Witch

Witches are masters of Thaumaturgy, magic that revolves around the Sympathy Principle: as above, so below; as without, so within. All parts of a former whole are magically linked to that whole--a single hair from a person's head can form a magical link to the person's body or soul. A prized possession, a signature, even someone's home can be transformed into a magical link.

Unlike some practitioners, Witches understand that magic is not a neutral force that simply responds to willpower. It has its own will, and its own morality. Using magic to harm others ultimately is no different than using it to harm oneself, and is just as deleterious. Magic only works when it is deeply believed in, and the soul that can believe it is just to inflict terrible harm on another is already as twisted as magic will ultimately transform its body to be.

These factors can be seen as restrictive to other practitioners: where some can conveniently produce a fireball or force blast to slay their enemies, Witches find it difficult both to produce such external effects, and to justify doing so in the first place. So, are they ineffective in combat? Hardly. By acknowledging these realities of magic, they gain the ability to work with, rather than against magic, and in their way, they can accomplish any goal they require of their magic. Wisdom, humility, and conviction serve Witches well in their pursuit of magic.

Scratch Space

Each power is on a spectrum from positive to neutral to negative. Example:

Vitae - Blood - Death
Growth - something - Blight
Summer - ??? - Winter

Powers

Major types of Witch power:

Arcana Sympathiae: arts of the Sympathy Principle
Arcana Vitae: arts of Life Energy
Arcana Corporis: arts of the Body
Arcana Familiaris: arts of the Familiar (hedgecraft)

Arcana Sympathiae

Plants
Blood

Arcana Vitae

Antimagic
Death
Undeath
Winter

Vitae appears in various forms in the natural world:

In the blood: the energy of living things
In the air: the energy of the environment
In the weave: the energy of magic itself

Blood (Vitality):

In the positive aspect, blood is life, blood is healing, blood is vitality. Blood makes the living stronger, makes the heart beat faster, makes sugar sweeter and pain more searing.
In the negative aspect, this magic can lead to death, and to parts beyond: undeath. The inverse of positive life energy is negative--not absent, but reversed; still active, but anathema, incompatible with life.

Air:

In the positive aspect, this energy makes the air warm, makes the flowers bloom, makes the animals seek mates.
In the negative aspect, this energy brings winter, freezing the air, blanketing the ground with snow and ice. All is cold, and still, and sleeps.

Magic:

In the positive...

Chronos:

Positive: ripening, blooming, and cellular renewal.
Neutral: senescence and aging.
Negative: stasis, calcification, timelessness.

Arcana Corporis

Eye
Voice
Touch (reiki, laying on of hands)
Soul? (fold into Eye?)
Breath
Skin
Bone (familiaris?)

Arcana Familiaris

Mirror
String/Fibers
Brew
Candle
Hedgecraft (miscellaneous)

Powers

Arcana Vitae

Blood: Magic of vitality and life energy.
- Transfusion: at-will, std, touch; transfer HP between living beings.
- tbd
Magic:

Chroma

Chroma is a complex concept, essential to Witchcraft. All works of magic have a "color", not a literal one, but a metaphorical color that represents the spirit and purpose of the spell. Helpful and benign magic is referred to as "white magic", while harmful and malevolent magic is "black magic". There are other colors in the fullness of the theory, but the most important takeaway is that the Universe always returns the energy of a spell back to the caster in some form, and the nature of that return is determined by the spell's chroma. White magic returns as positive energy, healing and empowering the caster, while black magic returns as negative energy, harming and weakening the caster. The more extreme the chroma of a spell, the more extreme the return energy.

Whenever you cast a spell that harms a living creature, you suffer 1 negative chroma. Whenever you cast a spell that heals or empowers a living creature, you gain 1 positive chroma. Positive chroma does not negate negative chroma, and vice versa; they are tracked separately. You can have as much positive or negative chroma as you want, but the more you have of either, the more extreme the return energy you will suffer when you cast a spell.

A healing spell doesn't actual count as helpful if it doesn't restore HP or remove some malady.

Chroma is a wise, living thing. It cannot be easily fooled. Stabbing an animal and repetitively healing it will not allow you to stack positive Chroma, as the spirit and intent of your spell was not pure. In fact, performing such torture might cause you to gain negative Chroma, as the spirit of your spell was malevolent, even if the literal effects were healing. Non-magical actions don't normally affect Chroma, but in a case like that, magic is involved.

In reality, there is no limit to the amount of Chroma you can attain, but to keep things mechanically manageable, you are limited to 5 + your rank of each.

Positive Chroma

At any time, you can expend 1 point of positive chroma to gain advantage to one roll you or an ally makes.

Positive Chroma	Effect
1	Advantage to one roll you or an ally makes.
1	Minimize a damage roll against you or an ally.
3	Automatically succeed on a saving throw, or bequeath that protection to an ally.
5	Remove any one damaging or debilitating effect from you or an ally.
TBD

Negative Chroma

At any time, the GM impose some form of harm on you, expending an amount of Chroma as they choose (to a maximum of your current negative Chroma). The more Chroma they expend, the worse the effect.

Negative Chroma	Effect
1	Disadvantage to any one roll.
1	Maximize a damage roll against you.
2	Randomly trip and fall on the ground, losing your next action.
2	Suffer Addled, Feebleminded, or Meek, with a save to end appropriate to the condition.
3	Cause one of your spells to miscast, as determined by the GM.
3	Cause one of your magic items to go missing until the next long rest.
4	TBD

Casting Styles

White Magic

Will of the Goddess

You use Charisma as your spellcasting stat.

An It Harm None

You adhere strictly to the Wiccan Rede, vowing never to use magic to harm a living creature. Undead, outsiders, constructs, and sub-animal creatures like oozes are fair game. You have no protection against Negative Chroma.

Friend of Nature

All indifferent natural creatures are considered friendly to you, and will help you if they can.

When you have Inspiration, you can spend it to conjure wild animal or other living natural creature (if you're in an environment they could possibly reach) to assist you for the encounter. The creature's CR is up to your witch rank.

Gift of the Goddess

You are in good credit with the Goddess. Once per short rest, you may gain Vitae as a swift action, simply by calling on the Goddess for aid. You are expected to repay this with an act of kindness of service.

Supplication

You can invoke the Goddess for aid. Once per long rest, you may supplicate yourself before the Goddess, asking for deliverance in the form of:

Avoiding one damaging or debilitating effect entirely, or bequeathing that protection to an ally.
Automatically passing one saving throw, or bequeathing that protection to an ally.
Removing an ongoing damaging or debilitating effect from yourself or an ally.
Gaining insight into a mystery, a trap, a puzzle, or the nature of a creature or location.

The Goddess will grant your boon, but only on the condition that you accept a Geas in return. The Goddess will task you with some mission or work that is within your power to accomplish. Typically, this is not some grand adventure, but could be the smallest of things: bringing bread to a hungry man, helping a lost child find their way home, etc. You must complete the task within a reasonable time frame, or else acquire negative Chroma (amount at GM discretion).

Red Magic

Red Magic is about the blood, the body, the vitality of the self. The ethos of Red Magic is not to rely solely on magic and the mind, but to be strong in body as well, for your own vitality is as powerful as any you may gather from nature, but it is always your choice to use it.

Strong of Body, Strong of Mind

You use Constitution as your spellcasting stat.

The Blood Price

When you cast a harmful spell that would accrue negative Chroma, you can choose to pay a blood price instead. You suffer medium damage based on your Constitution score. By paying this price, you negate the negative Chroma.

Let Blood

If blood is life, then surely you can source Vitae from yourself. At will, as an immediate action, you can gain Vitae by suffering medium internal damage (based on your Contitution score).

Strength of Mind, Strength of Body

Your Strength is increased by the highest of your Int, Wis, or Cha modifiers. For example, if you have Str 10, Int 16, Wis 12, and Cha 14, your Strength would be 12 (10 + 3 from Int). This is a passive ability that applies at all times.

Black Magic

Black Magic is about power at any cost. The ethos of Black Magic is that the world is a harsh and cruel place, and if you want to survive in it, you have to be willing to do whatever it takes, even if that means hurting others. But there's a funny thing about Chroma: the Universe tends to want to satisfy the deepest debts first, so if you can find someone worse off than you, you can sometimes get away with directing the Fates to the worse of two evils.

Dark Wisdom

You use Wisdom as your spellcasting stat.

What Goes Around, Comes Around

Sometimes you get what's coming around. Sometimes you are what's coming around.

The Universe needs a physical way to deliver the consequences of Chroma, and while typically it is up to Fate and Chance to find this mechanism, the Black Witch is the master of understanding and manipulating this process.

When you cast a harmful spell that would accrue negative Chroma, you can attempt a Wisdom check (DC below, given by your total Negative Chroma) to have the Universe count your spell as justice for the target's negative Chroma. If you succeed, you negate the negative Chroma, and if you fail, you accrue it normally; either way, the spell has its normal effect on the target.

The target must have negative Chroma on the scale of what your spell is doing. Since most creatures aren't Witches, this is likely going to be adjudicated by the GM. But it's a good bet that a lich who has sacrificed hundreds of lives to achieve immortality has more negative Chroma than, say, 5.

Negative Chroma	DC
1	15
2	17
3	19
4	21
5	23
6	25
7	27
8	29
9	31
10	33

Dirty Deeds

When you need Vitae in a pinch, why not steal it? The Goddess, in her abundance, surely won't miss a tiny bit of hers.

Recharge 33%, swift; you gain Vitae, and also 1 Negative Chroma.

Master of the Fates

You have a deep understanding of the workings of Fate and Chance, and can predict when the Universe will balance the scales of Chroma.

At-will, as an immediate action, you can invoke a negative Chroma effect on yourself, or a positive Chroma effect on an enemy. This has the normal effect, but the advantage is you get to do it on your own terms.

Spells

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In development

Winds of Winter: Create wind, thin the air, rain down snow, ice, or hail, etc.
- Howling Winds: wind blasts and chills targets
  - Upgraded to also allow an instaneous push + damage effect
- (Rank 2) Thin Air: air becomes thin, hard to breathe, suppressing sound, making flight impossible with wings.
- (Rank 2) Ice Storm: At-will, ranged, circle 2/rank, concentration; ice, snow, sleet, and hail rain down (per your preference), inflicting medium cold damage plus chilled (Con ends). Area becomes slippery terrain or difficult terrain, per your preference.
(Rank 4) Deep Freeze: Freeze a creature solid, ending their life.

Ritual

Create Phylactery
Evoke Flame
Death and Rebirth (rk2)
Create Hearthstone (rk3)
Create Greater Phylactery (rk3)

Feats

Each level, you may select a feat from the list below. There are also feats specific to Witch spells, noted in their descriptions.

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