoatBrigade. Compare MagicalHomelessPerson; contrast GentlemanWizard.

* Kairi from ''Literature/FateApocrypha'' is a burly, cigarette-smoking, shotgun-wielding, leather-clad necromancer who looks like he'd be more at home in a biker gang than fighting in a Holy Grail War.
** And [[Literature/FateZero Waver]] is basically this trope but upwardly-mobile. According to ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'', he has a noticeably working-class accent. In ''Literature/LordElMelloiIICaseFiles'', he's apparently flat broke, lives in a cheap, cramped apartment in a crumbling old building, and still cherishes the shoes he bought with his first paycheck eight years ago. But he got adopted by a noble family that needed an adult heir quickly, so now he's called Lord El-Melloi II and goes around wearing cravats.

* The eponymous ''Manga/HellTeacherNube'', [[PapaWolf teacher first and onmyouji second]]. He's a teacher that uses supernatural powers to beat down on monsters.
* The main characters of ''Literature/ModernMagicMadeSimple''. One spell is "call a cell phone that's turned off".
%%* Yura from ''Manga/NuraRiseOfTheYokaiClan''.
%%* Itsuki Iba and his company from ''Literature/RentalMagica''.

* In ''ComicBook/BlackMagick'', Rowan Black--practising Wiccan and heir to powerful magical bloodline-- is a police detective who rides a motorcycle. Her best friend Alex, who is also a witch, is a kindergarten teacher.
* The young Timothy Hunter from ''ComicBook/TheBooksOfMagic'', who grew up poor in a rundown house where his unemployed, one-armed father spent all day slumped in front of the television watching old movies.

* John Constantine, ''ComicBook/{{Hellblazer}}'', is the TropeCodifier, as Creator/{{Alan Moore}} is the TropeNamer. He fits every description above because Alan Moore made the trope. He protects his beloved London (and later the DC Universe) from hellspawns and magical whatnot.
** His groups the TrenchcoatBrigade and ComicBook/JusticeLeagueDark are examples too.

%%* Giovanni Zatara and his daughter ComicBook/{{Zatanna}} are examples.

%%* The witch from ''Film/{{Beastly}}''
%%* Chucky from ''Film/ChildsPlay'' is an occultist and voodoo practitioner and a deranged SerialKiller.

%%%%% If they fit then how do they fit? * Most of the sorcerers in ''Film/TheSorcerersApprentice'', but Balthazar Blake and Dave fit the trope the most.

* ''Literature/WhiteTrashWarlock'', as the title suggests. Adam is a witch who lives well below the poverty line in a trailer park with his great aunt. He's so poor that a big concern with his hunt to find evil artifacts isn't the confrontation he'll have with the warlock who made them, but the gas money it's costing him to go out and retrieve them.
* ''Literature/AlexVerus''. In sharp contrast to the rich and powerful members of the Light Council that often employ him, Alex is a small business-owner who lives above his magic shop in Camden. For good measure, as a Probability Mage, he often finds himself getting bullied and belittled by practitioners of the much more obviously powerful schools of magic.
* Mr. Tarzack Mazzeeck in Creator/ZilphaKeatleySnyder's 1966 novel ''Black and Blue Magic'' is this. He's also an absent-minded, harrassed, klutzy TravelingSalesman for the A.A. Comus Company, selling magick tools and supplies.

* The wizards in ''Literature/HarryPotter'' often fall somewhere between WizardClassic and GentlemanWizard, but since the series portrays the wizarding community in the United Kingdom throughout TheNineties, some of them inevitably fall under this:

* Many of the occult practitioners in Creator/ChinaMieville's ''Literature/{{Kraken}}'' are working-class. The novel even features an attempt to unionise familiars.
* Many of the magicians in the ''Literature/LordDarcy'' stories are skilled tradesmen.
* Quite a few major characters in ''Literature/MagicInc'' are this, providing services ranging from mass-produced construction goods to fortune-telling.

* Monster Dionysus in ''Literature/{{Monster}}''. Down on his luck, trapped in a dead-end job as a magical pest control operative, and stuck with [[OurDemonsAreDifferent a girlfriend from hell]]; the only advantages he has on his side are a very spotty degree in rune-based magic, a sidekick in the form of an interdimensional entity inhabiting a body made of shapeshifting origami (currently wanted by Immigration), and a supernatural condition that provides him with a different superpower a day - which usually turns out to be something [[WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway only vaguely useful]]. Very, very blue-collar.

* Blake Thorburn, the protagonist of ''Literature/{{Pact}}'', is a formerly homeless {{Handyman}} whose main associates are a group of [[StarvingArtist Starving Artists]] who have helped one another out, living in Toronto. Blake is so poor that he can't even afford a cell phone, and his sole nonessential purchase was a motorcycle, for transportation purposes. He's also the heir to an ancient legacy of [[TheLegionsOfHell diabolists]], which gets him a lot of enemies-all of whom are middle-class or more, as magic in ''Literature/{{Pact}}'' tends to be passed down through family lines.
* Peter Grant, from ''Literature/RiversOfLondon.'' On top of being a working-class guy (and, by his own admission, [[BlackAndNerdy a bit of a nerd]]), he started out as a police officer before getting promoted to a detective constable and apprentice wizard. For good measure, his boss and mentor is a very old-fashioned GentlemanWizard.
* Wizards in ''Literature/ShamanOfTheUndead'' may have fancy councils and academies, but they use modern-day appliances and the police work of WON is just like normal police work, only with {{Demonic Possession}}s instead of regular criminals.
* Literature/SkulduggeryPleasant has a few, notably Ghastly Bespoke, who works as a tailor - if a relatively high-end one. Skulduggery, meanwhile, is a GentlemanWizard who wears impeccably tailored suits and drives a magnificent vintage Bentley (also a skeleton).
* Stephen King's Randall Flagg from ''Literature/TheStand'' and ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'', especially in the former. He's a magic user whose preferred physical appearance is that of a denim-clad drifter from the second half of the 20th century, even in the Dark Tower universe where he's capable of assuming much more high fantasy-esque personas like the wizard advisor from ''Literature/TheEyesOfTheDragon''.

* In ''Literature/WizardOfThePigeons'', Wizard lives on the fringes of society amongst the street people, and was soldier (implicitly serving in Vietnam) before becoming a wizard.

* Several characters from ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''. Giles, for instance, is a school librarian and the local supernatural expert. Later seasons revealed that this is an ExploitedTrope; Giles is only pretending to be a school librarian as part of his Watcher duties, and when the Watcher's Council makes an appearance, it's clear that he's more like the 'proper, austere, middle class or higher' lineage. He fit the trope more in the past, when he was a [[FormerTeenRebel rebel]] who dabbled in fatally dangerous magic just for the fun of it with his friends (many of whom died because of it). In the ''Series/{{Angel}}'' spin-off, Wesley moves to this trope in appearance and methodology as he TookALevelInBadass; when he was an UpperClassTwit in ''Buffy'' and at the start of the series he was presented as cowardly and inept.

* It's perfectly easy to make an entire campaign out of such characters in ''TabletopGame/{{Champions}}'', but as far as pre-made characters go, Robert Caliburn, the Magnum Mage of Vibora Bay, is probably the clearest example.
* While ''TabletopGame/TheDresdenFiles'' makes no inherent assumption either way, it treats Resources as a skill like any other. It therefore competes with ''other'' skills, both mundane and magical, for slots in the game's column scheme, making it just that bit more likely that this sort of wizard will be more competent at magic (or something else non-money-related of more mundane utility) than a wealthy GentlemanWizard who would have had to "pay" for their high rank in Resources by lowering some other skill accordingly.
* In ''TabletopGame/GeistTheSinEaters'', your character is a Blue Collar Necromancer. Emphasis on ''blue collar'': you have to experience non-old-age death before you can become a Sin-Eater, and non-old-age deaths are more common amongst the blue collars.
* In both ''TabletopGame/MageTheAscension'' and ''TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening'', your player character is assumed to be one. Your mage tower is a penthouse and your magic library is a MagicalComputer.

** The ''Ascension'' group that epitomised "blue collar" were the Craftmasons, the founders of the Order of Reason, who valued hard work above all else. Unfortunately, they got wiped out by their own creation in the 17th century.
*** The advantages related to wealth in ''Ascension'' are also of limited value to most mages due to the necessities of the strongly enforced [[TheMasquerade masquerade]] and the mechanics of magical combat. The most powerful ability for keeping one's magical dealings secret (and protecting against sympathetic magic such as scrying and ranged strikes) is directly incompatible with essentially every wealth or status-related advantage, since it causes mortal record-keeping (including bank account numbers, deeds, and credit cards) to fail. So almost all players tend to be this by default unless they go to the other extreme and use overwhelming fame as a shield.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'', magic has existed on Earth for roughly 40 years by the first edition (70 as of sixth edition), and magic does not follow bloodlines. In other words, most mages are just regular people born with supernatural powers and tend to live lifestyles appropriate for their demand on the market. Mages with the punching power of your average Shadowrunner PlayerCharacter are one-in-a-million talents (literally) and are ruthlessly headhunted by the setting's governments and {{MegaCorp}}s, but even then we're talking "skilled surgeon or engineer in a small but vital field" rather than outright aristocracy. Since being a skilled mage (requiring high Magic and Attributes/Skills) and having lots of money (high Resources) tends to collide in the Priority System, player character mages tend to down-prioritize the latter at character creation.
* Many rogue psykers from ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' tend to be of this stamp, as psychic powers tend to manifest in all kinds of people, irrespective of social class. Given that being a non-sanctioned psyker is a capital crime in the Imperium - and one pursued with extreme prejudice - most of the ones who aren't rounded up by the Inquisition and put on the black ships tend to be part of a criminal underclass. Actual battlefield psykers in the main tabletop game tend not to be this though - they're either military professionals or classic fantasy mystic types.

%%* Alicia Claus from ''VideoGame/BulletWitch''.
* [[TheSquad Jericho Squad]] members from ''VideoGame/CliveBarkersJericho'' are just as high-class as the members of any similar, non-magical military squad would be.
* Patrick Galloway from ''VideoGame/CliveBarkersUndying'' is of the "paranormal investigator" variety, as well as a UsefulNotes/WorldWarI veteran that [[ArbitrarySkepticism doesn't believe in magic]].

%%* The Curator from ''VideoGame/TheDarkness''.
* Ness and Paula from ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'' are ''powerhouses'' of spellcasters capable of using PSI powerful enough to defeat world-ending threats, and both come from the suburbs of Eagleland. Poo is a little more of an actually contemporary spellcaster, coming from a far-off land of monks, and of course Jeff just [[BadassNormal packs his pockets with rockets, bombs, and bullets]].
%%* Female mages in ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'' tend to either be {{Badass Bookworm}}s or start as {{White Magician Girl}}s before becoming {{Magic Knight}}s through promotion.
%%* Ryan Lennox from ''VideoGame/{{Infernal}}''
* Despite its focus on worldwide travel to often-remote areas, ''VideoGame/TheSecretWorld'' has quite a few urban-oriented mages rounding out the NPC cast.
** Alex [=McCabe=] is a fairly obvious John Constantine {{Expy}} - a grungy, drunken, chain-smoking cynical battlemage right at home on the streets, duking it out with monsters. Quite apart from being the most overtly magical of all the Tokyo Response Team, his cinematic takes place in the most obviously urban setting, featuring him loafing around at a particularly grotty-looking pub and lighting his cigarettes with magic before getting into a fight with a demon in the bathroom.

%%* Alessa Gillespie from ''VideoGame/SilentHill1''.
%%* Rita Mordio in ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia''
* Akira from ''VideoGame/LiveALive'' has powerful psychic powers which are likely derived from magic, as it's a world where magic and demons most certainly do exist, but he lives in a contemporary TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture version of Japan. Everyone around him is either a robot or fights with technology, and his party members consist of a turtle-themed robot and a biker who just [[BadassNormal kicks the shit out of foes with his fists]].

* The cast of ''Webcomic/MorphE'' all fit, having recently stepped into the world of magic from their mundane ordinary lives.

* Many of the wizards seen in ''Webcomic/{{Widdershins}}'' fit, particularly Jack O'Malley (despite not being a trained wizard, he can see more of the unseen world than any wizard). If Sidney Malik could hold down a job, he'd be a perfect fit for the trope. Ben Thackerey is well educated, but does purely ordinary magic (mainly cleaning up buildups of spirits).

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In the episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E76StillValley Still Valley]]", a confederate soldier encounters a cankerous old man who calls himself a witch-man, who gives the soldier a book of black magic.

* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'': Harry Dresden alternates between working as an OccultDetective and as a run-of-the-mill {{Muggle}} private investigator, and like all fictional private investigators he's frequently broke. Which is admittedly partly his own fault for refusing to accept a ''very'' generous retainer from [[NeighbourhoodFriendlyGangsters "Gentleman" Johnny Marcone]], because he's too stubbornly law-abiding to work for the Mob, and because he sinks most of his disposable income into new magical gizmos.
** This is later subverted when we discover more about the Dresden Universe. Harry could be much wealthier if he chose a more traditional Wizarding lifestyle - he's a member of the White Council, the uber tier of human magic users, and he's one of the strongest of the lot (though for most of the series, by his own admittance he's [[UnskilledButStrong "a powerhouse slob"]] and not very good at the subtle stuff), and as he's noted, some wizards have made obscene amounts of money with their gifts. If nothing else, they live for around four hundred years, and compound interest is their friend. He's also not short of potential resources. His mentor [[spoiler: and Grandfather]] is one of the strongest Wizards in the world, [[spoiler: the Blackstaff (the Council's assassin)]] and a member of the Senior Council. His literal Faerie Godmother is one of the handmaidens to Queen Mab herself and as powerful as that implies in a setting where AsskickingLeadsToLeadership.
** This is also increasingly more averted as the series has progressed and Dresden has accumulated more wealth and power. In the early books, Dresden was frequently living paycheck-to-paycheck and his inability to find regular work was a common issue. In ''Literature/DeadBeat'', however, he lands a second job as a [[spoiler: Warden of the White Council]], the pay of which, while not especially impressive on it's own ([[WizardsLiveLonger wizards being wizards]], it hasn't had a cost of living increase since the 50s - though it's implied that those in charge have found loopholes), is enough to mostly end his financial difficulties combined with his detective work. In ''Literature/TurnCoat'', he more or less accidentally acquires [[spoiler: an entire island]] - though given that it has a powerful GeniusLoci that's deeply hostile to everyone except him, [[spoiler: because it's the warden of a supernatural super-max]], this is a mixed blessing. In ''Literature/SkinGame'', [[spoiler: he actually makes it out of the heist with a bag of diamonds worth several million dollars, though subsequent novels show he's yet to make any major adjustments to his lifestyle beyond securing his daughter's place at an expensive private school]]. And at the end of ''Literature/BattleGround'', [[spoiler: he manages to con Marcone out of a literal ''castle'', with the intention of living there once he can get the place fixed up a bit]].
* [[OurAngelsAreDifferent Aziraphale]] in ''Literature/GoodOmens'' zig-zags this a little bit; he has middle-class English mannerisms (even though he's actually an angel), but he owns a small bookshop that almost never sells anything, and it mostly just functions as a public excuse to keep all of his vast book collection close at hand. However, he does have some immensely valuable volumes that he could sell if he needed to.

[[caption-width-right:300:[-The common blue-collar warlock. His [[MedievalEuropeanFantasy castle]] is an apartment flat. His [[MagicStaff magical staff]] is a cigarette. His [[WhiteStallion Shadowfax]] is a taxi cab. His [[ImmortalityInducer elixir]] is beer. His [[RobeAndWizardHat magical robe]] is a [[BadassLongCoat trenchcoat]]. His {{damsel in distress}} is a cocky {{goth}}ic [[GirlsWithGuns gun-toting girl]].-] ]]

* In the episode "Still Valley" from ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'', a confederate soldier encounters a cankerous old man who calls himself a witch-man, who gives the soldier a book of black magic.

** And [[Literature/FateZero Waver]] is basically this trope but upwardly-mobile. According to ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'', he has a noticeably working-class accent. In ''LightNovel/LordElMelloiIICaseFiles'', he's apparently flat broke, lives in a cheap, cramped apartment in a crumbling old building, and still cherishes the shoes he bought with his first paycheck eight years ago. But he got adopted by a noble family that needed an adult heir quickly, so now he's called Lord El-Melloi II and goes around wearing cravats.

* Kairi from ''LightNovel/FateApocrypha'' is a burly, cigarette-smoking, shotgun-wielding, leather-clad necromancer who looks like he'd be more at home in a biker gang than fighting in a Holy Grail War.
** And [[LightNovel/FateZero Waver]] is basically this trope but upwardly-mobile. According to ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'', he has a noticeably working-class accent. In ''LightNovel/LordElMelloiIICaseFiles'', he's apparently flat broke, lives in a cheap, cramped apartment in a crumbling old building, and still cherishes the shoes he bought with his first paycheck eight years ago. But he got adopted by a noble family that needed an adult heir quickly, so now he's called Lord El-Melloi II and goes around wearing cravats.
* ''LightNovel/TheGardenOfSinners'': Touko Aozaki is a supernatural detective masquerading as an architect and toy designer, dresses up in modern work clothes and a trenchcoat, smokes cigarettes, and always flat broke that she accepts odd jobs that would pay for her charge's paycheck and/or her spending habits. Yet she is known to be one of the most powerful magi in the Nasuverse.

* The main characters of ''LightNovel/ModernMagicMadeSimple''. One spell is "call a cell phone that's turned off".

%%* Itsuki Iba and his company from ''LightNovel/RentalMagica''.
* ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}''

* Ness and Paula from ''VideoGame/{{Earthbound}}'' are ''powerhouses'' of spellcasters capable of using PSI powerful enough to defeat world-ending threats, and both come from the suburbs of Eagleland. Poo is a little more of an actually contemporary spellcaster, coming from a far-off land of monks, and of course Jeff just [[BadassNormal packs his pockets with rockets, bombs, and bullets]].

Whenever we think of [[WizardsAndWitches wizards, sorcerers, or mages]], the first thing that pops in our minds are [[WizardClassic old wise men,]] [[MagicStaff long staffs]], [[MagicWand magical wands]], [[RobeAndWizardHat pointy hats]], and [[WizardBeard long beards]]. The blue collar warlock is a different kind of magic-user. He lives in no [[MedievalEuropeanFantasy medieval fantasy setting]], but instead lives in [[UrbanFantasy something more contemporary]]. They are sorcerers who modernized and you may cross paths with one on the streets. They might live among us and [[ParanormalMundaneItem use magical artifacts that look like mundane items]]. Unlike contemporary warriors, they fight with the use of old-fashioned magic and the occult. Streetwise in the face of danger, some may be good, while others are sinister. Sometimes they are {{Occult Detective}}s or {{Stage Magician}}s. See also TrenchcoatBrigade. Contrast GentlemanWizard.

** This is later subverted when we discover more about the Dresden Universe. Harry could be much wealthier if he chose a more traditional Wizarding lifestyle - he's a member of the White Council, the uber tier of human magic users, and he's one of the strongest of the lot (though for most of the series, by his own admittance he's [[UnskilledButStrong "a powerhouse slob"]] and not very good at the subtle stuff), and as he's noted, some wizards have made obscene amounts of money with their gifts. If nothing else, they live for around four hundred years, and compound interest is their friend. He's also not short of potential resources. His mentor [[spoiler: and Grandfather]] is one of the strongest Wizards in the world, [[spoiler: the Blackstaff (the Council's assassin)]] and a member of the Senior Council. His literal Faerie Godmother is one of the handmaidens to Queen Mab herself and as powerful as that implies in a setting where AsskickingEqualsAuthority.

* Mr. Tarzack Mazzeeck in Zilpha Keatley Snyder's 1966 novel ''Black and Blue Magic'' is this. He's also an absent-minded, harrassed, klutzy TravelingSalesman for the A.A. Comus Company, selling magick tools and supplies.

** This is later subverted when we discover more about the Dresden Universe. Harry could be much wealthier if he chose a more traditional Wizarding lifestyle, [[spoiler:he's a member of the White Council, the uber tier of human magic users. His Grandfather is one of the strongest Wizards in the world, the Blackstaff and a member of the Elder Council. His Godmother is one of the handmaidens to Queen Mab herself and a powerful Sidhe. He also bascially gets his own massive island in Lake Michigan which he's both responsible for (it's a prison for the most dangrous monsters in the world) and his home for a long stretch of time. Finally, he's now the Winter Knight, a literal noble in the Unseelie Court of the Winter Queens]].
** This is also increasingly more averted as the series has progressed and Dresden has accumulated more wealth and power. In the early books, Dresden was frequently living paycheck-to-paycheck and his inability to find regular work was a common issue. In ''Literature/DeadBeat'', however, he lands a second job as a [[spoiler: Warden of the White Council]], the pay of which, while not especially impressive on it's own, is enough to mostly end his financial difficulties combined with his detective work. In ''Literature/SkinGame'', [[spoiler: he actually makes it out of the heist with a bag of diamonds worth several million dollars, though subsequent novels show he's yet to make any major adjustments to his lifestyle beyond securing his daughter's place at an expensive private school]]. And at the end of ''Literature/BattleGround'', [[spoiler: he manages to con Marcone out of a literal ''castle'', with the intention of living there once he can get the place fixed up a bit]].
%%* [[OurAngelsAreDifferent Aziraphale]] in ''Literature/GoodOmens''.

** The Weasleys, although as removed from normal urban muggle life as can be, have shades of this as well. They are a numerous, lower class family whose struggles are not unlike those of poor Muggle families. Also, the father works regulating the use of Muggle artifacts, and as such they all are more familiar with normal Muggle life than most wizards (which is not much, but still).

%%* Literature/SkulduggeryPleasant

* In the seventies, Creator/HarlanEllison wrote a pitch pilot for a series called ''The Dark Forces'' featuring CrusadingLawyer Lee Kraiter learning the ways of sorcerery (Ellison admitted to owing a debt to ComicBook/DrStrange).

* In general, the wealth in a character's background isn't permitted to grant unbalancing resources, especially in the beginning -- and in a less well-balanced charge, what the game rules give the [=GM=] can take away. It's easier to justify this, and the choice of adventuring career, by defining a mage character as a peasant-born poor apprentice.

* Several characters from ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''. Giles, for instance, is a school librarian and the local supernatural expert. Later seasons revealed that this is an ExploitedTrope; Giles is only pretending to be a school librarian as part of his Watcher duties, and when the Watcher's Council makes an appearance, it's clear that he's more like the 'proper, austere, middle class or higher' lineage. In the ''Series/{{Angel}}'' spin-off, Wesley moves to this trope in appearance and methodology as he TookALevelInBadass; when he was an UpperClassTwit in ''Buffy'' and at the start of the series he was presented as cowardly and inept.

* In ''Literature/WhiteTrashWarlock'', Adam ''wishes'' he were blue collar. He starts the series so poor that a big concern with his hunt to find evil artifacts isn't the confrontation he'll have with the warlock who made them, but the gas money it's costing him going out and finding the damn things.

* In ''TabletopGame/GeistTheSinEaters'', your character is a Blue Collar Necromancer. Emphasis on ''blue collar'': you have to experience non-old-age death before you can become a Sin-Eater, and non-old-age deaths are more common amongst the blue collars.

* While ''TabletopGame/TheDresdenFiles'' makes no inherent assumption either way, it treats Resources as a skill like any other. It therefore competes with ''other'' skills, both mundane and magical, for slots in the game's column scheme, making it just that bit more likely that this sort of wizard will be more competent at magic (or something else non-money-related of more mundane utility) than a wealthy GentlemanWizard who would have had to "pay" for their high rank in Resources by lowering some other skill accordingly.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'', magic has existed on Earth for roughly 40 years by the first edition (70 as of sixth edition), and magic does not follow bloodlines. In other words, most mages are just regular people born with supernatural powers and tend to live lifestyles appropriate for their demand on the market. Mages with the punching power of your average Shadowrunner PlayerCharacter are one-in-a-million talents (literally) and are ruthlessly headhunted by the setting's governments and {{MegaCorp}}s, but even then we're talking "skilled surgeon or engineer in a small but vital field" rather than outright aristocracy. Since being a skilled mage (requiring high Magic and Attributes/Skills) and having lots of money (high Resources) tends to collide in the Priority System, player character mages tend to down-prioritize the latter at character creation.
* It's perfectly easy to make an entire campaign out of such characters in ''TabletopGame/{{Champions}}'', but as far as premade characters go, Robert Caliburn, the Magnum Mage of Vibora Bay, is probably the clearest example.

* VideoGame/CultistSimulator has the player in the Exile DLC. They are an interesting example, in that they are very rich in a mundane way. But in the occult world they are, at best, a former minion of the occult mafia. Very much working class small fry.

%%* Ryan Lennox from ''VideoGame/{{Infernal}}''
%%* The Curator from ''VideoGame/TheDarkness''.
%%* Alessa Gillespie from ''VideoGame/SilentHill1''.
* Patrick Galloway from ''VideoGame/CliveBarkersUndying'' is of the "paranormal investigator" variety, as well as a UsefulNotes/WorldWarI veteran that [[ArbitrarySkepticism doesn't believe in magic]].

%%* Rita Mordio in ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia''

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* Many of the wizards seen in ''Webcomic/{{Widdershins}}'' fit, particularly Jack O'Malley (despite not being a trained wizard, he can see more of the unseen world than any wizard). If Sidney Malik could hold down a job, he'd be a perfect fit for the trope. Ben Thackerey is well educated, but does purely ordinary magic (mainly cleaning up buildups of spirits).

* [[https://www.webtoons.com/en/fantasy/trailer-park-warlock/list?title_no=1512 Trailer Park Warlock]] is exactly what it says on the tin, a redneck who does sorcery to pay his lot fees.

%%* Itsuki Iba and his company from ''LightNovel/RentalMagica''.
%%* Yura from ''Manga/NuraRiseOfTheYokaiClan''.
* The main characters of ''LightNovel/ModernMagicMadeSimple''. One spell is "call a cell phone that's turned off".
* The eponymous ''Manga/HellTeacherNube'', [[PapaWolf teacher first and onmyouji second]]. He's a teacher that uses supernatural powers to beat down on monsters.
* Kairi from ''LightNovel/FateApocrypha'' is a burly, cigarette-smoking, shotgun-wielding, leather-clad necromancer who looks like he'd be more at home in a biker gang than fighting in a Holy Grail War.
** And [[LightNovel/FateZero Waver]] is basically this trope but upwardly-mobile. According to ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'', he has a noticeably working-class accent. In ''LightNovel/LordElMelloiIICaseFiles'', he's apparently flat broke, lives in a cheap, cramped apartment in a crumbling old building, and still cherishes the shoes he bought with his first paycheck eight years ago. But he got adopted by a noble family that needed an adult heir quickly, so now he's called Lord El-Melloi II and goes around wearing cravats.
* ''LightNovel/TheGardenOfSinners'': Touko Aozaki is a supernatural detective masquerading as an architect and toy designer, dresses up in modern work clothes and a trenchcoat, smokes cigarettes, and always flat broke that she accepts odd jobs that would pay for her charge's paycheck and/or her spending habits. Yet she is known to be one of the most powerful magi in the Nasuverse.

%%* ComicBook/DoctorFate becomes one in UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks.
%%* Giovanni Zatara and his daughter ComicBook/{{Zatanna}} are examples.

* The young Timothy Hunter from ''ComicBook/TheBooksOfMagic'', who grew up poor in a rundown house where his unemployed, one-armed father spent all day slumped in front of the television watching old movies.
* ''ComicBook/{{Gravel}}'': William Gravel grew up on a council estate and coming up in the SAS before channeling his talents into magic. His solo series starts with him coming into open conflict with the other sanctioned magicians of Britain, all of whom are upper class toffs who look down on him as a yobo with conjuring tricks. [[spoiler: It ends badly for them.]]
* In ''ComicBook/BlackMagick'', Rowan Black--practising Wiccan and heir to powerful magical bloodline-- is a police detective who rides a motorcycle. Her best friend Alex, who is also a witch, is a kindergarten teacher.

%%[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

%%[[/folder]]

* Wizards in ''Literature/ShamanOfTheUndead'' may have fancy councils and academies, but they use modern-day appliances and the police work of WON is just like normal police work, only with {{Demonic Possession}}s instead of regular criminals.
* ''Literature/TheMortalInstruments'': This is apparently not unusual for warlocks in general. They typically cast spells for a living.
** Magnus Bane lives in a warehouse loft, throws wild house parties, generally behaves like a New York hipster and otherwise seems entrenched in modern urban culture despite his great age. Also does spellcasting for a fee as his primary source of income.
** Catarina Loss is shown to work in a hospital as a nurse.
%%* Literature/SkulduggeryPleasant
* Stephen King's Randall Flagg from ''Literature/TheStand'' and ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'', especially in the former. He's a magic user whose preferred physical appearance is that of a denim-clad drifter from the second half of the 20th century, even in the Dark Tower universe where he's capable of assuming much more high fantasy-esque personas like the wizard advisor from ''Literature/TheEyesOfTheDragon''.

* [[Literature/AlexVerus Alex Verus]]. In sharp contrast to the rich and powerful members of the Light Council that often employ him, Alex is a small business-owner who lives above his magic shop in Camden. For good measure, as a Probability Mage, he often finds himself getting bullied and belittled by practitioners of the much more obviously powerful schools of magic.
* Peter Grant, from ''Literature/RiversOfLondon.'' On top of being a working-class guy (and, by his own admission, [[BlackAndNerdy a bit of a nerd]]), he started out as a police officer before getting promoted to a detective constable and apprentice wizard. For good measure, his boss and mentor is a very old-fashioned GentlemanWizard.
* [[Literature/{{Monster}} Monster Dionysus]]. Down on his luck, trapped in a dead-end job as a magical pest control operative, and stuck with [[OurDemonsAreDifferent a girlfriend from hell]]; the only advantages he has on his side are a very spotty degree in rune-based magic, a sidekick in the form of an interdimensional entity inhabiting a body made of shapeshifting origami (currently wanted by Immigration), and a supernatural condition that provides him with a different superpower a day - which usually turns out to be something [[WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway only vaguely useful]]. Very, very blue-collar.

* Quite a few major characters in ''Literature/MagicInc'' are this, providing services ranging from mass-produced construction goods to fortune-telling.
* ''Literature/DragonsAndDwarves: Dragons of the Cuyahoga'' has the criminal mage Bone Daddy, covered in tattoos and making a dodgy living selling illegal things. [[spoiler: He's actually an undercover cop, but still counts]].

* Many of the occult practitioners in Creator/ChinaMieville's ''Literature/{{Kraken}}'' are working-class. The novel even features an attempt to unionise familiars.
* Mr. Tarzack Mazzeeck in Zilpha Keatley Snyder's 1966 novel ''Black and Blue Magic'' is this. He's also an absent-minded, harrassed, klutzy TravelingSalesman for the A.A. Comus Company, selling magick tools and supplies.

* ''Literature/JourneyToChaos''
** All of the Dragon's Lair mages are mercenaries so their jobs tend to be skilled labor. This is especially the case with novice mages who are still learning their craft. Their gig is compared to a part-time job like bagging groceries.
** The field agents for the International Community Dedicated to Magic Mutation do a lot of traveling in order to gather research materials and test equipment. Kallen, for instance, basically lives in a flying trailer.
* ''Literature/UrbanDragon'': Matheson is a mortician by day and a necromancer by night
* The wizards in Literature/HarryPotter often fall somewhere between WizardClassic and GentlemanWizard, but since the series portrays the wizarding community in the United Kingdom throughout TheNineties, some of them inevitably fall under this:
** Mundungus Fletcher is a negative example. A man of questionable repute, and the wizard equivalent of a mundane ConMan, who often deals in contraband and stolen goods. Rounding up the portrayal, he has a sleazy disposition, uses fairly modern slang, he is a smoker, and he is heavily implied to be a heavy drinker, as well.
** The Weasleys, although as removed from normal urban muggle life as can be, have shades of this as well. They are a numerous, lower class family whose struggles are not unlike those of poor Muggle families. Also, the father works regulating the use of Muggle artifacts, and as such they all are more familiar with normal Muggle life than most wizards (which is not much, but still).
* Many of the magicians in the Literature/LordDarcy stories are skilled tradesmen.
* ''Literature/{{Sunshine}}'' features a surprise stealth example of this trope, when it's heavily implied that [[spoiler:the main character's boyfriend Mel]] is (or was) one of these. He currently [[spoiler:works a day job as a cook in a neighborhood cafe/bakery, and it's unclear how retired from action he actually is]].

[[folder:Live-Action Film]]
* ''Film/NightWatch'': Light Mages masquerade as electrical technicians, wear coveralls and drive utility trucks, and their front organization is called "[[=CityLight=]]" (a regular Russian name for an urban power management agency). Dark Mages, by contrast, are a weird amalgamation of decadent pop-performers, blingy thugs and Nazi cosplayers. This was nowhere as pronounced in the books, but it was still a modernised setting where both Light and Dark Ones would try to pass as regular people.
[[/folder]]

%%* The witches from ''Series/TrueBlood''

* In the episode "Still Valley" from ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'', a confederate soldier encounters a cankerous old man who calls himself a witch-man, who gives the soldier a book of black magic.

* In the seventies, Creator/HarlanEllison wrote a pitch pilot for a series called ''The Dark Forces'' featuring CrusadingLawyer Lee Kraiter learning the ways of sorcerery (Ellison admitted to owing a debt to ComicBook/DrStrange).