Character Creation Challenge: Quest of the Ancients

So an interesting thing happened this week.  I posted my Rhianon character for AD&D 1st Edition and I was pointed to a Dragonlance adventure that featured a very thinly veiled version of Stevie Nicks! Well, you could imagine my surprise at that.  Then double that I tracked down the said adventure, DL15 Mists of Krynn, to discover it was written by none other than Other Side favorite and the only guy more obsessed with witches than me, Vince Garcia.

I grabbed the adventure and read it through.  Yup. Totally Stevie Nicks. 

This got me thinking.  The adventure is low-level, deals with a powerful witch, but one that is here to help the party, not fight them. 

It also deals with a witch traveling across the planes. 

Seems like a perfect fit for my War of the Witch Queens campaign!

The adventure was written in 1988, so a little bit before Garcia's publication of the "Druids of Rhiannon" Dragon Issue #155 and his Magnum Opus, Quest of the Ancients.  Given the Stevie-like character on the cover of both editions of his game, it seemed certain that they were somehow related.

The Game: Quest of the Ancients

I will admit I am rather fond of this game.  I spent some time talking about it in the past here so you can read all of those posts for more detail. But suffice to say that this game is a Fantasy Heartbreaker in the classic sense, still though I can't help but be fond of it.

The Character: Sarana

So there is a character in DL15 Mists of Krynn, Stevie, who really is a very, very thinly veiled version of Stevie Nicks. Now I am totally fine with that. But she isn't the only one. On the cover of the 1st Edition of Quests of the Ancients, pictured above, is Sarana. She is the one in the pink dress.  She is also a thinly disguised version of Stevie Nicks.  In the book she is listed as a 20th level Witch/Bard, but no other stats are given.

The Second Edition/Printing cover makes this a bit more obvious.

And if that wasn't enough, here is the dedication found in both printings.

Again, I am right there with him on this. He even mentions Dark Shadow's Angelique here and then again in REF5 Lords of Darkness as an NPC vampire. 

Sarana is an interesting case.  I can be perfectly ok with the idea that Sarana from QotA and Stevie in Dragonlance are one and the same. Sure, Stevie is listed as a grey elf and Sarana as a human.  One or other of those could be glamours or disguises.  I am likely to say elf or half-elf.  

Now "how" do I get her there? Well for that let us follow the story of her co-cover girl Raven TenTolliver.  I gave some insight to her goings-on in this post of her appearance in the Forgotten Realms.  Raven has been known as "Raven," "Whisper," and even "Rhiannon" (!) over her years.  It looks like in the Forgotten Realms book, LC1 Gateway to Ravens Bluff, she is largely retired and runs an inn.  You can read some of the details here, here (lifting words from LC1), and a bit on the Inn she runs in Ravens Bluff.  While retired she was a 25th level witch/20th level assassin!

So Raven left her group of adventures and then settles in Ravens Bluff in the Forgotten Realms, Sarana finds her way to Krynn, where she gets trapped and is sometimes known as Stevie. I split the difference and made her into a half-elf. She is a follower of the Faerie Goddess Rhiannon.  Given this I *might* have her in the Feywild and not Krynn.  I need to read over the adventure more to see. 

Sarana (Quest of the Ancients)
13th level Half-Elven Witch

Armor rating: 0
Tactical move: 10'
Stamina points: 68
Body points: 15

Stots: St 10; Ag 13; Cn 15; IQ 18; Ch 19; Ap 19: Lk 7

Attack 1
Combat phase: 3
Dmg: 1D4+1 (dagger) or by spell
Ethics: G
Size: 5'1", 125#

Witch Abilities
A: Create Focus ()
B: Additional Combat Skill Slot (2 for 4 total)
C: Create Potions and Elixers
D: Form Coven

Skills (180 pts)
Animal Handling: 40%
Nature Lore: 60%
Calligraphy: 40%
Danger Sense: 10%

Spells

Rank 1: Beguile, Catfall, Evil Eye, Helping Hands, Lirazel's Silent Scream, Magic Dart, Read Magic Script, Slumber, Trick, Witch Warrior
Rank 2: Discern Magic, Enchant Bracers, Fire Darts, Fire Tounge, Net, Night Sight, Stone Speak, Tell Sight, Witch Wand
Rank 3: Charm, Crystallomancy, Energy Blast, Laughing Skull, Sheet Lightning, Spirit Talk, Witch Mark
Rank 4: Hex, Illusion, Shape Change, Shooting Stars, Transform, Witches Eye
Rank 5: Cauldron of Magic, Lirazel's Pocket Dimension, Polymorph, Witchfire
Rank 6: Aura of Fear, Control Weather, Pentagram of Protection, Talisman
Rank 7: Vision Globe, Witch Ward

That's a lot of spells.

For my War of the Witch Queens, I made D&D witch stats for her too.

Character Creation Challenge

Tardis Captain is the originator of this idea and he is keeping a list of places participating.  When posting to Social Media don't forget the #CharacterCreationChallenge hashtag. 

RPG Blog Carnival

This month's RPG Blog Carnival is being hosted by Plastic Polyhedra. They are doing Characters, Stories, and Worlds, so that fits right in with everything we are posting this month.

Check out all the posts going on this month at both of these sources.

Quest of the Ancients: The Obscure Fantasy RPGs Appreciation Day

"Look upon this, old-schoolers, and know that this path has been tread before." -  Jeff Grubb

Today is The Obscure Fantasy RPGs Appreciation Day hosted by Mesmerized by Sirens.

On this day I want to go back over some ground I have tread before.  Today I want to talk about Vince Garcia's magnum opus Quest of the Ancients.

QotA was the topic of one of my A to Z posts a few years ago. http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2011/04/q-is-for-quest-of-ancients.html. It seems I was not the only one to use it for Q, Jeff Grubb posted about it the same year and Charlie Warren the year after.   There is surprisingly little information out there about this game.  The Wikipedia article is sparse and the RPGNet database entry only has the basics.  There is very, very little else on the web and the author, Vince Garcia, seems to have no net presence I can find.  Plus there is no legal pdf of it out there. In fact if you search for "Quest of the Ancients"  + "legal PDF" you will only find me asking for it on RPG.Net.  I would also like to find a copy of the 2nd edition print.  It has different (and better) cover art but that is all I know for sure.  I have heard it was never printed and in other places I have heard it is longer by a few pages.  No idea.

So, obscure? Yeah. It has it in droves.
I don't even remember where I learned about it.  I am pretty sure I know how and about when though.
I was finishing up my very first netbook on Witches for AD&D 2nd ed and I wanted to collect all the AD&D  compatible witch classes that were ever made.  My idea was I was going to play test all the classes with the same character (same background and stats) and see how they all played out.  Something I still do to this day. I discovered the Judges Guild Witch Class and was not overly thrilled with it.  Somehow I discovered or was told about Quest of the Ancients. I picked up a copy on eBay and that was that.

Quest of the Ancients can be best described as an AD&D clone, an AD&D add on or as a collection of someone's AD&D house rules.  The author, Vince Garcia, had some publications before QotA came out including some material for AD&D2 and White Wolf magazine.  So he was not new to this. In deed the copyright date on this book lists 1982, so some form of these rules were around at least then.  Likely it was a collection of house rules.  What I noticed though right away was the Witch Class.

Let's be 100% honest here.  Vince Garcia loves the Witch class as much as I do.  Really.  The book is easily 70-75% class material and the class that gets the most attention and the most text is the witch.  Before I get into that let me talk about what the book has.

We start out with the title/author page.  He dedicates the the book to "Miss Stevie Nicks".  Ok. So let me be honest here.  I get this. No, I really do.  That doesn't not make it weird. But I get it.  He also thanks "Angelique".  Yeah, I did the same thing.

The QotA game (and I am unsure if this is intended to be a seperate game or as thinly veiled add-on to AD&D) characters have nine (9) stats.  They are rolled differently depending on the race of the character and sometime the gender.  Nearly everyone has the same mins and maxes (1-20), but the different dice and pluses usually mean different mean, median and modal scores.   The big stat is IQ (Intelligence) since it determines how high level you can go.  The ability adjustments for these abilities are D&D standard (+0 for average up to +3 for 18 and beyond). Our abilities are Strength, Agility, Conditioning, IQ, Charm, Appearance, Luck, Stamina, and Body (which is the average of Strength and Conditioning).
The book covers the standard races (human, elf, dwarf, half-elf, gnome) and some ideas on how to make other races like the ogre or a "furrfoot" (halfing) work.  This bit is not bad advice really and certainly expands on the ideas of races.

Chapter 2 covers the classes.  This is the reason you buy this book.

There are  Fighter classes. These include the Cossack, Gladiator, Knight, Legionnaire, Rouge (not a thief), Saracen, Viking, and Woodsman.  Another group are the Tricksters which are the Assassin, Bard (with some spell-songs), Cutpurse (this is the thief), and Gypsy.  The gypsy is interesting since there is a difference between male and female gypsies.  The males are more like a Bard/Cutpurse/Rogue while the females are more witch-like.  Lastly we have all the  Spellcasters.  Each class is presented and all their spells follow after.  This includes the Druid (different from the AD&D one), Earth Priest, Necromancer, Sorcerer, and Witch.    The Necromancer is more akin to the original idea of a Necromancer, one that speaks to the dead.  He does have plenty of death-related spells.  The Sorcerer is a "do it yourself" sort of spell using class.  No spells are even listed for this class assuming the GM will make their own or use some "from magazines".

Let's talk about the Witch now.
Like I mentioned the classes take up pages 13 to 157 (of 214),  the witch has 52 of those pages. Who does that remind you of?
 She has a lot of new spells up to the 7th level and about five new powers. The witch is also the only class to get a detailed NPC. Actually she gets three.  The "Queen of Witches" Elvyra, her familiar and her chief handmaiden. The rules limit advancement to 20th level; Elvyra is 25th and Night (the handmaiden) is 23rd.   Look. I am the last person that can throw stones at this one OK.  Part of me is face-palming over this, and another part is impressed with the shear bravado of it.
Notably the "iconics" from the cover are not stated up anywhere in the book.
The Witch and Gypsy are both pretty interesting classes.  I think what happened here is the author wrote all this material for the Witch and then had a bunch of spells and ideas left over that used for the other classes.  Or maybe I am projecting too much.  Hard to say.

There are some interesting rules on multi-classing.  It reminds a little of the D&D4 Hybrid class rules.  Basically you advance in two classes at the same time, taking the more advantageous options.  The experience points are a little more than 75% of the two classes added together.  So on the average a multiclassed character takes 1.5 times longer to level up than a single class character.  Neat idea on paper, not sure how it works in reality.

The rest of the book goes by fast, really just enough to call it a complete game.  There is a chapter on skills. only a couple of pages really but for an AD&D Heartbreaker it has some neater ideas.  A chapter on Equipment, one on "the Adventure" and another on Combat.  The Combat is a d30 deal which is again interesting, but not one I would ever use to be honest.
You might think the Chapter on Magic would be longer than it is. But it is only about 3-4 pages.  Though there is some interesting ideas on magical research for all classes.
There are chapters on Rewards and some Monsters.  The only thing that sets it apart is the listing of female vs. male unicorns.  One (female) is white and good and the other (male) is black and not as good.
There is also a chapter on the campaign world of Islay.  It is a typical game world where lot of quasi medieval and semi-mythical lands are clumped together Xena-style.
There is some historical  detail about the worshipers of Brigit and his witches which made me smile.  Vince Garcia and I read a lot of the same books it seems.

In the end I can't dislike the game and I admire the author intents.
I am not likely to use anything from it really,  but it is a fun book to pick up a flip through. Plus I kinda like that there is not a whole bunch known about it.  Gives me the illusion that I am some sort of occult expert in a very narrow field of expertise.  I can pull on my old professor clothes and have a snifter of age brandy; "Islay you say? Let me tell you about the lands of Islay. Her unicorns, demons and most of all about the Witch Queen.  Yes. You must hear about the Witch Queen Elvyra..."

QotA: Elvyra Queen of Witches

While re-reading Quest of the Ancients I thought a good way to bring one of the few stated up characters back over to D&D via The Witch.   I also it might make for a nice homage if one of Vince Garcia's signature characters lived on with my rules.  Like I mentioned in my review of Quest of the Ancients it was obvious to me that we had read a lot of the same books, watched a lot of the same TV shows and listened to a lot of the same music to get to our respective witches.

Plus Elvyra has a connection to the Daughters of the Flame/followers of Brigit. So she has a "hook" in both games.

Here she is in both sets of stats, Elvyra (pronounced "EL-veer-uh" according to the book) the Queen of Witches.  In Vince Garcia or anyone with a copyright claim wants me to remove this then of course I will.

Elvyra -- Queen of Witches (25th level witch)
Quest of the Ancients stats
Armour rating: 0 (-5)
Tactical move: 10' or as applicable in different form
BAR: 17/10/54
Stamina paints: 70
Body points: 13
Stots: St 12; Ag 20: Con 14; IQ 20; Ch 20: Ap 20: Lk 19
Attack 1
Dmg: 1D4+5 (dagger) or by spell
Ethics: I
Size: 6' tall
Special note: Shape change at will; possesses Artifact of Power-the Scarlet Flame: her symbol is a 4-armed spiral, eagle or hummingbird.

Elvyra appears as a tall elf with flaming red hair, typically attired in blue and white with a red sash but her waist. Upon her head she wears a silver crown over which floats large emerald acting as a device that doubles her 1st-3rd rank spell slots. She thus possesses 40 slots of each of these spell ranks, and 20 slots each of ranks 4th-7th
The flame removed from the temple was later enchanted into her wand focus, creating an Artifact of Power known as the Scarlet Flame. It appears as a wood and silver scepter with a huge ruby set into its tip, containing a burning name within. The wand absorbs all spells directed at the possessor, converting their ranks into potential that regenerates any stat loss, similarly to the Mind Sapphire of Serpen. In addition, the wielder is able to use any fire-based spell at the 35th level of skill at a cost of 1 charge off the wand per spellrank, castable in a single phase.
Elvrya's rarely used melee weapon consists of a BF 5 unicorn horn dagger, which provides the further benefit of making her immune to poison and disease of any sort.
One interesting fact about her relates to her ability to shape change (as per the witch spell) at will. When she remains in a single form, her eyes change color each minute.
The Queen has existed in legend since the dawn of time, and most believe that if she yet lives, she and her followers no longer remain on the Nexus, but instead dwell with their goddess, the Queen of Faerie, within Her enchanted realm. Nevertheless, some have claimed to have encountered the Witch Queen in the midst of isolated sylvan woodlands, and in a rugged area of volcanoes in Naz-Al. It is even been reported that she frequents the Witchwood, a forest in Avalon, but this story is given little credence.
If she is encountered, she will either be accompanied by her familiar, her chief handmaiden or both (20%/30%/50%). Last of all, Elvyra is believed to know lost spells that are vastly more powerful than many used today.

Elvyra - Queen of Witches (25th level witch)
The Witch stats

Strength:	12		Death Ray, Poison	5
Dexterity:	18		Magic Wands	6
Constitution:	14		Paralysis, Polymorph or Turn to Stone	5
Intelligence:	18		Dragon Breath	8
Wisdom:	18		Rods, Staffs, Spells	7
Charisma:	18

Hit Points: 55
Alignment: Neutral
AC: 1 (Bracers of Defense)

Occult Powers (Faerie Tradition)
Familiar: White Dragon Tiger
7th level: Speak to Plants/Animals
13th level: Fae Shape
19th level: Curse
25th level: Shape Change

Spells
Cantrips (7): Alarm Ward, Daze, Detect Curse, Object Reading, Open, Spark, Warm
First (7): Bewitch I, Cause Fear, Command, Faerie Fire, Minor Fighting Prowess, Sleep, Spirit Dart
Second (7): Alter Self, Biting Blade, Blast Sheild, Enthrall, Evil Eye, Hold Person, Phantasmal Spirit
Third (6): Astral Sense, Bestow Curse, Continual Fire, Feral Spirit, Fly, Improved Faerie Fire
Fourth (6): Air Walk, Betwitch IV, Dance Macabre, Neutralize Poison, Spiritual Dagger, Withering Touch
Fifth (5): Anti-Magic Candle, Blade Dance, Dream, Primal Scream, Song of Discord
Sixth (5): Break the Spirit, Control Weather, Find the Path, Moonbow, True Seeing
Seventh (4):  Ball of Sunshine, Breath of the Goddess, Etherealness, Serpent Garden
Eighth (4): Astral Projection, Greater Mislead, Mystic Barrier, Wail of the Banshee

In my games Elvyra didn't steal Brigit's Flame, but rescued it.   There is still a long standing cold war between the Queen of Witches and the Daughters of the Flame covens (the Eula want to forgive her, the Brenna want her to pay for what they still feel is the theft of the flame), though both factions of the coven want a better accounting on how she made the wand the Scarlet Flame.


Oh and if you don't have this song going through your head while reading this then you are not as old school as you think you are.

100 Days of Halloween: DL15 Mists of Krynn

When I talk about witches and D&D one of the last places that usually comes to mind is Krynn and Dragonlance. BUT believe it or not, there are some strong connections between my witches and the first Dragonlance Trilogy.  Usually this can be summarized with me thinking that "this could use some more witches" where the "this" is the trilogy.  Witches are mentioned in the first book but that was only a tease.

So. How does DL15 Mists of Krynn fit into all of this? Glad you asked.

DL15 Mists of Krynn

PDF. 128 pages. Color covers and maps. Black & white interior. 

This book contains 12 mini-adventures (pages 2 to 100), nine discussions on various creatures and races unique to Krynn with adventure hooks or lairs, and eight NPCs. I printed the monster section out and stuck it into my Dragonlance Monstrous Compendium binder.

I am going to be upfront here and say this is not a review of the entire book, but rather just of the mini adventure The Tanglewood Keep, and I'll briefly touch on one of the NPCs, Ladonna.

The Tanglewood Keep

This adventure is a basic MacGuffin hunt, but it has some nice features about it. First off it was written by a friend of the Other Side Vince Garcia. I have featured his Quest of the Ancients RPG many times here.  Secondly, while the adventure is simple, that is its greatest strength. It is not really about the quest to find a stone, it is about getting the PCs from their home world (Greyhawk or now the Realms) to Krynn via the magic mirror in the adventure.

The characters are introduced to kender, tinker gnomes, and draconians in short order. They get the full Dragonlance introduction before the mud on their boots from their home world is even dry.  

I ran this one for my family at home and at Gen Con 2021 and in no short order they all wanted to kill poor Twil Topknot! It was a fun adventure and I am glad I got to do it.

The book itself does have an "Adventure Path" feel about it with adventures to take the characters from the 1st to 15th level. Tanglewood Keep is for adventurers of 1st to 3rd level. If you want to play in Krynn and don't want to do the War of the Lance, or do what I did and have it as a "background noise," then this is a good choice.

This adventure also introduces us to the magic-user cough*witch*cough Stevie. I'll get to her later.

Ladonna

I admire the layout of this book. Everything is rather modular with the monster/race bits fitting on a front and back page (reading the PDF) and the NPCs fitting one per page. It makes printing this out rather convenient.

Ladonna is another entry from Vince. She is a 17th-level black robe (aka evil) wizardess. But you would be forgiven if you read her entry and didn't think she was a witch. I mention her here since, well she is witchy and from Vince Carcia.

Stevie aka Sarana

In the adventure, we meet Stevie. She is a 12th-level white-robed Grey Elf wizard. Given the adventure is for characters levels 1 to 3 there is no way the PCs are going to mess with her. Her description is pretty much Krynn's Stevie Nicks. I mean she is better qualified to go get her rock than the characters are. So is Twill for that matter. But none of that is important really. What is important is the fact she is here. 

Stevie also has a not-too-coincidental resemblance to another Garcia character, this time it is Sarana from his Quest of the Ancients.  

For my run of this, I combined Stevie (grey-elf) and Sarana (human) into one character, Sarana (half-elf). Seriously if I had pulled out a witch-like character named Stevie in front of my family they never would have taken her seriously. They know who I am.  Much like the PCs, Sarana is trapped here from her own world. Unlike the PCs she has decided to remain.

War of the Witch Queens hook

At the end of the adventure Sarana/Stevie tells the group she fears the Queen is dead.

Honestly. If I never get to the other adventures these NPCs, the little adventure, and the monster pages has all made this a great choice for me. 

Q is for Quest of the Ancients

Q is for Quest of the Ancients, an RPG I discovered back in the days when I was getting "out of" D&D and looking for something else.

Quest of the Ancients can be described as a D&D clone, a D&D add on or as a collection of someone's house rules.  The author, Vince Garcia, had some publications before QotA came out including some material for AD&D2 and White Wolf magazine.  So he was not a noob to this.

QotA fills that same slot of near-D&D that you will sometimes find other games living in. Similar to the Atlantean series from Bard Games.  Lejendary Adventures is one that comes to mind as well.

Why did I pick it up?  Simple, it was advertised as having the most complete Witch class ever made.  I forget where I read that, but I knew I had to pick up a copy.  So I did. I was a bit underwhelmed, but there were some good bits.

While the game certainly has it's impressive moments, it never struck me as bringing anything new to my table.  I liked the Gypsy class, the Witch class was interesting, but everything else seemed like a poor-man's copy of AD&D.  There were a ton of classes in this book, something like 15 or more, and a bunch of spells.

I want to talk about the witch class for a bit.  Now in general I liked the witch.  Garcia was obviously pulling from some of the same books I was when he wrote up his witch.  Also (and you can tell by looking at the cover) this was a thinly-veiled attempt to have a "Stevie Nicks" character class.  I can't say I disapprove of that.  There was also a gypsy class which was divided into Male and Female gypsy.  I kinda made sense, kinda didn't.  I see what the author was trying to do, but I don't think it worked out as well as he liked.

I have always wanted to pick up the second edition.  I don't know if much has changed in it, but the cover art is much better (featuring the same characters).

I like this cover to be honest.  The Witch looks more like Stevie Nicks than ever and the wizard looks like he has gained a few levels.

I have wanted to get this, but can't actually bring myself to buy it until I see what some of the differences are between the editions.  I am hoping that there is something here above and beyond the first edition, but I am fairly sure there is not.    In the beginning of the 90's this might have been a cool game to play, but today it looks a little a dated.  A+ for effort though.

Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quest_of_the_Ancients
http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=8756

Buy
Noble Knight Games (best place to get it really)

ETA: And check out Jeff Grubb, also doing QotA for his Q post.  http://grubbstreet.blogspot.com/2011/04/q-is-for.html

Witch & Witchcraft Reading Challenge: The History of Witchcraft

For this Witch & Witchcraft Reading Challenge I "read" (listened to) two shorter books that covered roughly the same topic.  The first was "The History of Witchcraft", written by Lois Martin and narrated by Brogan West.  The second was "Witch Mania: The History of Witchcraft", written by Charles Mackay and narrated by Greg Wagland. Witch Mania is actually part of the Charles Mackay's 1841 book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, which I covered another version of back in January as "Witch: A Tale of Terror".
So for these reasons I am going to classify this as one reading, not two.

The differences in the books are largely one of the historical perspectives.  The older 1841 "Witch Mania" book takes an interestingly pro-science approach that is congruent to the time's own growing industrialism and embrace of science.  "The History of Witchcraft" includes the findings of, subsequent dismissal of those findings of, Margret Murray's Witch Cult thesis.  History also covers the then new "The Triumph of the Moon" by Ronald Hutton.  But nothing is given in detail.

Mackay's 1841 book reads and feels like something written today to be honest.  There are only tidbits of information that would let on that it is not.  Though the perspective is still one of "those poor superstitious peasants".  Martin's 2007 book is a bit newer in it's topics, but the perspective has not shifted very much.

Both books come down on the side of this all being delusion by the participants with some mention of how to properly view historical events through the lens of the times they were in.
Both books cover many of the same horror stories that are familiar to anyone that spends time reading these tales.  A couple of interesting bits for me was the idea of how localized many of these accounts are.  These were common fears that involved local people on a global stage.  The newer "History" (2007) spent some time talking about how this was part and parcel the change over from superstition to rationalism.  Also, it seems there is a new push to see the witch trials as largely a secular issue rather than a purely ecclesiastical one. More on this when I cover the next history book on my list.

Both of these books came from Audible.
http://www.audible.com/

2017 Witch & Witchcraft Reading Challenge
Books Read so far: 13
Level: Mother
Witches in this book: Again, millions or none.
Are they Good Witches or Bad Witches: All were innocent in my mind. At least innocent enough to not warrant a capital offense.
Best RPG to Emulate it: Again, not the best question, but I would love to play a "Burning Times" RPG using WitchCraft.
Use in WotWQ: I will bring some of these ideas to the campaign, certainly the witch hunters and the paranoia.


RPG Carnival Post
Using witches, magic and occult practices in your games.
Both of these books got me thinking about how witches and the occult could be viewed in a game that is already full of magic.

The main feature of both of these books is fear. Fear of the unknown and fear of the very real and very known Devil.  Witches, no matter the stripe, are something to be hated and feared.
This also begs another question. Are Witches really Witches without the persecution?

In most fantasy role-playing games there are wizards, clerics and a host of spellcasters. Even "grimdark" games like Dungeon Crawl Classics and Lamentations of the Flame Princess have their spellcasters and they are, despite their "otherness" still part of a social unit of adventurers.  The witch, when she is included, often becomes another type of spellcaster. In the cases of AD&D 2, D&D 3 and D&D 4 she was merely a type of wizard.  Third party books have made strides to cleave the witch class to the historical witch, or at lease the fairy tale witch.  The RPG Quest of the Ancients, despite it's "Heartbreaker" status has done some rather interesting things with witches.

One thing I have done in my own games is to set up a dichotomy of magic. There is the "state" sanctioned magic used by wizards and the "church" sanctioned magic used by clerics.  Casters will fall, mostly, into one of these two realms. It is assumed that the powers in charge of these realms will police their own.  "Witches" are those that fall outside of these realms and their magic is somehow "outlaw" or "other".

Both history books mentioned above make a point of detailing both the religious and secular nature of the witch trials. This can be emulated in many RPGs with the method I also mention, with a secular or state wizard working with the church or spiritual clerics working to stop the "Evil" witches.  I say evil in quotes since an evil cleric, in this case, would still see they have more in common with a good cleric (both worship gods) than a witch.

I have done this to great effect with witches and psychic characters in my games over the years. In fact, witches had become so numerous in my games that I had to redo how psionic characters were dealt with my games just to set up this "other".

For all of it's outward appearances, D&D and games like it are not medieval Europe. The polytheism of most worlds is really at odds with the notion of Feudalism.  This lack of a monotheist faith, and interrelated government, really makes for a lack of a designated "evil enemy" for this church/state to fight against.   If there is no enemy there is no enemy secrets, cults or conspiracies.   In my mind the best enemies of society are the ones that seek to destroy it.
Maybe there is a cabal of evil (unsanctioned) wizards or a cult of warlocks.

For me, witches are the most interesting when they are slightly outside of the norm.  In modern parlance, they can be the terrorists OR (maybe AND) the Social Justice Warriors.

But I have always been fans of the outsiders, the strange and the different.

Class Struggles: The Necromancer

Very, very few classes or class concepts have been gone over more than the Necromancer.  For a class that was never part of the original game, and never actually a proper class in it's own right, a lot of ink and pixels have been spent on this class.  So much that I am sure to miss things and might even need a part 2.  Where do we start?

Well to begin with what exactly is a necromancer and what is it that appears in so many games?
Taken from the Greek a necromancer is someone that communes with the dead. So spells like Speak to Dead are a good example.  Historical necromancers, like for example John Dee, spoke to the dead to get advice. or foretell the future.   In modern parlance and certainly in games (maybe one caused the other) necromancy has come to mean a wizard that controls or manipulates the forces of death and unlife.

The easiest Necromancer is simple.  Play a Wizard/Magic-User and then only choose necromancy spells.  Wear a lot of black and hang out with undead.  This is also a very satisfying necromancer since all the trappings have to be role-played.  Alternately one could play a cleric of a god of death, take only reversed necromancy spells and command instead of turn undead.
I think though as time wore on people wanted something that wa little bit of both.

The first, or at least one of the first was from White Dwarf Magazine #22 from December 1980/January 1981.  Lew Pulsipher gives us an article about evil priests, the "Black Priests".  While these are more cultist, there is a lot of necromancy being thrown around.  This is followed by a true necromancer class also by Pulsipher in issue #35 from November 1982.  Either of these classes is fine and represent the design philosophy of the times.  Namely take and rearrange already familiar elements.  The Black Priest and this Necromancer have the same shortcomings though; a reliance of human sacrifice.

The Necromancer is turned up to 11 with the publication of Dragon #76 in August 1983 and Len Lakofka's death master class.  Designed to be an "NPC Class only" I remember seeing it first in the pages of Best of Dragon Magazine Vol. 3.  I admit, I rolled up a death master right away.  He became a major antagonist in my games for many years to come.

In AD&D1 the example of the Illusionist gave birth to the speciality wizards of 2nd Ed.  One of those speciality wizards was the Necromancer.  This continues in practice to the most current version.  Though unlike the Illusionist, the Transmuter or even the Evoker, the Necromancer got it's own book.  The Complete Book of Necromancers was one of those books that everyone seemed to want.  I remember picking it up back when it was first published. I paid $15 for it.  Later the cover price jumped to $18 and soon it became very rare. No idea why.  The aftermarket price jumped considerably and I ended up selling mine on eBay back in 2000 for $81. Not a bad deal really.   I recently picked up a copy at Half-Price Books for $9.  The PDF just about the same price.  Though the book is crammed full of necromancer goodies. Spells, magic items, undead familiars.

Moving out into the world of Fantasy Heartbreakers there is the near-compatible Quest of the Ancients.  This necromancer reads like the Death Master, but has some interesting spells and some powers.  The Arcanum/Bard Games also has a necromancer class.

3.x had, at the last time I looked, at least 3 different kinds of official Necromancer classes.  The two best are from Libris Mortis: The Book of Undead and Heroes of Horror.  Heroes of Horror featured the rather popular Dread Necromancer class.  There is also the Death Master class from Dragon updated to 3.0e.  The Crypt Lord from the aptly named Necromancer Games. Not to mention dozens of others from other third party publishers.  Most take the same elements and reorganize them, but every so often something new is produced.

4e had necromancers as well. It was a type of wizard (much like the witch was) and was introduced in the Player's Option: Heroes of Shadow book.  It had some rather neat features to it as well.

For the OSR things are really no different, dozens of different types and sorts of necromancers. I am only going to talk about a few.

One of the simplest also belongs to one of the simplest OSR games.  Basic Fantasy has a necromancer class on their downloads page for free.  It has a lot of spells and weighs in at an appropriate 13 pages.

I would have to say one of my favorites, at least in terms of style, is the one from Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea.  The necromancer here is cut from the "evil cultist" mold like their warlock and has a lot of great spells and powers.

Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts also has a great necromancer and the big feature of this class (and this book) is the number of spells.  While this book as more spells, the AS&SH class is slightly better in terms of what I want. Right along with that is the necromancer from the great Theorems & Thaumaturgy. A basic class, but some really nice spells.

Another really cool one in terms of how the necromancer is presented is the one from Adventures Dark & Deep.  Darker Paths 1: The Necromancer is certainly in the vein of the "this is an evil class" but +Joseph Bloch makes no bones about the fact that players will be playing these as evil characters.  It's sort of the point of his "Darker Paths" series. In that respect this is a good one to pick up just to get some ideas on how to play an evil character.  Plus it has some unique spells.

Back at home I have most of these printed out and put into a folder.  I also have a number of character sheets of all the different types of necromancers.  Basically I have six characters with two sheets each; a 3.x sheet and an OSR compatible one (the five above and an old fashioned MU with necromancy spells).  This gives me 12 different sorts of necromancers for 6 characters.  I call them the Order of Six based on a group I introduced in my Buffy games.  I am planning on using them as my bad guys in my games, but right now I am only playing 5e! So I can't really judge how well they all work.  Similar to what I did with the Witch's Nest.  Sounds like a plan to me.

By the way. My son has a 5e game he is in charge of.  He has a 15th level necromancer in that game and it is wicked.

I feel like there is alot more to say but I have only scratched the surface.

What is your favorite necromancer class?

Witch Books, Part 5. Other games

For D&D4:  The Witch Player Class
A decent witch class for D&D4.  Predates the witch that appears in Heroes of the Feywild by a few years, but is roughly compatible.

For Witch Girls Adventures: Original Witch Girls (OWG)
The comic that came before the RPG. The first 200 or so pages are comic content of various artists, but all in the WitchGirls School and world.  The next dozen or so pages is the Coventry School written up for the Witch Girls RPG. And we end with WGA write-ups for all the characters that appeared in the comics.
One of the great things about the Witch Girls game are the characters.  So this is a nice treat really.
If you are a fan of the game and want some more NPCs for your own school or need some ideas on adventure then this  is a great book to have.

For Colonial Gothic: Witchcraft
I enjoy the Colonial Gothic game quite a bit. I love how it weaves the earliest American history with horror and monsters.
I was set to like this book quite a bit and I do, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't quite what I was expecting given how much I enjoyed all the other CG books.
This book gives us Witchcraft for the CG world and it does a great job of researching, but it only gives us the "evil" sort of witchcraft associated with summoning demons.  Granted, that is perfectly fine for this game.  I think I wanted to see a little more.
The first half deals with Witchcraft in the CG world and is great.  The second half is from the writings of King James and frankly he was more than just little bit paranoid.
In the end it is still a good book for the game and something to grab if you are interested in thoughts a views on witches of the time.
Of course for my own take, if you are going to assume that King Jame's witches are real then why not Margaret Murray's witches too?  I guess I just like having the option of playing a witch in my games.

For Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade: Witches and Pagans
A great resource for the Renascence era Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade.

For Mage: The Ascension:  Tradition Book: Verbena (1st) (Revised)
More Verbena goodness and more rotes based on the Verbena's sphere of Life.

Both are full of great background information on "witches" in the Mage game and are full of wonderful ideas and great art.  This is WW at their peak and there is so much care and detail here that I couldn't not get these books.

For Basic Role-Playing (Call of Cthulhu...):  BRP Witchcraft
I reviewed this one in detail here: http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/07/brp-witchcraft.html

Witch Hunter: the Invisible World
I reviewed this one in detail here: http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2011/03/review-witch-hunter-invisible-world.html

Quest of the Ancients
I have talked about this one before too: http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2011/04/q-is-for-quest-of-ancients.html
The witch in this book is roughly compatible with AD&D1.  Lots of new and fairly cool spells.

This Old Dragon: Issue #155

Ok this is an "emergency pick".  My basement got some water in it for the first time ever.  The only thing that was damaged was this issue.  So I am flipping through it now and tossing it when done.  I might end up tossing it before I am done, to be honest; it's in really bad shape.  So let's head back to March of 1990 for Issue #155 of This Old Dragon!

We have a cool cover from Carol Heyer. It features a little faerie in a faerie ring. It is an appropriate cover to our theme this issue.

Some ads for Spelljammer and a couple of TSR board games, The Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising. I had forgotten about those last two, to be honest.

Letters are first.   We get a request for the Witch from #114.  The eds remind the reader what issue it was in and no, it should not be used as a PC.  Don't worry, mine was almost done at that time.

Skip Williams is up with Sage Advice.  Mostly covering questions from the new Monstrous Compendiums.  Ah. We get to the Demons and Devils issue in AD&D 2nd Ed. The answer they give is:

The answer, in short, is at present there are no plans to include devils, demons, and similar creatures in the AD&D 2nd Edition game. ... The demons and devils in the old Monster
Manuals were a prime weapon in the campaign of misinformation directed against gaming, so they were dropped from the new edition. It's possible that demons and devils will be revised into a format that preserves their usefulness in adventure design and does not give the game's detractors cheap ammunition, but that format hasn't been found yet.

Another letter points out the error on the Vampire sheet, front and back are the same.

Next is our feature "Realms of the Faerie".

He had the Grugach elves introduced last week (Issue #67) now 7 years and 4 months later we get Wild in the Wood: The Point of View of the Grugach-Wild Elves by Eric Oppen.  The article is actually pretty cool talking about life amongst these almost primitive elves.

Denise Lyn Voskuil is next with four new deities in The Elfin Gods. They are Araleth Letheranil, lesser god of light.  Kirith Sotheril, lesser goddess of magic. Melira Taralen, lesser goddess of fine arts and finally Naris Analor, lesser god of healing, suffering, and death.   All these gods made to the present day.

Up next is the article I remember the best, In the Frost and Snow by David S. Reimer, introduces the Snow Elves.  I had also created a snow elf race back in the day, and there are some similarities here. All of which are due to the similar material we were drawing from.  But my snow elves were smaller than regular elves, his are taller. Also, mine tended to be pale-blue.   Still. A fun race that I like to use every so often.

Other Side favorite Vince Garcia is back, this time with The Folk of the Faerie Kingdom.  I must-read article if you ever plan on doing anything with the Faerie realms.  It is a nice long article and one I wish I could keep!  A little bit of Quest of the Ancients leaks into AD&D here with the inclusion of Rhiannon the Faerie Queen goddess and his "Druids of Rhiannon".  I appreciate Vince's obsessions here.

Gordon R. Menzies has The Ecology of the Satyr.  It's also good stuff. Now I want to play a half-Satyr bard!

Thank You for Your Cooperation is a survey for Top Secret/S.I. game by Jon Pickens.  I don't know enough of Top Secret history to know if this lead to something else.

The Game Wizards tries something new with Anne Brown, TSR previews ala gossip column.  It doesn't really work for me.

Another Other Side favorite Bruce Heard is back with another episode of The Voyage of the Princess Ark.  This time Part 3: To seek out new life and new civilizations.  Love the maps, but the maps have always been kind of a key feature of these articles.

Didn't read the fiction. Plus this issue is really getting on my allergies.

Gamers Guide covers all the small ads. There are a few Play by Mail games and ads here too.

Marvel-Phile has a couple character I know pretty well.  Captain Britain and Roma.  Captain Britain is a character that I always felt would translate well into a modern Ghosts of Albion game.  Roma is a Protector in all but name too.

Ah. Here are the TSR Previews.  Lots of Forgotten Realms stuff.  But this the Age of the Settings.

Jim Bambra reviews a few of the new Star War's games.

The Convention Calendar gives us the best cons of March and April 1990.  I swear there were more back then than now.

John C. Bunnell gives us some reviews of books.
Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser cover what's new for Macs in The Role of Computers. Most Macs were still monochrome at this point. Though I thought for sure there were some color ones.

Dragonmirth has a few artists and comics I am not all that familiar with.

Through the Looking Glass is completely soaked.  Eww.

So what do I have, save a huge mildew colony?  Well in truth a pretty cool issue.  Lots of great information on the fey and stuff I can still use today.

This Old Dragon: Issue #156

It's April 1990.  I am a Junior in University at this point and working on my very first psychology study (I compared incidents of violent imagery vs. sexual imagery in heavy metal and rap videos.  Conclusion: they both love sex. Gave me a solid appreciation of rap and hip hop).  Twin Peaks is on the TV for the first time ever. On my play list though is the newest Sinéad O'Connor album "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got". I even skipped Calculus to go get a copy of it and an extra one for my then best friend (and now my wife). What I didn't have and didn't want though was This Old Dragon Issue #156!

Ok. I didn't own this issue at the time. I knew about it of course. I believe, in fact, I am sure I first saw it at +Scott Thorne's Castle Perilous.  I didn't know how good I had it then, to be honest.

Does it feel like I am avoiding the issue? Yeah. I am.  It's an April Fools issue and not at all one of my favorite ones. Let's get into because there are some seriously nice gems later on.
The cover. Daniel Horne does some great work. This is not one of my favorites, but it is one is funny.  Besides, haven't we all made this joke or some form of it before?

Letters.  Ok, these are all fake letters in an attempt to be funny.  Yeah. Not so much really.

Ad for Dungeon magazine.  Man, I loved Dungeon.  Maybe when I am done with this I could something with Dungeon.

First up in the April Fools section is Not Necessarily the Monstrous Compendium. A collection of "funny" monsters.  Ok, some are fun and I would use them in a crazy adventure like an Expedition to the Barrier Peaks or something with a lot of mutants.

A cool ad for I.C.E.'s Cyber Space game.  Was anything more 90s than that?  Cyber Punk vampires maybe.

Razznarock! is an adventure.
Yet Even More [Gods Forbid] Outrages From the Mages is a Pages From the Mages spoof.

It's not that I don't like humor in my games, it's I just don't find these all that funny.

The Game Wizards covers the newest in computer games.  Mechwarrior from Activision, Champions of Krynn from SSI/TSR and Sword of the Samurai from Microprose.   This is less of a review and more of a "coming attractions".

Another ad, this one from TSR itself, from their book department.
They sponsored a Writing Workshop!  Looks kind of interesting.

I wonder if anything came of this?

Speaking of the book department. J. Eric Severson is up with Novel Ideas, featuring three new Forgotten Realms novels: Iron Helm, Horselords and the Wyvern's Spur.  Again this is half preview, half advertisement. In the 90s novels were TSR's big cash cow.  I personally never read any of the Forgotten Realms books (well, till this year) but I bought and read every single Ravenloft novel printed.  Hey some of those Ravenloft novelists went on much bigger and better things, P. N. Elrod, Christie Golden, Elaine Bergstrom, Tanya Huff and newcomer on the scene, Laurell K. Hamilton.  More on that when I cover those issues.

Other Side favorite Vince Garcia is up with Can You Swim? Juggle? At the Same Time? a new skill system for D&D.  Now this is for the D&D game. The BECMI version, not the new AD&D 2nd Ed game that had a skill system.  Like everything with D&D it is simple and easy to learn.
It is no where near as complicated as his magnum opus Quest of the Ancients might later imply.

Dale A. Donovan is up with the Marvel-Phile with a bunch of villains I have never, ever heard of.  They seem to be based on Alice In Wonderland.

Wrestling with Style is Greek wrestling adapted to AD&D by Janne Järvinen.  It seems to mostly be based on the Illiad, which of course is fine.  At this point I had read the Illiad about two years ago, but damned if I remember any of it.

Let see, a ballot for the Origins Awards for 1989.

Sage Advice is split by a program for the Gen Con Game Fair for 1990.

The whole thing is still really small.

TSR Previews has the "must buy" items for March and April 1990.

Characterization Made Easy: A little personality goes a long way for all characters comes to us from Scott Bennie and is a guide for giving your character some more personality. At three pages it is not exhaustive, but the tips are nice especially in what is essentially a Pre-Vampire the Masquerade world.

Interesting note.  All the adds on these pages for companies in Great Britain.  Made me wonder at first if I had a British edition of this magazine, but my CD-ROM version matches it.

Through the Looking Glass has some great horror minis to show off shading techniques.

Convention Calendar has a lot of cons to hit for the Summer of 1990.

Ken Rolston is next in Role-Playing Reviews.  There is something to notice here first.

The review is copyrighted by the author.   This comes up every so often when people ask whay can't Wizards do another Dragon CD-ROM (well, Blu-Ray ROM now) collection?  OR (and this is my least favorite) since TSR is gone all those old Dragons are in the public domain (no. they are not.)
In this case this little copyright hits on both of those.  WotC, just like TSR before them, does not have the rights to this article.  Sure they printed the first Dragon CD-ROM and they got into a LOT of trouble for it.
Also. If you are reading this right now the Dragon copyright will not "expire" till long after you are dead.  Sorry. I don't make the rules.

So back to the reviews.  These focus on City and Urban adventures.  Now I LOVED playing in cities at this time so this review was heaven-sent.  I grabbed Greyhawk Adventures: The City of Greyhawk and I totally ignored the Forgotten Realms: City System.  I should have gone the other way around.  Though both products have their positive and negative aspects.

The Role of Computers gives us a proper review of Champions of Krynn, saying it is the best AD&D computer game yet!

There are few pages missing from my issue so I turned to the CD-ROM to find that some barbarian had cut out +Bruce Heard's first installment of Voyage of the Princess Ark!  I think I am going to take one of my "This Old Dragon" days and do a retrospective on this.  I have been dying to see it all together in one place as a whole for some time now.  Alas for toady though I can't talk about it since it breaks my rules.  If it is not in the magazine I can't talk about it.

Missing is the first page of the Ecology of Behir. This would have been fun when my players ran into one recently.

Dragonmirth has a bunch of comics complete unfamiliar to me.  Well, I guess I know of Yamara and The Twilight Empire, but I really don't know anything about them.

So the April Fools stuff aside, this turned out to be a fun issue.
While it was published back in the Halcyon days of 2nd ed, it did not contain a lot of 2nd Ed material.  The Greater Behir was notable.

Even at 27 years old this Dragon, for some reason, still feels newer to me.  Maybe because I never owned it back when it was new or maybe because it was out in a time when I was not playing so much I don't attach a lot of nostalgia to it.

What are your memories of this issue?

Review: The Wicked Cauldron

Troll Lords has been putting out some quality products since the 3.x/d20 boom days.  This includes not only their own "house" system, Castles and Crusades but also some 3.x material back in the day.
Well now they are dipping their toes into 5th edition and I could not more pleased.

This past Gen Con I picked up their 5th edition version of their adventure A3 The Wicked Cauldron. I already had the C&C version and I wanted to see how they compared.  Especially since D&D 5 really has a lot of ideas that C&C started with.

The Castles & Crusades version is 24 pages and designed for 3-5 characters of 3rd to 4th level.
The Dungeons & Dragons 5e version is 40 pages (larger font) and for 3-5 characters of 3rd to 5th level.

I am reviewing the print and pdf versions.

The premise is a fairly simple one.  There is a ruined ziggurat in the Barren Woods that is the home to many foul things. It also has a long and evil history and currently is home to one of the fabled Witch Queens.  The PCs must investigate and stop her.

The adventure itself is particularly original, but that doesn't make it less fun.  There is a good balance of overland and dungeon exploring, plenty of new monsters to fight, a threat of an ancient evil.  Given that this module is coded "A3" should give you an indication it is part of a larger series, and it is.  It can be played as part of Troll Lords "A" series that began with "Assault on Blacktooth Ridge" and "Slag Heap" and continues in other Airhde products and adventures.  But it can also be played as a stand-alone adventure.
The adventure is very reminiscent of the old Basic adventures of the early 80s, especially B2 and B4.  In fact, it is almost a perfect mix of these two classic adventures.  So in the nostalgia department, it gets a perfect score from me.

My biggest issue with the PDFs and the Print versions are the maps are fairly small.  I can redo them on my own and larger, but having something I can print out or read easier would be nice.

The 5th edition conversion is good and really, C&C is so close to D&D5 as to almost make the conversion unnecessary, but still I did enjoy looking through both to find the subtle differences.  The most interesting changes were to the Witch Queen herself.

The Witch Queen, Neb–Eprethat, is the central figure in this adventure and stopping her is the main goal.  In the C&C version, she is a Lawful Evil 5th level human cleric/wizard.  In the D&D 5 version, she is a Chaotic Evil 6th level human cleric.   In both cases, she could be better served as a witch.

There is no D&D5 witch class (yet) and I am not ready to publically reveal my C&C witch class.  But I can give her a try in my Basic-era Witch.  Though given that she supposedly worships and honors the "Horned One" she could be a D&D5 Warlock too.  In fact a warlock (as per D&D5) makes a lot of sense.

Neb–Eprethat - Witch Queen 
Chaotic Human Witch (Malefic Tradition), 6th level
The Witch stats

Strength:	11		Death Ray, Poison	11
Dexterity:	14		Magic Wands	12
Constitution:	12		Paralysis, Polymorph or Turn to Stone	11
Intelligence:	16		Dragon Breath	14
Wisdom:	14		Rods, Staffs, Spells	13
Charisma:	18

Hit Points: 20
Alignment: Chaotic
AC: 1
Dagger +4, Multiattack (allows 2 attacks per round)
To hit AC0: 18

Occult Powers
Familiar: Toad (multiple familiars)

Spells
Cantrips (7): Alarm Ward, Daze, Detect Curse, Object Reading, Open, Spark, Warm
First (3+2): Bewitch I, Cause Fear, Command, Minor Fighting Prowess, Sleep
Second (2+2): Biting Blade, Enthrall, Evil Eye, Hold Person,
Third (2+2): Bestow Curse, Continual Fire, Fly, Ghost Ward


She joins the ranks of the other Witch Queens that I have been gathering.

• Lady Kyleth, from Saga of the Witch Queen
• Feiya, Pathfinder Iconic Witch
• Maleficent for Basic Games
• Nuala, from Ravager of Time
• Elvyra, Queen of Witches from Quest of the Ancients
• Koliada, The Winter Witch
• Iggwilv, The Witch Queen of Perrenland

Can't wait to run this under my War of the Witch Queens campaign.

A to Z of Witches. Q

Q is for Queen of Witches

I have talked about and around the Queen of Witches many times here.  It is one concept that you will see in almost all my games.  I have talked about it for Basic D&D, Ghosts of Albion/Buffy and even 3rd Ed/Pathfinder.  I even began this challenge with Aradia, the first Queen of Witches.

But what is a Witch Queen or a Queen of Witches?

In my games the Witch Queen is the most powerful witch of any given tradition. She would control many covens and their leaders, the high priestesses, report to the Queen and her Court.

The last season of American Horror Story: Coven gave us an idea of what Queen of the Witches would be like.  We had a Witch Queen, called a Supreme, and a Voodoo Queen.  It certainly gave me some ideas of what could happen when rival queens interact.

One point I have made in my books, but never really elaborated on was the fact that there is only one Queen of Witches per Tradition.  With magics like longevity and Timeless Body a powerful Witch Queen can reign forever...or at least a really long time.

I would say in traditions that are closer to nature, Craft of the Wise and Classical, the Witch Queen steps down after a number of years in favor of younger sharper minds.  In evil traditions, like the Demonic, Mara or Malefic I would say the Witch Queen is usually killed.  Other traditions might vary. I can see a Family or Gypsy Tradition doing either, depends on what they need.

I came up with the idea of a Queen of Witches from a lot of different places.  Most obvious was the well trod ground (for me) of the Sisterhood of Karn.  They were Gallifreyians! They were witches! Perfect really.

A member of the witch court and her Queen

I also thought Witch Queen had a nice sound to it.  Clerics had already laid claim to High Priest/ess so I felt something different was needed.  Plus there were already Faerie Queens and courts and Vampire Queens, it made sense.
Plus I was doing most of this writing in the 80s so this had some influence as well:

This was the hot stuff back in 81!

I have a few Witch Queens detailed out.  Interestingly enough my Witch Queen for the Voodoo witches is a Witch King, a character I have been using for years, Bone Man.  He is not a particularly nice guy, but as a character I really like him.
Another character familiar to Greyhawk fans is Iggwilv she is the Queen of the Demonic Witches and maybe one of the more powerful Queens in my game.  I think as a nod of respect to Vince Garcia and his Quest of the Ancients I might name my Queen of the Faerie Witches, Elvyra.




Supernatural AtoZ