Witchcraft Wednesday: The Left Hand Path - The Diabolic & Demonic Witchcraft Traditions

 Tonight is Walpurgis Night. Witches fly to their sabbats on the Brocken to drink, dance, and make pacts with the devils and demons. It is a night of evil revelries and will not end until the cock crows at the first light of dawn. 

Sounds like a party! 

Sounds like the perfect day to release my long-awaited The Left Hand Path - The Diabolic & Demonic Witchcraft Traditions.

The Left Hand Path - The Diabolic & Demonic Witchcraft Traditions

Evil!

“Live ... Deliciously.”

There are creatures out there, beyond reality, beyond understanding. 

Mortal kind fear them. Clerics of law and light preach against them. Holy warriors fight against them.

Witches and warlocks seek them out for power over all!

Inside, you will find the witches and warlocks of the Left Hand Path.

• Four witchcraft Traditions
• Three warlock Lodges.
• Evil options for other classes.
• 400 witch and warlock spells. Including 40 witchcraft Rituals.
• 55+ warlock invocations.
• 130 demonic monsters, including Dæmons, Demons, Devils, Eodemons, Lilim, and Yaoguai.
• New magic Items.

Fully compatible with other witch books from The Other Side.

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At 188 pages, this is my largest witch tradition book. 

It is also, as far as I can tell, the most complete collection of demons, devils, and other creatures from the lower planes for any "Basic-era" book.

There is a print version on the way. I have no end of troubles with Affinity Pro. Basically if I could have done something wrong in my set up, I did. Hope to get it sorted out today.

Until then, Happy Walpurgis Night and Joyous Beltane! 

New Releases Tuesday: The Witch Finder Class

 Walpurgis Week continues.  I have a new release for fans of the Old-School Essentials game (and any Basic Era game).

I mean, someone has to keep all these witches in line.

The Witch Finder Class

I have been tinkering with this one for a while now. Finally came together for me while working on my most recent witch book (spoiler, out tomorrow).

From the DriveThruRPG page:

“We are the fire. We are the silence. We are the last prayer between damnation and the soul.”

- Creed of the Order of Saint Ossian.

In a world where magic and witches are real and pose a threat to law, light, and good, there will be Witch Finders.

Inside, you will find:

- The Witch Finder Half-Class for Old-School Essentials (compatible with other Basic-era games).
- New spells for witch finders (and for clerics if you choose).
- New magic items, including the infamous Malleus Maleficarum.
- Two Witch Finder Orders, The Orders of St. Ossian and St. Werper. United in purpose but divided by methods. 

Requires Old-School Essentials Core Rules.

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Classic Classes

I am calling this series "Classic Classes," though some are not "classic" per se, save for how long they have been languishing on my "to be completed" lists. I do not have a projected timeline for them all yet, but I plan on completing the Healer, the Sun-Priest (I just need to give it a new name), and a few more. For now, the plan is only to complete my own unfinished work. 

What is a Half-Class?

The Witch Finder is a "Half-Class" that is it is designed to be used along with another class that is the character's primary class. A quick look at the various Witch Finders and Witch Hunters shows they began as something else and continued that.  Cotton Mather (Salem Witch Trials) was a "cleric" first and foremost. Mathew Hopkins (England) was mostly a charlatan ("thief") and even in modern times Robin Sena, aka Witch Hunter Robin, was also a witch herself. 

So by this logic, I created a "Half-Class" for the Witch Finder. This also helps me preserve some of the flavor of my old 3.x era Witch Finder Prestige Class. 

Will future Classic Classes be Half-Classes? No idea yet, but it will be fun to find out.

Monstrous Mondays: Monstrous Maleficarum #4 - Lilith & the Lilim

 Walpurgis Week begins with a preview of sorts of my soon-to-be-released Left Hand Path Witch book. This one began while my oldest was reading through an early draft of the LHP book and decided he wanted some of my demons for his 5th edition game. I had the stats, I had the art. I had material that I had to cut from the final draft of the LHP book. So this one came together rather nicely.

Monstrous Maleficarum #4 - Lilith & the Lilim

Since the dawn of humankind, there have been monsters, demons, out there in the dark waiting to steal our most vital resources: our lives, our will, our children.

Monstrous Maleficarum #4 brings these demons, the Lilim, together; a shared story from all over the ancient world, and their dark Mistress Lilith herself.

Herein, you will find nine types of Lilim demons to challenge and terrify your players. The terrifying Mormo and Empusa would live for combat and the flesh of humans. The forsaken Mazziqin. The powerful Lamashtu. The Batibat invader of dreams and her far more powerful cousin, the Mara. The seductive Succubus, and the most powerful of all, the Lilitu.

Also presented is Lilith. Neither god nor demon nor witch nor mortal, but something akin to all four and something unique at the same time.

What is Monstrous Maleficarum?

Monstrous Maleficarum is a series of smaller publications to feature new monsters for the 5th Edition of the World's Greatest Role-Playing game. Sometimes these monsters are from previous editions, brought into the new era via the Open Gaming License. Sometimes they are new takes on classic creatures of myth and legend. And other times they will be brand new creatures.

Each “issue” will feature a theme of related monsters. Every issue will feature 100% Open Gaming Content text.

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Enjoy!

Walpurgis *Week*

 Wednesday is Walpurgisnacht, or Walpurgis Night (technically Walpurgis Eve), and I have some treats for you all this week starting tomorrow.

By way of toady's fashion statement, a spoiler for the week.

Witchcraft Wednesday: Deborah "Elf Star" and Mistress Frost for the Left Hand Path Witch

 Last week I re-introduced two NPC Witches from my Left Hand Path Witch & Warlock book; Rhiannon and Briana Highstar.  Today I want to feature two more. Warlocks I think many of you already know. Deborah "Elf Star" and Mistress Frost.

Deborah “Elf Star”

"I used the Mind Bondage spell on my father!"

Warlock Level 8
Patron: Akelarre
Alignment: Chaos (Chaotic Evil)

STR: 10 +0
INT: 13 +1
WIS: 14 +1
DEX: 15 +2
CON: 15 +2
CHA: 16 +2 (+10% XP)

Death/Poison: 11
Petrification/Polymorph: 11
Rod, Staff, Wands, or Device: 12
Breath Weapon: 14
Spells: 13
Single Save: 13

AC: 7
HP: 30
To Hit AC 0: 18 (Descending AC)
To Hit Bonus: +2 (Ascending AC)

Weapon: Dagger
Armor: None

Invocations

Arcane Blast, Beast Speech, Bewitching Whispers, Eldritch Sight, Sign of Ill Omen

Spells

First Level: Allure, Charm Person, Hypnotism
Second Level: Blur, Dark Whispers, Mind Obscure
Third Level: Dark Omen, Fly
Fourth Level: Mind Bondage

Deborah was a young student of Mistress Frost’s school. Frost saw potential in Deborah above and beyond her classmates. She introduced Deborah, now renamed Elf Star, to her Warlock lodge, where they honored the Demon Lord Akelarre.

Akelarre has rewarded Elf Star with power, particularly power over others in the form of charms and mind control. 

Elf Star plans to grow in power and control all the people who wronged her in her young life.

Mistress Frost

"Don't be stupid, Debbie!"

Warlock Level 18
Patron: Akelarre
Alignment: Chaos (Chaotic Evil)

STR: 11 +0

INT: 16 +2

WIS: 14 +2

DEX: 15 +2

CON: 15 +2

CHA: 18 +3 (+10% XP)

Death/Poison: 11

Petrification/Polymorph: 11

Rod, Staff, Wands, or Device: 12

Breath Weapon: 14

Spells: 13

Single Save: 13

AC: 7

HP: 30

To Hit AC 0: 18 (Descending AC)

To Hit Bonus: +2 (Ascending AC)

Weapon: Dagger

Armor: None

Invocations

Arcane Blast, Beast Speech, Bewitching Whispers, Eldritch Sight, Eye of Algol, Minion of Chaos, Sign of Ill Omen, Threefold Curse, Unholy Regeneration

Spells

First Level: Allure, Charm Person, Command, Hypnotism, Make Poppet, Vigor

Second Level: Agony, Cackle, Cause Light Wounds, Dark Whispers, Mind Obscure

Third Level: Aura Sight, Cauldron of Rage, Chaotic Mind, Dark Omen, Undetectable Lie

Fourth Level: Abjure, Cause Serious Wounds, Mind Bondage, Witch's Cradle
Fifth Level: Break Enchantment, Enslave, Mind Fog, Steal Youth

Mistress Frost is in charge of recruiting new members to the worship of the Demon Lord Akelarre. To secure Deborah's involvement and attachment to the cult she had already sacrificed her friend Black Leaf to ensure Deborah had no other attachments. 

Mistress Frost's ultimate plan is to give Elf Star to Akelarre as a bride to secure even more power for herself. 

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I am not sure old Jack would approve, but I like them!

Coming next week, Walpurgis Night.

*OGL Section 15: COPYRIGHT NOTICE

Character Clip Art & Color Customizing Studio Copyright 2002, Elmore Productions, Inc.; Authors Larry Elmore and Ken Whitman, Art and illustrations by Larry Elmore.

New Releases Tuesday: SRD 5.2

 For what it is worth, Wizards of the Coast has released version 5.2 of the D&D SRD. 

Right now it only comes in Creative Commons versions.

I don't know much about Creative Commons, but I've been using the Open Game License (OGL) since the beginning.  

While I am not going to be doing a lot with D&D 5.5 (or are we calling it 5.2 to match the SRD?) on the sales front, I am very interested in trying my hand at doing some Creative Commons releases.

Many interesting games have been released under Creative Commons, which will soon be joined by the new OSRIC 3rd edition.

The 5.1 SRD under the Creative Commons and Open Gaming Licenses are all still available. 

These are not the only choices. The TTRPG Resources List keeps a massive list of all sorts of things, including SRDs for your games.

This is a good step forward, but WotC has a lot of ground to make up for what they pissed away in the last few years.

Monstrous Monday: Left Hand Path Monsters

 Still at it...

Layout continues on The Left Hand Path. Working on the monsters.

Hope to be done here soon and get it out to you all.