Witches

I've been pondering it a little, Veeky Forums, and the position of the whole archetype of Witches in fantasy gaming as a whole is kind of weird.

A large part of the identity and themes of witches, the assumptions and cliches associated with them, are heavily rooted in the idea of their transgression. Historically this was their position of opposition to christian cultural and moral values (not getting into the debate of how much was real and how much they were used as a scapegoat).

While some settings, mostly grittier low fantasy sorts, preserve the archetype of the mysterious and mistrusted, yet still useful and sometimes necessary wise woman, in a lot of other cases the witch loses their identity.

In some cases, they're still treated with an air of mistrust despite existing in a high fantasy world where none of their activities or themes are at all transgressive or opposed to the norm, while other settings preserve all the structure and cliches without actually having any of the reasons for them, witches being isolated or secretive without the setting actually providing any reasons to be so.

How would you try to bridge the gap, Veeky Forums? How would you make witches appropriate in a higher fantasy setting, transgressing the in universe social norms in ways that were interesting seeds for storytelling and roleplaying, rather than restriction options or locking them off from player characters?

Were you the guy who posted the Lesbian Witches thread ten minutes ago? If so, this is a commendable second effort.

these days witches are more associated with their garb and items than being evil

in a high fantasy setting, where magic is common, than either witch is a fashion craze and people mistrust them the same way we mistrust scene kids or witch magic is follows a very different set of rules from the standard practice causing normal people to view them as an "other"

in either case, its not being magical per se, but their ways are not your ways
this downplays their evil, it could be a stereotype set by a few high profile case, while still giving them an excuse to live in huts at the edge of town

or you can go full anime and have a dozeb witches in town and nobody cares or stares, that is also fine with me

also, post more cute witches

Nah, not him, but that reminded me of it and got me to thinking about it some more. It's such a common archetype, and yet the majority of versions of it you see gloss over or lose what are key parts of it, and a lot of the time people don't seem to notice. It's kind of a shame.

Imagine that in the actual real culture you live in right now, a tiny handful of people at the margins were capable of magic. They can replay slights with curses and illness, maybe. That's the fantasy of a witch. That people who don't matter to the larger culture they're a part of can somehow exert a secret sort of power, and so they actually do and should matter. It's literally the opposite of transgresive. It accepts the ideology of power first, and then imagines a scenario where there is secret power that needs respect. Transgression is attacking the underpinning ideas of a thing. Not just mirroring them back with some slight changes.

If your magic is natural you're a mage, shaman or cleric. And you may be good or evil.
If your magic is brewed, manufactured or stolen from magic creatures, you're a witch, warlock, alchemist or necromancer and you're evil.

The Witcher setting proves it can completely be done both ways; there's plenty of (well, relatively speaking) "magical science" style spellcasters of the D&D Wizard class sort, but there's also spooky old women that cast curses and do weird nonsensical folk magic that still somehow works.
It's not about the idea of placing them in trpg's or even the setting or world; it's about execution of the idea and grasping the narrative theme of the creepy lady who lives in the woods and casts bizarre curses and divines hidden truths and crap like that.

If you mean actually IN D&D (which nearly 90% of threads like this mean), then the execution really is entirely up to the GM and the GM alone, as the rules themselves only support the extremely restrictive Vancian casting system.
I've several times used the "creepy old woods witch" theme in my D&D games, and my most consistent players have said that the witch (a recurring character) is easily their favorite NPC I've done and that their first encounter with her genuinely creeped them out.

Well, it's less about good and evil and more about their position relative to cultural norms.

Even in stories with 'real' witches, in opposition to christian cultural values etc, they often are still valued by communities, for providing necessities outside of those values, advice or treatments or spells which are taboo but are still useful enough that people are willing to break from their usual values to seek them out.

It's a rather interesting niche, to be excluded publicly yet secretly treasured, and it's not really explored outside of those contexts very much. I suppose Terry Pratchett's Witches books somewhat count, but they're generally on the softer end.

>It's a rather interesting niche, to be excluded publicly yet secretly treasured, and it's not really explored outside of those contexts very much. I suppose Terry Pratchett's Witches books somewhat count, but they're generally on the softer end.

That's mostly up to the GM then.
Not many standard D&D settings have it in the game as a rule, but that doesn't make it impossible to do, it just means that it's up to the GM to put it in the setting if he or she wants it.

That feels like a very American view of Witches, but it makes sense. They do have a very different cultural place between Europe and the US.

In Europe, they were almost an open secret. Even in days when Christianity was generally openly accepted, the wise women of the forests and the old Gods they represented were still respected and honoured, and they had a strange, unofficial place of reverence and revulsion within the societies of the day.

What we most remember are the witch trials and burnings, of course, but for centuries before that these pagan remnants had coexisted within Christian societies, and it took a large scale and ongoing effort to turn the public perception against them to the point of a lot of the modern day superstitions.

The Dark Souls games have it where witches are self-taught or reliant on their mothers to teach them magic, so they're ostracized by the clergy who practice miracles passed down by the gods and by scholarly sorcerers who study god-approved magic created by the ally of the gods, the white dragon Seath. The air of mistrust comes from their magic not following the same orderly rules and doctrine as proper, learned mages.

>weebshit witches
gay

the way me and my friends keep their levels of hate twords witches in our worlds is that their unique form of magic, Curses, powers itself on souls. Where the soul comes from is often times inconsequential to the witch, the only time the witch cares if its a goodly one. When someone contracts a dark witch the payment they make, knowingly or unknowingly, is their own soul, that the witch will take when she needs or wants it. One soul can fuel a witches magic and pseudo immortality for decades. But typically they are never satisfied with only one soul every 15-20 years.

>respected and honoured
uhm, I think even the Edda says never to stop for them or show them kindness
witches don't stand for old gods, they stand for evil spirits from beyond the enclosure
Sometimes you might have a mythology that fears witches and prescribes politeness in fear of retribution but overall they're just hated and avoided

Just make them worship the dark gods or something. If the majority of your setting is tolerant of evil worship, witches are just another form of wizard.

But it's very likely that Christianity demonized all opposing religions even where they were just opposing religions, not some Satanic force. You see it even in the word demonized. At the same time pre-Christian societies also ostracized witches, as you say - the problem is witchery gets caught up alongside the accepted religion practices of those societies now too.

That said, I don't really see being isolated by a major other religion such as Christianity as an essential part of the witch. You look at like the Navajo witches and they also transgress, just in different ways (against common social mores/practices). The transgressive element can come about in a variety of ways, and it often is where their power comes from (even social power). They don't play by the same rules.

I think it's useful to differentiate between a witch, which is part of the outside and the unknown, and something like a witch doctor, a shaman that is part of the tribe and connected to higher forces

wizards > witches

I don't think Christianity has that much to do with it honestly. People who acquire power that is not answerable to the rest of society are automatically transgressive, even without a jealous clergy.

That is the smuggest wizard I have ever seen

>implying it isn't all really about sexy women with big floppy hats tempting men.

Witch can be a term of respect.

In response to the long discussion chain here, I suspect it has something to do with the fact that witches possess and work with powers outside the existent structure. If I was a liberal arts major I would point out that witchcraft was a major form of feminist power in male dominated societies and that this might have something to do with their demonizing in certain cultures. Certainly the edda talking shit about witches is hypocritical since it was witchcraft Odin sold his eye and hung himself for, Loki used to mock him because sedr was a woman's art

In the context of fantasy realm where magic and egalitarianism are non issues, I suspect the suspicion of witches comes from the fact their powers cannot be easily defined. Their abilities are not divine and do not come from any God, but also defy the stucture of traditional arcane magic. Furthermore the fact that a witches powers often skirt the boundaries of necromancy (being in fact more traditional necromancy than what we think of as necromancy) single them out for suspicion. There's also the fact their powers are similar to but distinct from a warlock, or a druid.

Witches are beholden to no one but themselves and good sense. They have no patron, and though they may worship a god they derive no powers from them. So too.with nature and.its spirits. Instead a witch barters, cajoles, and convinces spirits to lend her powers on a case by case basis. This is distinct from druids who worship and pray to nature, warlocks who have a pact with a powerful figure, or sorcerers who derive their magic internally. If anything, it's a form of hedge hermeticism, a less reliable and.more countrified form of wizardry, capable.of different things.

>witches is hypocritical since it was witchcraft Odin sold his eye and hung himself for
witch =/= any kind of magic user
those whitches the Edda mentions? troll-ladies
a witch is very specifically a hag that consorts with evil spirits and wants to harm you
it's only in recent times that it got taken as some sort of feminist symbol and romanticized by the wiccans, because, you know, degenerate modern westerners, it's what we do

>only in recent times
m8 I've read transcripts of 26 century witch trials from Scotland and Germany. It wasn't all hags.

Please take your muh Western degeneracy to another board, or preferably wherever you picked it up offsite.

>26
obviously 16

The original stance of the church was that there were no such thing as witches. Belief in witches worked its way up the clergy from the barely converted peasantry. Negative connotations to witchcraft predate Christianity, despite what bullcrap wiccans will try and tell you about pagan feminist earth goddesses empowered by their mystical vulvas in the pre-christian utopia .

And what you got from those transcripts was that they were feminist icons? please

Cont

So among magic workers you have the dichtomy of the borrowers and the meddlers. Arcane casters exploit the rules of the universe are meddlers, they use an ambient power from the world around them or within them. Wizards, sorcerers, etc. They get by bending the fundamental rules.

Then you have the borrowers, the divine casters. Clerics, Druids and so forth worship higher powers and are lent a fragment of that power to do their work. It's about furthering the agenda of their patron. Warlocks fit in under this too, even though their patrons are not traditionally divine.

Witches BORROW, but aren't beholden to the spirits they bargain with. They get case by case favors from little powers, little spirits. They apply their abilities in a hermetic manner, using trial and error and practicality like a wizard. Their art is a melange of all others, but at the same time distinct. This combined with a tendency towards secrecy makes them suspect to others.

Post witch butts.

I've read 26th century manuscripts and I can't believe you primitive beings haven't figured out FTL yet

And why all this when you could just as easily make them warlocks?
In fact, isn't the archetypical witch what the archfey contract in D&D was invented for?

No, what I got was what I said: that your hag definition is wrong. If any thing that being all a witch is is the more modern idea, all Hollywood and Oz. The other user is right about seidr too.

Because user's definition is distinct from warlocks as described in his post? Because he wants more witch theme than warlock theme?

All I'm saying is that witches were always evil outsiders. It's not christianity that introduced that at all.
It's defnitely wrong to say they're in any way connected to feminism.

What makes wizards so much better than witches, huh?

It's not more witchy to have them be unbeholden borrowers. I get that that it's a deliberate distantiation from regular warlocks, I just don't think it's necessary as there are already plenty of ways to give them witchy theming.

Probably because they better represent magic and the power it entails.

Food for thoughts: most account of witchcraft and witch hunt were sparkled by women, often young, who used accusation of witchcraft to shake the social order of the village, often to their own interest.

By example, Salem's witch hunt began when two young women had convulsion and started to say that they were 'bewitched' by an evil witch.

>The transgressive element can come about in a variety of ways, and it often is where their power comes from (even social power). They don't play by the same rules.
tfw you realize wearing socks, sandals and sweatpants makes you a witch

If you're thinking about witches in terms of contracts, you're doing it wrong. Unless you're talking about someone else making a contract with the witch in which the witch is taking advantage of them.

Witchcraft is a gnostic thing: its supposed to be mysterious, inscrutable and impenetrable to those outside of the circle of knowledge, even to those who are learned. The knowledge they have is beyond the things that people outside them can comprehend, and this should apply even to those who have unlocked the mysteries of the arcane and dealt with gods and demons. The thing that make witches unique is that they know something you don't know, regardless of how amazing and beyond the realm of mere mortals the shit you know is. Even those who make pacts with the eldritch deities of the great void and have passed beyond the realms of sanity to learn the great truths of the Old One's embrace don't know the shit that Witches know.

This also ties into the nature of witch powers. Witch magic is weird, both in the modern sense and the Shakespearean sense. Even if you know every god damn thing in the Grand Magical Library, you don't know how a Witch's Cauldron does shit that take elaborate enchantments in other objects, or why Witch Curses don't follow the sames rules similar debuff spells do, or why a White Haired Witch uses fucking hair for her weird Kung Fu spells.

When a Witch uses fire she's not casting a fireball, she's invoking the primal fear and wonder that your reptile brain has passed down since the world began. A man may know how to make fire, how to use fire, he may have bound elementals to his service or be on a first name basis with the Fire God. But a witch knows Fire, the primordial concept, on a level even a God can't. All its secrets, all its lost names, all its hidden desires, all the things that ever made a thing with feelings feel when they watched it burn, Mortal or otherwise.

What is a Witch? Six words: "I know something you don't know."

From which fictional setting are you basing all of this on?

Start with Macbeth and go forward from there. Gnostic knowledge that can't be comprehended by non-witches and primordial elements that draw upon folklore and emotions in their spellcraft are always elements of true "witches."

Why does that witch have no high heels?

I picture wizards, sages and esoteric scholars more so than witches when I think of Gnostic knowledge, to be quite frank.

If you're thinking of a Gandalf style low-magic wizard you have a point, but in a low magic setting a wizard and a witch are virtually indistinguishable. Sages and Scholars, no matter how esoteric, study knowledge anyone can learn and exist to impart it onto others. Witches don't impart knowledge, at least not knowledge that's helpful to anyone but themselves. The can provide services, they can provide prophecies, but those are the fruits of their knowledge, not the knowledge itself. Unless they're specifically initiating an apprentice witch they don't share what they know. That's Gnosticism.

I'm not thinking of a specific setting but rather the way witches have been viewed in our world. There are two ways, and the warlock with their pact to a higher being is one way. But that's a distinctly American view of witches seen through a western Christian lense. In the east and the classical era, it was much more about communing with spirits

Do 26th century witches still have big floppy hats?

This is important.

Witches are folk magicians.

Wizards learn the classical spells and rituals in rigidly-structured schools. Alchemists write coded books and trade carefully-guarded secrets. Sorcerers channel magic instinctively using innate power and intense practice. Druids focus the power of nature and her spirits. Clerics petition the gods. Warlocks bargain with demons.

Witches do a bit of everything. They learn only the useful spells, skipping over the theory lessons and boring lectures. They steal the secrets of alchemy and sometimes even give those secrets away. Some dabble in innate magic, but they don't have the dedication to pursue it. They take the power of nature and twist it for their own uses. They bastardize prayers and tempt the gods. They play tricks on demons and have no respect for the infernal bureaucracy.

But worse than that, the mix all kinds of magic in unnatural and dangerous ways. They mix spells and prayers to create strange healing rituals. They use the power of nature spirits to taint their strange brews.

It should by now be obvious why witches are so widely hated by magic practitioners of all types. Wizards have a disgust, yet also a curiosity towards witches. Alchemists and clerics have only pure hatred. Sorcerers are too elitist to even notice witches. Druids and warlocks are distrustful, but will occasionally ally with witches when they share a common enemy (especially if that enemy is a wizard).

Most witches don't even realize the oddness of their practice. Some have bits of formal training, but most witches learn from other witches, and all witches eventually create their own ways of doing things. They cast spells without knowing what the words mean, they speak prayers without knowing whom they pray to.

Witches are pragmatic above all else: they use what works and discard what does not. Witches often take a strange pride in solving problems without magic. Wizards learn flame spells, while witches simply carry a flint and steel.

Yes but they have slots for their genetically modified cat ears

This could be a major point of division among schools of witchcraft thought. Some believe that floppy hats are good, while others abhor them.

>The original stance of the church was that there were no such thing as witches
In Big Charlie's empire, accusing someone of being a witch carried the death sentence. That's right, the accuser was in more danger than the accused. The rise of Protestantism changed this (which is why the hotbeds of witch persecution were Switzerland, Scotland and the Thirteen Colonies). Some Spanish priest did write some handbook on witchhunting, but it was put on the Catholic Church's list of banned book almost instantly after being published.

tl;dr: Pr*ddies

I'm unfamiliar with the element of witch-lore that causes them all to dress like strippers. Is that part of the knowledge-contract with higher powers?

>Witches are pragmatic above all else: they use what works and discard what does not. Witches often take a strange pride in solving problems without magic. Wizards learn flame spells, while witches simply carry a flint and steel.

This is good. Capped for posterity. It also gives witches a generalist role as casters. Not a pure support, and at least somewhat capable of dealing direct damage.

You're confusing a witch with a shaman

You're confusing shamans with witches

what if they're the same thing, but viewed through different cultural perspectives?

The shaman is given the secrets, the witch steals them.
That's a good start.
You go to a shaman for what you need, you go to a witch for what you want and deep down know you don't desserve.

Frankly o think shamans and witches are the same thing. Witch is just a Western word for it

Mind you in countries like Africa witch has a whole different connotation that is wholly negative

Except african and african-derived traditions also distinguish between the magic user who begs gods to intercede for people and the magic user who steals nature's secrets for personal gain and evildoing.

I mean artists these days will draw anything slutty. However it sorta does fit with the medieval witch theme as they were considered to both flout the societal notions of chastity and screw demons in exchange for power. Just search Witches Sabbath and you will get plenty of nsfw classical paintings and woodcuts.

Mage Guild.
Magic serves the Crown and every magic user that wants to earn coin with it must be a part of the Guild or face the consequences. Consequences normally being a pair of very unpleasant looking wizards supported by a cleric and a couple of soldiers knocking on your door to ask a couple of pointed questions.

Guild also manages Crown grants and permissions to do research in dangerous magic. You can't say study even theoretical Necromancy without a lot of paperwork and an inspector that would visit you at least once a month at random dates.

You of course also must pay a tenth of your earnings to the Guild coffers. Trying to hide your earnings will result in the same pair of unpleasant wizards paying you a night visit to break your hands.

Well that and witches are literally blood sucking monsters who have to be killed in a special way by experienced hunters

This. Witches represent a sexual threat, being a spiritual corruption of the purity of womanhood

Read ''Equal Rites'' by good old man Terry.

I really like both of these and I think they're combinable: witches progress towards a secret knowledge of the world which can only be understood individually, by whatever method works. It allows for a wide variety of practices while not being organized academically or like a church, and it doesn't make them 'lesser' as casters (which I think is important for people at the table).

Y'all need to read on those Eastern Poland and Ukraine weird witch-shamanic figures. "Szeptucha" (umm... The Whisperess? The Whispering One?) is not a common thingy, but even nowadays there are some old women in more obscure regions of Central and Eastern Europe who perform healing rituals, cleansings and such. They usually do a mix of Christian (most commonly of Eastern-Orthodox Old Faith variety), spiritual, ritualistic and ancestral magic. Also, they are not only NOT frowned upon, but commonly in tight cooperation or at least in neutral relations with local priests.

if you're going to be using Discworld as a setting then wizards are downright more powerful than witches.

Well, not modern wizards. They're fat and lazy. The current witches are actually competent.

>What we most remember are the witch trials and burnings, of course, but for centuries before that these pagan remnants had coexisted within Christian societies, and it took a large scale and ongoing effort to turn the public perception against them to the point of a lot of the modern day superstitions.

Even pagan societies cocked an eye at magic. Witches were never trusted and any dealings with them were regarded as folly or cursed in some way.
It didn't take much to convince christian populations to conflate witchcraft with devil worship. The difference is the catholics officially regarded witchcraft as ridiculous superstitions while the protestants took the malleus maleficarum seriously.

Make the witch do something sketchy but not outright illegal. Maybe they use necromancy to put spirits to rest. Maybe she uses necromancy to heal damaged bodies. Its for a good cause, and really, she's causing no harm to anyone, but its still necromantic magic. And the mages guild doesn't approve.

In a high fantasy setting, magic is commonplace. As a result, there are usually standards to it. But say these standards are only enforced in the capital and other major cities. A witch would basically be a black market mage that's somewhat sketchy. You hire a witch when she's all you can afford. Or if the mages guild can't be fucked removing your rat infestation curse. A private investigator to the police, if you will.

You can also have backwater villages treat magic with suspicion. Being far from the capital, all they know of magic is that rouge mages sling it around to get what they want and cause trouble for people. The local witch would be mysterious because none of them have an education on what magic is, and mistrusted because for all they know, when the witch came into town to cure a sick child, she was actually stealing his soul.

While I don't think you're entirely wrong, the example in shows it's not always the case.

The Witch as a necessary outsider, respected at a distance, is a side of Witchcraft I grew up with in the folk stories I was told, but it's a aide that isn't make the transition to America, from how they're often presented.

That witch could ride my broomstick any time she liked.

Yo man not to be interrupting what you've got going on there but uh, your robe is on fire.

Fair point.

>but it's a side that didn't make the transition to America

Fuck. Phoneposting sucks, doubly so when you're not properly conscious.

>Lesbian Witches thread

link, please?
Can't find it in the Archives ...

...

>Szeptucha
Thats a word I havent heard in quite some time.

>weird witch-shamanic figures.
>They usually do a mix of Christian (most commonly of Eastern-Orthodox Old Faith variety), spiritual, ritualistic and ancestral magic.

The thing is, the way my great-grandmother explained it to me Szeptuna are more akin to female clerics than Witches. In fact Szeptuna are absolutely opposed to witches, warlocks etc whose power comes from darkness and the devil while their own powers come from god or one of the Christian saints.

She also told me it wasnt uncommon for them to work together with local priests in order to remove curses or the influence of witches from people and places in villages before the War.

Well, keep in mind that the idea of witches as satanic was something introduced by Christianity anyway. It's likely that both groups descended from the same traditions, but one managed to successfully integrate with the new dominant culture while the other remained estranged.

If you're too civilized for a shaman but not civilized enough for a priest, you go see the witch

There were legends of evil witches in Ancient Greece.

I love Circe.

"I was going to ensorcel and kill this man, but he resisted one spell so I think I'll try to fuck him to death instead."

But, really, I don't remember reading enough detail to get her motives. Don't know how her magic works--if it's a thing where once you resist you're invulnerable to it, or if she assumes Odysseus can't be charmed at all and doesn't know he had help, or if she's bored and lonely and finally found a worthwhile partner, or what.

There just isn't enough text to know how to read her, but she's a powerful single woman in a society where women are mostly chattel and you kinda have to assume there's a lot of cultural baggage we're missing to perform a good interpretation

...

POST MORE CUTE WITCHES!

They weren't evil, they were chaotic neutral

Reminder that witch covens are full of desperate sisters

>There just isn't enough text to know how to read her, but she's a powerful single woman in a society where women are mostly chattel

Is that the famous western gender studies-College Education kicking in?
Because this is so wrong I don't even know where to begin.

...

That's a side that never made it out of eastern europe
diagnosing this as just american is more than a little bit wrong, witches being nothing but pure evil is far more widespread than witches being wise hermits

How to make a witch NPC interesting and scary opponent?

As a Brit, I can say for certain that elements of it still persisted in the UK, and I know of a few legends in France and Germany too. They might have been a bit more comprehensively suppressed, but they still exist in places.

So wizardry is Latin, Alchemy is Greek, Sorcery is German, Divine magic is Saxon, and witchcraft is American English?

Seems legit.

Witches a cute

It's because of the hat i am sure.

The one witch coven I have in my setting is a groups of, essentially, feminists with a village in the forest. They invite women from the surrounding villages if they see them suffering because of their husbands or something. Most of them don't spend a lot of time in the witches' village (or the forest, 'cause it's dangerous) and keep their membership secret.
The thing is, normal villagers have no concept of what a 'witch' is in that world, so they all immediately think of that one feminist group that does outdoor activities and tea parties and sometimes studies magic, I guess. Though the founder is an old maiden and possibly a learned wizard, they mostly do woman-stuff.
Learning your wife is part of the witch coven there would be like learning she is part of a weird gothic subculture here (and might not really appreciate you as much as you thought).

To the players, they are a benevolent entity as a whole, with unusual and practical spells to learn and taking good care of wounds and sicknesses. Also the only people on Earth taking a female spellcaster seriously.

Not every witch is wearing funny pointy hat tho.

Some are wearing those weird horned things.

They all have heels, tho.

Yes but she doesn't look cute, all witches with pointy hats look cute.

The witch is just and old evil hag, archetype adjusted for an Western perspective. Everything you just said is the most retarded thing I've heard on this board in a while.

It might be a surprise user, but yours isn't the only perspective that exists, or the only one that matters.