Witch thread.
Lets talk all things related to the practitioners of the dark arts. post art and ideas from your world.
Questions for the thread
>Your most powerful witch?
>Do witches use magic differently from other magic users?
>What witch covens do you have?
>Are there witch hunters in your world?
>Any legends ot stories about witches?
>>44440598
Dumping art.
>>44440607
>>44440638
>>44440691
Ooga Booga, where da spellcasting hotties be?
I'm a witch fan, senpai, but your questions are all kinda similar to what I laid out in a thread a week or two ago and I can't be assed repeating it.
>>44440598
My most powerful witch was a 700+ year old elven Rogue+Witch gestalt in PF who was really damn old, though she was only 14th level. The GM had us roll for our social status and property, and it turned out she was a fairly powerful landowner, so I had her owning a mountain, and the valley next to it. She mined the mountain for diamonds to craft wish spells and potent stat increasing items (she was somewhat frail).
Between her skill mastery and her spellcasting she was a near perfect assassin, and she was pale and delicate in appearance due to age and her hair and skin tone taking on the mountain's snowcapped nature. She was considered a goddess by the gnolls who spent their summers in the valley, and feared as a specter by the few dwarves who dared intrude upon her mountain since she seemed to be able to vanish without a trace and pas through their most securely locked and trapped passages with ease; she usually just warned them off, but if they got too belligerent she started leaving ennervated or gutted corpses, depending on if she used magic or her hex-claws on them.
She joined the party because they seemed to be doing interesting things and have interesting plans they discussed as they wandered through her territories.
>>44440964
>>44441866
good
>>44441876
outfit
>>44440598
Witch, specifically? In my setting, they are the only class capable of actual resurrection magic, and even then, only the Grandmistress of the Scything Phase can actually do it. So probably her, but she has yet to play any major role, as this ability is a closely-guarded secret.
>>44440598
>>Do witches use magic differently from other magic users?
Yes. For one, Witch spells are formalized prayers to various entities including Not!Kali who is a far more questionable (if ultimately benign) version of the Goddess in Wicca. As a result Witch Spells are extremely potent but tend to require a certain amount of dedication and oftentimes pacts to master.
>>What witch covens do you have?
They're very regional. The biggest was the Ruby Compact which came together to defeat a certain evil after the destined hero who was supposed to do it turned out to be inept and died. Cue everyone going "Fuck's sake we really need to do everything ourselves don't we" and turning it into an organized military campaign.
>>Are there witch hunters in your world?
Yes, as a branch of law enforcement. Witches are barred from governing mortals (a misnomer as they're long-lived rather than immortal, but the term stuck) and any attempts to violate this regulation will see you quickly wiped out.
>>Any legends ot stories about witches?
A lot, some good, some bad.
>>44440598
>>Your most powerful witch?
Baba Yaga. She's by far the most powerful, on par with an Old God and stronger than most of the New. She can't handle the Elder Gods, but then, she gets some of her power from them.
>>Do witches use magic differently from other magic users?
Magic in my homebrew is a wild magic. "Divine" magic settles the magic in an area (but if it gets too settled, then it's harder to pull out the big spells), "Arcane" magic excites it (but if it gets too excited, their spells are more likely to go wild. So arcane users have to do a lot of moving around, and temples like to ensure a controllable arcane-using population. Witches get around this issue by forming covens and making pacts with elemental powers. They're technically arcane, but are more limited in some ways than other arcanists, but they don't excite the world's flow the way arcane magic does. For this reason, the temples don't like them (not to mention the conflict between Old and New), and some sponsor inquisitions.
>>What witch covens do you have?
Depends on the location and group. You need five bloodlines to form a coven, minimum (also called a circle). Alone they're weaker than any single wizard or cleric mano e mano, but together they're exponentially powerful. Except Baba Yaga, who breaks the rules by being a "complete circle coven" in herself.
>>Are there witch hunters in your world?
Yes.
>>Any legends ot stories about witches?
Several, probably, but I never really put much thought into them.
I always had this confusion, probably because not being a native english speaker.
What is the difference between a witch and a hag?
As I know they are practically synonyms for an ugly evil old lady. Yet I see the words clearly distinguished in RPGs, with hags being non human monsters and witches being young and beautiful instead of old and ugly.
So how does all this work?
>>44442373
>What is the difference between a witch and a hag?
Witch was original a generic term for a practicioner of magic. Later on it became more customarily used as a term specifically for female practicioners of magic. That is really all there is to the meaning of the word. Everything else is up to personal interpretation and local customs.
It became pretty common to associate witches with ugliness and old age, which is why you are confusing them with a "hag", but it's by no means a law that witches are supposed to be old and ugly.
Hag, on the other hand, is really a word for an ugly, usually also old woman. There is an ancient custom to associate old women with practices of magic, which is again why "hag" is sometimes in fantasy used as a term for an old female magic user, but it's not in the original meaning of the word - just a customary association.
So basically, a witch can be a hag, is she is practicing witchcraft and old and ugly, and a hag can be a witch if she practices magic, but both words refer to something slightly different.
>>44441866
>>44441876
>>44441888
What are you doing away from your containment thread?
>>44442373
In D&D a witch is a kind of spellcaster. A hag is specifically a species of monster which is usually also a witch.
>>44440598
>bayo without her glasses
they're supposed to be like her panties, they never come off
>>44440598
Aight I'm gonna answer these in the order I think it makes most sense to now.
>Do witches use magic differently from other magic users?
Yeah. So wizards are specifically about transitioning the impossible into physical reality through the use of symbols and channels. The main way to do this is by studying, meditating, memorizing, etc weird philosophy and dimensional theory and high-order maths so that your fucked-up brain acts as a mobile channel for impossible energies.
Clerics directly tap the power of an associated divinity or other powerful entity (not always gods by any means). There's the whole 'god is powered by your belief' argument in the setting because some clerics don't have specific gods or worship things that are provably not gods, but it's an argument and not a proof.
Witches are somewhere in between. Being a witch is essentially about telling the world to get to in such a way as it actually does what you're telling it. Normal mortals just can't do this - so witches borrow aspects from a coven or covenant that allow them to convince the world they're an appropriate entity to give it commands. Some exceptional witches are capable of doing this entirely by themselves but exceptional is the key word, they've found some exception to the rules. Witch magic is based around trickery and rituals often make it easier, but it's also the closest thing to actual divine magic (e.g. the magic the gods themselves used) in the setting.
>What witch covens do you have?
There are thousands. Half of the major continent I'm playing games in tends to hold witch cults as its religious authority. Some are huge and continent-spanning, like the Cult of the Gorgon, others will literally be village-wide or literally just a few women somewhere. Some are gender-restricted (one way or the other; the Brotherhood of Bones is an all-male necromantic witch cult)
>cont
>ideas from your world
I'll be the first to drop some autism if hags count.
A green hag is the major villain of the first arc of a campaign I'm running. The death of a Green Dragon opened up a bunch of temporary Fey crossings in an area of the campaign world, one of which was to the Murkendraw. Whispers from beyond the the planes urged her to cross to the material world to bring death and destruction for unclear reasons.
She convinces her two sisters in her coven to help her by kidnapping a werewolf from Brokenstone Vale in the Feywilds and bringing it to the material plane via a crossing she opens during a full moon. The coven proceeds to use that werewolf to spread lycanthropy, eventually figuring out how to make it spread through consumption, culminating in a plan to curse an entire region's crop that will be consumed at the harvest festival.
The party will have the option of thwarting the plan and killing the hags along with the lycanthropes and bewitched constructs they create (mainly scarecrows and a living wicker man final boss), but we'll see what they do.
There's more to it than that, but that's the general gist.
>>44443702
The size and patron of your witch cult will usually determine the power of its foremost witches, but there are exceptions. Witches in a cult will often have access to specific powers associated with the cult (Witches of the Gorgon have the power to paralyze spirits - including the spirits inside people if mastered enough - with their third eye).
>Are there witch hunters in your world?
Yeah. There's a witchy place imaginatively called the Witchlands where witches are the temporal power, and the guards of their states are highly specialised in fighting other witches because they war with each other so often. The Church of the Universal Flame, a more stereotypical religion in-setting, is very much against witches and has agents who try to undermine and destroy them. Those are the two I have figured out just now but there are definitely more in the setting.
>Any legends ot stories about witches?
Tons, it's the underlying mythology/folklore for millions of people in the setting.
>Your most powerful witch?
Different people will claim different things. Famous witches include the Tenfold Slave, who is a kind of Sorbian/Wendish Big Hat figure in that she crops up in different folktales where a witch is being evil and shows herself to be much more powerful and defeats them. She at least appears to be a relatively young witch who has promised her flesh and soul to ten different patrons, hence the name. It's a thing that you never recognise who she is until she's gone.
There's the Witch King, nominal ruler of the Witchlands, who is his own patron is a weird kind of time/dimensional fuckup that's led to some areas of the country being completely and permnanently frozen in time. More but I'm hitting limit and not gonna go on to another post. Tl;dr an old baba yaga figure and two fighter-y mirror witches who are extremely dangerous so far in the game. I have ideas for more.
>>44443635
>her panties, they never come off
But that's because she doesn't wear them.
Witches should be purged.
In my setting magic is as deadly to humans as radiation and the small numbers of humans who survive the arrival of the other races did so by turning themselves into techno-liches. Witches on the other hand survive by selling their soul to some supernatural being, not necessarily a demon. In return they get a body that can survive and wield magic.
Other humans hate them and see them as traitors mostly. Witches just shrug that off as jealousy.
Witches magic is deeply personal between them and their benefactor.
>>44444015
I GOT HERE AS QUICKLY AS I COULD!
I like em hot.
>>44447789
How do you know it's not a glamour?
>>44448377
I don't understand.
>>44448377
Does it really matter if you never get to see it?
>>44447789
Really looks like my boss, kinda freaky.
I love the concept of the ladies from the witcher 3.
Their particular form of witchcraft was about land and people. They had power over land they claimed through bartering with people, and power over people they bartered with. They were so powerful in their area that they were worshipped as gods.
>>44441876
How am I supposed to pick Jennifer or Shani over that?
>Your most powerful witch?
She'sthe queen of the largest nation in the worldand also a horrendous slithery thing masquerading as the world's most beautiful woman.
>Do witches use magic differently from other magic users?
The Sea Witches are the ONLY magic users in the world and are completely evil (as magic comes from the powers beneath the Sea, who hate all land life)
>What witch covens do you have?
Various covens who develop powers patterned after a given sea creature
>Are there witch hunters in your world?
The whole world is on edge for the threat of witches, but they're elusive and the hysteria and ignorance stifles attempts to root out evil. A lot of Van Helsing types, a lot of charlatans.
>Any legends or stories about witches?
Tons. There's various rumours about who is or isn't a witch, how you become one, etc. Mostly false.
>>44448899
>She's the queen of the largest nation in the world and also a horrendous slithery thing masquerading as the world's most beautiful woman.
Is she a tentacle?
>>44448598
Man that was a great series.
I wish it had gone on a little longer.
>>44449227
She's a rift, a bridge, waiting until the right moment to turn inside out and expel terrifying seastuff intothe parliament, killing off the government and plunging the nation into anarchy.
In the meantime, what remains of her sanity is like a varnish on an incredibly vain, selfish sociopath who spends her daysdriving courtiers to suicide and ruin and giggling into her perfumed fan.
>>44440964
"This discussion tires me!
It ends. NOW."
*Splash*
>>44449230
There's still the other works.
I like it when they're all about ravens.
>>44440598
>Do witches use magic differently from other magic users?
No, all the magic users are the same basically. You usually use a title to refer to the practitioner's background or to insult them.
>Wizard comes from an official school, lofty title
>Sorcerer is the same thing as a Wizard; neutral title
>Witch/Warlock- usually used as an insult. Some people see it as a good name though (such as Witch-Doctor)
>>44440598
>Your most powerful witch?
The most powerful one I ever put up as an example was Jeddodihah. He's a combination of two witches who fused together into one witch. Earlier in their lives both had deals with devils that turned out very upsettingly, and being of like mind on the issue they used their witchpowers to become a superwitch and founded an Order of witches that hunt and propagandize against demons.
>Do witches use magic differently from other magic users?
Witches use the same magic but have some little cheater methods of tapping into sources of it. They are the dickass fae of the game; witches make contracts with others and can use the loss of freedom a victim suffers from that contract as a tapline to their life energy, and make magic of that.
Other than trading freedom for power, they inherently have the ability to create, designate or become familiars.....with essentially anything that is up for it.
Powerful witches develop magic foci and are called Cardinals, because they become associated with a cardinal direction (West Wind, North Gale, etc).
>Are there witch hunters in your world?
Everything is hunted by something, and witches are no exception. Often enough a dickass witch ends up hunted down for something specific they did moreso than just for being a witch.
>Your most powerful witch?
Witches turn into crones, which turn into hags, which turn into forest spirits or demons/devils. The crankier, older and uglier they are, the more powerful they are.
The strongest in the setting is Synn, a devil who is held to be a goddess of magic, women, monsters, and illicit sex. She's based off of a girl I dated once.
>Do witches use magic differently from other magic users?
Yes.
>What witch covens do you have?
Grom's children are split into the Hounds of Aron, the Kindly Ones and the Witch-men of Argentis. There are also the Wardens, but they don't really count, since they only know enough witchcraft to kill witches, and not enough to survive on their own.
>Are there witch hunters in your world?
Anyone with a weapon, a pulse and a brain in his head will hunt witches if he knows what's good for him.
>Any legends or stories about witches?
Not for telling at night.
>>44449606
Nah, that's Oden you're thinking of.
Hook 'em while they're young.
>>44440598
>Bayo without the glasses
DELETE THIS
>>44449913
>No friendly devil to spend christmas with
