Witches

The existence of witches serves as a warning against allowing those without magical aptitude to learn spells. The minds of most beings cannot bear to participate in magic, and can react in unpredictable, usually dangerous ways. One of the most common ways for a failed would-be sorcerer's mind to snap is for them to become a witch.

Witch Madness

It's by now well-understood that witches are born when people without the psychological aptitude for magic come across and successfully cast spells anyway. Not every person without magical aptitude who casts a spell will become a witch. It depends on the person, the spell, and perhaps on why they cast it. But sometimes, when a person who shouldn't be meddling with magic gives it a try anyway, they develop a mental illness known as Witch Madness.

Witch Madness comes in many forms. What unites them all is a union of two compulsions, called the Two Yearnings. The First Yearning is to practice and teach magic, with minor variations in the details between witches. Some witches crave to cast certain kinds of magic, and act like addicts, unable to get through the day without a fix. Other witches crave disciples matching a special description - black-haired overly-serious children, corrupted clerics, or especially intelligent monkeys.

A witch's Second Yearning is much more personal, but what all Second Yearnings have in common is that they place an "ironic" burden on the witch. Many sages, especially those affiliated with the faiths that shun magic, believe the Second Yearning to be the witch's self-flagellating coping mechanism for the righteous hatred they feel for their own magical practice. These sages might have even approved of witches ironic penances, then, were it not for the innocents often affected. Many are the witches who first sought out magic to protect the innocent and found themselves with unbearable hunger for the flesh of innocents.

Witches In The World

Witches are neither especially common, nor exceedingly rare. Sorcerers are a secretive bunch, unwilling to share their spells except with trusted students, both to maintain advantages over potential rivals and to deliberately avoid creating witches. And every culture in which magic is practiced has developed ways to assess a person's psychological aptitude for it. Nevertheless, sometimes an ordinary person gets their hands on a spell and is unfortunately curious or desperate enough to bear the mental strain of attempting to cast it, but too weak to bear their own success. Some of these people develop mundane psychological issues like catatonia or severe depression, but some become witches.

Both men and women can become witches, and there's no evidence that either sex is more susceptible to Witch Madness. The association between witches and women comes from sexist associations between women and psychological neuroses. You'll often hear stories of women who give themselves a terrible Witch Madness trying after casting a minor love spell after their lover leaves them, but won't hear nearly as much about all the men who do the same thing.

Not all witches are menaces, though. It all depends on how burdensome the Second Yearning turns out to be. A vain sorceress's son who steals a glamour spell from his mother's grimoire may be stricken with a compulsion to continually disfigure himself by mundane or magical means, but though he'll be an ugly and slightly deranged one, he can end up a competent practitioner of magic (and what magicians aren't slightly deranged?).

Mage academies and sorcerous societies admit witches as long as their issues can be managed. Such witches often prove to be more successful magicians than their fellows, since their obsession with practicing magic makes them more driven and less easily distracted by other pursuits.

Playing As A Witch

Players cannot choose to create witch characters. However, player characters of any non-casting class can attempt to cast spells if they somehow get a chance to learn them and meet the diegetic requirements for performing them.

Roll 1d6 per level of the spell. If all dice rolled this way come up as 1 or 2, the spell is successfully cast; otherwise, spell fizzles, and the caster suffers a mild psychological trouble for as many weeks as the level of the spell. After a successful cast, roll 1d6. On a roll of 1 or 2, the caster becomes a Witch.

They lose all of their XP in their current class and either transfer all of it to Witch, or as much of it would be needed to be a high-enough level Witch to cast the spell they used normally, whichever is lower. Yes, this means you could potentially lose many levels by becoming a witch. Leave the casting to the professionals unless you have no other option!

On a roll of 3-6, the caster suffers a debilitating psychological trouble. Every week they must save against it. After three successful saves, they recover, but with a permanent mild psychological trouble. After three failed saves, their illness becomes permanent.

Witches cast as wizards/magic-users, but with an additional resource to manage: Madness.

Each point of Madness imposes a -1 penalty on saves and ability checks. When a Witch PC casts a spell, they have a 1/3 chance to not lose a spell slot, and instead gain a point of Madness. When a Witch PC would miscast a spell (use your preferred miscasting rules here), they have a 1/3 chance to have the spell simply fail and the spell slot be returned instead of being miscast, and instead gain 2 points of Madness.

A point of Madness is removed every time the PC deliberately acts so as to satisfy their Second Yearning, and actually makes some progress towards satisfaction. So let your player mark down a point of Madness for striking up a friendly conversation with that delicious looking kid, but not for just noticing a delicious looking kid.

At 8 points of Madness, a Witch PC is unable to do anything except attempt to make progress towards satisfying their Second Yearning in the most efficient way possible.

The referee decides on the PC's Second Yearning and the details of their First Yearning when they become a witch, making it suitably ironic, fitting to the PC and the circumstances of their gaining Witch Madness, and burdensome.

Old Man Gurdee

Old Man Gurdee is a witch who lives on the edge of the village. No one knows that he's a witch yet, because he's managed to keep it a secret so far, but he's worried about people finding out. He found an ancestor's spellbook while cleaning out his attic and couldn't keep himself from trying to cast a spell to make his dice throws luckier. The spell worked, but now he's obsessed with trying to learn more magic and teach what he knows to other elderly people, regardless of their aptitude.

The reason he's kept his affliction secret is his Second Yearning - he's utterly unable to keep himself from playing games of chance, gambling on them, and then cheating by mundane or magical means, regardless of the risks of getting caught. He's afraid the other villagers with whom he plays dice and cards will kick him from their games if they learn his secret. He's also afraid of witch-hunters coming after him.

He will eagerly trade for spells or even the simplest magic items, but will even more eagerly play games for the chance to win them. Since becoming a witch, he's actually gotten pretty good at magic, and won a set of generic spiritualist spells off a warlock traveller in a game of poker, so he's started summoning minor demons and tries to get them to play games with him, putting spells or servitude on the line.

Old Man Gurdee, HD 3, AC as magic-user, speed as human. Dagger 1d6.

Spells:

Caster's Casting, Lvl 1, somatic and verbal: The next die cast by the spell's caster comes up on the number they specify when casting the spell.

Shield

Floating Disc

Gurdee's Minor Demon Summoning/Binding/Banishing, Lvl 2, somatic, verbal, material: A set of three spells for treating with minor demons. The spells are generic, and do not allow for the summoning, binding, or banishing specific demons by name. Instead, the summoning spell sends a call to a random minor demon available and disposed to answer it, the binding spell prevents a minor demon from leaving a body it has possessed, and the banishing spell banishes all minor demons present in the body it is cast upon. The material components for Summoning are a blood sacrifice, a medium for the demon to possess, and an object of sentimental value to the caster, which the medium must swallow before the spell is cast. Binding has no material components, but must be cast before the demon decides to leave. Banishing requires placing small needles in the medium's body while reciting the appropriate incantations.