Witchcraft Wednesdays: It Takes Three to Make A Thing Go Right

 With all apologies to MC Rod Base and DJ EZ Rock (nobody rocked harder dressed like a pack of Newports, RIP), there is a reason you see covens of witches vs solitaries. 

I have said it here before, but witches are social. They see patterns in social dynamics and in social constructs. A cleric might ask why someone read a book on demonology. A wizard might ask why they read this particular book on demons. A witch will notice why the book is grouped with local maps and notes on when the graveyard was first used. They seek out the connections between people and each other; the living and the dead, people and the divine, and people and the arcane. 

And there is a reason that NIGHT SHIFT is called "Veterans of the Supernatural Wars."

People who fight the darkness rarely get to retire, and when they do, it is only to pass the fight down to the next generation. 

Today I want to talk a bit about Stephanie, Faye, and Larina in Jackson, or not really them specifically, what and who they are in the game. For me, they are the stand-ins for the PCs as I playtest and write. If and/or when I am able to move this from my computer and game table to yours, they might not even be there; your characters will. They will have their own organization and social dynamic, and they will have one, but more importantly, they will have a history. Not a backstory per se, but a history, things that went on before them. The people who fought this battle before they did. Some won. Most lost.

Let's look into how this plays out in my game.

So, before these witches walked the halls of Jackson,

Stephanie, Faye, and Larina (1986)

These witches did.

Lena, Alyssa, and Keely (1983)

Selene "Lena" Marquette, Alyssa Argent, and Keely "Q" Ellison were Jackson's witch protectors in the time before Larina got here and before Faye started paying attention. Lena was smart, popular, and already one foot out the door to study at MacAlister the summer of 83. Keely was popular, had a smile for everyone, and was on the cheerleading, dance, gymnastics teams, and the choir. Everyone loved her. Not liked, loved. And Alyssa. She wasn't the smartest girl in the room. She was the smartest person in the whole damn town. Brilliant, chaotic, she read theoretical physics for fun, translated languages in her spare time, and had a full-ride scholarship to pretty much every Ivy League school. 

And their story is tragic. I normally don't like to make characters fail, but sometimes they do, and that is the horror. In Jackson, horror is everywhere.

One night, when dealing with a monster, Lena and Keely never made it back. Alyssa did, but her mind was no longer intact. The official story is that Lena and Keely were coming back from school late at night and someone grabbed them. Upon hearing the story, Alyssa broke down. But the town's people knew something was not right. Lena and Keely were friends, but there was no reason for them both to be leaving the school that late at night and together. Alyssa had a nervous breakdown, which surprised no one, but it had been a long time coming, and whether it really had anything to do with the official events is anyone's guess.  Alyssa spent the next year at the Illinois State Mental Hospital in town. She didn't even get to go to the funeral of the two girls she called "sisters."

Last page of the Jackson PHS 1983 yearbook

One of the features I have with Jackson is that it is based on my real-life high school. One of those real Jacksonville things was that every year in high school, one or more students would die. Gruesome, right. Yeah, now imagine it is a small school of just over 1,500 students total. We used to say the school was cursed. I have no idea if it is still happening.

You can begin to see why I have so much material for this project.

It's not just that Lena and Q died. It's not even that they died because of Jackson's supernatural elements, or that it left the once-brilliant Alyssa a shell of her former self.

It's when Stephanie, Faye, and Larina (or YOUR characters) are walking the halls, the adults say things like "Oh, Larina, she is just like Alyssa," and then they go quiet. Or even "Stephanie Vale lights up a room, just like Keely used to."  But the worst part is the adults who never say anything at all. They watch the girls walk by laughing conspiratorially, and inside, they are thinking, "No. Please. Not again."

The fight in Jackson is old. It has been going on for a long time. And I want to impress upon the characters and the players that they are not the first here, they won't be the last. These are the Veterans of the Supernatural Wars. Kids that are not even old enough to drink (legally) or, in some cases, vote.

But Lena, Alyssa, and Q hold another lesson too.

You can't do this alone.

I am not sure of the details yet, but I do know this: they failed and died because they were not working together. Look. I don't want to blame them for their deaths. It was a horrible thing, and honestly? I have only had them for a couple of days, and I feel terrible. But they died because, as witches, they were not working together.

I love Stephanie, Faye, and Larina. I do. I want them to live happily ever after in the Jackson Game world for as long as I can. But I also know how I typically play these characters, and honestly, I am a little surprised that Jackson-Larina has not met the same fate as other Larinas on other worlds. 

In the past I have described Larina as "the girl who sets herself on fire to light the way for others," and yes, she has died. Many times on many worlds. I have a binder filled with her character sheets. But here in Jackson, her lesson (and the PC's lesson) is, you can't and should not do this alone. My own rule also says I can't raise her from the dead. Sorry, witches can't raise the dead, and this is an absolute rule in my games. So, Larina, as my iconic witch, cannot break that rule.

For witches and any character, these connections are important. I have not implemented coven casting rules in NIGHT SHIFT outside of the Arcane Bond power, but I really should. 

Coven casting is not just "three witches get together, and the spell gets bigger." That is wizard-thinking. That is math. Witches can do math, but that is not where the magic lives. 

The coven is the circuit for a witch. There is one to name the thing, one to hold the line, and another to mind the human toll. Put in different witches, and you have a different spell. Stephanie, Faye, and Larina are not some interchangeable cogs in a machine. Stephanie will be on to the lies people tell and the social fallout. Faye has her finger on the room’s emotional pulse. Larina spots the occult design. Put them together, and they can pull off things no one of them should be able to do by herself.

More to the point, they can survive it. Or at least they have a better chance.

I want to make that a rule in Jackson. Coven magic can give you an edge on a roll, but it should be more about sharing the danger, the cost, the insight. Let one witch absorb the psychic backlash while another steadies the ritual or makes sure the door does not shut. Or let one put her foot down and say "No, we’re done," and have it count for something in the mechanics. 

Lena, Alyssa, and Q lost that. Or perhaps they never really had it to begin with. I don't know, and niether will the players or characters.

Alyssa had power. Terrible power that made everyone stop and look. She was capable of more than Larina ever could be. But there is a difference between brilliance and wisdom, between power and the connection of a coven. On her own, a witch is a weapon, a flame, or a ghost story to be told in hushed tones in the hallways. A coven puts the humanity back in her. A coven gives that power a focus and meaning.

Jackson is full of monsters, of course. Haunted colleges, the bad land, old tragedies, and the odd book in the library where the Veil is thin. But it is also about the girl in the hallway beside you. The one who knows your real name and your worst ideas, and when you are lying or afraid. The one who will take your hand and tell you, "No, you are not alone."

That is witchcraft. I love my circles, candles, and athamés as much as the next person (ok, maybe more so than the next person), but this is more than spells or familiars. It is true connection made dangerous. Friendship with teeth. Love in a circle aimed at the dark.

I want Jackson to remember that. Lena, Alyssa, and Q are a reminder that the fight was here before your characters got to it. Stephanie, Faye, and Larina show us you don’t get to just assume you will make it. Your characters ought to feel the weight of all those names when they walk these halls.

The defeated and dead aren’t there to put a damper on the game. They are there to remind the living how to stand together.

Jackson, IL: NPCs, The Ones Who Know

One of the big hooks in the Jackson, IL NIGHT SHIFT game I am using is that the adults in the game know a little bit of what is going on. That is to say they know Jackson has more than its fair share of weirdness going on. 

Case in point. Devil Chairs or Witch Chairs. These are chairs found in many cemeteries across the Midwest. If a cemetery has one they typically have one, or maybe two. My real hometown of Jacksonville, IL (which Jackson is based on) has five. That town isn't normal. (Normal is about 120 miles NE of Jacksonville!)

There are also other teens who have figured out what is going on. These NPCs will interact with the PCs but may or may not get involved for their own reasons. 

Roderick Morgan, II, aka "Morgan Highstar"

Morgan, as he is known, is the "protector" of St. Michael's Catholic School and Academy. The "Academy" part is the older name and is used by the honor students. Morgan (and never, ever "Rod") is a psychic and covers the same role that Stephanie, Faye, and Larina cover for Jackson Public High School. 

Morgan, though, is a reluctant protector. Not because he can't, he is more than capable. He is reluctant because he doesn't really want to protect anyone. Well...he is doing it to prove his intellectual capabilities and his psychic ability, not because he actually likes any of the students at St. Michaels. On the contrary, he actively dislikes most of them. But it would wound his pride if a poltergeist or a demon got into the school. 

Morgan is a psychic and a rationalist. He doesn't believe in the supernatural. All the phenomena he encounters, he thinks, are the result of psychic interference. So ghosts, demons, hags, and the lot are all manifestations of the townspeople's own fears and psychic garbage. Psychic patterns or matrices. They believe the town is haunted, so they find ways to make it so. He finds it deeply offensive that others can't have the same mental discipline he does.

He also can't stand witches. 

Not hate per se. But they represent everything he thinks is wrong with this town. They feed into the superstitions and believe them themselves. The problem is also is that they are effective. He would argue that they are effective because they contribute to the problem. So it galls him anytime someone with magic shows up. And it destroys his world anytime Larina beats him in chess.

Concept: Psychic and intellectual snob with grades to back it up.
Song: "Subdivisions" by Rush
Quote: "A haunting is not a mystery. It is an unresolved pattern with delusions of personality."

Morgan is a 4th-level Psychic. He is a little more powerful than the other NPCs, but he is also doing all the work on his own. He is based on Morgan Highstar. 

Morgan is related to the Morgan Chemical family. His father, Roderick Morgan I, was not directly involved but is a professor at MacAlister College. They have a name and money.

Vera Rook

Vera is another witch at Jackson Public High. She and Stephanine go way back to Kindergarten together where they have always been rivals. She picked on Faye for loosing her parents and now she has set her sights on Larina as her newest target. 

Very is smart, incredibly cool, and popular. If this were the 2000s she would be described as a "mean girl." In the 1980s, we would have just called her "stuck up." 

Vera's deal is that she is a witch, and she could help, but she won't unless it somehow benefits herself. So there will be times when she pitches in and a lot more times when she just won't.  

While I don't want to make her into a cliché, I do admit I am having fun playing with the clichés. She is the worst qualities of the other witch NPCs distilled into one character with wit and flawless eyeliner.

Concept: Rival witch.
Song: "Cities in Dust" by Siouxsie and the Banshees
Quote: "And I care...why?"

Vera is a 2nd level witch. But don't expect her help or anything. Vera is brand new, but I rolled up her Pathfinder 2nd Ed and AD&D 1st edition character Veyra Shadowraven. Yes, more clichés! Might need to post all three stats one day.

Stephanie: "Ugh! Why is she such a bitch?"
Larina: "Why won't she help?"
Faye: "Why does she look so cool?"
Stephanie and Larina: "What?"
Faye: "What?"

The Rooks are also an old Jackson family. She would be a family tradition witch.

Kyra Bellamy 

Kyra: "There is evil in this town. It's old, and it is angry."

Kyra Bellamy is sharp, watchful, and not nearly as willing to take people at face value as they might hope. She has a serious streak, a cautious intelligence, and the habit of looking at the people around her like she is trying to solve them before they become dangerous. That wariness makes her seem distant, but it is born more from care than cruelty. Kyra wants the truth, even when it is uncomfortable, and she has little patience for sentimentality when the stakes are real. In a town built on secrets, that makes her both valuable and dangerous.

Kyra is the daughter of Rev. Jonah Bellamy, III. Preacher at "The Old Landmark Missionary Baptist Church", a predominantly African-American Baptist church. Kyra loves her church. Sundays are a day of dressing up, singing, worship, and, of course, the Sunday-afternoon cookout her father hosts. Yes, Kyra ends up working, giving out food, and is on her feet all day in a dress, but she still loves it, and when the local children ask "Miss Kyra" really nicely, she gives them extra Mac n Cheese. Ok, she gives them extra even if they don't ask.

The trouble is, Kyra is having a crisis of faith. Jackson is evil. She knows this. And there are witches walking the halls of her school. Some, like Faye and Vera, are easy to spot. Others wear a friendly face like Stephanie, and others look nice, like Larina, but Kyra sees the barely contained magic underneath. She doesn't understand how these girls can be allowed to walk around like they are normal.

Now, please keep in mind, Kyra is a good kid. She is just mistaken about what a witch really is. 

Kyra also likes things she knows her father would never approve of. She is on the track team, and she is quite good. She likes secular music and is enthralled by MTV when she goes over to friends' houses. And what confuses her most of all is she thinks she also likes Meriko in a more than just-friends way.

Concept: The Preacher's Kid
Song: "Dear God" by XTC
Quote: "Just because I’m polite doesn’t mean I agree with you."

Kyra is a 1st-level Theosophist. She is based on the Pathfinder iconic cleric Kyra. Kyra is here to provide some tension. She is not evil, quite the opposite, but she also wants to protect her family, her church, and her town. She isn't 100% sure where the evil is coming from. 

Spoiler: Kyra manages to come to terms with all her doubts. Later on she becomes a preacher of her own church, one that is a little more welcoming. 

Meriko Hayashida

Meriko: "So what is your deal? You are all witches, right?"

Meriko Hayashida is composed, intelligent, and far more perceptive than most of her classmates realize. She comes from a family that values discipline, accomplishment, and maintaining appearances, and she wears that training with quiet elegance. But Meriko is no passive observer. She notices patterns, remembers details, and understands more than she says. There is a calm confidence to her that makes her hard to rattle, and when she finally chooses to speak plainly, it tends to matter. She may not seek the center of the story, but she is far too smart to remain at its edges for long.

Meriko's father is a professor at MacAlister College. She has an older brother at Mac. Her parents want her to be more traditional, like her brother, but that is not Meriko's way. She discovered that dressing in what she calls "Ninja wear" or what Americans think Japanese people wear, she can really get under her parents' skin. She is also a tech junkie and shows off the new CD player "she got from Japan." Actually, she bought it in St. Louis, but since it's a Sony, it technically comes from Japan. 

Meriko is also something of a kleptomaniac and often shoplifts. She doesn't need these things, her family is very well off, but she likes the thrill of it. On the rare times she catches her, she fakes crying and speaking in Japanese, explaining she doesn't understand American customs and don't send her home to her super strict parents, she will dishonor them, and she lays it on so thick that most shop owners tell her to forget it just so they can get this hysterical girl out of their shop. The second she is out, she drops the act and shows the thing she actually stole.

Her best friend is Kyra. They relate because their families are both so strict and conservative. Meriko makes mixtapes for Kyra and labels them "French Lesson 1" and "Chemistry Notes" Kyra doesn't like the lies, but she loves the music Meriko picks for her.

Meriko also feels like Kyra is "more than a friend," but doesn't know how to act on that.

Concept: The Sharp One
Song: "Voices Carry" - 'Til Tuesday
Quote: 仕方がない。 Shikata ga nai. "It can’t be helped."

Meriko is a 2nd-level survivor. She is based on the Pathfinder iconic thief Merisiel.

Renee Sylvi Jäneläinen

Sylvia: "Now there is a face I did not expect to see darkening my threshold."

Renee: "Hello. Godmother."

Renee Jäneläinen is a girl of winter light and long dark nights, carrying with her the sense that she belongs to colder places and older tales. Thoughtful, self-contained, and a little mysterious even when she is being kind, Renee has the air of someone raised to respect things most people would laugh off until it was much too late. She is not dramatic, not loud, and not interested in making herself the center of attention, but there is depth in her that people feel even before they understand it. In Jackson, where so many dangers hide behind familiar faces, Renee stands out precisely because she seems to understand that the world has always been stranger than it looks.

If asked why she came to Jackson from her hometown of Jakobstad in Finland, she will say something simple like "I wanted to perfect my English," but she is already better than some of the locals. Or something odd like "I LOVE American Rock n' Roll," which is technically true; she has knowledge of classic rock that even impresses Faye.  In truth, Renee is not completely sure why she picked Jackson, other than that she was drawn to it. When she got here and felt the town's magic she knew she had picked the right town. 

AND for reasons I have not 100% figured out myself, I introduced her by having her walk into El Espejo Oscuro, and saying to Sylvia Velasco, "Hello. Godmother." I am not sure what I was thinking, other than it hit me one day, and I could not put it down. I still need to figure this one out.

Concept: The Foreign Exchange Student
Song: "In Silence" by Fra Lippo Lippi.
Quote: "Voin ymmärtää ja kunnioittaa pimeyttä ilman että tulen osaksi sitä."
"I can understand and respect the darkness without becoming a part of it."

Renee is a 2nd-level witch, but she tries to hide it. Renen is a nod to all the great foreign exchange students we used to get and all my friends who also went off to become foreign exchange students as well. Renee is also a witch and has her own reasons to keep her power quiet. Renee is based on Rhiannon. So it is possible that she and Morgan will have some dealings in the future. Likely not positive ones. 

These five NPCs are here to either help or impede the PCs as needed. Their motivations are complex.  While they have basic concepts, they are not basic characters. 

Jackson, IL: Pride (In the Name of Love)

Yes, I *DO* know what the U2 song "Pride (In the Name of Love)" is about; it also fits here.  

Photo courtesy of the Peace News Archive/University of Bradford, Special Collections

With Pride Month here, my thoughts keep returning to Jackson, IL.

I’m not talking about the real Jacksonville in Illinois. I mean my version of Jackson from Night World, a college town in the Midwest during 1985-86, where the Veil is thin, the high school is haunted in both mundane and supernatural ways, and some students are witches, psychics, monsters, monster-hunters, or just unlucky enough to know the truth.

It keeps reminding me of Monsterhearts.

I have said before that what makes Monsterhearts a good game is its take on the horror of adolescence. There is the “monster of the week” variety, to be sure, but more so the intimate horror of being sixteen and unsure of your own identity. Or you know who you are, but you are not ready to put it into words. And if you do, you find others have decided they can define you for you.

Many horror games only hint at this, but Monsterhearts really understands it. The monster is a metaphor, but it still feels real. The original World of Darkness does this well, and so does the Buffy RPG, but a lot of games focus only on fighting the monster.

That’s the foundation Jackson, IL is built on.

In a NIGHT SHIFT Night World like Jackson, IL, supernatural characters are outsiders by nature. A witch notices things others miss, a psychic hears thoughts that are better left unsaid, and a werewolf knows what’s inside him might break free at the worst time. There’s the vampire with his hunger, the ghost with unfinished business, the faerie who never quite fits in, and even the monster-hunter, marked and haunted by what he knows.

You could say the LGBTQ character in a mid-80s setting is in much the same dramatic position. (Side note: I don't recall what the preferred term was back in the 1980s. So I am just using what we have today.) They might know something true about themselves that the rest of the world either can’t or won’t see. They have to make judgments on who is safe to confide in, pass in one room, and be open in another. There are friends in the know, adults with their suspicions, enemies who will make a weapon of a rumor, and strangers who would never get the whole story.

Now, I am not going to suggest that it is the same as being a vampire. I have no desire to flatten one experience into another or make the LGBTQ experience into a cosplay. But fiction, and horror in particular, has always had a way with the outsider. The one standing outside the circle tends to see it better than anyone in it.

That is the sort of thing I want to get at with Jackson, IL. Here, being different is not a kind of flaw. It is where you get your power and your story from. It is role-playing fuel.

Take my witch NPCs, Faye and Larina. Faye is a lesbian, and Larina is bisexual. These aren’t special episodes for their characters any more than dealing Faye’s white hair or Stephanie’s confidence are. They are who they are, down to the secrets under the town of Jackson itself. Their identities matter because they color how they and the world view each other, but they are not defined by them alone. Ok, maybe Faye's white hair is a bad example since it IS a side effect of her soul being leeched out by her aunties. Maybe a better example is why does Larina, who is right-handed, wear a watch on her right wrist?

Faye has a head start on living with a secret. Her Aunties raised her, and there is more to that than the people of Jackson know. They are not humans; they are Urban Hags and are forcing Faye to become a monster herself. She knows how to watch a room, to pick up on what is said when she thinks no one of consequence is around. She knows family can be your shelter and your danger in the same house. Being a lesbian doesn’t make her tragic; beng raised by monsters makes her tragic. It also makes her sharper, gives her cause to spot a mask or a threat or an act of kindness for what it is.

Then you have Larina. Her bisexuality is part of her liminal state. She is the weird witch girl with one foot in the everyday and the other in something much older. Some find her frightening because she won’t be simple. She is likes boys and girls alike, as well as records and occult tomes and whatever is calling from the other side of the Veil. In a way, she is all the things Monsterhearts is made of: hunger, fear, curiosity, power. If she is confused, it is not because of her sexuality. She is because she is sixteen and grieving the loss of her mother, and powerful and watched and wanted, and she is afraid of the price of wanting anything. There is danger in having the power to curse an entire bloodline and still not being able to legally drive. 

To me, that is the real stuff. And it makes for some fine role-playing. They are not "after-school special" topics; they are characters. 

Ally, Lesbian, and Bi in Jackson, IL.
Yes. I know those flags were not around in 1985-86, nor were supernatural monsters.

You have to be careful with the dramatic opportunities so as not to turn a character’s identity into some kind of penance or punishment. I am keenly aware of how LGBTQ characters have been portrayed since, well, forever, and that is not something that I am going to do here. Characters are nto going to be punished because of their sexual preferences. They will be punished for dabbling in the dark arts, or because the whole damn town is filled with monsters and ghosts. Characters are punished for bad choices in a dangerous, not because of their identity. 

The 1980s were a pressure cooker for any sort of identity. Adults wield power, and in those days, your reputation was everything. A misstep in the wrong corridor could haunt you for months. Thomas Avery, one of our teachers, is well aware of this. Being gay, he is cautious; he knows how fast a rumor can be turned into a weapon. He is a good teacher on account of his ability to listen, not because any suffering has made him noble. He will know when a student is trying to put something across without putting it into words. He is a good person and a likable guy. 

Then there is Elaine Bellweather. She is gay as well, but the world makes of her what it will, quite differently from Thomas. She is no front-line warrior. She teaches music and lives a quiet life, but she is one of the few adults in Jackson who keeps an eye on things and does not jump to condemn. In a town rife with secrets and monsters, you do not find many like her. And that counts for something. She is no one's "favorite teacher," but she does provide a space for the students (often read as Player Characters) to grow.

It is part of what makes for good LGBTQ representation in a horror game. An adult need not be attacking demons with a sword to be heroic. Sometimes, providing a space where a kid can get some air is enough. Sometimes the adult is the hero who just lets them feel safe, even for a little while. 

Monsterhearts has a way of putting it all in words. You have your strings for leverage or emotional debt, and your conditions for the labels people slap on you: "Freak." "Witch." "Creepy." "Queer." "Devil worshipper." In a high school horror set in the 1980s, those are as perilous as claws. But they can be put to the test. That is where the role-playing is. Not in having queer characters put through the wringer for being there, but in seeing what they do when someone tries to put them in a box. Do they run? Lash out? Or do they take the very label meant to hurt them and make it a banner?  A condition like ‘Freak’ might begin as hallway cruelty, but in play, it can become the moment when a character decides she would rather be feared honestly than accepted falsely.

There is your Pride. It is more than the parades and flags, as great as those are. It is the choice to stop making excuses for being real. Think of the witch who ceases to feign deafness to the dead, or the werewolf done with calling himself broken. Or the lesbian teen who sees right through the monster trying to work his charms on every girl in school, because what she wants is hers alone. A bisexual witch is figuring out that wanting two different kinds of futures doesn’t make her a fraud. That is not pandering; it is simply good character work.

I want the LGBTQ folks in Jackson, IL, to be part of the world. Some are ordinary, some are witches, some are teachers, some are students, and many are just regular people. Let them be messy and wrong about things and as complicated as the rest. Some are scared, some are not. Monsterhearts is adept at that; it won’t make adolescence neat and tidy or desire safe. It acknowledges that being young is intense and strange in its own right. We are putting that in 1986, with the Satanic Panic and some fine music in the background, where even a note passed in class feels like a spell.

For Pride Month, that is the part I want to acknowledge and celebrate.

The outsider is not outside because they are lesser. They know where that divide is because they have often been made painfully aware of it. They are outside because they can see the shape of the door.

And sometimes, in Jackson, they are the only ones who know how to open it. 

And to the kids I went to High School with in the 1980s who later came out and are much happier now, I am glad you found your happiness. 

The Witches of Appendix N: Jack Vance

 You simply cannot talk about magic and Appendix N without mentioning Jack Vance.

Vancian Magic, Ioun Stones, Vecna, the Most Excellent Prismatic Spray. All of these and more came to Gary while reading Jack Vance's Dying Earth books.  

For me, it has been Javanne the Red Witch, the Black Sabbath, the Witches of the Cobalt Mountains, and Llorio the Murthe.

So much of what is in AD&D now originally came from Vance. Or at least ideas influenced by Vance. So it does seem a little odd to me that the witches from the Dying Earth tales don't make it in. Stranger still when you consider it was Javanne at the Black Sabbath on the first edition of The Dying Earth. Though there is a moon in the image, we have been told there is no moon anymore.  Like "Red Lori" from Gardner Fox's Kothar series, she is another evil redheaded witch at the end of time. Maybe there is something to that.

Much like his Lyonesse books, there are a lot of witches here. Not all of them get detailed. Indeed, that is one of the charms of Vance's storytelling. He builds the Dying Earth not explicitly, but through the lens of his tales. The Witches of the Cobalt Mountains, including one with blue hair, are mentioned but not fully explained. We learn there is no moon in the sky anymore, but we never learn when it was gone or why.

Javanne the Red-Haired Witch

Our first named witch, and indeed our cover girl, is Javanne. She starts out appearing to be good, but it is quickly revealed that she is fairly evil. She steals the face of Etarr, her lover, and gives him the face of a demon. Etarr and the artificial girl T'sais track Javanne down at the Black Sabbath, where she is consorting with demons and other witches, including the aforementioned Witches of the Cobalt Mountains. She is able to summon up demons, cast charm spells, and even dominate others. So pretty typical witch magic. 

In truth, she is very much an archetypal witch. The idea that she (and by extension any witch) survives to these later days pretty much with their witchcraft intact is an interesting notion. Is Vance saying here that witchcraft is universal? And not just magic, but witches. This gets a deeper treatment in the later, post-Appendix-N books.

T’sain

T'sain is another artificial human and a twin to T'sais. She is not really a witch, but she does have some magic and spells. T'sais was created by the wizard Pandelume. T'sain was created by Turjan of Miir, though she dies freeing him from a rival wizard. 

Lith the Golden Witch

A different sort of witch. She pops up in the tale of Liane the Wayfarer. Lith is from the golden land of Ariventa. We don't learn a lot more about her, really. She can command 20 sword-like blades to do her bidding, and she is very attractive. Lith also appears good at first, but soon is revealed to be less so. In the mini scenario from White Dwarf #58, she is also called "Lith the Weaver."

Llorio, the Murthe, the White Witch

Ok. So this one is also outside of scope, but I wanted to include it anyway since it covers my main theme. It is from the fourth book in the series, "Rhialto the Marvellous." Llorio, the Murthe, is depicted on the cover along with Rhialto the Marvellous. So at least two of the four main books in the Dying Earth series featured witches who were important to the stories. 

Witches seem to conform to some sort of color palette. Llorio is a "white witch" but not because of her goodwill, but because of her white hair, white skin, and white clothes. Llorio comes from an earlier age where witches and wizards battled in some sort of magical battle of the sexes in the 17th-18th æon (the current age is the 21st æon). She has come to the future to turn all the world's current male wizards into female witches. 

It is an interesting tale. The witches were poised to win this war until their leader, Llorio the Murthe, was sent to a distant star, to the planet Naos. She has now come back and has discovered that the remaining wizards are nothing more than a group of powerless (by her standards) misogynists. So she decides to turn them all into women. Not a terrible plan, really, and an appropriate one for a witch scorned. 

I won't spoil the ending for you all. But I will add this quote from Llorio that appears near the end of the tale. I think it sums up the whole feeling of the Dying Earth rather well. 

"Hope?" cried Llorio. "When the world is done and I have been thwarted? What remains? Nothing. Neither hope nor honour nor anguish nor pain! All is gone! Ashes blow across the desert. All has been lost, or forgotten; the best and the dearest are gone. Who are these creatures who stand here so foolishly? Ildefonse? Rhialto? Vapid ghosts, mowing with round mouths! Hope! Nothing remains. All is gone, all is done; even death is in the past."

Not only is Llorio powerful, she easily defeats most of the wizards of this time. She also has Ioun (IOUN) stones (something it appears only wizards, not witches, are supposed to use), again a Vance creation added to AD&D. Surely this would rank her as one of the great spellcasters. 

"The Murthe" appears to be a granted title. Akin to "The Simbul" or even "Witch Queen." She certainly has all the requisites to be a witch queen.

All three of Vance's witches seem morally ambiguous. Javanne and Lith start out appearing good, but certainly are not. Llorio starts out as a threat, but maybe she has a point. Also, our protagonists have a hard time justifying fighting against her. I think this gray area, or as I have described it so many times, a liminal space, is where witches do their best work. Wizards, at least in terms of how AD&D and the stories that influenced it and were influenced by it, are always either very good, or very evil. In the cases of Gary's own wizards, they are very neutral, i.e., preserving the balance. Witches are allowed a little more freedom. They can be good, neutral, or evil as they choose. They have their own moral directives.

The Lyonesse Trilogy

Jack Vance revisited the theme of magic decades later with his magnificent Lyonesse Trilogy, consisting of Suldrun’s Garden, The Green Pearl, and Madouc (1983-1989). While the books fall outside the chronological scope of this Appendix N series, they are not so far removed from the theme of witches and magic in fantasy as to pass over without comment. The books are set in the mythical land of the Elder Isles, which lies between Britain and France in a time before King Authr. While they are certainly a product of Vance’s later work, they revisit a great deal of the same ideas concerning ancient magic, mystic powers, and the uneasy relationship between human beings and older supernatural entities that pervade Vance’s earlier works. 

While not strictly within the chronological scope of this series, the Lyonesse books warrant a separate discussion of witches in the context of fantasy magic, so this theme will be revisited at a later date. Maybe for my planned "Beyond Appendix N" series. 

Closing Thoughts

Without the works of Jack Vance the Dungeons & Dragons we play today would look very different. While his Dying Earth is filled with wizards, we only get a few named witches. Largely I think this is due in-universe of the Wizard-Witch war of the 17th and 18th æons. It would have been interesting if Gygax had worked some of that into his design. Granted, the books that mention that war post-date the genesis of D&D and AD&D. But maybe there is something I can do similarly in my own games. Something to explain the obvious dominance of wizardry over witchcraft in the world.

In any case, it has been a lot of fun to revisit these tales. I probably should check out the Dying Earth RPGs at some point, as well.

The Witches of Appendix N: Gardner Fox

Gardner Francis Fox is an interesting member of the Appendix N canon. Fox is one of a small few I can find that has also published in the pages of Dragon Magazine (Issue #44 and Issue #55) (L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt's "The Green Magician" was published after Pratt's death). He also had a celebrated career at DC comics, where he created some of my favorite characters, including Zatanna. 

Since today is his birthday, let's dive into his mentions in Appendix N. 

Kothar Series

Kothar is a giant blonde-haired, blue-eyed barbarian from the far north, weilding a mighty sword. His world of Yarth seems to exist at the very end of time. There are five Kothar books, and they are largely collections of shorter novellas. There is a continuity between them, so they do follow one from the other. Here, demons and gods are used somewhat interchangeably. 

The Sword of the Sorcerer

The first Kothar tale gives three different sorts of witches. First is Red Lori, the beautiful redheaded half-succubus witch; she is a proper witch whose skills seem to be both "necromantic" and "priestessly." She haunts Kothar throughout his series. She spends half her time wanting to kill Kothar, the other half taunting him, making me think she actually likes the barbarian. 

Queen Elfa is a Queen, but she is also described as a witch and the main antagonist of Red Lori. She has some sort of relationship with the witch Fristhia, who is our old, hag-like witch.

This tale also gives us hydras, dragons, and a lich. His other books follow a similar pattern of Kothar being broke, hungry, and/or thirsty (for ale, but yeah that other one too) and stumbling into trouble.

The Woman in the Witch-Wood. Here we get a witch, the Lady Alaine, and a warlock. 

The Demon Queen. Queen Candara of Kor is a Queen and part demon. She has some magic and serves a demon-god for youth and beauty. She serves demons, but not so much that she seems to be a warlock.

The Conjuer's Curse. We open the story with Stefanya, who is about to be burned as a witch. She served a wizard named Zoqquanor. Her life is linked to that of Zoqquanor so that if he dies, she dies, and vice versa. Stefanya reminds me a bit of Myrnis later on.  She isn't a witch, but that doesn't stop the angry mob.

There is a flashback to younger Kothar meeting a "wild woman" named Ursula. Later on, he meets another wild woman named Lupilina. They could be described as a "Bear Witch" and "Wolf Witch" respectively.  

In Kothar and the Wizard Slayer, we see Kothar team up with his "arch enemy," the witch Red Lori. I say in quotes because they have been having a love-hate relationship throughout the books. They travel and work together to see who is killing all of the mages and necromancers in the world of Yarth. 

I can't help but think about what I would have done differently with my own witches if I had read about Red Lori beforehand. Would Larina have ended up different? Maybe. Red Lori would have been something like a spiritual godmother to Larina had I read these first. Who knows, maybe some of Red Lori's DNA filtered down via the pages of AD&D to Larina anyway. 

Kyrik Series

Kyirk is, wait for it, a giant blonde-haired, blue-eyed barbarian from the far north, weilding a mighty sword.

There are three Kyrik books. Kyrik starts his tale dead. But we are not going to let that stop him. We actually get a witch, or a sorceress, Aryalla, before any other character. She finds a statue of Kyrik and, with the help of three demons, brings Kyrik back from the dead after a thousand years. 

His girlfriend, Myrnis, sometimes shows witch-like powers, but that usually happens when she is possessed by the demon-goddess Illis. 

Kyrik is described as a warrior-warlock. He does not cast spells, but he does get help from the demon-goddess Illis.  

--

So I have some issues with both series. In Kyrik's series, he was "dead" for 1,000 years, but he finds a gem in a room he had been in 1,000 years earlier, and his hunting lodge is still standing. Maybe if he had been trapped in the statue for 100 years, it would have been more believable. It is a complaint I have for many of Fox's tales. You can reduce any time he gives by 10x and get a better number. Same with Kothar, but here it is 100s of thousands of years. True Kothar is at the very end of time and would be more at home in the Hyperborea RPG than, say, Wasted Lands.

Kyrik seems a little more lustful for life than Kothar. Kyrik also finds the "Romany" girl, Myrnis, and stays with her for the whole series. The only time he is "unfaithful" to her is with a deposed Queen who looks exactly like her. Kothar, for all his lusting, seems relatively tame. Unless the girls he meets, he spends his nights with "off page", his only true obsession (and may I add equal) is the witch Red Lori. Sure, there are, that are more than implied, a serving girl and Queen Candara, for Kothar in particular.

Pretty tame, really, given he was also the author of "Cherry Delight" and "The Lady for L.U.S.T." vintage sleaze spy novels.

The biggest issue between these two tales is that Kothar and Kyrik might as well be the same person. Both are "giant" barbarians with blue eyes and blonde hair. Kothar has the sword "Frostfire," and Kyrik has the sword "Bluefang," both of which are described in remarkably similar ways. OH, take a drink anytime either is described like some sort of cat. You won't make it.

The stories are not great, but they are fun. Not every tale needs to be a full-course meal. These tales are sliders. Again, sometimes you want a steak, other times you want a slider. As far as sliders go, these are pretty good. I mean, it is hard not to like Kothar and Kyrik despite their clichés, or maybe even because of them. 

There is a lot here that is foundational to the AD&D experiences. Fighting demons, ghouls, and undead. Epic quests for gold, glory, and more. And lots, and lots of witches, wizards, and necromancers. "Lich" gets mentioned more than once and almost always in respect to a long-dead/undead wizard. Given everything from these books that did make it into AD&D, it feels odd that witches did not, given how much they feature in all these tales. 

There is one thing to consider. A lot of what made it into AD&D (and D&D) here also came from elsewhere. Kothar and Kyric feel like AD&D adventures because they are dipping into the great well of ideas that AD&D also dipped from: Conan. 

Oerth and its near clones are obviously influenced by Fox's Yarth. It would have been fun to see more of Kothar and Red Lori traveling together; him with Frostfire and her with her magic, going back and forth between wanting to kill each other and still ending up in each other's arms. Especially with the scene where Red Lori shows she is more than a match for Kothar.  I think, honestly, that would have been a much more interesting tale. Something that would have elevated this from just being a Conan clone. 

I wonder if there are any tales like that out there? I mean, there is Thundarr and Ariel from the Thundarr series, but there was never a love/hate relationship between the two of them. I suppose Silverglass also counts. Corson as our fighter/barbarian and Nyctasia as our witch, their relationship is fairly love/hate at the start until they gain mutual respect for each other. 

Final Thoughts

I was prepared to like these at first, but didn't, but once I got into them, I began to enjoy them a lot more. I have been a Gardner Fox fan for a while and these were a lot of fun. Just don't take them very seriously.

Witches at The Bundle of Holding

 To help promote my new Codex Qliphothica for OSE Demon Month at BackerKit I have partnered with The Bundle of Holding to offer a bunch of my OSR Witch books for a deeply discounted price.

Fantasy tabletop roleplaying witchery 
The Other Side
11 character-class supplements for any old-school FRPG

With this bundle you get:  The Left Hand Path, The Children of the Gods (plus its spinoff book Cult of Diana), The Craft of the Wise, The Daughters of Darkness, The Green Witch, The Warlock, The Winter Witch, and the Shadowdark supplement The Witch: Book of Shadows (plus the pay-what-you-want Witch Character Sheet Folio), along with Monster Mash and Monster Mash II: A Midsummer Night's Dream.

11 Witch classes and 1 character folio. 

All for just $7.95! That's a hell of a deal, really!

This sale is only on for the next 11 days so grab it now.

The Witches of Appendix N: Andre Norton

 I am now heading into another important entry to the Appendix N. Andre Norton is one of only three women Gygax mentions. We are also getting one of the few books where witches are the key figures. Andre Norton is also notable for playing D&D with Gygax in 1976 and releasing the Greyhawk novel Quag Keep in 1979. 

Norton was a prolific writer and celebrated writer, and it would take much more than this blog post to cover all her contributions to science fiction and fantasy. But do plan to talk about her witches.

Witch World

Witch World is Andre Norton's magnum opus. A series that spans decades of real-world time, generations of in-world time, and even a few authors. 

The first proper series is known as the Estcarp Cycle. This covers the first few books of the Witch World tales. There are a few other books, but these are the five main ones from before 1977 I want to consider.  

• Witch World (1963)
• Web of the Witch World (1964)
• Three Against the Witch World (1965)
• Warlock of the Witch World (1967)
• Sorceress of the Witch World (1968)

The series begins with World War II, as Ex-colonel Simon Tregarth runs for his life. He got into a bit of trouble during the war, and now he needs a way out. Of all things, he finds someone who transports him to another world filled with magic and witches.

Simon meets a witch whose name we don't learn just yet, who introduces him to this world and the land of Estcarp. And to its magic. 

The first two books deal with Simon and his witch wife Jaelithe (I love that name). The next three focus on their witch triplets.

The Witches of Witch World

The Witches of Witch World are not like many of the witches we have seen so far. They are not an old hag in a cottage, nor are they enchantresses who attempt to seduce our hero with equal parts magic and sex appeal. No, these witches are the undisputed rulers of their land; each has a different set of powers, but all are magical in nature: shape changes, sendings, lots of illusion, subtle control, and the like. Simon is very much a "fish out of water" here with his mid-20th-century outlook in a quasi-medieval world. But it turns out that this is what helps him when he and his adoptive land of Estcarp in their battle with the mysterious land of Kolder.

The people of Kolder are also from another world, like Simon, but a different world where they have something more akin to psychic powers to counter the witches' magic. I rather liked this setup, and we see more of it in the second book, Web of the Witch World. The political and magical nature of the witches is then delved into more deeply in the next three books about Simon's and Jaelithe's tripplets, Kyllan, Kemoc, and Kaththea.

The witches themselves are great. Each has its own set of powers, and some are better than others. The cool thing was all the variety of powers.

The Witch Magic vs High Tech / Psychic Powers

One of my favorite parts of the first two books was the whole Witch Magic of Estcarp vs. the High-Tech and Psychic Powers of the Kolder. Like many Appendix N books, there is a bias towards the magical side of the battle. Now I enjoy the Pagan vs. Christianity struggle found in other books and history, but here the witches have a chance of winning. Not a spoiler, since there are so many more books in the series, but the witches win. It is an interesting interplay between Witchcraft and Psychic abilities that reminds me a lot of my own AD&D days, when I was all about the witches and witchcraft, and my high school DM was all about the psychic powers.

The next three books cover the Trigarth children. They represent something new to Estcarp, since the triplets, two boys and one girl, all have magic. Up to this point, only women had magic. The witches want Kaththea, the girl, to train with them to the exclusion of her two brothers, but their magic comes from their link. So they run away and discover more about their world. 

This takes the point of view that magic is inherited. 

These books were fun, but I enjoyed the first two more. The exploration of the parallel worlds, hinted at in the first two books, Earth and the world of Kolder, plays a more central role here, with Kaththea escaping to another world altogether.

The Question of Witches

Witch World is great. It is groundbreaking and pivotal to science fiction and fantasy genres. Andre Norton was even invited to Gary's table to play a game. Note: Quag Keep's protagonists travel to a fantasy world much like Simon Tregarth did in Witch World. 

The question then becomes if Witch World was so important and witches were so different from regular humans, then where are the witches? We even get psionics, the "magic" of Kolder, but not the witchcraft of the witches of Estcarp.

Yes, the magic-user is there as a generic, well, magic-using person. But that is really less than satisfactory, especially since in practice, magic-user was shorthand for wizard.  The witches of Witch World are different. 

Yes, I know this is not the space crack this particular cipher. It is something I do all over the place here. 

The witches of Estcarp are more than just female magic-users. Something I have said about many witches in this series and my own. But it is particularly true about these witches. Obviously, there was still something about that that made them unpalateble to Gygax and the early designers. Though I do know that Frank Mentzer liked witches in general.

I think Witch World is a good example, really. Not of the witch as a class, we have a lot of those in other Appendix N. This is an example that the witch comes with a price. Witches mean covens, structure, and a society. Witch power is socially negotiated.  The Witches of Estcarp demonstrate this with their power and when they work to later keep Jaelithe out and bring Kaththea in. 

Witches live in an ecosystem. I plan to keep exploring that ecosystem.

Mirror Mondays: The Witches of 1986. The Witch Was Already Waiting in AD&D

The main design idea behind Advanced Witches & Warlocks is simple.

The Witch was already a part of AD&D.

However, she had yet to receive an official class.

After all, she didn't really fall under the same category as other classes, such as the Magic-User, Cleric, Druid, Illusionist, Assassin, Monk, Ranger, or Paladin. But the Witch had a presence.

If you know how to find her, you will encounter her in the spells, in the monsters, in the implied setting, and even in Appendix N. She hides within the text itself. Like an occult figure.

AD&D already contained curses, charms, familiars, potions, polymorphs, magic circles, haunted mirrors, hags, night creatures, demons, devils, spirits, evil temples, forbidden books, and strange old women living on the fringes of the map.  Welcome to witch country.

All that was really left was to make the formal class.

That is why I don't think of my Advanced Witches & Warlocks as trying to force a modern witch concept into a retro-style game. AD&D has its own style, its own rules, and its own unique feel. If you drop a modern witch into AD&D's framework, it wouldn't work. The two things simply don't gel. 

Instead, the real question is: What sort of witch does AD&D want to nurture?

And that is why Appendix N plays such an essential role here.

While writing my Witches of Appendix N posts, I am doing far more than merely collecting witches in an inventory list. In reality, I am attempting to identify the essential concepts that were formed by early fantasy, weird fiction, horror stories, and sword-and-sorcery before D&D codified magic into game rules.

And once you start looking, the witches are everywhere.

Notably, not all witches will go by that name. They might be referred to as sorceresses, enchantresses, priestesses, hags, mothers, queens, oracles, temptresses, psychics, necromancers, or any other female with unusual powers. They are more than just distaff wizards; they have their own unique presence. 

Not all witches will be villains either. In fact, sometimes, they are the only ones capable of interpreting the strange events taking place. Whether that places them on the side of "good" or "evil" is often too simple of a question. 

That is important for gaming design purposes. 

The witch of AD&D doesn't have to be confined to folklore alone. She doesn't have to be a village healer, a wicked stepmother, a pagan priestess, an enchantress, or the mysterious old woman of the woods.

She is all these things combined.

Take, for example, the Satanic Witch featured in Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions. The story takes place within a setting full of Christian, pagan, faerie, and infernal elements. The witch's magic is powerful because it has spiritual, moral, and social implications. Both the satanic witch and Morgan Le Fey of this tale stand apart AND stand between all these other groups. 

A witch doesn't simply cast a spell.  A witch makes contact with beings that want something from her. She makes social contacts.

Here is another vital lesson for our witch design in AD&D.

• Magic-Users learn the arcane.
• Clerics petition divine power.
• Druids follow the ancient rites.
• Witches make contact.

She makes contact with spirits, patrons, ancestors, elder gods, demons, the dead, the moon, the earth, and whatever else lies beyond naming.

Of course, this doesn't mean every witch is inherently evil. That would be sloppy game design and even worse, boring.

Here we see the magic of Fritz Leiber, where the main antagonist of one of the first Fafhrd & Gray Mouser stories isn't some evil mage, but Fafhrd's mother. Mor isn't just a boss in the dungeon, but family, power, culture, and control. She created that whole world for him, and escaping her is an accomplishment not unlike slaying monsters. Mor is not really evil. She is controlling; she is a matriarch after all, but she isn't harming Fafhrd; she is just not letting the youth run free. 

In Leiber's The Conjure Wife we see another witch, Tansy. She navigates her own "dungeon," only this time it is the challenges of a suburban housewife/witch facing other witches for dominance over their husbands' mundane careers at a University. Like Mor, Tansy is not about flashy magic; her magic is about something else.

That brings us to the third thing we learn:

The Witch is social.

She has family members, a coven, social and economic obligations, rivals, apprentices, enemies, taboos, and reputation. People know she exists before meeting her. People talk about her in hushed tones. People avoid her home, yet people end up visiting her.

• They visit when the child is ill.
• They visit when the cow stops giving milk.
• They visit when their husband takes a lover.
• They visit when their crops fail.
• They visit when the ghosts keep coming out.

These things aren't mere background flavor; they're solid adventure hooks.

The Witch should cause rumors. She should be a reason why villages need adventurers. She should affect villages in tangible ways.

Robert E. Howard brings up a fourth point. His worlds are full of the vestiges of lost ages, dark cults, serpent-haunted ruins, vanished civilizations, sinister rituals, and sorcerers whose power seems to predate even mankind itself. His witches and similar beings appear almost to carry within themselves the weight of lost history. Their magic is not theoretical; it is something that has been practiced long before modern civilization.

This matters. Well, at least to me and my view of how witches work.

An AD&D Witch is not simply an academic wizard with a new label slapped on. This character must embody knowledge of forgotten lore that remains effective. The old magic still works.

Sometimes that involves healing. Sometimes it involves cursing. Sometimes it involves making deals with powers better left unawakened.

And here we begin to see how the Witch becomes distinct from the usual AD&D Magic-User. Whereas the latter is kept aloof from the world through scholarship, the former is involved in the world and its dark undercurrents.

• She knows the trees that were once used to hang criminals.
• She knows why the church bell has a crack in it.
• She knows who among the midwives was secretly buried beyond the cemetery walls.
• She knows what the nameless thing in the well is.

Once again, this isn't just flavor. It is essential to what the class is.

A Witch PC knows more than just whether there is magic around. She knows the history of that magic. She knows who left it behind. She knows why.

• What spirit cursed the bridge?
• What drives the wolves away from the north road?
• Why does the old woman who lives near the outskirts to put out milk on dark nights?
• Why does the baron’s daughter cast no reflection?

That's why Advanced Witches & Warlocks doesn't reduce the Witch to simply having a spell list. She is not a wizard with a broom. She is not a cleric with a pointy hat.

The spell list is important, however. AD&D is a game of rules, levels, spells, limitations, saving throws, and consequences. A class has to have some sort of unique footprint.

But a class needs something else too.

It needs a role in the implied setting and world.

The Cleric implies temples, deities, undead, holy symbols, and orders.

The Magic-User implies spellbooks, towers, apprenticeships, lost libraries, and rival magic-users.

The Druid implies sacred groves, circles, mistletoe, ancient faiths, and harmony.

The Witch implies cottage homes, covens, familiars, curses, enchantments, rites of the full moon, hidden grimoires, local superstition, wizened crones, prodigious children, the fool of wisdom, and the dangerous generosity of one who understands your predicament and the price of its resolution.

This is not merely an addition for AD&D. This is part of what makes it AD&D.

Consider the monsters.

The hags; Night hags. Sea hags. Greenhags. Lamias. Medusae. Harpies. Vampires. Succubi. Lycanthropes. Demons and devils who tempt mortals with power. The undead whose restless souls seek redemption. The fey whose customs of hospitality and revenge dictate their actions.

These are not random monsters.

These are elements of a world in which magic is dangerous, intimate, and transactional.

This is the world of the Witch.

Consider the spells.

Charm Person. Detect Evil. ESP. Clairvoyance. Polymorph. Geas. Bestow/Remove Curse. Speak with Dead. Animate Dead. Reincarnation. Contact Other Plane. Magic Jar.

These spells all have their roots in esoteric practices that involve dealing with spirits, transformations, fates, and taboo acts.

These spells all contain elements of witchcraft.

One cannot simply mix and match bits of the Magic-User and the Cleric classes, add a cat, a broom, and a pointy hat. One cannot create the Witch in such a lazy manner. The Witch should not be merely a Magic-User with a familiar or a Cleric without armor nor a Druid with a different robe. 

A proper Witch demands her own mechanics and her own logic.

That logic for Advanced Witches & Warlocks is Occult Magic.

• Arcane magic is learned magic.
• Divine magic is authoritative magic.
• Occult magic is secretive magic.

The Witch recognizes magic as a complex tapestry, and one that might take notice if its strands are pulled apart.

And that's the other reason why Charisma remains my pick for the Witch's primary attribute. Not beauty, not popularity, but presence. Presence, as in the power of the self vis-à-vis others. Because the Witch must bargain, bind, curse, bless, threaten, pacify, command, and beckon across thresholds. 

It is equally obvious why this applies directly to Jackson, IL. Our young Witch may well be one of the smartest people in the room, but we don't need to assume it, and our young Witch will certainly never be the wisest. But our young Witch will have presence. Sometimes it may be subtle. Other times it may be awkward. And it will most likely manifest only under the cover of darkness, fog, mirrors, and whispers of her name. In the context of a school, Charisma becomes not simply popularity but social gravity. The ability to pull others into a secret, intimidate a bully, unsettle a teacher, console a frightened child, or even make that mysterious dead girl in the bathroom listen.

The reason why the Witch also works in Jackson, IL, just like in AD&D, is that she is powered by relationships. And there is perhaps no better place than high school for such power to operate.

Multi-faceted Non-Player Character Witches

That leads to yet another reason why this class is not too simplistic. Modern fantasy is often built around clear-cut heroes and villains, and both can do the job. However, AD&D requires something more nuanced.

The old-school Witch must be useful to the party, feared, necessary, and possibly suspicious.

She may be the party's best hope of countering the effects of a curse... while also being the very reason that curse exists.

She may heal a sick child in one town while being accused of causing a blight elsewhere. She may be neutral but remember that neutrality doesn't imply passivity but rather balance, debts, oaths, and repercussions.

She may be good yet be truly horrifying and evil, yet still cherished by someone she saved.

These are the roles that I want for my new class.

The Witch had to appear in Advanced Witches & Warlocks because of what AD&D represents.

• A dungeon door.
• A path through the woods.
• A forsaken altar.
• A burial site.
• A locked chamber.
• A mirror.
• An old and forgotten tome.

In all cases, the Witch understands that these are thresholds and must be named.

• She was there in Appendix N.
• She was there on the spell lists.
• She was there in the monster manuals.
• She was there in the rumors.

Advanced Witches & Warlocks does nothing more than greet her, provide her some rules, and give her a voice.

Shard: The Village Witch

She was in the game even before she became a class.

She was in the rumor table, though nobody called her by name. She was in the little cottage noted in the forest wilderness map. She was the old woman the people feared, and yet the one they visited under the cover of darkness. She was the stranger who knew the barrow’s true name, the seeress who told the party not to open the black door, the sole inhabitant of the town not showing any sign of surprise when the dead started walking.

There were always traces of her in the game. Her familiar lurking on top of a fencepost. The curse that no Cleric could lift, but she knew who placed it. Potion brewed from grave-moss, moonwater, and blood. Charm tied in red thread. Child born under an unlucky star. Ruined shrine where old rituals still work.

Introduce the village witch whenever the party arrives in a small town dealing with some problem they don’t want to face. She can be anywhere near the settlement – at the edge of the map, at the edge of the woods, marsh, ancient trail, ruin of the old temple, the last house in town before the fields become dark.

She is not automatically an enemy of the party. Nor is she always friendly towards everyone around her. She is not a monster, though the monster may fear her. She is not a Cleric, though the villagers seek her help whenever they get sick. She is not a Magic-User, though she casts spells that are unknown in academies. She is not a Druid, but uses all the old names for plants and trees.

She knows about what the villagers have done. She knows what the monster wants. She knows the secret the priest won’t talk about in public. She knows what the Magic-User failed to discover, because he was looking for written magic while ignoring oral magic. The magic that predates writing. 

Maybe she cured the reeve’s son once, though the reeve still considers her a wicked witch. Maybe her familiar has encountered the monster, and refuses to venture into the forest at night. Maybe she knows the old name of the hill ruins, but calling it brings her blood loss. Maybe she has written down her secret spells in some old tome that gets written by itself whenever it rains thunderously.

Perhaps the village priest consults her in secret for the reading of dreams. She may have buried something beneath her hearth long ago and never talked about it for two decades. She may recognize one of the party members' birthmarks as a witch-mark. She may ask to have the curse removed only after somebody confesses.

She may inform the party that the haunting isn’t actually caused by the undead, but rather it is the grief made manifest. She may recall times when the ruined temple had worshippers. She may remember which tomb is empty, and why people keep flowers on it. She may not venture over moving waters ever since the last witch-hunt came to the town.

It shouldn’t give away rumors and heal the party for free like an automaton. She has her needs, debts, limits, and enemies. She may request to have a piece of hair, offer to protect someone, make a pact under the moonlight, retrieve a missing charm, or identify the liar among the villagers.

Most of all, she must have a price.  Not gold, for sure. Rarely gold. 

Usually, something only the PCs can provide.

But in any case, the witch is out there. Waiting. 

Mirror Mondays: The Witches of 1986. Two Books, One Spell

Monday has often been Monstrous Monday here at The Other Side for a very long time. A mirror into what I am working on at any given point in time. But for the next few months, I am turning the mirror in a manner of speaking. And the mirror is an apt metaphor for what I am doing. 

The monsters will still be present; they always are. This time, though, I'm focusing on the witches who confront them, call them into being, control them, get rid of them, or even turn into them. I want to think of 1986 not just as a date, but as a breeding ground for imagination.

For me, 1986 isn't about warm, fuzzy nostalgia. It is a lens to focus my attention. 

It's the hardback Advanced Dungeons & Dragons books on the table, odd paperbacks found in used bookstores, heavy metal music, scary films, late-night TV, school libraries, local stories, and that feeling of books your parents wouldn't let you read. It's the year when fantasy games, talk of the occult, and being a teenager all felt crammed into one shadowy room, with a general sense of fear from the Satanic Panic and a sense that something…more existed. 

That's where two things I'm working on intersect.

One is Advanced Witches & Warlocks, my take on a retro witch book, as if the AD&D witch finally got the attention she deserved around 1986. It's aiming for release around Halloween 2026, which feels fitting. Witches should appear in October.

The other is Jackson, IL, a modern supernatural setting in the Midwest, centered on odd towns in the middle of the country, teenage witches, haunted schools, local monsters, hidden family histories, and the strangeness of growing up in 1986. This one is different; it doesn't have a release date. It might not even be published in a typical way. It's going to be about 80,000 words before I can even say it's a book, and it isn't there yet, but it’s progressing.

However, these two projects are constantly influencing each other.

They aren't the same book, or even the same style of book. Advanced Witches & Warlocks is all about fantasy gaming, character classes, occult magic, witch lore, warlock groups, magical spells, animal helpers (familiars), and what the witch should be like alongside the Cleric, Magic-User, Druid and Illusionist.

Jackson, IL, is small-town horror. It’s the high school hall, the library, the old graveyard, the pizza place, the road leading past the cornfields, the local university, the occult store in town, and the house that everyone knows about but nobody discusses. It's about teenage witches in a world where adults have carefully constructed their lives to act as if the supernatural isn't genuine. 

One is the witch as a character in AD&D.

One is the witch as the girl in homeroom who understands the mirror is showing a false image. 

And the central question for both of them is the same:

When 1986 is the focus of the imagination lens, what does a witch actually look like?

In a fantasy setting inspired by 1986, a witch is much more than just someone on a broom who casts spells; her origins lie in folklore, fairy tales, frightening tales, hidden knowledge, the books Appendix N lists, and the stranger parts of fantasy. She’s part of a group of witches, follows certain customs and has powerful figures she answers to, observes forbidden practices, performs ceremonies under the moon, and taps into ancient powers that aren't easily contained in spellbooks or churches. 

She isn't a Cleric. Clerics have a church, a god, and openly stated beliefs. And she isn't a Magic-User, because Magic-Users study, have specific formulas, and believe the universe can be written down completely.

A Witch has something much older and more personal; she has connections. Connections to spirits, the land, her ancestors, the moon, old gods, and, really, to be honest, things that are best left unmentioned. She understands magic isn't only something you learn, but something you receive from family, get through deals, endure, and occasionally live through. 

And that’s how it is in fantasy.

But in 1986, in the real world, the witch is a bit different, although not as different as you'd think.

She’s the new student who seems to know a lot, the quiet one who hears things in empty rooms, the head cheerleader who keeps everyone protected but won't admit to how afraid she is, the outsider with the family that's been around forever, or the girl who happens to find the right (or wrong) book at the library…and it’s as if the book was waiting for her.

She exists amongst lockers, telephone landlines, cassette tapes, school bells, what everyone in town is saying, and teachers who might not be entirely human. The school after hours is her dungeon, the roads leading out of town are her wilderness, and her temple is the bedroom floor late at night, with candles, a notebook, and a mirror that shows more than it should. 

Both of these witches are liminal, in-between people.

And that’s the essential point.

A witch is on the boundary. The edge of town, the edge of social groups, the edge of the church, the edge of family, the edge of becoming an adult, the edge of the map. She knows where the lines are because she's crossed them, and sometimes she chose to, other times she was forced.

That’s why witches work so well in old-fashioned gaming. Dungeons & Dragons always liked boundaries: dungeons and the wild, law and chaos, the village and the ruins, human and monster, the living and the divine. A witch belongs in that boundary zone.

And that’s also why they suit teenage horror. Being a teenager is a boundary zone. You aren't a child, but you're not an adult yet, and everyone is misleading you about both. You’re expected to follow rules you didn't create, you're given a future you might not even want, you're observed, evaluated, underestimated, and told to stay away from doors that someone else has already opened.

That’s where a witch finds her place.

The Midwest is important here as well.

These aren't Salem witches, not exactly, and not the glamorous witches of Hollywood. The witch of the Midwest lives amongst brick school buildings, university towns, country roads, old cemeteries, the changeable prairie weather, church potlucks, basement playrooms, and libraries with surprisingly good collections of occult books.

She knows the local ghost stories. She knows which road to avoid in the dark. She knows who lived in that house before the current family changed the name. She understands that not all monsters come from Transylvania or from Hell; some are created by the cursed land surrounding the old town, in the drainage ditch, beneath the old bridge, or in the quiet that exists between what everyone says and what nobody will talk about.

That’s where Jackson, IL is.

And that's where Advanced Witches & Warlocks is also finding a new foundation.

The fantasy witch and the teenage witch aren't separated in my mind; they are each other’s reflections. One wears a purple dress and a black cloak, the other wears jeans, boots, and an excessive amount of eyeliner for a Monday. One has a familiar and a Book of Shadows, the other has a cat that isn't quite a cat and a notebook hidden under her mattress.

Both of them understand the same truth. 

People who are respectable act as if magic isn't real, because acknowledging it would change everything.

This series, Mirror Mondays: The Witches of 1986, is where I’m going to look at that reflection.

Some weeks I’ll be more focused on Advanced Witches & Warlocks; talking about witch types, magical practices, familiars, traditions, warlocks, spells, monsters, and creating a witch's book that feels as if it could have existed in the AD&D period without just copying old texts. 

Other weeks I’ll focus on Jackson, Illinois; teenage witches, haunted schools, folklore from the Midwest, local monsters, bad roads, strange teachers, shops with occult items, and why 1986 is the perfect year for supernatural horror.

Most weeks will be somewhere in the middle.

That's the unusual intersection where both projects come together.

The mirror is now open.

Mirror Shards: The Mirror Between Larina Nichols and Larina Nix

Not every magical object starts as something valuable. 

Some begin as a simple question.

A witch looks in the mirror and sees herself...but not the person standing in the room. She sees another life, another world, another version of the same soul. One that is older, stronger, stranger, and maybe even more dangerous.

For Advanced Witches & Warlocks, this mirror might be an ancient magical object, a way to see into the future or a risky way for witches to get in touch with alternate selves, echoes of their mentors or their future selves.

But for Jackson, Illinois, it's more personal. A teenage witch sees the woman she could become, or the woman she was somewhere else, or the woman who is protecting her from a fantasy world that shouldn't be real.

The mirror doesn't question in a straightforward way. That would be too simple.

It shows what could be.

It shows a warning.

It shows power.

And sometimes, when the room is dark and the house is quiet, the image in the mirror moves first.

I am focusing on this witch in particular because she has a pedigree. She was created as an AD&D character in 1986. She is my window into this liminal and reflected world. She was a playtest character for every version of the witch class I ever wrote, including AD&D and NIGHT SHIFT.

I have another post I am picking at, "What I Learned Playing the Same Character for 40 Years," and some of that insight feeds into this and vice versa. She is the test bed, as I have said before, my "Drosophila melanogaster" of these tests. When playing a game, I ask, "What would Larina do here?" When designing one, I ask, "How can I do Larina here?" Both questions have served me well over the last 4 decades. 

There are a handful of witches, both characters and personalities, as well as more simple archetypes, that I use when testing any game I play and any game I write. Larina is the most forward-facing of these witches. She isn't the only one. Elowen still gets a lot of play, as does Moria, Amaranth, and others. But Larina has a lot of history, both in games and in the real world. 

A Mirror Shard in both games is a means to communicate with other versions of yourself. Or other versions of others. It is a sneaky little device I have thrown into my games when I want to try out one version of a character in another's universe. Valerie Beaumont is a regular abuser of these mirror shards. She isn't even my character, and she keeps crashing into my games. 

Which brings up an interesting point. 

In Advanced Witches & Warlocks, the "mirror shards" are the magic items connected to the magical mirrors.

In Jackson, IL, "mirror shards" are the people you see in the mirror that are not you.

Both developed from the same fundamental idea and then took on different meanings in my writing. I don't really feel the need to reconcile these differences. Different games. Different universes. But there is something fairly evocative about calling these characters mirror shards. 

Larina is a mirror shard. Valerie is a mirror shard. Even someone like Jenny Everywhere is a mirror shard.

Greg: "I feel sorry for the guy who tries to buy them a drink!"

Candy and Denise in Jackson, IL, are mirror shards of Candella and Duchess in Glantri. Or is that the other way around?

It is because they are "mirror shards" that they heard the Bell in Jackson, IL, when only supernatural creatures heard it. They are not supernatural, but they are special. 

An out-of-game idea for one is giving me an in-game solution for another. 

I have quite a lot more to say on all of this.