Witches, female wizard or a totally different class?

I like to use "witch" to refer to the user of more 'witchy' kind of magic - making potions, maybe some ritualistic curse, making some kind of magical trinket, that sort of thing

In a setting where that's the only kind of magic, then witch is just some weird reclusive magic person

I also like it as a gender-neutral term but that's a whole other topic

I was under the impression that wizard was a pretty gender neutral term, and both men and women could be them (Unless you're in Harry Potter).

Though wizards are different from warlocks and witches who often dabble in occult, necromancy, and primal magics.

I want to say the witch would be to the Druid what the Sorcerer is to the Wizard.

Someone who taps into the same power but in a much more raw and unrefined way. And by someone who is not affiliated with the official college/brotherhood/cult of the former knowledge.

But witches tap into that same primal magic of "mother Earth" for the same results. Only they get around by nabbing and keeping various herbs and minerals that has some small element of magical properties in them. They can draw spells from the ingredients the same way one uses ingredients to make food.

I think they would have a lot of similar spells. Transformation, summoning and taming animals, calling weather, healing, maybe not as many spells but probably being able to cast more per day depending on the ingredients the player has.

There isn't exactly a shortage of chink witches though.

Witches be bitches.

Witches are an amazing concept, because they're essentially just the European equivalent of a medicine man/woman if you go by historical interpretation, and I love all kinds of animistic dudes and dudettes living in strawroofed huts innawoods, throwing herbs into the fire while shaking a bone rattle and handing out them magical ointments to scared villagefolk who're not sure if they made a good deal.

So I view them as something distinct from wizardines and sorcerettes and call male witches "Witch Doc".

Speaking of different species: That's a concept that's not all that European, if I'm not mistaken. The general gist of it is that you have to be some sort of otherworldly creature in order to actually cast spells and know and use the magical properties of herbs and animal parts, you can't "learn" to become a witch.

I'll never fully be able to accept "warlock" as a male "witch". Modern fantasy has made warlocks into full-blown occultists and demonologists while witches are sinister demons and dark shamans.

I loved how in the German translation of "The Last Guardian", they basically called a "warlock" a "Battle Witcher" (literal translation from German), which made much more sense to me considering how most modern fantasy treats warlocks as incredibly damage oriented.

>Cute girls and hot bombshells raping the monsters

There is a god and he is good.

>There is a god and he is good.
If that were true, then why isn't there an /ss/ witch doujin? There's only one correct answer: there's two

Is Meteor Swarm Eruption the other one?

Sucy best girl!

I find it hilarious that 2 of the witches in that pic are the spellcaster from Dragon's Crown, and Madoka.

But who's the third one?

I was actually talking about a WCW fan doujin. Thanks for letting me know about this third one though.

No idea.

Some Pretty Cure.

I think she is from Magical Precure.

I like witches to be gender neutral. You'd call a male witch a 'witch man'.

Also it's my autistic pet peeve when people have different classes for Sorcerers, Wizards, Witches, etc. Make them all one universal class, the rest is just a title.

>B=Witch
>group futa on girl doujin
Fucking amzing

This thread went places surprisingly quickly.

tbf a witch was considered a bride of satan while a warlock was a follower of satan who did not fuck him. so the distinction was in the intimacy they had with the devil, witches being closer and as such having more power, warlocks respecting him but having less power due to distance. idk when wizards and sorcerers came about.

>wcw fan doujin
All I could think of was that one comic with AJ Lee begging John Cena to bring back CMPunk-kun, and Cena.

One thing I've found kind of odd is how "witch" has basically no place in Dresden Files. Wizard, sorcerer, warlock, practitioner, necromancer - these are all well-defined terms. Witch comes up I think once, used only when Dresden himself thinks female magicial criminals are just plain meaner than the males.

Why can't witches be cute boys? Personally, I like the idea of wizards being the stereotypical mage, you know, big book of spells flinging fire balls, while witches cast curses, divine the future through entrails, and create love potions. But I sort of dislike that all witches are women. Why can't there be cute boy witches also?

Wot?

the term would be warlock. they do the same stuff but are less powerful, unless they're in a fuck relationship with satan they ain't a witch

Are you saying cute boys can't be in a sexual relationship with Satan?
>implying satan doesnt have a harem of catamites

imgur.com/a/OGBO7

>the term would be warlock
The term would be witch, or witchman

he might do, i'm not one to judge, and if anyone would have a harem of catamites it's the lord of all sin. but that said, if satan just doesn't take a fancy to a particular boy or if that boy respects satan but doesn't wanna fuck him then he wouldn't get the satanic powers that someone who did fuck satan would.

"their magic prowless"

I rather just have Witches as female wizards. I always see witches as female humans that can use magic while wizards as male humans that can use magic. Making them a separate species just feels weird to me.

I liked it better when witch was the warlock kit.

I've got a character who's technically a sorceress, but frequently gets called a witch, mostly by the party cleric. She does wear the hat though, so it's understandable. She is a different species though and not much of her parents' race either.

Come to think of it, is there anyone who wears those kind of hats who isn't a witch, or can just about anyone assume that all women who wear tall pointy wide-brimmed hats are spellcasters? Is there even a purpose for them other than looking sexy?

I sorta like the separate, but I also like it as a term for female magic user

So...Both?

Different class.
I always went with this:
>Sorcerers/sorceresses cast from the magical blood within them
>Wizards cast through rituals and incantations of magical stimuli.
>Warlocks/Witches cast from power granted by daemonic pacts and alchemy.
>Necromancers cast with rituals like wizards, but draw power from lifeforce rather than spell components. Which I really like, as it is a more legitimately evil act to leech off the living than to unleash "negative energy" into the world.

What system have you used necromancers like that?

D&D, lots of refluffing.
I always felt the "good necromancer" trope always missed the point, that they are supposed to be scary as shit, that's why they are so reviled and hunted down, because they quite literally suck the life out of the land, leaving a trail of death in their wake.

One fight in particular had the party on edge the entire session.
>Necromancer had cages of people lining the room.
>He would drain their life to fire his offensive spells at the party or to heal himself.
>When they died, he would sap the life from the party to revive them as zombies.
>If the party got too close too quickly, he would stab himself to create a shockwave and blow them back.
>The party finally beat him ass into the ground after much struggling
>With his last breath, he tried to reanimate the bones and bodies into one last hulking minion.
>But without a constant source of life, the monster quickly fell apart and disintegrated.

Sort of a specialization I guess?

They specialize in curses and potions and subtler things. They live on the outskirts and prey on the desperate and the defenseless, and not just for shits and giggles.

They negotiate, but it's almost always a higher price than a sane man would accept. They traffic in dark, but not the darkest, powers. They steal youth and luck and strength.

Witches are spooky hags that do bad magic.

I've always seen Warlocks as MUCH worse than witches. I mean, their name roughly means "oathbreaker" or "covenant-denier" in Old English, and they've been heavily associated with the demons and hell and shit.

They're the type to burn down cities and flay souls to make tea. Witches just turn prideful farmers into owls and cackle wildly when someone falls off a cliff under the effects of one of their potions.

I prefer low number of classes with very high customization. In that case witches are specific wizards (not even necessary female).
If there are many classes or customization level is low, then witches belongs to a different class.

Female wizard, but a few witch only spells/feats

>but a few witch only spells/feats
Is explosion a witch only spell?

I use it as a gender neutral term in my setting. Anyone with magic can be called a witch.

It's derogatory

Wizard is a class. Wizards study magic to learn how to cast spells.
Witch is a profession. Witches serve the arcane needs of small rural communities.

Many witches are wizards, but some witches are shaman, sorcerers, arcanists, or bards.

I play a female wizard. I never thought about calling her something other than a wizard.

If I were running I'd just let the player decide, it's not a big deal.

>i'm taking my shota and i'm leaving

It can be

Female evil druid.

I'm gonna need a sauce on this one boss, google doesn't want to spill the beans

>The Witch, the Succubus and The Cute Apprentice
It's cute, but has some low intensity feels.
hitomi.la/galleries/670998.html

user, you know what I'm about to ask, right? You know us, you're one of us, why didn't you think of it by yourself?

Yes.

>That shota x shota chapter
The only good part about that doujin.

Unless it is a specific class in the system I use Witch to refer to any spell caster who
1. Commits Murder using magic
2. Commits a Felony Using Magic
3. Unlawfully Summons a Demon

Witch is a "title" given to any spell caster guilty of Malediction under the codes of Magical Conduct, most of whose acts cover safe and responsible use of magic. Witch means magical criminal in my settings.

>The only good part about that doujin.
Don't make me come over there!

>Being into /ss/
>Being into hetshit
キモい。

Witches are conceptual beings that maybe exist, or maybe not. They are cute and have only your best interest in mind!

>female wizard or totally different class?
Both. But also kind of neither.

>mfw that whole album

I like it.

At least your kind doesn't breed.

I think the distinction is most settings.os that warlocks are given power, wizards study power and sorcs are born with power

So clerics are a type of warlock?

Which would Witches be?

Post more VVitches.

Well, if we're going by Christianity, witches (or rather, all magic users) are just people who slept with demons and because of that they now have magical powers. In D&D/PF/whatever, witches are the same as warlocks -- they're given their powers from an unknown source. In some fantasy stories, witches are just magic users who delve into the more "forbidden" arts, like divination through entrails, a spell that abort a baby, and love potions.

>implying adoption is a bad thing

I assume you're talking D&D-systems? No.

"A warlock is defined by a pact with an otherworldly being. Sometimes the relationship between warlock and patron is like that of a cleric and a diety, though the beings that serve as patron for a warlock are not gods [...] More often, though, the arrangement is similar to that between a master and and apprentice. The warlock learns and grows in power, at the cost of occasional services performed on the patron's behalf."
Warlocks appear to be arcane casters, while Clerics are divine casters, if 5e preserved that distinction.

"Magician" is the catch-all term for a magic user.

"Wizard" is a term of high esteem. Magical academies give out wizardries much in the same universities in our world give out doctorates.

"Witch" is a derogatory term, with implications of being uneducated and practicing the less savory type of magic either because they don't know any better or because they don't care. It IS a female-only term, because the magic community isn't very egalitarian -- the reason why "witch" carries implications of being uneducated is because it's hard for women to get into magical academies.

>It IS a female-only term
But why
I mean, couldn't there be poor, uneducated magical men who don't know about the existence of magical academies and live on the edges of civilization, thus they can't be discovered and brought into said academies? Or just men who want to practice the less savory type of magic.

Because it's always been?
It's like Vixen, a female fox, or Stallion, a male horse.
>Sorcerer-Sorceress
>Incubi-Succubus
>Warlock-Witch

Half nature, half elemental, half arcane, half innumerate.

>Because it's always been?
Uh... no? Both men and women have been accused as being witches historically. Heck, in Africa, it's mainly men who are the witches. The, "Only women can be witches," is a modern thing.

Post sexy witches/sorceresses!

Middle English version of the French "Socier" (masc gendered) is "wizard" meaning literally "wise guy". Was strictly seen as masculine because women had -4 Wis rather than Str penalties back then.

Witch is a fairly recent term derived from "bewitch" and which was associated mainly with women so someone who bewitches was termed a "witch".

At the same time there's also Old English equivalents that did have male and female variants - Wicca and Wicce (second c is pronounced like -ch, so "wiccha" and "wicche"), but those fell out of use entirely between old and middle english.

>africa as an example
We're talking about the terms in the english language though. It's a language that has gendered words.

Let me make a German example because that should be more clear:
In German, a noun has a preceding article that takes the place of "the" for addressing it.
So "the cat" is "die katze". Depending on the word, that article changes. "Der" for masculine, "die" for feminine, "das" for neutered or ungendered terms.
So, suppose that "witch" were a german word. It would bear the article "die" because it has a feminine connotation.

That's just how language works. Nietzsche talks about how dumb it is ("why is a tree masculine and a sprouting plant feminine? Who decided this?"), but he also acknowledges that someone who doesn't follow the agreed "peace-treaties" of language and goes around saying that he is "rich" when he is in fact "poor" is going to get run out of town.

So a witch is always female in the english language. It varies in others, hence why making the African comparison doesn't work.

No, its a medieval thing.

Warlocks is the term for men who get magical powers from the devil.

>Witches are an amazing concept, because they're essentially just the European equivalent of a medicine man/woman if you go by historical interpretation, and I love all kinds of animistic dudes and dudettes living in strawroofed huts innawoods, throwing herbs into the fire while shaking a bone rattle and handing out them magical ointments to scared villagefolk who're not sure if they made a good deal.
>So I view them as something distinct from wizardines and sorcerettes and call male witches "Witch Doc".

But that's completely wrong. Historically (in terms of the beliefs of people at the time anyway) in Europe a witch was an evil person who dealt with the devil and used magic to harm people. Witchcraft was a crime.

The 'cunning folk' who practised benevolent folk magic to protect against witches and demons were an entirely different group (albeit one which was at high risk of accusations of really being a witch). Members of the clergy could be cunning folk and arguably witch hunters would fall into that category as well.

Witch doctors aren't a type of witch. They are the person you go to cure a curse placed on you by a witch.

>Come to think of it, is there anyone who wears those kind of hats who isn't a witch, or can just about anyone assume that all women who wear tall pointy wide-brimmed hats are spellcasters? Is there even a purpose for them other than looking sexy?

They were moderately popular in the renaissance / baroque period as just normal headgear. Made from dense felt and with a shape ideal for deflecting water, they are pretty good rain-proof hats that are big enough to act as a bit of a status symbol for middle-class types (similar to the later stovepipe hat for men).

I run witches more like a type of monster than like a regular npc. Sorta like this.
youtube.com/watch?v=SIfjcHn9JYw

Nah post cute witches.

That's the cat from Soul Eater.

...

I think this one is from Final Fantasy or something Japanese.

Beatrice a cute

Orc witch? More of an orc shaman I think.

Post the stable scene.

In my game and setting I treat them as a sort of hybrid Priest/Mage class with a focus revolving at the base around charms, curses, hexes, etc, any sort of low level folk magic stuff with a lot of supplemental know-how, and at the higher levels allow it to unfold into specializations of witch by pacts and rites, like worship of the Sun, Satan, Moon, Fae, etc. So they develop a broad and flexible mastery over a concept as opposed to some rigid school or singular deity.

In the conceptual, witches are meant to be almost pathologically independent, in that their craft revolves around the pacts and charms made with the powers around them without actually falling into the trap of selling themselves to that power, so they have to be extremely careful or just smart enough to always have a backdoor when some asshole spirit comes expecting to collect payment over the bounds of what was agreed on.

jaqen-draws.tumblr.com/image/131249586005

An old commish

Conquistawich

a butt flap is fine too.

Those words don't have the same etymology, so if you're using them as gendered variants of the same class, you're objectively doing it wrong.

Wait a second! It updated?

Also pyronun > buttflaps