It is Halloween! The best day of the year. For that, I want to share one of my all-time favorite Urban Fantasy Horror RPGs.
C. J. Carella's WitchCraft RPG
WitchCraft is, hands down, my favorite game. Period. Picking up a copy of this book back in 1999 was just like picking up a copy of the Monster Manual in 1979. Everything I ever wanted in a game was right there. Everything.
WitchCraft had such a profound effect on my gaming that I can draw a rather clean line between what came before and what came after it. Granted, a lot was going on in 1999/2000, both gaming-wise and personally, that may have added to this effect; it was an effect all the same.
Back in 1999, I was really burned out on AD&D. I was working on my own Witch netbook and reading various games when someone, I forget where, must have been the old RAVENLOFT-L that TSR/WotC used to run, told me I really needed to check out WitchCraft. At first, I balked. I had tried Vampire a couple of years ago and found I didn't like it (and I was very much out of my vampire phase then), but I was coming home from work and my FLGS was on the way, so I popped in and picked up a copy. This must have been the early spring of 2000.
I can recall sitting in my office reading this book over and over. Everything was so new again, so different. This was the world I had been trying, in vain, to create for D&D, but never could. The characters in this book were also all witches, something that pleased me to no end; it was more than just that. Plus, look at that fantastic cover art by George Vasilakos. That is one of my favorite, if not my most favorite, covers for a game book. I have it hanging in my game room now.
WitchCraft uses what is now called the "Classic" Unisystem system. So there are 6 basic attributes, some secondary attributes (derived), skills, qualities, and drawbacks. Skills and attributes can be mixed and matched to suit a particular need.
WitchCraft uses a Point-Buy Metaphysics magic system, unlike Ghosts of Albion's levels of magic and spells system. Think of each magical effect as a skill that must be learned, and you have to learn easier skills before the harder ones first. In D&D, for example, it is possible to learn Fireball without having previously learned Produce Flame. In WitchCraft, you could not do that. WitchCraft, though, is not about throwing around "vulgar magics". WitchCraft is a survival game where the Gifted protect humanity from all sorts of nasty things, from forgotten Pagan gods, to demons, fallen angels, and the Mad Gods; Cthulhoid-like horrors from beyond. WitchCraft takes nearly everything from horror and puts it all together, and makes it work.
The Eden Studios version was the Second Edition, I was later to find out. The first one was from Myrmidon Press. I manged to find a copy of that one too and it was like reading the same book, from an alternate universe. I prefer the Eden Edition far more for a number of reasons, but I am still happy to have both editions.
The first edition (from Myrmidon Press) is like an alternate-universe echo of the later Eden Studios release. I own both, but Eden’s version is definitive. It’s cleaner, more playable, and it feels like the book C. J. Carella meant to write.
The central idea behind WitchCraft is the same as most other Modern Supernatural Horror games. The world is like ours, but there are dark secrets, magic is real, and monsters are real. You know the drill. But WitchCraft is different. There is a Reckoning coming, everyone feels it, but no one knows what it is. Characters then assume the roles of various magic-using humans, supernatural beings, or even mundane individuals, and they fight against the threats. Another conceit of the game (and one I use a lot) is that supernatural occurrences are greater now than ever before. Something's coming... (dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria).
It is most often compared to World of Darkness, but there are aspects of WitchCraft that I prefer. Unlike (old) Mage there is no war between the (good) Mages and the (evil) Technocracy. There is a war certainly, but nothing so cut and dry. Unlike the new Mage, there are rarely clean divisions between the factions. Yes, yes Mage players, I am being overly simple, but that is the point, on the simple levels new Mage dives everything into 5 because that is how the designers want it. There are factions (Associations) and different metaphysics for each, but they also overlap, and sometimes no clear and defined lines are to be found or established. It feels very organic.
In my opinion, C. J. Carella may be one of the best game designers out there. WitchCraft is a magnum opus that few achieve. I took that game and I ran with it. For 2000 - 2003, it was my game of choice above and beyond anything. The Buffy RPG, built on the Cinematic Unisystem, took over till I wrote Ghosts of Albion, which also uses the Cinematic Unisystem. I mix and match the systems as I need, but WitchCraft is still my favorite.
WitchCraft, in fact, is what got me into professional game design.
Back in the Spring/Summer of 2001, I started up a new game. I had just purchased the WitchCraft RPG book about 16 months prior, and I was looking for something new. That something came to me in the guise of Willow and Tara. I had been watching Buffy for a bit, and I really enjoyed the character of Willow. When she got together with fellow witch Tara, I thought they were perfect. I had become very involved in the online Willow/Tara fandom, so I created a game, focusing on just them.
The game would focus on just these two, no one else from the show (which I would soon become an ex-fan of, but that is a different story). Plus it gave me something to try out in a modern setting, something I have not done since my early days with the Chill RPG.
The trickiest part of developing game stats of any fictional character that belongs to someone else is knowing how to strike a balance between the game's rules and the fictional portrayal. A lot of "artisitc" license needs to be used in order to get a good fit. For example, how do you determine what some one's strength is when there is little to no on screen evidence? What spells would the girls have?
In the end, I decided to play it a little loose, but I love where their stats ended up. In many ways, this is who Willow and Tara are to me, not the characters on TV or in comics, but the ones who were my characters since that day back in May 2001, when I decided they needed their own chance to shine.
After this, I worked on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG. It should be no surprise then that the Willow and Tara stats that appear there are not that much different than my own. I can be pretty vocal in play tests. That got me the chance to write the Ghosts of Albion RPG. This also allowed me to meet, work with and remain friends with Christopher Golden and Amber Benson.
WitchCraft paved the way for so many other games for me, not just in terms of playing but in writing. If it were not for WitchCraft, then we would not have had Buffy, Angel, or Army of Darkness. Conspiracy X would have remained in its original system. There would be no Terra Primate or All Flesh Must Be Eaten, and certainly there would be no Ghosts of Albion. This game means that much to me.
But you don't have to take my word for it, Eden Studios will let you have it, sans some art, for free.
Download it. If you have never played anything else other than D&D then you OWE it yourself to try this game out.
My thing is I wish it was more popular than it is. I love the game. If I was told I could only play one game for the rest of my life then WitchCraft would be in my top 3 or 2 choices.
Larina Nichols for WitchCraftRPG
Like Willow and Tara, I consider the WitchCraft version of Larina to be the "main" or even "true" one. Not a shock. I was reading the WitchCraftRPG after completing my first publication, "Complete Netbook of Witches & Warlocks," which featured a six-year-old Larina learning she would become a witch.
Later on, I played her in an online game where she went to Scotland, got married, got divorced, and moved back. In fact, it was her "return to America" stage of her life that I tried to capture with the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG. It was here that her "modern age" counterpart had made contact with her "fantasy age", aka D&D counterpart.
Larina "Nix" NicholsWicce Seeker of Knowledge Gifted
Age: 30 (circa 2000/2001), Ht: 5'4", Hair: Red, Eyes: Blue
Attributes: Str 2 Dex 3 Con 3 Int 5 Per 5 Wil 6*
Life Points: 33
Endurance: 29 (27)
Speed: 12/6
Essence Pool: 76
Channeling Level: 10
Survival: 10
Lifting Capacity: 100 lbs
Qualities & Drawbacks
Gifted (+5), Attractive (+2), Essence Channeling (+5), Hard to Kill (+1), Increased Essence Pool (+8), Nerves of Steel, Old Soul* (+3), Resources (+1), Emotional Dependency: Fear of Rejection (-1), Honorable (-2), Recurring Nightmares (-1), Obsession Magic (-2)
Skills
Cooking (1), Craft, Simple Crafts (2), Driving, Car (2), Humanities, History (2), Humanities, Religion (2), Humanities, Wicce Theology (2), Humanities, Psychology (1), Language, Latin (4), Language, Greek (3), Language Italian (3), Language, Gaelic (2), Magic Bolt (3), Magic Theory (3), Myth and Legend, Celtic (2), Myth and Legend, Greek (2), Folk Magic (4), Occult Knowledge (2), Play Instrument, Clarinet (2), Research (3), Rituals, Wicce (2), Singing (1), Survival, Urban (3), Trance (2)
Metaphysics/Powers
Affect the Psyche (Influence Emotion, 2), Blessing (Good Luck, 2; Protection, 2), Create Ward (2), Flame (2), Insight, One with the Land (1), Perceive True Nature (2), Protection vs. Magic (3), Soul Projection (4), Soul Fire (3), Sending (1)
Weapons
Knife d4x2
Baseball bat d8x2 / d8x3 (two handed)
Possessions: Books on magic, spell components, crystal ball, laptop computer (Mac PowerBook G3 "Lombard"), 1998 Volkswagen Beetle.
As with Chill, this is not a starting character. I have said it already, but I consider this to be the "Prime" modern Larina, that is, until I wrote NIGHT SHIFT. I use the Old Soul quality not only to have her connect to past lives, but also to her "alternate lives." This would include her D&D and Mage versions. This is what allows her to exceed the human limit of 5 in Willpower.
Larina's Timeline
Since this is the last post in this particular series, I decided to look back on the lifespan development campaign idea.
There are certainly more games I could use to fill in some more. Even if I never play all these games, using them is a better solution than a huge backstory. It gives you the chance to build that backstory.
WitchCraft as a D&D Replacement
I have talked about this one as much this month, even if it is a central feature of my Fantasy Fridays. But the WitchCraftRPG can be used as a replacement for D&D. Eden even published a book for it, Dungeons & Zombies. Overtly for the All Flesh Must Be Eaten RPG.
It is no surprise then that Dungeons & Zombies comes from Jason Vey. Vey and I would later take all that we knew from WitchCraft, AFMBE, and Buffy and Ghosts, and design NIGHT SHIFT.
I even ran the Ravenloft I6 adventure using WitchCraft. It was fantastic.
Final Thoughts
Revisiting WitchCraft after Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition feels like returning to the root system after tracing the branches. Mage is about transcendence, belief shaping reality. WitchCraft is about endurance, belief surviving reality.
In Mage, Larina questions the structure of the cosmos; in WitchCraft, she defends it. Both games explore the same axis of power and consequence, but WitchCraft speaks to something older and more intimate: the soul’s stubborn refusal to go quietly.
Twenty-five years later, WitchCraft still reads like a love letter to the people who look at the dark and light a candle anyway. It’s hopeful without being naïve, mystical without losing its humanity.
When I flip through those pages now, I can still feel that same spark from 1999. The moment I realized that “urban fantasy” wasn’t just a genre; it was a worldview, and it was where I wanted to spend my gaming days and nights.
And Larina’s still there, at her desk, cup of tea beside a stack of grimoires, scrolling through student papers by day and summoning protective circles by night. The Reckoning may come, or it may not, but she’ll be ready either way.
Links
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