A to Z of Witches. V

V is for Voodoo

Anytime you talk about witches, witchcraft or anything similar, sooner or later the topic of voodoo is going to come up.  In fact I have brought it up many times this month already.

The most recent season of American Horror Story: Coven did a great job of setting up Witchcraft and Voodoo as rival factions of magic-use.  Personally I loved it and thought it was well done.

What people typically think of as Voodoo comes to us from Louisiana Voodoo.  Which, one could argue, has a lot of theatrics to help in the tourism trade, but has a religious practice as well.  The religion part of Voodoo is more similar to what is known as Haitian Vodou.  There is a third type that I call Hollywood Voodoo which is what American most often see. It raises zombies and is more like what we saw in AHS:C and the Anita Blake books.

In the WitchCraft RPG by C.J. Carella we see voodoo, or Voudun, as another group of the Gifted.  Pretty cool given his work on Voodoo The Shadow War for GURPS.  In other games voodoo is used as a subset or something akin to witchcraft.

Voodoo with/as/vs Witchcraft works great in a modern game.
It's games like D&D and Pathfinder where it is a bit more difficult.

Voodoo (and by this I mean the "Hollywood" version of Voodoo) works because there is such a great interplay between old-world African gods and not-as old Christianity.   Your typical FRPG does not have this really.  One could create a couple of pantheons of gods and have the place where they intersect work like voodoo, but there is no reason that they have to work exactly like voodoo at all.  In fact in most games what works well enough is have a priest.

When I first opted to include voodoo with witches it was with a huge grain of salt and caveats. I wanted to include it because I really liked the idea of having a voodoo witch.  I also had a great character called Bone Man who was a voodoo priest and I really wanted to play him in the rules I was writing.

For my new book, Strange Brew, I still not have 100% decided on whether or not Voodoo will be a witch archetype/tradition, a new cleric archetype or even something else entirely.  The Loa are really similar to the idea of Patrons to be honest. After all, Papa Legba and Baron Samedi are too cool not to include.

It will give me a great excuse to finally get Bone Man written up.





Supernatural AtoZ

Playing Some Old School Basic D&D Tonight, Part 2

So my old school Basic game last Friday went great!

I got to play a witch from my own book that I didn't roll up myself.  It was so great.
Yes we were all 1st level characters. At one point we were attacked by giant rats, but since my familiar is a rat I managed to talk our way out wit no bloodshed and we even got the heads up on some of the monsters.
Our DM is using some houserules and they worked out fine.

What I think I am enjoying the most is that the game is set in the Known World of Mystara!

It was mostly a younger crowd.  Yes. My dice were older that everyone play save for me and the DM.
Next session we are converting over to AD&D 2nd ed.  One of the player has never played 2e and most of the players there never had played Basic either.

Our DM, Greg, is going to let me use my old 2e Netbook of Witches too once we convert.  We figure we will try out a few "old school" systems and then stick with what we like.  I have a feeling we will land on 2e in the end.  It seems to do what we want to do best.  Though we are looking pretty hard at +Joseph Bloch's +Adventures Dark and Deep for some ideas.

In any case this is going to be a lot of fun.

A to Z of Witches. U

U is for Underworld

Eventually the subject of where witches get their powers is going to come up. When it does we often have to deal with the Underworld and who lives there.
It gets called a lot of things, The Ever After (Rachel Morgan), the Never Never (Dresden Files), the Nether Realms (Buffy in one episode), Hell, The Abyss, the Pit.  I have to admit one of my favorites was from the Beetlejuice cartoon, the Neither World.

In my games I typically say witches can't be raised from the dead since they reincarnate.  So if you want to get someone back from the underworld, you are going to have to go there and get them.

This is not an uncommon approach.  The Descent into the Underworld is a very common theme in many myths and stories. We see it in Orpheus, in Dante's Inferno and it is featured in a number of games.
I even ran a game where the sole (hehehe) purpose was to retrieve the soul of a loved one and bring them back.  It was a playtest for Ghosts of Albion using the Army of Darkness rules.  Since it was around 2002-2003 there was only one logical choice, Xena.  A group of adventurers had to a get Xena's soul because Xena was the only able to help them.  But to that they first needed to find Gabrielle.   The adventure's name ("A Friend in Deed") was even a play on the name of the final episode of Xena ("A Friend in Need").  The double play on words here is the last episode was "FiN" and mine is "FinD".

This game also gave me the idea to write my d20 ritual spell "Descent of the Goddess" as spell a witch can cast on someone so they can go down to the underworld and plead their case to Death.  Yes. If you look behind you before you leave you will loose them forever.

I did not do a Descent into the Underworld when I brought back Tara in my games.  I thought the big adventure to get someone was great for Xena, but for Tara that is not how I wanted her return to start.  I just had her show up one day in the episode "Will We Burn in Heaven?"

Of course the Descent doesn't always have to be bad. Rachel is in the Ever After every weekend. Dresden pops over tot he Never Never all the time.  In games it is often a matter of finding the right gate or spell.
For Ghosts of Albion I have always wanted to use a ghostly train.

But I still like the idea that you need a witch to help get you there.




Supernatural AtoZ

Interview with David Martin

Black Gate has an interview with artist with David Martin.
http://www.blackgate.com/2014/04/23/art-of-the-genre-an-interview-with-david-martin/

Long time readers here will know I am big fan of his work, but in particular the witch cover to Dragon #114.

Pop on over and have a read.

A to Z of Witches. T

T is for Tarot

Maybe it is when I grew up and was thinking about all this stuff (the late 70s early 80s) I associate witches and tarot cards.

There is no really overt connection, but they seem to go well together if you ask me.
I have used Tarot cards in my games and even made a suggestion on how to use them instead of dice while playing Ghosts of Albion.  Tarot decks work rather well for Unisystem since the dice mechanic is a straight d10 (1 to 10 roll).

I have a couple of tarot decks laying around and even a book or two, but I never really use them anymore.  Maybe I should.   I used to use them all the time when playing Ravenloft.

Do any of you use tarot in your games or books?

Tarot Witch of the Black Rose

Tarot Pinup by pziomek 

Another Tarot associated with witches is the famous, or infamous, Tarot Witch of the Black Rose.  Yeah I have talked about her a few times here and I won't lie, I find the comic to be a guilty pleasure.

• Mutants and Masterminds, 2^nd Edition
• Mutants and Masterminds, 3^rd Edition
• True20
• Cinematic Unisystem
• Superbabes

Tarot is actually a good example of what I would call a Witch Guardian. She is a witch, yes, but has taken up the sword in order to protect her coven.

Typically though they wear more armor than this.

I know some people complain about Tarot's proportions. And yes they are ridiculous.
But they are also based on the artist's own wife, so maybe this is how he see's her.  Since she is one doing the coloring in the comic maybe she does as well.






Supernatural AtoZ

A to Z of Witches. S

S is for Shaman

Shamans and Witches often get confused with each other on a few levels.

A shaman typically has a closer connection to the natural world than say a witch does. A shaman's magic then will appear to be more in harmony with the rest of the world.

Along with witches, Shamans are also often a forgotten source of magic in many Fantasy Roll-Playing games.
When I was working on my book of Witches for the d20 game, there was a group doing a d20 Shaman.  I worked with them and they with me and it was great to be able to exchange ideas.

Now I am doing "Strange Brew: The Ultimate Witch & Warlock" and as it turns out the next book inline is "Strange Brew: The Ultimate Shaman" and again these two teams will be sharing ideas.  I enjoy this, it it nice to have people to bounce ideas off of.

I don't recall ever playing a Shaman character though.  Any time it would have come up I played a Druid or a Witch.    I might have to give that a go sometime.





Supernatural AtoZ

Ghosts of Albion Review

RPG Reviewer extraordinaire Dan Davenport took some time to review my baby, Ghosts of Albion.

Please read his review here:  http://gmshoe.wordpress.com/2014/04/18/review-ghosts-of-albion/

As I posted on Facebook, I am stunned and completely speechless with the praise he gives me and my book.

Here are some of my favorite bits.

From the Magic Chapter (Chapter 4)

Given the focus on magicians, you’d probably expect this game to this game to have more extensive magic rules than those found in Buffy. You’d be right. What you might not expect is to find a magic system so refined and slick that it sings.

From the History Chapter (Chapter 5)

This could have been a horrifically dry chapter. Instead, I daresay it’s the best chapter of its sort I’ve read in an RPG.

From Monsters (Chapter 6)

Every entry drips with flavor, and many creatures have access to nasty powers unavailable to PCs. As a bonus, the chapter discusses both the realm of the dead and of the faeries, both Seelie and Unseelie, in broad but fascinating terms.

Style

Extensive use of period artwork and text that sounds vaguely archaic while maintaining total clarity makes this game positively drip with verisimilitude, while the format will be instantly familiar to fans of previous Cinematic Unisystem games. I saw no obvious errors.
And, as is true with all good RPG texts, it includes an index.

Conclusion

This game not only masterfully emulates the source material, but also could serve as the solid basis for a magic- and/or monster-heavy Cinematic Unisystem game set at any time from the 19th century and earlier. Given the excellent refinements to the magic system and the vast flexibility of the supernatural powers, I’m happy to declare this the finest incarnation of Cinematic Unisystem to date.

I am blown away by this. Really. I have had a lot of people come up and tell me how much they loved the game and it always surprises me.  I am humbled and incredibly honored by this.