A to Z of Witches. W

W is for Warlock

For the longest time I did not do anything with Warlocks.
I know the first time I ever heard the word warlock in connection with witches. It was, oddly enough, an episode of the Waltons (a show I never liked) that a baby sitter was watching. Though more likely it came from an episode of Bewitched (a show I did like).

Once I started doing research I soon discovered that "warlock" really isn't the male version of a witch.  Witch is the male version of witch.  "Warlock" actually comes from the word wǣrloga, which means “oath breaker”.  I also read that warlock is actually an offensive term to most witches.  So my first writings had warlocks as evil witches.

When I opted to use the term warlock in my 2003 Liber Mysterium I decided that Witches and Warlocks were similar classes.  So I decided that at some point in their shared history, warlocks broke free from witches ideologically and were branded traitors.  Witches often refer to warlocks as “betrayers”.  This conflict, commonly known as “The Schism” is something neither side will speak of.  However a poignant reminder remains, witches and warlocks have similar means of learning their magic (from Patrons or Pacts) and both have access to the same spells.

Despite common stereotypes, warlocks can be either male or female. Most warlocks are male, and this association is so strong that most people mistakenly call a male witch a warlock.

For 2013's Eldritch Witchery the Spellcraft and Swordplay rules allowed me to try something new.  The witch was a type of cleric (something I did in 2nd ed, pre 1999) and the warlock was a type of wizard.  So instead of being one thing (class) that split apart I made them two seperate things that came closer together.  I liked how it turned out to be honest.  For Strange Brew I am going back to my original idea of having the two classes seperate, witch and warlock, but have them have roots that are tied together.  So there is more in common between the witch and warlock than the cleric and druid.  Closer actually to the wizard and sorcerer relationship.

In Strange Brew the plan is now for the Warlock get the same spells the Witch does.  They also have access to Hexes, though it is more limited.  The Warlock also gets a magical based attack in the form of the Arcane Blast.  There are also differences between the Patrons of the witches and the Patrons of the warlocks.

I am sure I will get questions about why not use the Warlock from the Tome of Magic or from 4e. Simple. I can't. They are not open in terms of the OGL. Plus I don't want too.  Those warlocks are fine, but not really what I think of when I think of a warlock.

I feel that most warlocks out there in the gaming world now are influenced by the Warlock in World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs.  I want to go back to much older sources and build my warlock from that.





Supernatural AtoZ

Review and PWWO: The Complete Vivimancer

I recently downloaded The Complete Vivimancer the new book from Necrotic Gnome Productions, the same folks that gave us Theorems & Thaumaturgy.

+Gavin Norman, of the City of Iron blog, gives us a new(ish) class, the Vivimancer.  The book is 88 pages and advertised as Labyrinth Lord compatible with both Basic and Advanced stats (more on that in a bit).
The class was introduced in Theorems & Thaumaturgy.  The basic class is a type of Wizard/Magic-User and detailed on two pages.  The experience per level, saves, spells, and attacks are not too different from the Magic-user normal.
For the Advanced option elves and half-elves can also be vivimancers.  Interestingly enough elves can advance to 11th level and half-elves to 10th.  I would have expected it to be the other way around.

The next substantial chapter is on Spells and Laboratory procedures.
The biggest expense in gold and time for the vivimancer is his laboratory.  The vivimancer according to the rules needs to spend 6 hours per day in his lab.  I wonder how much time this leaves for adventuring, eating and sleeping. Update:  This is only when a magical procedure is underway, so not something the vivimancer does everyday. Upkeep costs is 10 gp per spell level, so about 1980gp per month at 20th level. Not unreasonable really.

The next 65 pages detail spells levels 1 to 9.  Like most Labyrinth Lord compatible products the spells are compatible across a wide variety of products.  You could use these with any old school product wizard, magic-user and yes witch.  Though to do so I think robs the class of some it's charm and power.
The spells are a varied sort.  There are some very useful, some are variations on a theme and others will have limited utility to the adventuring vivimancer.  But all have a lot of style.  If you prefer your games a little more G-rated then this isn't a book for you.  While not as over the top as Carcosa or Lamentations of the Flame Princess, there are a lot of cutting things up and putting them back together.

The chapter on magic items is nice varied lot as well, with attention paid to things the vivimancer needs to perform his craft.

We also get Appendices on Psionic Powers and Mutations.  Both are fine and work but in use I might swap out the same rules in the Labyrinth Lord compatible Mutant Future.

Overall I really liked it.  Like the book said why let Necromancers have all the fun.  There is a lot here that can be used in any game really even if you never use them as a class.  Personally I wonder what a bad guy team of a Vivimancer and Necromancer might produce.   Heck with the Advanced rules, a Vivimancer/Cleric.

There are couple of places where Insanity is mentioned but not a lot of details on how insanity would work in a game.

The art is somewhat sparse, but it is all original and unique to this book (ok maybe 1 or 2 are in T&T).  So that gives it a sum positive in my mind.

The book is 88 pages, as mentioned above, and lists at $10.00 for the PDFs.  Maybe a bit higher $/page ratio, but I'll be honest I am not sure where to price these things. I think $7.50 would have been best, but I am not judging.

I have to admit I was set to like this book.  "The Complete Vivimancer" reminds me of the old Bard Games "The Compleat Spellcaster" and "The Compleat Alchemist".  Not just in terms of title and feel, but in terms of content.  This is the sort of thing I enjoy from the OSR/Old School publishing realms.  I like something I can drop into my games with no issues.  Plug and Play gaming.

I would like to recommend this book.  I particularly recommend it as a change of pace from the evil Necromancer NPC.

There is a lot to love about this book.

Plays Well With Others: The Witch and The Vivimancer

Since The Complete Vivimancer is designed for Labyrinth Lord overtly and Basic Era game in general it should theoretically drop into any Old-School D&D game.  Well as it turns out, it does and it does so rather nicely.  Limit the spell levels to a max of 6 and you have a great new class for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea and one that fits right in really.  It is also a nice compliment to Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts.   It also plays really nice with my own Witch class.

There are several spells that both Witches & Vivimancers can use from their respective books.  These are just my ideas, your GM would have to choose their own and it is possible that Vivimancer author +Gavin Norman might have some different ideas.

Vivimancer Spells for the Witch
First Level: Entangle, Hormone Control
Second Level: Arcane Sight, Insect Messenger, Pair Bonding, Bleeding Wounds (reverse of Staunch Blood Flow)
Third Level: Accelerated Reproduction, Anthropomorphism (perfect witch spell), Paralysis
Fourth Level: Immunity to Disease, Insanity
Fifth Level: Nature's Secrets, Psionic Awakening (for Aquarians only), Transfer Pregnancy (as a Witch Ritual)
Sixth Level: Impregnate
Seventh Level: none
Eighth Level: none
Ninth Level: witches can't cast ninth level spells.

Witch Spells for the Vivimancer
*Cantrips: Analyze Fertility, Daze, Detect Curse, Detect Poison, Detect Pregnancy, Flavor, Freshen, Inflict Minor Wounds, Irritate, Quick Sleeping, Sobriety, Summon Vermin
First Level: Analgesia, Bless Growth, Blight Growth, Block the Seed, Drowsy, Endure Elements, Far Sight, Fey Sight, Sickly, Silver Tongue, Sour Stomach, Vertigo
Second Level: Agony, Broca's Curse of Babel, Delay Poison, Fever, Mind Obscure, Weaken Poison, Youthful
Third Level: Aphasia, Body of Eyes, Clairaudience/Clairvoyance, Lesser Strengthening Rite, Remove Blindness/Deafness, Toad Mind
Fourth Level: Abomination, Confusion, Elemental Armor, Narcolepsy, Neutralize Poison, Polymorph, Vomit, Bount/Strength to the Unborn (Ritual)*
Fifth Level: Baleful Polymorph, Dreadful Bloodletting, Gnawing Pain, Steal Youth, Control Outcome of Birth (Ritual)*
Sixth Level: Evaporate Fluids, False Memory, Mass Agony, Repulsion, Crossbreed (Ritual)
Seventh Level: Insanity**, Magickal Conception (Parthenogenesis),  Wave of Mutilation
Eighth Level: Mind Blank
Ninth Level: There are no 9th level witch spells.

*Ritual spells should be cast by a lone Vivimancer at one level higher.
**(Called Greater Insanity to differentiate it from the 3rd level Vivimancer spell)

In both cases I am just listing the level of the spell as it appears in it's respective book.  Some spells might need to be shifted up or down a level depending on the GM.  Also there is some overlap in the spell effects but the casting and mechanics might be different

New Spell: Magickal Creation (Thaumatogenesis)

This new spell is usuable by either Witches or Vivimancers.

Magickal Creation 
Latin: Thaumatogenesis
Level: Vivimancer 9, Witch 8
Casting Time: 2 hours
Range: Touch

By means of this spell a new life form can be created purely from magic.  Unlike Magickal Conception, which takes exsiting life force and shapes into a new life, Magickal Creation uses only magic.
This spell maybe used to impregnate a female or even a male subject. Typically a female subject is used since is most cases (95% of the time) the impregnated male dies in the birth process.

The casting of this spell takes two hours, during which time the caster must be not interrupted. The casting witch must be able to see the target of the spell, either directly or by scrying.  The target, if willing, gains no saving throw, but an unwilling target if aware of the spell can make a save vs. Spells.  A target unaware of the casting must become aware of the situation before they can save.  Many charlatans play on the paranoid nature of many and sell talismans that protect against this spell.

Since this is using the stuff of magic to produce a life, the spell always works and produces a living life form.  What sort of life form produced is indicated by the table below.

d20	Outcome of birth
1-5	The child is born with only the mother’s traits.
6-10	The child is born with both the traits of the mother and the caster
11-12	The child is born a Chaotic outsider, with both the mothers and casters traits.
13-14	The child is born a Chaotic outsider, with only the mothers traits.
15-16	The child is born a Lawful outsider, with both the mother and casters traits.
17-18	The child is born a Lawful outsider, with only the mothers traits.
19	The child is born as a half fiend, with only the mothers traits.
20	The child is born as a half-celestial, with only the mothers traits.

Gestation depends on the species of the mother, but time in months is often reduced to time in hours.  So if the mother is human then nine months of pregnancy is reduced to nine hours.  The minimum gestation time in any case is two hours. The Caster may also impregnate themselves in this manner producing a clone.

Material Components
Vivimancer: A tissue sample from either the gestating mother or the caster. The tissue is placed in a vat where it is boiled with Agaric, Basil, Figs and Mandrake root till forming a loose, liquid ooze. This ooze is placed onto the gestating mother (or caster).
Witch: Root Agaric, Basil, Figs and Mandrake root (harvested only by the new moon) are combined into a paste, dried and burned.  An athame and a cup, symbolizing male and female powers to direct the spell are required as the focuses. 

Section 15: Magickal Creation (Thaumatogenesis) Copyright 2014 Timothy S. Brannan.
All text of this spell is considered Open for terms of the OGL.

A to Z of Witches. V

V is for Voodoo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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





Supernatural AtoZ

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

So my old school Basic game last Friday went great!

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

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

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

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

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

A to Z of Witches. U

U is for Underworld

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




Supernatural AtoZ

Interview with David Martin

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

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

Pop on over and have a read.

A to Z of Witches. T

T is for Tarot

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

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

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

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

Tarot Witch of the Black Rose

Tarot Pinup by pziomek 

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

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

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

Typically though they wear more armor than this.

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






Supernatural AtoZ