One of my favorite concepts for a hag is a sort of "finder of lost things", and working that into their flavor. The hag's home isn't on any map, if you know you're going there you'll never get there, but yet if you cannot find your way you are sure to stumble upon it. For my hag patron warlock there is a great deal of twisted mundanity to his magic. He misty steps by falling down a hole only he can see, or walking out of sight behind a tree or a box and just appearing elsewhere. Sort of an "anyone could do this, if only they saw the world the way I do." way about him. Also he shoots eldritch blast from a grafted Hag Eye, which is pretty rad.
Thank you! I used some of these ideas in a recent session. In payment for a reading, the witch asked a PC for "her tears." But instead of simply collecting a teardrop from the PC, the witch took her ability to cry.
Take the comedy out, that's a great way to make a witch: "What do witches do?" "they burn!" "what else burns?" "uh.. wood?" "good, good, and what else does wood do?" "it floats" "what else floats?" "a.. a duck!" "then we will take a duck, if they're lighter than a duck they're a witch" _reality slips and folds, things take new meaning and the witch.. is now lighter than a duck_ You know why in a number of fantasy settings technology and magic don't go well together? What would happen with this logic if I told you, a mage, that the machine aside you makes metal malleable and so easy to work with it's like kneading flour? Instead of new fittings for a door you'll pull out a loaf! You now have a furnace that turns iron into bread.
I've used bargaining with a hag/witch NPC at the end of a one shot really effectively. She asked the players to give up memories in exchange for the Dragon egg she had. The more intense the memory the better. Led to some great role playing, where two of the pcs gave up the memory of their friendship. I was hoping the players would be foolish enough to let her pick which memories to take... She would have taken the memory of why they needed the Dragon egg in the first place. My players were too smart for that though!
This is SUCH a great way to improve the "Barovian Witches" in Curse of Strahd, enough so that I'd be tempted to use them as a REPLACEMENT of Baba Lasagna (yes you heard me). The witches as they stand in the module feel so...superfluous, and I've felt that Strahd's whole "I am the ancient, I am the land" was a bullshit statement with no actual follow-through. This fixes all that; gives us a satisfying side villain AND provides a meaningful link between Strahd and the witches (while also dialing up his creepy misogynist villainy, if he's literally highjacked the source of feminine power).
My favourite character I play is my Lore Wizard. She’s very Witchy, with her mother being a druidic healer and later in her career as an adventurer she stole the secrets of a coven of Hags (the nature coven from Volo’s)
Speaking as someone who has been afraid of witches his entire life, you want to make them worse?! Well I've had a good run but I do believe that I'll be leaving the planet thank you very much for nothing. No need to show me the way out I know where I'm going which is somewhere where the witches won't know that I'll be.
Haven’t you read Macbeth? No matter how much you try and avoid fate, it always comes. Sometimes, it hits you because you tried to avoid it. The Weird Sisters told Macbeth that he would be king, and that Banquo’s descendants would be kings. And so upon becoming king, Macbeth sets out to kill Banquo. Because he tried to have Banquo killed, Banquo’s son sets out to overthrow Macbeth, making him the next king. It was out of fear for the witches’ prophesies that they became true. Go where you will. Your fate will meet you nonetheless. Mwahaha.
@@coleallen8425 Well I was good before you brought fate into this! Now I have to have at least one interaction with a witch if foreshadowing has any say in it.
"Everyone say it with me now..." VAGUE AND EVOCATIVE!!!!!!!! I may or may not have said this aloud. In the backseat of a car full of family members. They may or may not think I am crazy now. Not that that's much different from usual.
@@oliverworley5162 ah...I can just imagine sitting in my room and hearing someone tell "VAGUE AND EVOCATIVE" from the bathroom next door...I love that thought
Some of my favorite horror has that feeling where the protagonists know they should turn back, that they shouldn't be doing what they're doing, but something tantalizes them. I like the idea that witches represent an obviously untrustworthy wielder of the sort of magic you just can't get from Joe Bookwizard who has a market stall and charges 25 gold for an identify spell. You can seek them as the only accessible source of that deep magic, but you're wittingly or not letting them tie strings around you to control you with.
I've been increasingly more and more fascinated with magical trade, markets, deals, and favours, a lot of it thanks to Dael. From here, the idea of dealing with concepts is great. If you deal with a witch or a devil, you likely want benefits like power, wealth, love - but they don't deal in concretes, and so the payment is nebulous yet of equal if not greater cost. Power for your firstborn, wealth at the cost of your ability to feel joy, things like that. Someone smart can play a witch well, make a trade that's actually beneficial to them, or to the witch as well. I gotta put my finger on what exactly it is I like about it.
I just thought of this! When Dael describes the witches having control of a player's body even though the player can still speak and react to this puppetry, it reminds me of Hama from ATLA. Having the visceral creaking and stiff movements of blood bending applied to how the witches take control adds serious levels of scariness to how twisted and sadistic their magic can be.
The part about witches bartering with metaphors made me think of an npc shop run by a witch where the PCs can buy feats or get rid of some of their current flaws, bonds, traits, and ideals, but the cost is a number of new randomly rolled flaws. And if they don't roleplay their new flaws they get disadvantage at the worst possible times. For example, a princess might go sell her "You must choose someone to marry and make them the new king!" bond and in exchange she gets the flaw "Anyone who eats your cooking gets polymorphed into a bear. " Or something not stolen from a disney movie might happen.
I appreciate this. I'm running an encounter this weekend with a Bheur Hag. She happens to be in the same woods as a druid contact with whom my players are seeking counsel. Unfortunately for my poor players, I do not believe they will see through the hag's offers of assistance in travel through the deep snow as anything but boons. But each benefit has a price and a cost... "Well, well, well...Warm bloods have wandered into my wood. Weary walkers, what will you wish for once we've met? Will the winter weather ward you back whence you came?"
Amazingly timed, or you saw my tweet asking about hags/weirds/witches, but this has given me a lot of inspiration. On 3s, my players just learned there were as many as 27 greater covens in Somnia. 3 groups of 3, for each of the 3 continents. The whole campaign has been two individual witches manipulating the players as npcs, helping them screw over the other's plans. Only recently did they learn both of their true natures. They are competing to take the open third spot on a greater coven. If the players kill one, the other gets the spot and will shape the later story when the coven becomes the bigger baddie. Side note, my players now think every npc might be a witch, or enthralled by a witch deal.
previously in our local game, we had a town beleaguered by a coven of Hags. Everything was going fine despite having a few red herring problems until the paladin went and held a town meeting and told everyone what was going on; which led to everyone suspecting their neighbor as being a witch, which of course fed right into the chaos the hags were sewing, and eventually we had to rescue a witch burning, who was the actual hag in the form of a townsfolk, but we got one of them so last our characters knew their power was checked...
Just had this happen in my game! The party discovered the Goblin Market in the city. I have a witch who deals in memories but not just past memories, there are three: Past, Present, and Future. One Takes, One Gives and One Knows. ...they chose to look into future and got an ominous vision. It vaguely implied that one character would be betrayed by the other. All of her deals are final...no leaving and coming back later.
A coven of my witches found an Artifact tier book of ancient secrets - now the maiden is a vampire, the mother is a vampire warrior, and the crone is a vampire spellcaster. Hoo boy are they a problem.
Firstly I have to say I LOVE this sort of aesthetic for witches, I also bring it into hags whenever i run them, though obviously everything takes an even darker slant when it's a hag. I also love the Consulting of the Bones! I'm stealing that! I also really love the whole Power of Three thing, and since I'm actually planning to use a coven of witches as the big bad of the first arc of the campaign i'm planning to run, i'm gonna get a lot of mileage out of that! Love this video!
i like the idea that this kind of sinister-seeming trickery and misdirection would be how a heroic witch does things too. no clear-cut white robes vs black robes healing magic vs harming magic, they're doing very similar things with the important difference being what they apply it on
Very clever. One idea I was toying with to lend the witches turning magic back on the party would be to have the party members have things go missing (trinkets, lock of hair, etc) by the witches familiars or people they’ve ensorcelled. The witches then produce that item when doing their legendary or lair actions that affect that party member.
I can see it being each witch has her own spell list. One deals with damage dealing, one with illusions and charms, and one with support/ summoning. Apart they only have access to their own spells, but when one or more of them are at the covens cauldron, the one/ones not there have access to the others spells.
@@حَسن-م3ه9ظ It’s a subconscious thing. Witches are always “she” in my mind, while warlocks are “he”. One of the Scooby-doo movies put that idea in my head when I was a kid.
I love these ideas. Especially how you would run a coven fight on the premise that getting to the hag would be the tricky part, since in dnd hag stats get left behind quickly
Just when I think you can't get anymore awesome or adorable. You make a Over the Garden Wall reference!!! I've used the idea of trading the intangible for very tangible rewards from a Hag (That's close enough to a witch in D&D) Best one I ever got was a +2 Flametongue for a "Bit of your luck" Seemed great until the player realized he could never roll with Advantage. Or gain Inspiration.
I'm reminded of d'artagan from critical role asking for a threshold crest, and percival drawing the crest of his family on the threshold of a door. Then we found out what threshold crests were
Norns, the three fates, past present future, maiden, mother, crone/matriarch. so many goodies, love the battle strategy tips and twists. Moss from a hanged man's skull, left under a gibbous moon will protect those from baba yaga's gaze!
I love the idea of having a witch place a very elaborate illusion on a party member who then “wakes up” as a child, to find that the witch is their mother, they have none of their gear, but are in warm pajamas under soft blankets, the crackling of fire where once there was a cackling of fiendish enemies. “Not to worry my dear, twas only a nightmare, go back to sleep, and remember, mummy loves you.” To the rest of the party, this member becomes frozen, unconscious and catatonic on their feet. This attack deals no physical damage, but may take multiple rounds to break. Depending how they choose to fight it, they may make their way out of it, or fall deeper down the rabbit hole.
I want to direct everyone's attention to pages 13-15 of the Heroes of Horror supplement, and the encounter "To Grandmother's House". Probably one of the most terrifyingly disgusting things WotC has released in a long while.
In a version of the Norse mythology, Loke gets his shapeshifter/ illusion powers from eating the heart of a witch who was an enemy of asgard. I love the idea of the players finding the still beating heart in the pyre after a witch burning. I don't think I've played any group that doesn't have at least 1 pc who would suggest eating it.
I would love to hear your interpretation of shamans as an extension to this - that is if you do include shaman-like things in your games. Stuff like calling the rain, talking to spirits, smelling the future, sacrificing rats for good omens.
First off, there's a lively debate about how much should be included under the label of "shaman." The only cultures where shamans are unquestionably a thing is the Ewenk of Siberia because that's where the word came from. That said, even if we took one of the more expansive understandings of the term--those who practice archaic techniques of ecstasy for miraculous purposes--the stuff you're describing isn't all that common. Primarily, shamans were about communing with the spirit world to heal or curse. In folklore, they are often shown doing all sorts of crazy stuff that you'd associate with wizards in D&D, like swimming through the earth or folding space like in Dr. Strange (especially among people of the North Pacific, like the Inuit and Chuckchee). Honestly, if you just treated shamans as clerics or wizards, and you treated the shaman's outfit as a spell book with each of the many objects attached to it as a separate spell, you wouldn't be far off. Another alternative is treat all the PCs as part shamans, descending into the underworld to fight and treat with monstrous beings to retrieve the souls of the sick. Taking a spiritual journey while in a state of ecstasy to a lower world populated by evil spirits seems redundant when you already are going into dungeons full of monsters.
@@bjhale I'm not trying to disregard your suggestion, just going to clarify the idea I was going for. Regardless of what Shamans actually have been in the real world, we are shooting for "Vague and Evocative" (had to quote that). Since it's going to be all about certain NPCs that serve some role, the PCs aren't necessarily going to find out what Shamas are all about or how they work, and by the way I'd rather not include drugs in my game. It's just there to be something mysterious and probably just to be a supportive character, not a powerful and destructive force. So... to clarify, much like witches, I'd like more mystical and ritualistic versions of magic being used by a proportionally mystical user and ways to portray them. Now, if you can describe trance to the players with words it would be amazing, but I think that it won't be as intriguing due to lack of "relatability" or understanding of these in game events.
@@joyfulcandycube6785 How about this: Unlike witches, when you introduce a shaman to your PCs, have them be completely normal and unremarkable people for the culture in question. They're not even living on the outskirts of the village. No costume, because they only wear that when they shamanize. And when they are ready to shamanize, that's when you hit them with an abrupt shift of personality. Don't be afraid to literally shout at your players. While masks are used in many shamanic traditions, they aren't so much used in Siberian shamanism, the versions I am most familiar with. Instead, you sometimes have the shaman wearing a headpiece with a fringe of tassles covering their face. This fringe, according to at least one account I've read, is less for the shaman's benefit than it is for any onlookers', for the shaman's face becomes twisted into a series of horrifying grimaces while shamanizing. I would encourage you to look up some descriptions of shamanic rituals in action to get a feel for it; they're not all about drugs, drums, and masks. Not even remotely. (Well, they do almost always involve drums, but still). Here are some ways you could use shamans in your campaign: 1. Enemies. Long ago, an evil young shaman came to the forest to make his drum, as all new shamans must. He slew a kindly treant for the frame and a lamassu (or other goodly creature for) for the skin. Their voices haunt the forest to this day. Slay the shaman and put them to rest. He is of great power, but at night when he sleeps one of his souls flies through the forest in the shape of a cuckoo. Destroy it and you will weaken him. However, beware of his other soul which often marauds about in the same forest at night as a fearsome bear. 2. Healers. The most obvious one. As a quest, you might have to recover one of his shamanic objects lost, settle a polygamous marital dispute between his invisible otherworldly wife and his earthly one, or what have you. While I use "he" women can totally be shamans too, but those scenarios make themselves more apparent to me with males. 3. Time travel. Among the Mansi and Khanty, there's an interesting belief that time in the lower world goes in reverse direction as in the middle world. As people who can visit the lower world, shamans could help you go there to effectively go back in time. 4. Helping an otherworldly being become initiated as a shaman. Shamans are customarily served by helping spirits and instructed by tutelary ones. A common part of a shaman's initiation in many cultures is a period of intense sickness in which a shaman experiences a vision where he is reduced to pieces, often a skeleton, and has to put himself together again. This being reduced to pieces is often done by evil spirits. Interestingly, there is a trope I have found in some folklore in which the lower world is much like ours, but when we visit there, we are seen as evil disease causing spirits, much like how the denizens of the lower world are portrayed when they come to our world. The PCs could be instructed to venture into another world and defeat a powerful enemy, but are warned that they must flay them alive or boil them to succeed. In reality, they are merely serving as the helping spirits in an otherworldly shaman's initiation
@@joyfulcandycube6785 Instead of drugs, use bloodletting or extensive exaustion from staying awake, walking, fucking, etc. as other means to hallucinate and contakt other plains and reals.
Suddenly had the idea that Dael could play Miss Hardbroom from The Worst Witch (in about ten to twenty years time) - can't get the image out of my head now :-)
This really gave me a new perspective on magic users as I tend to get stuck in a Dark Sun kind of paradigm of preservers & defilers. Thanks for the vid ! I was hooked at "not built form scary". ;-)
Witches are commonly used in my setting as mostly healers that make deals as limb targeting is a thing in my games and a player will occasionally lose a limb and the most efficient means of regenerating it is a Witch.
Another great segment! I have something similar I call team casting (I know, not very original). Spellcasters can team up to deliver the same spell with much greater affect. The drawback I have for them is that the team cast goes off on last initiative, regardless of roll. Of course, multiple casters means multiple opportunities for a concentration break. I know many others have the same kind of mechanic, but I think most get overly complicated in implementation.
I am running a campaign around the theme of witchhunting with players struggling both with an overbearing inquisition and equally evil witches. Also, my group is just entering a town to deal with exactly the kind of phenomena you described. So I'll use EVERYTHING from this video for sure!! :D
Very helpful. I’m looking at playing a male Hexblood warlock who’s sort of destined to become the male equivalent of a Hag - what I’m calling a Caliban (either that or Kwisatz Hag-erach). I’ve been looking for witchy ways to flavor all his spells.
I love the idea of 3's, and I'd go full meta with it, each 3 rolled on a d20 is in the witches control. No save. Then I'd also have their attacks multiply in ways where the party can interact with it, i.e. each with can cast Witch Bolt as one of their 3 actions, and each of them can activate the others Witch Bolt. That means you really want to break their concentration, rather than just do the normal 5e focus fire and reduce them to 2, the more you focus fire the more damage they deal (as long as they're 3). Another thing I'd add is the idea of them having foreseen and planned certain things, maybe the players bought some healing potions recently, and if they drink it in front of a witch she smiles and it gives a bitter aftertaste... 3 rounds later that Witch can have an effect, preferably something that the merchant who sold the potions warned them about, like maybe it makes them vulnerable to lightning and oh what's this? One of the witches is chanting forth a thunderstorm?
I'm building a low-level Hag encounter that starts very similar to this. The last 1/3 of the video definitely got my gears turning on how the actual Liar encounter will work. Now, because of you, my plot will thicken. *spoiler alert* The Maiden Hag will teleport away at the end leaving her small treasure horde. But the Maiden hag was actually saved my her Grandmother creating a larger story arc for later in the campaign. Thank you very much for the inspiration.
I like the idea of witches using ritual magick and magickal objects. I can't remember who, but a certain TH-camr suggested having a hags spells come from various objects, like silence coming from a shrunken head that shrieks and drowns out the party's words. I love the idea that witches don't have a lot of direct attacks but are able to manipulate the rules of the encounter. I'm not experienced enough to do this yet but am looking into it. Wiccapedia is a decent source for witchcraft info by the way.
In my setting I wanted the duality of them, which can be seen mythologically in some depictions of Baba Yaga and with some other similar characters, so I made their "species" Beldams and then had them split into two types, Hags and Witches, whenever a good witch is born her bad hag equal and opposite is to created, or vice versa. This further allows the witches to give good blessings which are followed by bad curses, or vice versa. Even the most powerful of my witches Baba Misshka is still balanced out by her twin Baba Miroz.
My favourite take on witches that I use in my setting is based on Terry Pratchett’s ideas, where the most powerful aspect of a witch is in fact when they ARENT using magic (headology, for example), but beyond that their magic comes similar to druids, but in more of a flowing with and persuading (or tricking) the natural magical forces!
Creating my own dark fantasy game system atm and was adding enemy mechanics just remembered your fabulous self and this video. Added a rule of 3 ruleset onto my witches with epic mild melting illusions. Thanks for existing and doing your thing. I look forward to having players questioning how many hags there are at every appearance. Though with illusions.....who can tell ;)
One movie that blew my mind about witches was Suspiria (2018). The lore on the 3 mothers (Suspiriorum, Lachrymarum and Tenebrarum ) became a big inspiration for my witches.
2 ideas I want to add: 1. When the party kills the witches, have there be a baby they can save, maybe the witches had it in some stage of preparation to cook or something. But after the party saves it and brings it with them, it begins growing at an abnormal rate, maybe somebody is having nightmares, etc. a paladin’s detect fiends will find that it is a baby witch. Fun way to throw the party a curveball. 2. I think gender swapping the witch trope is a good way to throw the party off. It’s strange and a bit sexist of fantasy and Tabletop RPGs that hags can only be female and wizards are considered typically male or inherently good. Have some female wise wizards in your games, have some male hags. Spice it up a bit :)
My favorite idea for a coven i just make them based on Disney villains and just never let your players in on it. Green hag being the Evil Queen shes nasty petty and changes her looks to lure the children, Sea hag clearly Ursula shes a fabulous bitch and you don't want to see her when shes not in drag, the Night hag is Maleficent always dressed like the queen of hell her win condition is you falling asleep.
I like the idea of turning the earthy coven vibes on their head, but keeping ablot of the theming the same otherwise. Like having three sisters who seemed to have a knack for magic, odd medicine, and practical problem solving. Eventually they became the "council" of a barony (the first title of it's kind) to signify their equal footing in ruling from a (literal) ivory tower. Sort of a "hiding in plain sight" in their own wizard's tower, looming over the city, unsuspectic and trusted, despite how... Eerily right they always seem. And how they finish each other's sentences in an off putting way. Among other things.
I really love the idea of witches having a different kind of older magic. It reminds me of Pratchett (although I know the idea predates him). I'm working on trying to tie in witches with the Fey realm in my setting.
Ok that's just scary, my current character has the patience and impulse control of a 2 year old who experienced a very deep loss (specifically her connection to the feywild was severed) and my D6 which happens to be orange delivered a 3
The way I deal with witches in my setting is sort of like a twisted druid. They're using the magic of nature, but instead of it being gifted or granted or borrowed, like in the druid's case, its taken, stolen or twisted in some way.
I’m planning to name the 3 witches in the Amber Temple in Curse of Strahd after my grandma and her two sisters so it’s easier to differentiate each of them and also because I think my grandma and Aunts have names that would fit. Their names are Gabrielle, Diana, and Valentina.
To be fair, fortune tellers are rarely presented as good or evil, just the neutral party passing on possibly bad unreliable intel for the hero or heroes to act upon, some will be given a sinister edge by making them seem to enjoy passing along band news or ill omens. Some can legitimately be the villain but, this is usually the result of a major character or neutral party provoking the fortune teller into hostile action. Just my thoughts
I love the idea of a bottled sliver of light or stroke of luck, I'm definitely stealing it, thank you! Also, while characters I play are usually decent people, they're also waaay too superstitious to interfere in a witch trial.
You could go further: Did you roll a die with numerals or with pips? That's significant to the reading somehow. Did you roll a basic cubic d6, or something fancier? That's significant to the reading somehow. Did you roll a numbered die, or something different that just happens to fit the description, like a Boost or Setback die from Genesys/SWRPG or one of the dice from King of Tokyo? Well that's significant too.
I actually have a Hexblood Artificer concept I made for a PC who's a "Witch" and he uses the Weird Magic of normal Faerun Hags, like, if he has magic missile, welp, hope you like a jar of bees being thrown in your face, or if you're the archer, I hope you like the idea of your bow being human fucking hair, FROM HIS HEAD, it's delightful and I love it... haven't played it yet, but yea
Throwing the Bones: Group Dynamics *Two numbers match* - "two of you are more closely tied than you know" *Majority of numbers match* - "one of you is an outsider within your own party," "one rises above the others" *One 6 and one 1* - "fond fortunes for some, ill for others" *Two sets of matching numbers* - "your number divided" *Numbers in sequence* - "steadfast unity among you" *No discernable patterns* "you allow your difference to hold you back" Individual color *Red/pink* - someone important to you *Orange/brown* - impatience *Yellow/gold* - corruption * Green* - self doubt *Blue* - strength in hardship *Black/grey* - sorcery *White* - mercy *Clear* - personal change *Ill defined* - indecision Individual Roll 1. Disaster 2. Betrayal 3. Loss 4. Temptation 5. Justice 6. Sacrifice
I took a blank D12 and painted the 12 calendar runes from a text book entitled "Celtic Magic" upon it. So I suppose I can literally use dice as runes. Feel free to steal this idea.
Also I might use this in my anti magic campaign, the party has already agreed the inquisition is bad so some terrifying witches might complicate things. Tho I’ll probably not use that encounter idea, my party would die very fast
Yo I just had a full on heart attack listening to this video again and hearing my name. I must have missed it the first time, goodness golly that was a surprise. Hoo, I need a nap that spooked me.
As well as manipulating destiny, for which they have to have divinatory spells/powers, it seems to me that there is something supremely personal about how they were believed to operate - not with pseudo-scientific/sociopathic detachment like your Sarumany wizards, just experimenting heartlessly, but being very emotionally driven, and intensely interested in the people in their neighbourhood, upon whom they can visit curses in the form of giving false warnings or clues about forthcoming events, or just withholding information they need to avoid misfortunes and tragedies. Their magic making should be very personalised in terms of people and relationships around themselves, as well as infused with hatred, jealousies, grudges and so on. The only problem with that is the sheer amount of backstory writing and integration required when writing all other npcs as well. With your ordinary wizard, he or she only needs their spellbook, because they're just doing technology of a kind, tweaking the universe slightly in specific ways, whereas everything witches do is contingent on life histories, grievances, rivalries and so forth. Wizards don't have to know anything about anyone as they adventure, but witches can't be understood or predicted, or foiled in most instances, without finding out all manner of local history and legends. They aren't doing flashy pyrotechnics. They're being much more insidious. Speaking of Hags and Babba Yaga because they key into the Cthonic triad of Maid, Mother and Crone, there's also the relationship to ogres and changelings to consider, because they aren't just stealing children to eat or poisoning children from afar out of some old familial grudge, but they're also twisting children to create human monsters.
Every witch should have a sign outside her lair that says "Now entering the crone zone".
oh you mustn't go through the crone zone. Got roughed up there once myself, cost me a pretty penny
15% discount on hag swag!
@@CountsDigGraves Hag swag? Oh, please. Don’t waste your money on that witch kitsch.
One of my favorite concepts for a hag is a sort of "finder of lost things", and working that into their flavor. The hag's home isn't on any map, if you know you're going there you'll never get there, but yet if you cannot find your way you are sure to stumble upon it. For my hag patron warlock there is a great deal of twisted mundanity to his magic. He misty steps by falling down a hole only he can see, or walking out of sight behind a tree or a box and just appearing elsewhere. Sort of an "anyone could do this, if only they saw the world the way I do." way about him. Also he shoots eldritch blast from a grafted Hag Eye, which is pretty rad.
Great character flavor! Nicely done!
I love player led flavour
I love that!
Thank you! I used some of these ideas in a recent session. In payment for a reading, the witch asked a PC for "her tears." But instead of simply collecting a teardrop from the PC, the witch took her ability to cry.
That's IT!! That's the GOOD STUFF right there!
17:06 "[Witches] come at you from the _side;_ they turn you on _yourselves."_
Y'mean they use... _Headology,_ perhaps?
My favorite depiction of witches by far!
Tarot reading: "A little too safe."
Consult the bones: "A little spooky."
Fondle animal entrails: "Okay, I'm out."
I'm gonna need like 15% more Spooks from that shirt
Wow, tough crowd
@@MonarchsFactory Our standards are only so high cause your content is soooo good!!!!
(great video as always)
All of this good advice, and all I can retain without taking notes is "Monty Python had it right."
Newt man: "I got better"
honestly, that's probably a good rule for D&D in general. maybe dependent on what kind of the vibe of your campaign but still.
Take the comedy out, that's a great way to make a witch:
"What do witches do?"
"they burn!"
"what else burns?"
"uh.. wood?"
"good, good, and what else does wood do?"
"it floats"
"what else floats?"
"a.. a duck!"
"then we will take a duck, if they're lighter than a duck they're a witch"
_reality slips and folds, things take new meaning and the witch.. is now lighter than a duck_
You know why in a number of fantasy settings technology and magic don't go well together? What would happen with this logic if I told you, a mage, that the machine aside you makes metal malleable and so easy to work with it's like kneading flour? Instead of new fittings for a door you'll pull out a loaf! You now have a furnace that turns iron into bread.
@@cdgonepotatoes4219 jesus christ I love this
I've used bargaining with a hag/witch NPC at the end of a one shot really effectively. She asked the players to give up memories in exchange for the Dragon egg she had. The more intense the memory the better. Led to some great role playing, where two of the pcs gave up the memory of their friendship.
I was hoping the players would be foolish enough to let her pick which memories to take... She would have taken the memory of why they needed the Dragon egg in the first place. My players were too smart for that though!
"It's so hot today!"
...In Octob- Oh, right, Australia.
IKR? Weather report in my area suggests snow possible by Halloween.
@@justmutantjed Ah, yes, the big North American mood.
Haha, its still in the upper 80's Fahrenheit, here in southern California.
@@pharrigan-hikes oof, all love from Pennsylvania hope you’re home is safe or atleast not actively on fire
@@TheRepublic4 Oh thanks! Yes, we have been lucky where we live. The closest fire was a few hours away. We just had some crazy smoke a few months ago.
This is SUCH a great way to improve the "Barovian Witches" in Curse of Strahd, enough so that I'd be tempted to use them as a REPLACEMENT of Baba Lasagna (yes you heard me). The witches as they stand in the module feel so...superfluous, and I've felt that Strahd's whole "I am the ancient, I am the land" was a bullshit statement with no actual follow-through. This fixes all that; gives us a satisfying side villain AND provides a meaningful link between Strahd and the witches (while also dialing up his creepy misogynist villainy, if he's literally highjacked the source of feminine power).
My favourite character I play is my Lore Wizard. She’s very Witchy, with her mother being a druidic healer and later in her career as an adventurer she stole the secrets of a coven of Hags (the nature coven from Volo’s)
Speaking as someone who has been afraid of witches his entire life, you want to make them worse?! Well I've had a good run but I do believe that I'll be leaving the planet thank you very much for nothing. No need to show me the way out I know where I'm going which is somewhere where the witches won't know that I'll be.
What if dael is a witch and she's just lured you into a specific location?
Just be careful of the space witches, who only exist in the black vacuum of space.
Haven’t you read Macbeth? No matter how much you try and avoid fate, it always comes. Sometimes, it hits you because you tried to avoid it. The Weird Sisters told Macbeth that he would be king, and that Banquo’s descendants would be kings. And so upon becoming king, Macbeth sets out to kill Banquo. Because he tried to have Banquo killed, Banquo’s son sets out to overthrow Macbeth, making him the next king. It was out of fear for the witches’ prophesies that they became true. Go where you will. Your fate will meet you nonetheless. Mwahaha.
@@coleallen8425 Well I was good before you brought fate into this! Now I have to have at least one interaction with a witch if foreshadowing has any say in it.
@@chrishall5570 Maybe Dael was the witch. Maybe I’m the witch. Maybe you met a witch without knowing it. Witches can be very crafty you know.
"Everyone say it with me now..." VAGUE AND EVOCATIVE!!!!!!!!
I may or may not have said this aloud. In the backseat of a car full of family members. They may or may not think I am crazy now. Not that that's much different from usual.
Remember you may be faced with a wall of questioning, keep all your answers VAUGE AND EVOCATIVE!
i did this too just i was aloneso felt less wired
From the toilet isn't much better... Of course I wouldn't know from first hand experiance at all
@@oliverworley5162 ah...I can just imagine sitting in my room and hearing someone tell "VAGUE AND EVOCATIVE" from the bathroom next door...I love that thought
don’t worry, we all did it lol
Lots of preamble at the start but once we got to the meat of your ideas they were fantastic. Thank you Dael.
Do not speak to me of the deep magic, Witch! I was there when it was written!
Discword witches have that practical magic of tweaking and building relationships down, they're mostly just clever people
Sounds like someone *really* enjoyed their last viewing of Stardust.
Its a really Dael kinda fantasy movie
If you don’t enjoy stardust then I dare say you don’t enjoy classic fantasy tropes and great acting from beautiful actors and actresses.
I straight away thought of that movie with the fight idea. I will definitely be using that fake give up scene and the doll control.
Some of my favorite horror has that feeling where the protagonists know they should turn back, that they shouldn't be doing what they're doing, but something tantalizes them. I like the idea that witches represent an obviously untrustworthy wielder of the sort of magic you just can't get from Joe Bookwizard who has a market stall and charges 25 gold for an identify spell. You can seek them as the only accessible source of that deep magic, but you're wittingly or not letting them tie strings around you to control you with.
I've been increasingly more and more fascinated with magical trade, markets, deals, and favours, a lot of it thanks to Dael. From here, the idea of dealing with concepts is great. If you deal with a witch or a devil, you likely want benefits like power, wealth, love - but they don't deal in concretes, and so the payment is nebulous yet of equal if not greater cost. Power for your firstborn, wealth at the cost of your ability to feel joy, things like that. Someone smart can play a witch well, make a trade that's actually beneficial to them, or to the witch as well.
I gotta put my finger on what exactly it is I like about it.
I just thought of this! When Dael describes the witches having control of a player's body even though the player can still speak and react to this puppetry, it reminds me of Hama from ATLA. Having the visceral creaking and stiff movements of blood bending applied to how the witches take control adds serious levels of scariness to how twisted and sadistic their magic can be.
The part about witches bartering with metaphors made me think of an npc shop run by a witch where the PCs can buy feats or get rid of some of their current flaws, bonds, traits, and ideals, but the cost is a number of new randomly rolled flaws. And if they don't roleplay their new flaws they get disadvantage at the worst possible times.
For example, a princess might go sell her "You must choose someone to marry and make them the new king!" bond and in exchange she gets the flaw "Anyone who eats your cooking gets polymorphed into a bear. "
Or something not stolen from a disney movie might happen.
Any home brew mechanic that allows me to “gift” terrible puns to my players is one that I will always find useful.
I appreciate this. I'm running an encounter this weekend with a Bheur Hag. She happens to be in the same woods as a druid contact with whom my players are seeking counsel. Unfortunately for my poor players, I do not believe they will see through the hag's offers of assistance in travel through the deep snow as anything but boons. But each benefit has a price and a cost... "Well, well, well...Warm bloods have wandered into my wood. Weary walkers, what will you wish for once we've met? Will the winter weather ward you back whence you came?"
LOVE the OTGW reference, the Unknown is a marvelous source material for the vague and evocative
*Makes video called “Making Witches Scary”*
“I wasn’t made for scary”
Amazingly timed, or you saw my tweet asking about hags/weirds/witches, but this has given me a lot of inspiration. On 3s, my players just learned there were as many as 27 greater covens in Somnia. 3 groups of 3, for each of the 3 continents. The whole campaign has been two individual witches manipulating the players as npcs, helping them screw over the other's plans. Only recently did they learn both of their true natures. They are competing to take the open third spot on a greater coven. If the players kill one, the other gets the spot and will shape the later story when the coven becomes the bigger baddie.
Side note, my players now think every npc might be a witch, or enthralled by a witch deal.
previously in our local game, we had a town beleaguered by a coven of Hags. Everything was going fine despite having a few red herring problems until the paladin went and held a town meeting and told everyone what was going on; which led to everyone suspecting their neighbor as being a witch, which of course fed right into the chaos the hags were sewing, and eventually we had to rescue a witch burning, who was the actual hag in the form of a townsfolk, but we got one of them so last our characters knew their power was checked...
I love including lifeblood sacrifices, esp small animals, also apothecary brewing, music man instigators, and scarlet letter social complexities.
Just had this happen in my game! The party discovered the Goblin Market in the city. I have a witch who deals in memories but not just past memories, there are three: Past, Present, and Future. One Takes, One Gives and One Knows.
...they chose to look into future and got an ominous vision. It vaguely implied that one character would be betrayed by the other.
All of her deals are final...no leaving and coming back later.
A coven of my witches found an Artifact tier book of ancient secrets - now the maiden is a vampire, the mother is a vampire warrior, and the crone is a vampire spellcaster. Hoo boy are they a problem.
Firstly I have to say I LOVE this sort of aesthetic for witches, I also bring it into hags whenever i run them, though obviously everything takes an even darker slant when it's a hag. I also love the Consulting of the Bones! I'm stealing that! I also really love the whole Power of Three thing, and since I'm actually planning to use a coven of witches as the big bad of the first arc of the campaign i'm planning to run, i'm gonna get a lot of mileage out of that!
Love this video!
i like the idea that this kind of sinister-seeming trickery and misdirection would be how a heroic witch does things too. no clear-cut white robes vs black robes healing magic vs harming magic, they're doing very similar things with the important difference being what they apply it on
Yeah! Nice!
Very clever. One idea I was toying with to lend the witches turning magic back on the party would be to have the party members have things go missing (trinkets, lock of hair, etc) by the witches familiars or people they’ve ensorcelled. The witches then produce that item when doing their legendary or lair actions that affect that party member.
Okay...but that opener has me dead. You're so wonderful.
I can see it being each witch has her own spell list. One deals with damage dealing, one with illusions and charms, and one with support/ summoning. Apart they only have access to their own spells, but when one or more of them are at the covens cauldron, the one/ones not there have access to the others spells.
I like how you switched pronouns mid-sentence
Why did you start referring to witches as "her" anyways?
@@حَسن-م3ه9ظ It’s a subconscious thing. Witches are always “she” in my mind, while warlocks are “he”. One of the Scooby-doo movies put that idea in my head when I was a kid.
I have a party who are in a refugee caravan. They managed to deal with the river hag well and INVITED her into their caravan. I cant wait.
The way you handle witches is the way I handle the Fey in my games
I love these ideas. Especially how you would run a coven fight on the premise that getting to the hag would be the tricky part, since in dnd hag stats get left behind quickly
Just when I think you can't get anymore awesome or adorable. You make a Over the Garden Wall reference!!!
I've used the idea of trading the intangible for very tangible rewards from a Hag (That's close enough to a witch in D&D)
Best one I ever got was a +2 Flametongue for a "Bit of your luck"
Seemed great until the player realized he could never roll with Advantage. Or gain Inspiration.
Regarding prophecies....
"What's really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken the vase if I hadn't said anything....."
I'm reminded of d'artagan from critical role asking for a threshold crest, and percival drawing the crest of his family on the threshold of a door.
Then we found out what threshold crests were
Norns, the three fates, past present future, maiden, mother, crone/matriarch. so many goodies, love the battle strategy tips and twists. Moss from a hanged man's skull, left under a gibbous moon will protect those from baba yaga's gaze!
I love the idea of having a witch place a very elaborate illusion on a party member who then “wakes up” as a child, to find that the witch is their mother, they have none of their gear, but are in warm pajamas under soft blankets, the crackling of fire where once there was a cackling of fiendish enemies. “Not to worry my dear, twas only a nightmare, go back to sleep, and remember, mummy loves you.” To the rest of the party, this member becomes frozen, unconscious and catatonic on their feet. This attack deals no physical damage, but may take multiple rounds to break. Depending how they choose to fight it, they may make their way out of it, or fall deeper down the rabbit hole.
I want to direct everyone's attention to pages 13-15 of the Heroes of Horror supplement, and the encounter "To Grandmother's House". Probably one of the most terrifyingly disgusting things WotC has released in a long while.
Skulduggery Pleasant being represented on the shelf *chefs kiss* great video! A lot of ideas I may crib
In a version of the Norse mythology, Loke gets his shapeshifter/ illusion powers from eating the heart of a witch who was an enemy of asgard. I love the idea of the players finding the still beating heart in the pyre after a witch burning. I don't think I've played any group that doesn't have at least 1 pc who would suggest eating it.
I would love to hear your interpretation of shamans as an extension to this - that is if you do include shaman-like things in your games.
Stuff like calling the rain, talking to spirits, smelling the future, sacrificing rats for good omens.
haha, "smelling the future"
First off, there's a lively debate about how much should be included under the label of "shaman." The only cultures where shamans are unquestionably a thing is the Ewenk of Siberia because that's where the word came from. That said, even if we took one of the more expansive understandings of the term--those who practice archaic techniques of ecstasy for miraculous purposes--the stuff you're describing isn't all that common. Primarily, shamans were about communing with the spirit world to heal or curse. In folklore, they are often shown doing all sorts of crazy stuff that you'd associate with wizards in D&D, like swimming through the earth or folding space like in Dr. Strange (especially among people of the North Pacific, like the Inuit and Chuckchee). Honestly, if you just treated shamans as clerics or wizards, and you treated the shaman's outfit as a spell book with each of the many objects attached to it as a separate spell, you wouldn't be far off.
Another alternative is treat all the PCs as part shamans, descending into the underworld to fight and treat with monstrous beings to retrieve the souls of the sick. Taking a spiritual journey while in a state of ecstasy to a lower world populated by evil spirits seems redundant when you already are going into dungeons full of monsters.
@@bjhale I'm not trying to disregard your suggestion, just going to clarify the idea I was going for. Regardless of what Shamans actually have been in the real world, we are shooting for "Vague and Evocative" (had to quote that). Since it's going to be all about certain NPCs that serve some role, the PCs aren't necessarily going to find out what Shamas are all about or how they work, and by the way I'd rather not include drugs in my game.
It's just there to be something mysterious and probably just to be a supportive character, not a powerful and destructive force. So... to clarify, much like witches, I'd like more mystical and ritualistic versions of magic being used by a proportionally mystical user and ways to portray them. Now, if you can describe trance to the players with words it would be amazing, but I think that it won't be as intriguing due to lack of "relatability" or understanding of these in game events.
@@joyfulcandycube6785 How about this: Unlike witches, when you introduce a shaman to your PCs, have them be completely normal and unremarkable people for the culture in question. They're not even living on the outskirts of the village. No costume, because they only wear that when they shamanize. And when they are ready to shamanize, that's when you hit them with an abrupt shift of personality. Don't be afraid to literally shout at your players. While masks are used in many shamanic traditions, they aren't so much used in Siberian shamanism, the versions I am most familiar with. Instead, you sometimes have the shaman wearing a headpiece with a fringe of tassles covering their face. This fringe, according to at least one account I've read, is less for the shaman's benefit than it is for any onlookers', for the shaman's face becomes twisted into a series of horrifying grimaces while shamanizing. I would encourage you to look up some descriptions of shamanic rituals in action to get a feel for it; they're not all about drugs, drums, and masks. Not even remotely. (Well, they do almost always involve drums, but still).
Here are some ways you could use shamans in your campaign:
1. Enemies. Long ago, an evil young shaman came to the forest to make his drum, as all new shamans must. He slew a kindly treant for the frame and a lamassu (or other goodly creature for) for the skin. Their voices haunt the forest to this day. Slay the shaman and put them to rest. He is of great power, but at night when he sleeps one of his souls flies through the forest in the shape of a cuckoo. Destroy it and you will weaken him. However, beware of his other soul which often marauds about in the same forest at night as a fearsome bear.
2. Healers. The most obvious one. As a quest, you might have to recover one of his shamanic objects lost, settle a polygamous marital dispute between his invisible otherworldly wife and his earthly one, or what have you. While I use "he" women can totally be shamans too, but those scenarios make themselves more apparent to me with males.
3. Time travel. Among the Mansi and Khanty, there's an interesting belief that time in the lower world goes in reverse direction as in the middle world. As people who can visit the lower world, shamans could help you go there to effectively go back in time.
4. Helping an otherworldly being become initiated as a shaman. Shamans are customarily served by helping spirits and instructed by tutelary ones. A common part of a shaman's initiation in many cultures is a period of intense sickness in which a shaman experiences a vision where he is reduced to pieces, often a skeleton, and has to put himself together again. This being reduced to pieces is often done by evil spirits. Interestingly, there is a trope I have found in some folklore in which the lower world is much like ours, but when we visit there, we are seen as evil disease causing spirits, much like how the denizens of the lower world are portrayed when they come to our world. The PCs could be instructed to venture into another world and defeat a powerful enemy, but are warned that they must flay them alive or boil them to succeed. In reality, they are merely serving as the helping spirits in an otherworldly shaman's initiation
@@joyfulcandycube6785 Instead of drugs, use bloodletting or extensive exaustion from staying awake, walking, fucking, etc. as other means to hallucinate and contakt other plains and reals.
Suddenly had the idea that Dael could play Miss Hardbroom from The Worst Witch (in about ten to twenty years time) - can't get the image out of my head now :-)
This really gave me a new perspective on magic users as I tend to get stuck in a Dark Sun kind of paradigm of preservers & defilers. Thanks for the vid ! I was hooked at "not built form scary". ;-)
Dropping Over The Garden Wall references outta nowhere? Don't just play with my heart like that!
Witches are commonly used in my setting as mostly healers that make deals as limb targeting is a thing in my games and a player will occasionally lose a limb and the most efficient means of regenerating it is a Witch.
That cold open was fire.
When it comes to all things fantasy you have a beautiful mind and a flair for the way you articulate those thoughts you present .. inspiring
I absolutely adore Witches in Pathfinder... no idea how they compare to D+D ones.
Another great segment! I have something similar I call team casting (I know, not very original). Spellcasters can team up to deliver the same spell with much greater affect. The drawback I have for them is that the team cast goes off on last initiative, regardless of roll. Of course, multiple casters means multiple opportunities for a concentration break. I know many others have the same kind of mechanic, but I think most get overly complicated in implementation.
I am running a campaign around the theme of witchhunting with players struggling both with an overbearing inquisition and equally evil witches. Also, my group is just entering a town to deal with exactly the kind of phenomena you described.
So I'll use EVERYTHING from this video for sure!! :D
Very helpful. I’m looking at playing a male Hexblood warlock who’s sort of destined to become the male equivalent of a Hag - what I’m calling a Caliban (either that or Kwisatz Hag-erach). I’ve been looking for witchy ways to flavor all his spells.
I love the idea of 3's, and I'd go full meta with it, each 3 rolled on a d20 is in the witches control. No save. Then I'd also have their attacks multiply in ways where the party can interact with it, i.e. each with can cast Witch Bolt as one of their 3 actions, and each of them can activate the others Witch Bolt. That means you really want to break their concentration, rather than just do the normal 5e focus fire and reduce them to 2, the more you focus fire the more damage they deal (as long as they're 3).
Another thing I'd add is the idea of them having foreseen and planned certain things, maybe the players bought some healing potions recently, and if they drink it in front of a witch she smiles and it gives a bitter aftertaste... 3 rounds later that Witch can have an effect, preferably something that the merchant who sold the potions warned them about, like maybe it makes them vulnerable to lightning and oh what's this? One of the witches is chanting forth a thunderstorm?
I'm building a low-level Hag encounter that starts very similar to this. The last 1/3 of the video definitely got my gears turning on how the actual Liar encounter will work. Now, because of you, my plot will thicken. *spoiler alert* The Maiden Hag will teleport away at the end leaving her small treasure horde. But the Maiden hag was actually saved my her Grandmother creating a larger story arc for later in the campaign. Thank you very much for the inspiration.
I saw the Stardust movie before I read the book. I really liked the fight scene with the witches there, really threw me for a loop.
I like the idea of witches using ritual magick and magickal objects. I can't remember who, but a certain TH-camr suggested having a hags spells come from various objects, like silence coming from a shrunken head that shrieks and drowns out the party's words.
I love the idea that witches don't have a lot of direct attacks but are able to manipulate the rules of the encounter.
I'm not experienced enough to do this yet but am looking into it.
Wiccapedia is a decent source for witchcraft info by the way.
In my setting I wanted the duality of them, which can be seen mythologically in some depictions of Baba Yaga and with some other similar characters, so I made their "species" Beldams and then had them split into two types, Hags and Witches, whenever a good witch is born her bad hag equal and opposite is to created, or vice versa. This further allows the witches to give good blessings which are followed by bad curses, or vice versa.
Even the most powerful of my witches Baba Misshka is still balanced out by her twin Baba Miroz.
My favourite take on witches that I use in my setting is based on Terry Pratchett’s ideas, where the most powerful aspect of a witch is in fact when they ARENT using magic (headology, for example), but beyond that their magic comes similar to druids, but in more of a flowing with and persuading (or tricking) the natural magical forces!
It's taking me twice as long to concentrate on the video bc that shirt is freaking awsome
I’m so mad I just discovered you from my friend Michelle. You’re undeniably brilliant in the most refreshing sense
Creating my own dark fantasy game system atm and was adding enemy mechanics just remembered your fabulous self and this video. Added a rule of 3 ruleset onto my witches with epic mild melting illusions. Thanks for existing and doing your thing. I look forward to having players questioning how many hags there are at every appearance. Though with illusions.....who can tell ;)
One movie that blew my mind about witches was Suspiria (2018). The lore on the 3 mothers (Suspiriorum, Lachrymarum and Tenebrarum ) became a big inspiration for my witches.
2 ideas I want to add:
1. When the party kills the witches, have there be a baby they can save, maybe the witches had it in some stage of preparation to cook or something. But after the party saves it and brings it with them, it begins growing at an abnormal rate, maybe somebody is having nightmares, etc. a paladin’s detect fiends will find that it is a baby witch. Fun way to throw the party a curveball.
2. I think gender swapping the witch trope is a good way to throw the party off. It’s strange and a bit sexist of fantasy and Tabletop RPGs that hags can only be female and wizards are considered typically male or inherently good. Have some female wise wizards in your games, have some male hags. Spice it up a bit :)
So magic is like the force in your games!
And this immediately made me think of the 90's Witches movie. All the nightmares. 😬
I love "vague and evocative" I've horribly stolen it now as a rpg writing design principle. Great discussion of witches, thanks, lots of good here!
Cant wait to incorporate this into my dnd game somehow. I did a ghost encounter following your video and my players LOVED it
I listen to TH-cam on my drive to work but I cant listen to Dael because I have to watch the expressiveness!
My favorite idea for a coven i just make them based on Disney villains and just never let your players in on it. Green hag being the Evil Queen shes nasty petty and changes her looks to lure the children, Sea hag clearly Ursula shes a fabulous bitch and you don't want to see her when shes not in drag, the Night hag is Maleficent always dressed like the queen of hell her win condition is you falling asleep.
Verry helpful advice as i am running a game with a coven of Hags as the enemy. Especially the rule of three is something that I really like.
Idk, have you seen a 3.5 hag covey? Any three together - they are crazy powerful, hitting way above their CRs
I like the idea of turning the earthy coven vibes on their head, but keeping ablot of the theming the same otherwise. Like having three sisters who seemed to have a knack for magic, odd medicine, and practical problem solving. Eventually they became the "council" of a barony (the first title of it's kind) to signify their equal footing in ruling from a (literal) ivory tower. Sort of a "hiding in plain sight" in their own wizard's tower, looming over the city, unsuspectic and trusted, despite how... Eerily right they always seem. And how they finish each other's sentences in an off putting way. Among other things.
I really love the idea of witches having a different kind of older magic. It reminds me of Pratchett (although I know the idea predates him). I'm working on trying to tie in witches with the Fey realm in my setting.
Ok that's just scary, my current character has the patience and impulse control of a 2 year old who experienced a very deep loss (specifically her connection to the feywild was severed) and my D6 which happens to be orange delivered a 3
The way I deal with witches in my setting is sort of like a twisted druid.
They're using the magic of nature, but instead of it being gifted or granted or borrowed, like in the druid's case, its taken, stolen or twisted in some way.
I’m planning to name the 3 witches in the Amber Temple in Curse of Strahd after my grandma and her two sisters so it’s easier to differentiate each of them and also because I think my grandma and Aunts have names that would fit. Their names are Gabrielle, Diana, and Valentina.
The only problem with this fir me is that I have a party of 2. A bard and a Rouge.
I don’t know anyone has ever mentioned that your expressions remind me a lot of Keira Knightley’s. It just hit me.
I love these cold opens so much haha
I usually don't comment on TH-cam; but I have to let you know all videos I've watched so far have been great inspirations! Keep it up!
I wrote up some Witch rules the other day! They're based on a new Tool Kit and a feat to perform magic in a low magic setting.
To be fair, fortune tellers are rarely presented as good or evil, just the neutral party passing on possibly bad unreliable intel for the hero or heroes to act upon, some will be given a sinister edge by making them seem to enjoy passing along band news or ill omens. Some can legitimately be the villain but, this is usually the result of a major character or neutral party provoking the fortune teller into hostile action. Just my thoughts
I love the idea of a bottled sliver of light or stroke of luck, I'm definitely stealing it, thank you! Also, while characters I play are usually decent people, they're also waaay too superstitious to interfere in a witch trial.
You could go further:
Did you roll a die with numerals or with pips? That's significant to the reading somehow.
Did you roll a basic cubic d6, or something fancier? That's significant to the reading somehow.
Did you roll a numbered die, or something different that just happens to fit the description, like a Boost or Setback die from Genesys/SWRPG or one of the dice from King of Tokyo? Well that's significant too.
I actually have a Hexblood Artificer concept I made for a PC who's a "Witch" and he uses the Weird Magic of normal Faerun Hags, like, if he has magic missile, welp, hope you like a jar of bees being thrown in your face, or if you're the archer, I hope you like the idea of your bow being human fucking hair, FROM HIS HEAD, it's delightful and I love it... haven't played it yet, but yea
This Halloween, I'm dressing as the coolest character of all..... Omar!
Serious brain envy going on over here. Thanks again for another awesome video!
Throwing the Bones:
Group Dynamics
*Two numbers match* - "two of you are more closely tied than you know"
*Majority of numbers match* - "one of you is an outsider within your own party," "one rises above the others"
*One 6 and one 1* - "fond fortunes for some, ill for others"
*Two sets of matching numbers* - "your number divided"
*Numbers in sequence* - "steadfast unity among you"
*No discernable patterns* "you allow your difference to hold you back"
Individual color
*Red/pink* - someone important to you
*Orange/brown* - impatience
*Yellow/gold* - corruption
* Green* - self doubt
*Blue* - strength in hardship
*Black/grey* - sorcery
*White* - mercy
*Clear* - personal change
*Ill defined* - indecision
Individual Roll
1. Disaster
2. Betrayal
3. Loss
4. Temptation
5. Justice
6. Sacrifice
I took a blank D12 and painted the 12 calendar runes from a text book entitled "Celtic Magic" upon it. So I suppose I can literally use dice as runes. Feel free to steal this idea.
Also I might use this in my anti magic campaign, the party has already agreed the inquisition is bad so some terrifying witches might complicate things. Tho I’ll probably not use that encounter idea, my party would die very fast
Looooove the dice rolls = tarot idea! So evocative!
Edit: "Yup! That's all we are!" XD
The lore content that you add to RPG/DND communities is amazing. Thank you for all that you do!
Yo I just had a full on heart attack listening to this video again and hearing my name. I must have missed it the first time, goodness golly that was a surprise.
Hoo, I need a nap that spooked me.
Dael makes everything better 🖤🧙
As well as manipulating destiny, for which they have to have divinatory spells/powers, it seems to me that there is something supremely personal about how they were believed to operate - not with pseudo-scientific/sociopathic detachment like your Sarumany wizards, just experimenting heartlessly, but being very emotionally driven, and intensely interested in the people in their neighbourhood, upon whom they can visit curses in the form of giving false warnings or clues about forthcoming events, or just withholding information they need to avoid misfortunes and tragedies. Their magic making should be very personalised in terms of people and relationships around themselves, as well as infused with hatred, jealousies, grudges and so on. The only problem with that is the sheer amount of backstory writing and integration required when writing all other npcs as well. With your ordinary wizard, he or she only needs their spellbook, because they're just doing technology of a kind, tweaking the universe slightly in specific ways, whereas everything witches do is contingent on life histories, grievances, rivalries and so forth. Wizards don't have to know anything about anyone as they adventure, but witches can't be understood or predicted, or foiled in most instances, without finding out all manner of local history and legends. They aren't doing flashy pyrotechnics. They're being much more insidious.
Speaking of Hags and Babba Yaga because they key into the Cthonic triad of Maid, Mother and Crone, there's also the relationship to ogres and changelings to consider, because they aren't just stealing children to eat or poisoning children from afar out of some old familial grudge, but they're also twisting children to create human monsters.