Mirror Mondays: The Witches of 1986. The Witch, the Cleric, and the Magic-User

 One of the central design ideas behind Advanced Witches & Warlocks is something that, in retrospect, seems obvious to me.

The Witch is not a Magic-User in a black dress. She is also not a Cleric with better eyeliner.

I have joked about that distinction before, but there is a real design issue behind it, one that gets to the heart of what I want the Witch to be in Advanced Witches & Warlocks.

From its very inception, Dungeons & Dragons has had two principal modes of spellcasting at its core. Later editions were more explicit in codifying the divide between these forms of magic, but the separation was always there. A Magic-User wields Arcane power; a Cleric has Divine. The former will study a spell, commit it to book and memory, experiment with it, and come to see magic as something to be grasped by way of knowledge. The latter relies on faith and service, on a connection to powers beyond the mortal realm and the authority they confer.

Even if the outcome is sometimes the same (often the same), these are fundamentally different ways of looking at magic. No one at an AD&D table would confuse the two classes when they cast spells. That is an important distinction, and in my view, the Witch is owed the same respect.

I have been saying it here often enough, but it is worth restating: Witches practice Occult magic.

By nature it is secret and initiatory, often dealing with matters that polite society would rather not acknowledge. In some respects it is like Arcane or Divine magic since witches both believe and study. They make use of books and rituals, of gods and spirits, of herbs and stars and the like, drawing on all the same sort of things a Magic-User or Cleric might. But then again, similarity does not make them the same. 

The Witch has her own way of going about it.

Knowledge, Authority, and Relationship

• A Magic-User looks at magic and wants to understand how it works.
• A Cleric looks toward the Divine and asks what is required.
• A Witch looks at the hidden world and asks how everything is connected.

That last part is increasingly important to how I am designing the class.

I have written before about why Charisma is the Witch's prime attribute. I do not use Charisma here as a measure of physical attractiveness or popularity. For the Witch, Charisma is presence, the ability of the self to affect and interact with others. Often, and more to the point, how do this and not lose oneself.

And "others" is a very broad category.

Other people, certainly, but also spirits, ghosts, ancestors, familiars, demons, gods, the dead, the land, magical places, supernatural powers, and things for which there might not be a convenient entry in the Monster Manual.

A Witch does not simply know that a spirit exists. She has a relationship with it. She might summon or put an end to it, make a bargain, issue a threat, or offer some form of appeasement. Perhaps she is in its debt, or she is privy to the one name it would have left unspoken. For this kind of work, Charisma is essential.

Power for the Witch is a matter of relationships, and even those that are hostile qualify. A curse, a pact, a haunting, or the tie to a familiar are all forms of relationship. The same holds true for her connection to her coven, her Patron, or the ground on which she puts her craft to use.

In this way, Occult magic makes a clear distinction from the Arcane and the Divine. A Magic-User will see an effect replicated so long as he has the right formula; a Cleric can expect a miracle by virtue of his divine authority. The Witch acts because she knows how to deal with what lies behind the effect. At times she may know its wants or its name. 

More to the point, it may know her. That is no small thing. With Occult magic, you are always noticed in return. 

That last bit is important. Occult magic always notices you back.

There is an importance to this at the game table as well. When one considers that Occult magic is founded on relationships, a Witch ought not to come across as any other Magic-User with a distinct set of spells. The nature of her art should impose certain obligations and leave its mark. It is a matter of names and places. Of covens, Patrons, spirits, and familiars. And of encounters that are made more than once. Over the span of a campaign, she can form ties with the supernatural; and while they may prove useful, they can be just as often dangerous, or even both in the same breath.

A list of names is often more useful to the witch than a list of what treasures she has found.

That, more than anything else, is why Charisma is the Witch’s prime attribute. It is not enough to perceive the hidden world or understand it. The Witch must be able to enter into a relationship with it and remain herself when it answers.

More Than a Third Spell List

This is something I want to be very careful and very deliberate about in Advanced Witches & Warlocks.

It would be the easy thing to do from a mechanical standpoint to compile a Witch spell list by culling some spells from the Magic-User and Cleric, throwing in a few curses and calling it a day. But that is philosophically lazy. Occult magic must be more than that.

The reason for drawing a line between Arcane, Divine, and Occult is not to put spells in three separate filing cabinets. Each should be predicated on a different view of reality. With Arcane, you are working with the notion that the universe has patterns to be found and put to use. Divine magic is built on the existence of a supernatural authority and the mortal’s ability to partake of it via faith or service.

Occult magic posits that there are things in reality one can enter into: hidden correspondences and identities, debts and thresholds. The Witch might learn, or she might pray; at times she will bargain. At other times she is doing what her coven has been doing for nine centuries without fully understanding the why of it. Or perhaps it works because a promise is being kept somewhere. All of which puts the Witch in an altogether different position vis-à-vis magic.

A spellbook is for knowledge, a holy text for revelation. A Book of Shadows has both, but you will also find recipes and family secrets in its pages, or warnings and the names of the dead. There may be diagrams lifted from stones long since misplaced, or a fragment of a conversation, or the record of a bargain made. You might come across an instruction to the effect of “do not perform this rite twice in the same place.” To my mind, that is what Witch magic is.

To a wizard this looks slap-dash and like “low magic.” Clerics will call it blasphemy or heresy. A witch will see the true power.

Traditions Are Means to Answers, Not Restrictions

New Witch Traditions is an area I have been putting a good deal of work into of late. One has to consider that if Occult magic is predicated on relationships and a certain way of seeing the world, it follows that there can be no single correct Witch theology. To put it another way, the question “Where does Witch magic come from?” should not have one universal answer; different witches will give you different ones. A Tradition is a means to one such answer. It is also what the answers are grounded in and, even more than that, how the questions are asked.

A Tradition does not merely give a Witch an answer. It teaches her which questions are worth asking. 

Think of it as a worldview and a means of making sense of the hidden world, complete with its own body of teachings and magical vocabulary. It is not to be confused with a coven. A coven is a matter of who one practices alongside; a Tradition speaks to how one comprehends the practice itself. The possibilities that distinction affords are considerable.

Take, for instance, the three I have been developing: the High Order, the Scaled Sisterhood, and the Threefold Goddess Tradition. They are all capable of producing witches, and they all make use of Occult magic, but you will find they can be in radical disagreement as to what magic really is. Or even what a witch is.

The High Order

To an outside observer, the High Order is what one would expect of an Arcane tradition. The witches of the order are students of their craft; they put in the work to investigate everything from magical laws and ancient tongues to the hidden architecture of the cosmos, the planes, ritual structures, and metaphysics. There are some who will find common ground with a Magic-User or Wizard, at least for a time.

Yet the High Order does not see magic as nothing more than a mechanism to be put under a microscope. Magic is too large for that, too sacred. One can approach it with knowledge but never fully account for it. A Magic-User is content to learn the formula for opening a gate between worlds. A Witch of the High Order wants to know what the gate is in the first place. She asks why thresholds have such import, or why some doors are two-way, and others are not. Why a spot becomes a threshold unaided by any hand. Who was the first to cross and what came back after him?

Such questions are no longer about mechanics. Study is indeed part of her life, but it is an initiation into deeper things. Her Book of Shadows is not simply a technical manual; it is a record of encounters. In fact, her education affects how she views reality. I have come to appreciate the notion at the heart of the Tradition: the Witch is sovereign, not a servant.

She might have Patrons or pay her respects to gods. She may take instruction from an Archmage or an Archwitch, or from some supernatural teacher whose name is otherwise unknown. But obedience is not the point. The relationship could be one of rivalry or obligation, mentorship or initiation. But there is a relationship. That is what makes the difference. 

That is where the High Order stops being merely "the scholarly Witch" and becomes something distinctly Occult.

The Scaled Sisterhood

The Scaled Sisterhood approaches the mystery from an entirely different direction. For these witches, dragons are more than monsters, gods, enemies, or powerful creatures. Dragons are magic, and mysteries made flesh.

They are creatures that hoard and sleep and dream; they change the very landscape around them with their presence. Their existence spans mortal generations, so it is not uncommon for a dragon to have a firsthand recollection of what the rest of the world would dismiss as mere myth. It puts a different kind of vocabulary to the Sisterhood’s magic.

The questions they put forward are of a particular sort: Why does a dragon put together a hoard? What is the significance of its blood or of fire that transforms instead of obliterating? When one lives long enough, does memory become a kind of magic? What is it to shed one’s skin in terms of identity or rebirth? And what is left in the dragon’s mind that history has let go of?

Their teachings run deep into the nature of draconic beings and powers. Tiamat and Bahamut are part of the Tradition, but by no means do they define it. One will find other interpretations of what it is to be a dragon, such as Vritraxion, Lóngzihua, Anantanatha, and older mysteries. There is no requirement for such teachings to be in accord with each other. 

I would be disappointed if they were.

You will hear the Sisterhood put forth notions like "The Breath Transforms," "The Scale Remembers," or "The Hoard Reveals." Do not mistake them for simple rules. They are propositions, true mysteries that have been the subject of argument among witches for centuries. A Cleric may see fit to worship a dragon god, or a Magic-User might put a blade to a dragon to understand the mechanics of its breath weapon. The Witch of the Scaled Sisterhood wants to know why the dragon is there in the first place. That is the point of Occult magic.

The Threefold Goddess Tradition

The Threefold Goddess Tradition initially appears to lean much closer toward Divine magic.

It is a theological Tradition after all, and that is made clear in its tenets: the Goddess is at once the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone. And yet one cannot say the Maiden is the Mother, or the Mother the Crone, or the Crone the Maiden, even as they are all entirely the Goddess. I would not put in the effort to sort out such a contradiction; it is the theology. In fact, it is best not to try.  The Tradition has a way of regarding mystery as something that need not be simplified to be true.

The Maiden, who is beginning, discovery, courage and movement. The Mother stands for fullness, creation and guardianship. Then there is the Crone with her death-wisdom, prophecy, curses and the preparation for rebirth. These are not so much job descriptions as they are expressions. A goddess will manifest in more than one Face if she chooses, and may well seem to run counter to the system or defy classification altogether. So be it. Once you can put a complete diagram to a mystery, it ceases to be one.

The Threefold Sign makes this plain to see in the interlinked forms of the three Faces, leaving the center to stand for something else: the Mystery of the Goddess.

• What does the Maiden reveal? 
• What does the Mother protect?
• What does the Crone hide?

Consider the difference in approach. A Cleric will worship a goddess and be granted Divine magic on account of it. A Witch of this Tradition might pay homage to the very same deity but in another way. She asks what is being concealed, or what is revealed in this particular manifestation, and why. If the Goddess puts in an appearance that we do not expect, the Witch is there to make sense of it. She is not just taking in doctrine; she is interpreting. 

It is a far different kind of spiritual relationship, and relationship is the operative word.

Three Traditions, One Class

This is where these Traditions help me understand what I want Advanced Witches & Warlocks to accomplish.

• The High Order approaches mystery through knowledge.
• The Scaled Sisterhood approaches mystery through ancient beings, transformation, memory, and living symbols.
• The Threefold Goddess Tradition approaches mystery through sacred contradiction, revelation, and theology.

There is no agreement between them, nor should there be. Occult magic has no need for it; it demands participation instead. What unites these three is that they all put the Witch in a relationship with something concealed. For one of the High Order, this might be Magic itself, while a member of the Scaled Sisterhood could be bound to dragons and the old mysteries they stand for. A follower of the Threefold Goddess relates to the Goddess, whose various Faces are but a fraction of the whole.

These are the things that define a Witch, not some spell list. It is the difference between a Cleric who draws on Divine authority or a Magic-User who relies on understanding. The Witch derives her power from the hidden world. She makes promises and crosses thresholds. She has her obligations and her beliefs. In time, she may even have something on the other side acknowledge her. That is the nature of Occult magic.

And there are still two more Traditions I have that I have not discussed in detail yet. One is the Daughters of Baba Yaga. The other can wait a little longer.

Back in Jackson

This distinction also explains why the Witch works so naturally in Jackson, IL, even though Jackson is a very different project from Advanced Witches & Warlocks.

Larina, Stephanie, and Faye are all witches, but they do not understand witchcraft in the same way. In fact, looking at the three of them through the lens of Advanced Witches & Warlocks helps clarify what I mean by Tradition.

Larina is a witch of the High Order in every sense. 

She is always with a book, studying witchcraft, folklore, the occult, religious theory, and ritual. It is not enough for her to know how something is done; she wants to get to the bottom of why it works, what the symbols are saying, and what lies under the surface of the accepted explanation.

You would be hard-pressed to call her a Magic-User. Larina does not view magic as some mechanism to be put under a microscope and decoded. For her, knowledge is a way of getting closer to the mystery. A text might explain a ritual, but she is more interested in what was really being contacted, or what the author overlooked. Her faith in the Goddess is no more passive than her study habits; she is trying to make sense of a larger, stranger reality, which precludes her from being a Cleric.

When the ghost sees her, and she sees the ghost, the whole question is altered. She will find an authentic word in a poorly written description of a ritual, or spot the real Enochian coming from someone putting on a show on late-night TV. She has a way of pulling at the threads where theology and lived experience meet. That is the mark of the High Order.

Stephanie is another matter altogether. In many ways I would put her in the Scaled Sisterhood, though not out of any interest in dragons. What comes instinctively to her is an understanding of power.

She knows the social hierarchies, the reputations and the influence. She can tell who is in control of a room and who is only pretending to be, who is vulnerable and where one must apply pressure. This is what makes her such an effective leader, even if she doesn’t think of herself in those terms.

A hoard is not always gold. For Stephanie, it can be status, or secrets, or social capital. She has an instinct for the invisible territories and pecking orders of a high school. But there is also the Scaled Sisterhood’s notion that power entails responsibility. When she puts a stop to another cheerleader making fun of Faye, she doesn’t just chide her for cruelty. She redefines the argument entirely.

"We don’t do that. We have to be the best Jackson Public High has. Not the worst."

In invoking duty and belonging, she is using the very structure of things. That is Stephanie. She has no quarrel with the hierarchy; she makes it serve as her protection. Stephanie understands something else dragons know instinctively: possessing power changes the space around you whether you intend it to or not. 

The Scaled Sisterhood studies dragons because dragons embody power in its oldest and most concentrated forms. Stephanie does not need a dragon in front of her to understand the lesson. She already understands what it means to have power and decide what kind of person you are going to be with it.

Then there is Faye. She is a Daughter of Baba Yaga. I have yet to put a lot of detail into that Tradition here, but Faye can help us understand it a little better now.

If Larina is occupied with the hidden world and Stephanie with the way power is structured within it, Faye is immersed in something much older. The Old Magic. The sort that predated anyone’s efforts to file it away in a church or an occult order or some respectable tome.

The Daughters of Baba Yaga may preserve practice. They remember what must be done even after the reason has been forgotten.

Faye was raised by witches of the Blackthorn and Thorne lines who had no inclination to justify themselves to outsiders. They have their ways, their grudges, their recipes and curses and protections, knowledge handed down through the generations without the need for a formal theology. Some things are done out of habit. Others are left alone because one recalls what went wrong the last time around. Faye is well aware of the difference. She might not care for it, and often doesn’t, but the Old Magic runs in her.

It is why Faye can grasp a thing in an instant that would send Larina off to do some research. Larina wants to know the origin of a custom, the mythology behind it. Faye will just say: "Don’t do that." And when asked why? "Because you don’t." It is an answer that would madden Larina, though Faye is usually right. And Larina knows that.

The Daughters of Baba Yaga are meant to stand for a rougher, more elemental side of witchcraft. Folk magic, inherited wisdom from old women who know too much, dangerous bargains and spirits, rules whose source is lost but not the consequences. 

Yet Faye is not a prisoner to it. Her role is in part about what she chooses to hold on to and what she will remake for herself. That is a relationship with tradition in its own right. She is the witch in Jackson that "looks evil, but isn’t," like Moria is "looks innocent, but is evil" and Sylvia is "looks evil, and is evil, and looks better than everyone else while doing it."

Larina looks for the structure. Stephanie sees how power flows through it. Faye is aware that some magic is older than the structures we build to account for it. They are all witches; they all work the Occult, but the hidden world speaks to each of them differently.

That is the point of Traditions in Advanced Witches & Warlocks. Not to lay down which spells a Witch may cast, but to show what she notices, what she deems important, the questions she puts forward when the impossible occurs. What answers is she willing to accept?

And the Witch has to live with those answers.

Note: For RPGaDay2026 next month, Mirror Mondays will be on pause, but I am still working on all my new projects and campaigns.