Witch

Vitae

Vitae is the life energy that witchs manipulate to fuel their magic. It is drawn from various sources, depending on the type of Thaumaturgy being practiced.

Some of your spells have an enhanced effect that expends Vitae. Some can only be powered by Vitae.

Vitae is a simple binary statistic: you either have it or you don't. Some spells, such as Drain Soul, can give you Vitae, while others, such as Blood Bending, consume Vitae in order to function.

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.

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.

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.

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

Antimagic

Powers

• Absorb Magic: absorb energy from a touched spell, weakening or dispelling it.
• Antimagic Zone: area nullifies all magic, or specific kinds of magic.

Feats

• Spell Resistance: You gain Resist 50% to all damage from magic, and advantage to saves against spells. However, if you attempt to use magic, you suffer disadvantage to all ability checks to do so, and any numeric effects are reduced by 50%.

Blood

Powers

• Transfusion: transfer blood and vital energy to or from a target by touch.
• Blood Bending: control a target's blood, and therefore their body.
• Contagion: infect target with a disease of your choice.
• Hasten Death: target suffering ongoing damage or debilitation suffers more of it.

Feats

• Grudge: You can add your current damage to any damaging spell against a target that contributed to that damage. (e.g. if you're missing 30 HP, and your spell attack normally does 25 damage, you can do 55 damage instead.)
• Blood Magic: You can use Vitae to empower spells that don't normally require it. When you do, the spell gains one of the following benefits, of your choice:
  • Increase the spell's damage by 50%.
  • Increase the spell's range by 100%.
  • Increase the spell's area of effect by 100%.
  • Add one additional target to the spell, if it can target multiple creatures.
  • Add one round of duration not requiring concentration to a spell that normally requires it.

Eyes

Powers

• Evil Eye: curse a target with your gaze. All the powers of Curse as well.
• Veil: convince the minds of onlookers that you are not there, or are someone else.
• Mystic Eyes: see through illusions, see the unseen, see the future.
• Soulgaze: see into a target's soul, learning about their identity, nature, and current state of being.

Mirror

Powers

• Magic Mirror: enchant mundane mirrors to do various things, such as divination, communication, or teleportation.
• Mirror Image: create illusory duplicates of yourself or others.

Soul

Powers

• Drain Soul: enervate enemy and gain a soul gem, which can grant you access to their identity and abilities.
• Soul Step: detach your soul from your body, go on excursions, and even possess other bodies.
• Seance: commune with the spirits of the dead, and even conjure them as minions.

Transmutation

Powers

• Transform Object: change properties of an object: size, hardness, form, etc.
• Animate Object: object becomes animated and acts as you direct.
• Polymorph: change a creature's physical body.

Undeath

Powers

• Reanimator: reanimate corpses as undead servants under your control, or take over other undead creatures.
• Necrosis: cause necrosis and putrefaction in a target or area.

Create Undead

Feats

• Walking Dead: You become partially undead, gaining resistance to necrotic damage, and advantage to saves against disease, poison, and any necrotic effect. You can be affected by powers that specifically affect undead, such as Turn Undead.
• Ghoul Touch: (Requires Walking Dead) Gain a natural attack that inflicts heavy necrotic damage plus paralysis (Con ends). If you reduce a target to 0 HP with this attack, they rise as a ghoul under your control at the start of your next turn.
• Shadow of Death: If you reach 0 HP, you can choose not to start dying, but instead become undead. You regain all missing HP and retain all of your abilities. However, you must concentrate to maintain this state; if you stop, you simply become a corpse. Healing harms your undead form, but if reduced to 0 by such healing, you become a living creature again, with 1 HP.
• Necrogenesis: (Requires Reanimator) You are no longer limited to a specific list of undead, but can create bespoke undead creatures by using a modular system of traits and abilities.
• Hasten Death: target suffering ongoing damage or debilitation suffers more of it.

Winter

Powers

• Chill Touch: Make things cold. Surprisingly many uses.
  • (Rank 3) Frost Bomb
  • (Rank 4) Deep Freeze: Freeze a creature solid, ending their life.
• 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.

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.

Felicity

The Seven Wonders of Witchcraft.

Clarity

• Weavesight: You can detect magical auras precisely and accurately on sight, without spending multiple rounds concentration.
• Anti-magic Specialist: You have advantage to dispel and counterspell checks.
• Scan: When using Sense Magic or Weavesight, you can detect which spells a given creature has available, and how many charges/Mana/etc, as a swift action.

Rapture

• Re-Vitae: Whenever you spend Vitae, you heal yourself for medium damage per Vitae expended.

Sympathy

• Sympathetic Magic: Whenever you encounter a hostile spell that can distinguish between friend and foe, you can roll a proficient Charisma skill check against the DC to convince the spell you are its friend. The result of this check remains true for the duration of that particular instance of the spell.
• Spell Stowaway: Whenever an enemy within range casts a beneficial spell, you may, as a reaction, manifest a copy of their spell affecting you or an ally.
• Vital Shield: Whenever you are harmed by a spell, you can expend 1 Vitae to reduce the damage by half, or to gain advantage to the saving throw.

Revelation

• Foresight: once/day, react to anything
• Prognostication: at-will, swift, ranged; you predict the target's next action. When they take it, whatever it is, you may spend a reaction to react to it.

Transference

• Manifest Phylactery: at-will, swift, requires a sympathetic component; you manifest a temporary phylactery of the target, lasting until a short rest. You can convert this to a permanent phylactery if you conduct the normal ritual immediately after combat.
• Spell Channel: if you inflict harm with a spell, natural attack, or a weapon you're currently wielding, you can use that as a channel to puncture that opponent's defenses. This can be used to target them with a spell regardless of line of sight or effect at will. If expended, it can grant advantage to one spell or attack roll against them, as well as increasing damage by 50%.

Verity

Entropy

• Bad Luck: Shit happens. It's a well-known axiom of witchcraft. But with careful study and perception, you can learn not to be in front of the fan when it happens. When you roll a d20, and the result is at or below your Entropy rank, you can "store" the result, rolling again. When you have a stored result, you can impose it upon any other PC or NPC whenever they roll a d20, expending it and forcing them to take your result.
• Death and Decay: All things decay. This is something you've accepted. But you don't have to dive into the grave on purpose. You gain Resist 50% (necrotic), and advantage to saves against death magic and ability damage/drain.
• Death Becomes You: The undead are the antithesis of the living, and naturally hate, fear, and long to feed upon them. You understand that, and sympathize with them, and, to an extent, they respect that. Mindless undead become indifferent to you unless actively commanded to attack. Your own undead servants gain inspiration once per encounter.

Blood Magic

Winter

Transmutation

Familiar

Necromancy

Hedgecraft

Soul