Fantastic Friday: Witch Class in D&D, Part 4

In the previous parts of this series, I examined the development of the witch class in major editions of D&D, supported by big publishers. However, as the game has developed over decades, a number of D&D retroclones have sprung up. The Old School Renaissance (OSR) is a movement of gamers attempting to resurrect and revivify older versions of D&D to suit their gaming tastes. Many OSR games incorporate more narrative elements; other support specific styles and modes of play. A large number put a great emphasis on weird settings, where none of the standard tropes and archetypes have a place. Still, there are witches.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Addendum

Castles & Crusades (Troll Lord Games; 2004)

Castles & Crusades is a fusion of 1st edition AD&D and 3rd edition D&D rules. A free download compilation of third-party material on the publisher's site, the Crusader's Companion (2014), provides two witch classes. Both versions have a 4-sided hit die. The first version uses Charisma as her prime requisite, and gains beguiling, glamour, cursing, and potion brewing abilities and the services of a familiar. Interestingly, this witch must prepare spells from her familiar and has a limited amount of time to cast them. The second version uses Wisdom as her prime requisite and has poison brewing and sympathetic magic.

OSRIC (Knights-n-Knaves, Black Blade Publishing, and Usherwood Publishing; 2006)

OSRIC is a retro-clone of 1st edition AD&D. As such, all of the witch options listed for 1st edition AD&D are fully compatible with OSRIC. In addition, Stuart Marshall (the author of OSRIC) released a compatible witch class in Footprints #20 (November 2013), the 'zine for the Dragonsfoot forums. This witch had Wisdom and Charisma as prime requisites and used a 6-sided hit die. The witch has the ability to sense magic and contact spirits, and a spell list replete with enchantment/charm, illusion, and necromancy spells. Many new spells are provided, which provide witches with familiars and give them doll and candle magic, curses, and the ability to summon extraplanar creatures to do their bidding.

Other Magic (2019) is a supplement for adding traditional folk magic to OSRIC and similar games. While it doesn't have a witch class per se, it does feature detail for adding brujeria, braucherair, hoodoo, and similar folk magic traditions to games, and these are usually the province of witchy characters.

Labyrinth Lord (Goblinoid Games; 2007); Swords & Wizardry (Mythmere Games via Frog God Games; 2009)

Labyrinth Lord is a retroclone of the 1981 B/X D&D rules; and Swords & Wizardry is a retroclone of the original D&D white box. Timothy Brannan (who wrote The Complete Netbook of Witches and Warlocks for 2E) has written a large number of witch classes and supplements for various flavors of both of these old school games, which are all well-researched and extremely thorough:

• The Witch: A sourcebook for Basic Edition fantasy games
• The Warlock for Swords & Wizardry
• Spellcraft & Swordplay: Eldritch Witchery
• The Witch for Swords & Wizardry White Box
• The Witch: Hedgewitch for the Hero's Journey RPG
• The Witch: Aiséiligh Tradition for Swords & Wizardry
• The Green Witch for Swords & Wizardry
• The Witch for Swords & Wizardry Light
• The Witch for Swords & Wizardry Continual Light

Mazes & Perils (Wild Games Productions; 2011)

Mazes & Perils is a retroclone of the 1977 version of D&D, edited by John Eric Holmes. The first new class for this game was introduced in Mazes & Perils: The Vile Witch (2016). A spellcaster focused on refuse and garbage, this class has a 4-sided hit die and gains a familiar. They also have toxic blood, an offensive ability themed around their adoption of garbage as a source of power. Their spell list is focused on the "refuse" keyword, with spells like pustule, wretched form, and infectious kiss.

Dungeon Crawl Classics (Goodman Games; 2012)

Originally an imprint for a series of 3.5E third-party modules written with Old School aesthetics, in 2012 DCC became an RPG in its own right, a blend of 1E and 3E design. One of the third-party products for the game, Tales From the Fallen Empire (2013) from Chapter 13 Press, introduces a witch class. Based on a 6-sided hit die, these witches have more in common with druids than wizards, and are said to draw upon elemental forces.This class has the ability to brew potions, divine the future, fascinate, and heal. Their spell list has spells to allow them to summon familiars, fly, and do many other witchy things, with few directly offensive powers.

B/X Essentials/Old School Essentials (Necrotic Gnome; 2017/2019) 

Random Order Creations' Black Pudding #1 (November 2016) contains a witch class.With a 4-sided hit die and a prime requisite of Wisdom, this witch fights and saves as a magic-user. The witch has many powers: curses, charms (small one-shot items), flight, one or more familiars, the ability to brew potions, the ability to see spirits and summon extraplanar creatures. They also have a few caveats: they can never do more than 2 dice of damage with any spell, and they gain bonuses to saves and AC if they are naked.

The Red Box Rogues supplement by Anthony Wu (2020) contains a number of classes inspired by the 1977 Holmes version of D&D, and that includes a witch class. This witch has a 4-sided hit die, fights as a magic-user but saves as a cleric, and can choose from 5 traditions (classical, fey, sea, voudon, wild), each of which gives a special benefit. The witch's spell list contains spells from the clerical and magic-user lists.

Appendix N Entertainment's Octhorrorfest! (2020) has a witch class. This witch has a 4-sided hit die, and a prime requisite of Wisdom. She can make antidotes to poison and healing salves, and identify plants, animals, and pure water. The cast arcane spells but require a holy symbol to do so. They can also issue a dying curse -- if dying due to a malicious act, they can cast an irrevocable curse on the perpetrators. The witch's spell list has cleric and magic-user spells, and includes 5 new spells (blindness/deafness, calming word, eyebite, nightmare, pain). The supplement also introduces ritual magic rules that other spellcasters may use to cast more powerful spells; witches get 11 ritual spells, including find familiar.

Worm Witch: The Life and Death of Belinda Blood (2020) is a supplement to Knight Owl's The Chaos Gods Come to Meatlandia (2016), which introduces the Worm Witch class. Using a 6-sided hit die and with Wisdom and Charisma as prime requisites, this class is druidic in nature. The setting is a vast land made of meat and bone, infested with great worms; the witch is a "druid" of the "natural" meatlands, and is at peace with the creatures infesting the land-corpse.As such, she can deal peaceably with the worms, summon them, and eventually transform into a worm for a limited time. The class gains access to spells which resemble druidic spells, but with a meat- and worm-focus.

Significant Non-D&D Witches

While the following games aren't D&D or D&D-alikes, they have a lot of flavor on witches that can inform witch-focused games.

Witch Hunt (1983) is an RPG that received heavy advertisement in Dragon magazine. It is incredibly limited in time and location -- it covers the period of 1691-92, and only in Salem, Massachusetts. It is a PVP game where one group of players is intended to run the Magistrate and the Witch-Finders, and the other group runs the witches themselves. There is some well-researched material in here that may be applied to other games that have "traditional" Satanic witches.

CJ Carella's WitchCraft (1999) is a Unisystem RPG where players take on the roles of Gifted (witches, magicians, and possibly supernaturals) in a world of mundane humans. The game mechanics are based on Neo-Pagan wicce, which is well-detailed and allows for very flavorful character creation. There is, again, much material here that can be used to inform pagan witch characters.