What are witches like in your setting? What covens exist? What influence do they have?
Also, post character art. Bonus points for sexy sorceresses with a gothic motif like pic related.
>>48266781
>>48266908
>>48266961
>>48266781
Witches are just one of the gender specific terms used to describe about any spellcaster in the setting, though the connotations tend to invoke images of independent casters who live outside of civilization.
For the connotative definition, the biggest influence witches had was keeping the magical arts and knowledge alive during the hundred twenty years magic had been all but snuffed out from the world. It was an extremely dangerous thing to do but the pay off has been that since the return of safe magical use, the foundations were remained understood and magic was readily getting adapted as best it could to the new technologies that had come about in the ages in between.
>>48266982
>>48266997
Wearing the fingers or poor defenseless butterbear bottles as a necklace. Truly Luna was the most brutal witch of her age.
>>48266781
I've been toying with the idea of Witches being a more specific terms for spellcasters who cut deals with Fae. I think it fits their general themes of being mysterious, living in the woods, and having animals as familiars.
Witches always seemed as sort of a half-step between druids and mages to me. A mix between nature magic and arcane study, distrusted because they're outsiders like druids, but have the wildly varying ethics like wizards.
>>48267262
Do they only cut deals with women or are there manwitches too? Not that that's without historical precedent given that places like Salem were just as happy to pile stones on top of men or see if they float.
>>48267316
My personal preference is for female witches, although I suppose there could be either. Perhaps the Fae simply like cutting deals with women though, or maybe there's some reason that men don't.
>>48267371
Horny Oberon at it again. Probably lets his Satyr buddies pay him to watch.
>>48267262
>>48267316
>>48267371
My explanation for witches being exclusively women is that the "Art" or dark magic that witches use is only passed on from mother to daughter. Sons are taught a few secrets but not everything.
Witches are inducted into covens via the mother and only women are allowed. The first witch was the Black Fire Witch and she had 12 daughters and a single son. The traditions of witchcraft began with them and have persisted ever since.
> Not posting superior witch, also, makes some good paint thinner/liver destroyer.
They are too cool for this shit.
>>48267624
>Superior witch
>Imposing shitty standards and lack of taste on others
How about you go cralw back to /lit/?
>>48267628
>>48266997
...doesn't that make witches the source of all magical knowledge? a bottleneck like that would mean that all magic use was derived from witchy traditions rather than 'civilized' ones. unless for some reason these independent casters cared about the continuation of a magical tradition that wasn't their own?
>>48267403
>>48267614
I suppose I could always do something magical realm by having Fae turn any potential males trying to deal with them into women, though I'm not sure if that'd be widespread knowledge or a well-kept secret.
>>48268028
Might be approaching magical realm territory.
>>48266781
It's used as an insult mostly, for those with no formal training, or those who act either immorally or disreputably. Or just for any unsanctioned Magus in those nations who outlaw their practice.
Witches are no different from Wizards, Sorcerors, Warlocks, and perhaps Priests. They can dress up differently and work their powers into a different style, but it doesn't somehow grant them a new form of using Magic.
>>48268028
if they had a legitimate reason to do so that isn't just 'lul magic is for wimminz' it won't be magical realm at all.
>>48268593
No matter the justification the potential, and thus the risk, will always be there. Doesn't make the idea bad, just something to keep in mind. Really something that depends more on the players and GM.
Speaking technically, a witch is a member of a specific (and quite old) moon cult somewhat common in the hinterlands of the central region of the human continent, home of generic fantasy shit. They are considered heretical, because they ritually marry themselves to the Moon without sanction by the Church. That's not as strong a word in this society as it has been in some, though. In common usage, "witch" is a common pejorative for strongly moon-affiliated women beyond a certain age, especially but not exclusively casters.
I play an 1800's urban fantasy game where witches are the main focus. Witches in my game are sort of low fantasy, and have much more in common with what you think about when you think of traditional Celtic style witches and witch craft. Basically, no fireballs, but hexes and curses. The big draw that is different and unique about my setting is that once you preform magic you are doomed to become what we call a "Hag" in the game. Basically, if you are dying, on the verge of dying, or for some reason 'lose yourself', you start to mutate into a mindless creature of horrible and powerful magic. You just start killing whatever you can find, and depending on how strong of a witch you were and your ties to the chaos of magic, you can be very hard to take down. Knowing this risk, many witches carry something that is designed to kill them quickly before they are able to turn into a hag. These have ranged from poisons to just a gun. Witches call them their "Angels".
Covens in the game tend to stay hidden as witches are seen as monsters who defy god, but a few are around and strong. Not all of them are bad though. In fact, the heroes (who are ironically witch hunters) interact with a woman who leads a coven that kills rouge witches before they become hags or worship demons.
Witches aren't just female wizards. A Witch has a very particular connotation, much like how a druid isn't just a wizard innawoods. A Witch is a spell caster who requires the materials and time to cast spells that are strong, long, affect many things across a huge area, or any combination of these things. A single piece of witchcraft can cause the Elf Queen's child to be born an Orc; not only are they hideous and inferior, but the mother is cursed to outlive her child. A single spell with dramatic repercussions, cast by a vile woman in the forest, with such a contempt for the world, she kills with every little thing she does; cats eyes for her potions, toe bones for her powders, and skulls for her rituals. A strange, unorthodox manner materials for a banned manner of magic.
>>48266781
Witches/warlocks are the experts on folk magic: rituals which ordinary people found out by chance or trial and error, usually more complicated and prone to error than wizards' spells. Like invoking a domestic familiar for your home.
This also includes ways to make pacts with otherworldly entities, like demons, fae and whatnot.
For example, the three Yaga Sisters. They are actually avatars for the lovecraftian abominations known asChicken-Leg Houses.
>>48268251
Yeah I said as much.
>>48268593
I'm not sure what other good reasons they could have. Perhaps some explanation that they do so by imprinting the witch with the soul of lesser Fae creatures? Thus the options are to become a girl by being infused with a pixie, or to become a mindless animal from getting a Fae beast shoved into you.
>>48266781
Witches are,or at least once were, mortals who have been taught dark secrets by demons and the like. Essentially bound into servitude for the rest of their existence, they are beings that traded their freedom for power.
>>48266781
"Witch" is essentially interchangeable with "Pharmacist" or "Apothecary"
>>48269886
yeah, then you run the question up the chain: "but why are pixies only female?" this is a little easier to answer, but is similar
>>48266781
Depends on the setting.
In one setting witches are queer old women living on the outskirts of communities, who occasionally dabble with magic, not through any natural affinity but rather as a result of practising certain rites that involve some measure of arcane sorcery.
They're more akin to herbalists and medicine-makers, and put on a show of mysticism and supernatural power to either impress or scare off unwanted people. They are not true sorceresses in the meaning of that word.
Because they generally are eccentric, ugly and bitter old-spinsters they're shunned by people, yet because of their knowledge on matters such as medicine and so forth people are also dependant on them.
Sometimes witches intentionally try to make themselves appear as powerful magicians to scare people to do their bidding, but this kind of behaviour usually comes back to bite them in their flat arses when calamities strike and people think it's because a witch has cursed them and they come to visit you with torches and pitchforks.
Pic unrelated it's a moth
Generally feared and misunderstood, the witch draws her magic from a pact made with an otherworldly power. Communing with that source and using her familiar as a conduit, the witch gains not only a host of spells, but also a number of strange abilities known as hexes. As a witch grows in power, she might learn about the source of her magic, but some remain blissfully unaware. Some are even fearful of what that source might be, or where its true purposes lie.
The wintry realm of Irrisen has the highest concentration of witches in the Inner Sea region, and it is here where they hold nearly all important stations in government. Outside of Irrisen, most witches live in small communities or on the fringes of society, where they serve as hermits, wise women, and advisors to tribal groups. When they must make their way into larger settlements, most witches prefer to hide their true natures, due to the significant prejudice they evoke in most people; this prejudice is largely based on the activities of evil witches.
Covens tend to be small scale things, hidden away from the rest of society.
Hags, horrifying monsters with the shapes of monstrous old crones, tend to form covens of three and prey on any communities they live near.
In my setting 'witchcraft' refers to a wide range of magics. Most of these derive their power from ancient and terrible beings. The spells are cast through rituals and sacrifices. The magic is inherently evil in nature; attempting to do good things with it will result in disaster.
Most powerful witches are wretched and pathetic beings who know only agony and despair. They are desperate to give their lives for their masters' magic. Perhaps what the witches truly seek is just an end to their suffering?
But it never starts this way. It starts with rhymes and incantations to evoke petty curses. Lures of greater power take care of the rest.
>>48267733
witches (and their male counterparts) ended up preserving all traditions of magic. They could barely use it (safely) themselves and only kept just enough in practice to confirm fundemental theories worked.
When magic returned, they returned all this knowledge to the people. But because by connotative definition these casters cared only to preserve and spread the knowledge, once it was, they returned to the wilds. Legends say they kept the best secrets for themselves.
Meanwhile though, plenty of witches and the like ended up staying with the 'civilized world' as their headstart and foreknowledge of magic put them a good decade ahead of any emerging spell caster. But by becoming 'civilized' by popular definition they were no longer considered witches.they were called 'Sellouts'or 'videogame developers'.
The player who created witches for the setting made them like elementalists, different clans or "breeds" of witches capable of controlling a type of element, though they also have some abilities with bloodline control. They're not gender specific either, witch is just a term for these people. Basically a couple thousand years ago they, like various types in the setting, figured they wanted world domination or something akin to that and set about their own method of reaching that. Their method was to basically spread out across the world and intermingle, marry, and breed with people wherever they went. They didn't be overt about it or outwardly display their nature, just pose as normal people and slut it up.
Fast forward to the present where over the natural progression of time and generations, a significant portion of the global populace has some witch genes and probably don't realize it. The actual full blood and practicing witches themselves are unknown in number but not too many, though they live as sort of a secrety cabal of the different elemental clans, pulling the strings from behind the scenes as they need to forward their goals. To this end, they can control people who share their genes, usually unwillingly. They can use their distant descendents like this, as puppets more or less when they need to get what they want. And with as many people as there are in the world sharing their bloodline, they have control over even some kings and other such high rulers, not to mention other races besides just human.
>>48266781
There are good witches and there are evil witches. There is NO such thing as a merely neutral witch and sometimes she isn't strictly one or the other but still never neutral. Powerful as a whole but poorly organized. They can and do cause a lot of trouble but also a lot of help. People are scared of them and for good reason. Despite witch hunting efforts they are too powerful and so keep existing. Often used as a derogatory term for female magi despite not all female magi being witches. Both witches and other female magi are offended by this but for entirely different reasons.
They consider taking down witch hunters to be a form of passage and requirement for being a witch. A witch is required to kill witch hunters before properly graduating and are considered legendary when even witch hunters give up on them.
Lot of powerful witches are simply considered impossible to hunt by witch hunters. The witches despite being powerful enough don't bother exterminating witch hunters because they are seen as simply too useful to wipe out completely. This doesn't mean some powerful witches don't hold particularly large grudges against them and take great pleasure in wiping them out. They are just persuaded to not completely finish them off. Usually with the excuse of if they're all dead there wont be anymore who can suffer that way after that.
Covens do exist and are the closest thing to organization you'll find among witches. They barely even have a hierarchy as is. The covens are however notoriously splintered and the closest thing to any organization between them is a 'council of covens'. Which hasn't technically existed since the war of the wicked and when the last of the male witches died out.
Immense influence if they ever bothered to actually use it as a whole. As is even holy institutions, gods, empires and outsiders all are careful with witches. Its not just the common masses who are wary.
None, since I dont have players or other outlets for my ideas. Which is a shame since since witches are pretty much my favorite fantasy concept so I really often mull ideas in my head about them.
>>48266781
Witch is the term applied in my setting to magic-users with no formal training, no focused school of spells, and who learned rather than bargained or manifested their powers. Basically an informal wizard, with less top end magical might but often a broader set of utility spells.
Many of them are reclusive. About half are considered wisemen/wisewomen and healers who can be sought to provide guidance, scrying, or healing - usually for a price. The other half are out of their damn minds or just plain cruel, and like to exert evil curses and possessions upon people. The moral here is to be damn sure which you're dealing with.
Small covens of witches can exist on either side of the moral line, but because the magic they dabble in takes a toll on most of them, they tend towards fairly isolated lifestyles.
>>48270603
>Pic unrelated it's a moth
>unrelated
Moths are scary powerful in terms of magic though.
>>48266781
no character art for them unfortunately.
Witches in my settings are basically female mages who broke some kind of rules and other, normal mages don't want to deal with them, thus witches and sorcerers live in their own enclaves, far away from normal mages.
Most of them don't break any serious rules like suing black magic or something - they do shit like getting piss drunk and showing off magic to commoners, scaring them and forcing other mages to run damage control operations.
Basically, the typical witch is a mage hobo.
>What are witches like in your setting?
Witch is an somewhat antiquated term for Unsanctioned Magician, meaning someone using magic without going though formal Mage Guild training, either because they were taught by an underground rural cult, or the talent spontaneously manifests in some rare individuals.
The Guild has adventures investigate cases of witchcraft, and to either apprehend the witch for evaluation, or kill them if they resist. This is partially to protect the Mage Guild's monopoly control over magic, but even more so because arcane energies can really fuck things up when mishandled.
In my world witches are evil and dangerous. They made a pact with the elves (bad guys here) and infiltrate human settlements. They possess magic and requires sacrifices and offerings to sustain it. There can be male witches too but they're extremely rare. Only trained witch hunters are capable of defeating them. They have covens and rituals where they actively sabotage the human war effort. A witch hunter will be sent to the most infested area and purify them
I like the Witcher version where all witches are beautiful women because why the fuck would you remain ugly if you had magic powers
>>48274563
The proper term for that is a hedge mage, silly
A witch is the gendered version of Shaman, and is usually an elder wise woman who has taken the step from alchemy and herbology to the more dangerous shamanistic knowledge of the ancestors and of nature itself. As women are not allowed to become shamans, them learning arts like that is extremely tabboo. If a wise woman is too good at making poultices or such, she could be suspected of being a witch.
And when you commune with nature, you do not speak to the trees or such. You speak to the mother of all wolves or the instinct that drives men to rape or the thunder that tears fiery gashes in the land.
All magic users are forced to be registered and do the crown's bidding. Witches would be weirdos living in the wood. They are typically regarded as dangerous, they shun the company of others in favour of talking to the spirits instead and most of them don't care about how they present themselves.
Most of them are hunted down by sanctioned mages and people are glad to see them put to death.
>>48266781
That is literally the best art for a proper witch.
Good body, revealing clothes, dark messy hair and an ugly but acceptable face. The type of girl you wouldn't be surprised gets cocksleeved by strange forest beasts on a regular basis.
>>48267695
> Magic Prowless
>>48266781
The term "Witch" refers to anyone who is in an unwilling pact with an unknown being, whenever the witch or the entity is the unwilling one varies from witch to witch. Though they may form groups, there are no real "covens" to speak of.
The curses of a witch are actually one-sided pacts that give nothing in return for what is taken.
Witches often have extremely poor luck, which is a measurable objective force in the universe. It is not unusual for them to be afflicted with diseases like leprosy or to suffer scars from being struck by lightning. Whenever they are good or evil depends entirely on the individual. Most of them are somewhat malicious but very few are outright evil.
>>48270375
Someone asked me why all harpies are female, and I said "The breasts are just growths, both males and females have them, and as birds, they have no external genitals."
Turns out this is actually the truth.
>>48277538
Not at all. A hedge mage is a witch informally sanctioned by local authorities or wandering wizards. They never went to study at the College of Magisters, but they're useful to the local community, and confirmed to be too weak to accidentally open a gate to the Demonrealms.
Technically they should still be detained and taken to the capital, but this far out in the wilderlands who's gonna complain?
>>48281944
I think this type of motherfucker would
(if your setting has witch hunters)
>>48282230
And that's why narratives are based around conflict.
>>48274563
That cat is all, "Put some godsdamn pants on, woman."
>>48286185
More like "Why is there a cat in between your legs?
>>48286185
The true lord of the household desires tuna.
>>48286423
Chesire cat with a soppy grin or sphinx cat?
>>48286455
Probably sphinx, yeah definitely sphinx
>>48266781
>witchesThere aren't any.And no, it's not a mundane setting, there just aren't any practitioners of magic who are known as "witches," nor are there wise women and sorceresses of similar bent that might be called "witches."
>>48267695
I-Is that Madoka riding an pig orc?
In my setting only females can be learned arcane spellcasters and therefore there is no wizard but witches. A male born from a witch have a 50% of being a sorcerer. Males usually are druids or shamans and they respect and fear witches since they have direct line with the Many Faces Goddess, the only anthropomorphic deity.
The more powerful a witch is the more buxom her body becomes and they stop aging if they chose to. A pregnant witch gains a +1 on all her spells DC per baby in her womb, giving birth for them is not painful but the absolute opposite.
Covens rule the tribes in times of peace.
>>48286889
That girl wont be satisfied with just kosher.
>>48266781
Witches are mages who have received their magical training as a boon from a local deity (known as a Vagrant). The nature of that boon and training varies wildly by Vagrant, but the most common are those trained by more friendly ones (unfriendly Vagrants are much more likely to just kill anyone who requests a boon) and are often found as village healers or caretakers of small sacred sites.
Now, the boon often takes the form of an animal who channels the will of their Vagrant to them, which is normally fine, but if the Vagrant dies the familiar goes mad, often taking the Witch with them. As such, there are pacts between covens to keep an eye on each other's Vagrants and if their patron is lost, they vow to either adopt the lost witches or put them down before they go mad.
It is not a nice task, but few witches want to become feral beasts and are willing to do such things in the knowledge that through the pacts others will be there to do so for them.
>>48266781
They're idiots.
