Witch Girls Adventures: Annabelle Deville's guide to mystical mayhem: Wicked Ways by Adnachiel

Building a Better Villain With Lists

posted by Adnachiel Original SA post

Part 1: Building a Better Villain With Lists

(Fun Fact: That might not be Annabelle on the cover. It might be an older version of Monica. It appears to be art left over from another aborted movie project. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Who knows.)


One of the complaints I and others have about Witch Girls is that when a witch does something bad to someone, usually a mortal who can’t defend themselves, they are usually not punished for it. And when it happens, it rarely amounts to more than a light slap on the wrist. Many of these characters also just seem to be evil for the sake of being evil and do not have reasons behind the way they are. (Though we all know the real, unspoken answer is “because fetish”.) Presumably, Annabelle Deville’s guide to mystical mayhem Wicked Ways was written in part to fix that. It was released along with Respelled and Coventry. Unlike Coventry, it seems to have incorporated the new rules.

Like the other two, the book starts off with a comic. It’s about Lucinda and Annabelle meeting up at Not!Starbucks after meeting each other on a social networking site for witches. They bond over their mutual interest in turning people into things and possibly destroy an entire city. I’m not going to write a long summary of it because I don’t need to write one. That’s literally all the comic is. Instead, have a series of pictures.



By the way, Monica and Janette were the ones that encouraged the two to sign up for the site. (“Monica said I should make a magic friend account I thought it was another of her silly attempts to "help me out of shell." [sic]) So aside for Helena and Millicent’s shitty parenting, those two are to blame.

Also, aside for one comic that Harris didn’t see the need to publish with full pages (thus making it nearly unreadable), this is the first time Annabelle is seen smoking. It will come as no surprise to anyone that Soto wrote the comic.

Harris is on solo writing duty again, along with editing and, interestingly, the cover art which I don’t believe for a second. If he can draw that well, why does he bother commissioning people who are worse than him? (It would definitely save him money in the long run.) Soto is on graphic design, typesetting, layout (none of the page numbers are in the space where they should be, and I hope you like burnt orange with neon green accents), and proofreading, as well as art duty with four other people. A “Deborah ‘Yankee Diva’ Dodge” is listed as the book’s “Muse”. Dodge is/was Harris’ S.O. and Denora Desade may be her self-insert. (That, or Harris went out of his way to find a girlfriend who looks like her and has the same initials. Also, why was I able to find a wiki page for her?)

According to the table of contents, there should be a foreword from Brooke Horn, the actress who was going to play Annabelle in one of the umpteenth aborted Witch Girls movies, before the rest of the book. There is no foreword. (There is a blank space next to the Table of Contents and disclaimers (“Don’t smoke or drink if you’re underage. Don’t be wicked.”) where it probably should be though.) Unless it’s talking about the quote at the top. That quote is one of many from Annabelle scattered around the book.

The book starts off by trying to emphasize that they’re going for cartoon style villainy, not real world style tragedies.




It then explains that the main purpose of the book is to help Directors and players build better, more rounded villains and morally dubious characters for their games. (Along with helping directors run “wicked” games.) Which is fine. But unfortunately, it feels like hollow lip service compared to what is actually shown from the NPCs’s actions. Hell, you don’t need to look any further than the opening comic for this very book to find a contradiction. There’s no reason for most of those transformations other than “that sounds like fun”. And while there are updated character sheets for some of the designated villains here and in later books with some token attempts at giving them some motivations behind their shittiness, they don’t really do much and again, feel incredibly hollow. Especially considering that there is nothing indicating that Harris is really trying to distance the game from its older materials and fluff. A new version would have been a great opportunity for him to completely overhaul the fluff. But again, that would require .

There’s also the fact that designated good characters like to indulge in some of the same actions as the designated villains.

I also don’t think that Annabelle would endorse a book that implies that she’s anything less than a powerful sorceress capable of destroying you with a pointed look with no deep insecurities or issues fueling her actions.

Anyway, this chapter is mostly just lists of ideas for reasons, means, and goals for wicked characters. They’re all valid reasons, but the way nearly all of them are written seem to have at least one thing that seems… off to me in their reasoning. First up is Catalysts: reasons why a character would decide to be wicked. These are:

• Abuse: A shitty homelife, bullying, getting shit on one too many times caused the character to lash out at her abusers as well as bystanders for not helping them during the abuse. They may also think it’s normal after a point and try to prevent it from happening again.
  
  
• Competition: Sometimes, the pressure of trying to beat others can cause a person to go “fuck it” and cheat and blast their way to the top.
  
  
• Environment: Being born in a place surrounded by war, crime, and/or poverty can cause someone to become “hard” and think that that’s the norm.
  
  
• Fear:
  

  Wicked Ways posted:

  A little green man once said "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate and hate leads to suffering", or something like that.

  
  Being afraid of something can cause a person to lash out at it. This section suggests that witches who treat mundanes badly might secretly be afraid of them.
  
  
• Greed: “Fuck you, want mine. I’m taking your shit and turning you into a toad.” Also, you might become a hoarder.
  
  
• Isolation:
  

  Wicked Ways posted:

  Being alone can have devastating effects on some. A character may start to think they are being singled out and isolated or think they are so special they no one understands them/are worthy of them.

  
  Of course, with no one to tell them otherwise, an isolated person may assume that all of the horrible shit they do is okay.
  
  
• Power: Being able to solve their problems and get rid of people they hate by just pointing a wand/finger and saying some words went to the character’s head. I’m assuming this is Annabelle’s catalyst. (Along with just the general bad influences Coventry probably has thanks to its legacy and prodigy students.) It notes that the fear of the magistrates coming down on them and their moral codes keep most witches from going this route.
  
  
• Privilege: “Fuck you, got mine.” Witches tend to come from wealthy, influential families (both mundane and magical). (Why? Probably because everyone keeps taking the top Wealth option at character creation because there’s little reason not to.) Witches with this catalyst think that makes them better than those without. They also tend to not understand the problems of less privileged individuals and can just come off as an asshole in general.
  
  
• Revenge:
  
  

  Wicked Ways posted:

  While some say It's a dish best served cold, revenge is a road that leads to dark places quickly.

  
  The character is out for revengeance and doesn’t give a shit who they hurt along their way to getting it. Possibly themselves included.
  
  
• Trauma: An injury, illness, or incident where they were humiliated made the character hard and dead set on not looking weak and avoiding those circumstances, or just hating weakness in others in general.
  

Annabelle, what are your thoughts?


When I said the comics tend to forget that Annabelle is evil, I mean it. The two get along really well in the comics and rarely raise a spell on each other. She probably got the idea to do that from Lucinda. She does make everyone around her worse.

Next is a list of possible goals that wicked characters might have.

• Anarchy: The character hates authority, wants to bring down “The Woman” and possibly make chaos reign. Or maybe they’re just pranksters. The section does note that adding magic to a harmless prank can turn it deadly real fast.
  
  
• Corruption: Corrupters want to turn others evil. These “Mistresses of lilies” tend to be people people and more subtle in their machinations.
  
  
• Destruction: The character thinks something needs to go away, preferably in a fiery explosion. These characters aren’t very subtle, but see their acts as an art.
  
  
• Love: These “dark-Venus” will do whatever it takes to get the object of their affection. Alternatively, they see love as a thing that can be used against weaker opponents.
  
  
• Knowledge: This character is in search of some dark knowledge that no one was meant to know. They tend to make minions do all of the dirty work for them.
  
  
• Popularity: Not just for schoolgirls, this character may want to be popular in their workplace or become famous. Being wicked is apparently a very easy way to accomplish this. It’s keeping it that’s the problem.
  
  
• Puppet Mistress: To Puppet Mistresses, people would be a lot better if they were serving them and didn’t have that whole pesky free will thing. They love removing people’s free will with Mentalism spells. Though some prefer just using animals or zombies.
  
  
• Ruler:
  
  

  Wicked Ways posted:

  "Every body wants to rule the world" , thankfully the line from that song is wrong.

  
  Self-explanatory. It could be because they think the current rulers of whatever are shit, they have some dark plan in mind, or they just think they deserve it.
  
  
  
• Seeker: This character lost something really important to them and they want it back. They tend to be more patient and plan in the long term. (Because they understand that “good things come to those who wait”.)
  
  
• Wealth: Most magical people don’t think about wealth. These do. They probably have the Greed catalyst.
  

Next is the methods that wicked characters use to achieve their goals (or, as the book calls them, “methods of the madness”). A lot of these are just the Seven Deadly Sins and some don’t really fit with their category name.

• Desire: Use their social skills as opposed to physical and magical violence.
  
  
• Envy: Steals ideas from their rivals.
  
  
• Excess: Big and loud. Likes elaborate plans.
  
  
• Greed: Likes to gather spoils from their targets.
  
  
• Pride: Constantly trying to one-up others. Like to monologue and might refer to themselves in the third person.
  
  
• Sloth: Very rare, these villains tend to be lackeys to more powerful and motivated villains. Don’t back up their shit talk.
  
  
• Wraith: Gives no shits about the lives of others and just wrecks shit nearly indiscriminately.
  

Next is the types of delusions that a villain might have. Villains don’t usually think they’re evil. So here’s some of the things that they could be thinking instead.

• Agent of Change: Something sucks and they’re gonna change it for the better, and don’t get why people don’t like them.
  
  
• Better Being: This type of villain truly thinks they’re better than everyone else and gets pissy when “lesser beings” don’t acknowledge them as being such.
  
  
• Hero: They're not the villain, you're the villain.
  
  
• Iconoclast: Knows they’re a weirdo who doesn’t conform to society’s rules and doesn’t give a shit who knows it. That’s not what an iconoclast is exactly, but okay.
  
  
• Innovator: Agents of Change but smarter.
  
  
• Monster: Knows what they’re doing is wrong, but refuses to take responsibility for it. Tend to lack empathy.
  
  
• Prankster: Doesn’t understand that some people can’t easily undo their magical pranks and don’t find them funny.
  
  
• Normal: “Yeah, I’m wicked. But you’re wicked too.” Normals think the entire world is full of assholes that are out to get them and that they need to harm them first. Honestly, kind of a valid mindset to have in this setting.
  
  
• Teacher: Teachers use their evil deeds to teach people a lession, whatever that may be.
  
  
• Zealot: This one seems to be mixed up with a description for a removed (?) type called Innocent, who think no one understands them because they’re so perfect and pure, and may be on a moral crusade of some sort. Zealots think that anything that goes against their beliefs are inheritly evil.
  

The next blurb emphasizes that, while the four qualities the book just went over are helpful in determining a character’s personality, that should not be their entire character. It basically boils down to “don't make a character who is just a villain, treat them as a person first and a villain second”, which is a good piece of writing advice. But the way it’s worded…


This comes after a bit that talks about villains who might do long winded monologues.

Such characters have a time and a place. And honestly, if you’re going for more cartoon style villainy, this might be the place for them. Also, what do clichés have to do with villains who are villains 24/7?

Up next: : Witch Edition

How to Get Away with Murder by Using Lists

posted by Adnachiel Original SA post

Part 2: How to Get Away with Murder by Using Lists

It’s been established that the Witches World Council doesn’t give a shit about much. They do, however, care about two things when it comes to magical crime: Curses and spells that remove a person’s free will, both of which are considered to be a form of assault. Other lesser crimes, like using your magic maliciously or stealing, are just “frowned upon”. Of course, because this is Witch Girls, this section goes on to mention all of the ways witches get around being punished these crimes: claiming they were acts of self-defense, having the injured party ignore them out of fear of their powers or losing their social standing (guess there’s a “snitches get stitches” aspect to their culture), or just being really powerful and living in a Highbinder controlled area.


Then why live there?

Thankfully, both immortals and vampires have started their own organizations of magistrates that make it their job to go out and punish witches who aren’t getting punished by the local law or the WWC for their crimes. The WWC probably isn’t happy about this, but they go over the other governments all the time so fuck them.

Now for the highlight of this chapter: What happens when the WWC actually gets off its ass and punishes people for being shitty. If a witch is caught by a WWC magistrate (which might not happen depending on where they are), they usually get hit with one of three punishments: a fine, community service, or binding. There is no trial. The magistrate has the final call and Lilith help you if you get someone who is a wicked asshole themselves. Binding is usually reserved for repeat offenders whose crimes include mass destruction and death, and is the most feared of the punishments, natch. Here, have a chart.



As the term suggests, binding turns magical beings into mundanes. They can’t cast magic, lose all of their immunities, and age normally. (So if their sentence is long enough, it is theoretically possible for a witch to die of old age.) For witches, this is “a fate worse than death” and many will try to get an alternate punishment. (Which the magistrates or WWC, if it’s a major world-threatening crime, have the final say on as well.) These are usually one of the following:

• Banishment – The offender is put in a pocket dimension. Note that this is the same punishment that the dorm mother for Coventry uses.
  
  
• Exile – The offender is sent to another universe, with a lock preventing them from returning to their original one, and effectively becomes someone else’s problem. If they’re smart, they can request a decent reality, but magistrates have the final say and usually pick shitty ones.
  
  
• Geas – The offender is mind-controlled into not doing whatever it was they did again. Can be worked around if they’re smart enough and know the conditions that trigger the block.
  
  
• Imprisonment – Usually reserved for otherkin and other beings with little magic that can’t just teleport out of a prison cell. The lone prison for witches, a former cold iron mine called… “Cold-Iron”, is a penal colony that has turned into an “inmates running the asylum” situation. Thankfully, none of them can cast magic. Other prisons have a combination of comfortable cells and forced positive reinforcement.
  
  

  Wicked Ways posted:

  Prison life in the magical world is more about isolation and education than anything as those in it are confined to austere but comfortably cells for the duration and are exposed magically to positive reinforcement that they can not shut out for 2-3 hours a day.

  
  I imagine those positive reinforcement programs have a lot of “Obey the Witches World Council” bits in them.
  
  
• Transformation – Because Witch Girls. Was common until WHAM started protesting its use. Why just this and not the mind control option is unknown. Involves the offender being turned either into an animal ala Salem from Sabrina, The Teenage Witch or an object, which is given to family members for safekeeping or put on display in a public place to deter others.
  
• 
  
• Saint Joan’s Reformatory – A magic school in Antarctica. Its students are minors who would otherwise face large fines or a binding for their crimes. Only keeps individuals up to 19 years old.

Because this is Witch Girls, and because this was written in one go and Harris forgot that he already talked about some of these things, the book goes into more detail about all of the ways one can get out of being punished for a crime.

• Diplomatic Immunity – Reserved for dignitaries from other magical governments. Rare and makes the character untouchable. Though it can be revoked. There is a specific reason why this is here.
  
  
• Power – The tried and true method of throwing your influence, family connections, or money at something to make it go away.
  
  
• Self-Defense – Also used when saving the life of or defending another person.
  
  
• Youth – Kids are stupid and make mistakes. Unless they’re repeat offenders, killed someone, or took a person’s free will away, they can escape binding. They can also get away with breaking the Laws of Interaction if they don’t do it too much because what are laws?

Of course, if crimes are committed in the mundane world, the magistrates don’t give a shit unless it’s something major.

The next paragraph is so badly worded that sounds like it end up meaning the opposite of what it should mean.


Next is a rundown of all of the mortal societies dedicated to protecting mundanes from the witch menace. Some of them are repeats. (The section on freelance hunters includes a mention that 90% of them die on their first mission.) In terms of new agencies, we have:

• The Maximum Institute – A thinktank for inventors, engineers, and artists run by Harris’ second self-insert. Only the inner circle knows about magic and does the whole inventing to hunt down magical troublemakers stuff.
  
  
• The Questers – A group of teenagers in Olympia, Colorado that battle magical occurrences in their hometown and across North America (during school breaks, of course). Olympia also sits on top of an unstable magical nexus. Hence why they exist. Are actually pretty good at what they do, despite being teenagers, and have been known to take down witches.
  
  
• Phantom Breakers – Ghost hunters who think everything magical is caused by ghosts. Show up during a scene in Pirates of Buccaneer Hill.
  
  
• Project Storm-wall – Due to recovering some files, they’ve been retconned into knowing that unusual occurrences are caused by magic again, not aliens. They work out of an underground bunker in D.C. called ‘The Dome’. I wonder if that’s an XCOM reference.

Silas Black did nothing wrong.

The “organized villainy” section is the same as the heroes one. For new entries, we’ve got:

• Die für Immer Königin – The remains of the magical forces that backed the Nazis during World War II, led by Ingrid Frieze. Allies with the Followers of Echidna and want to use her awakening as a cover for their taking over the world. Based in Germany near Reinhexxen because of course it is. Google Translate says their name is “The for Everqueen”.
  
  
• The Night Court – Witches and otherkin who want to bring a nebulous “eternal darkness” to the world. So badly run that it’s more of a shitty goth club than a real threat.

The last section is just about how evil witches see killing as unoriginal and boring and prefer to do things like torture, transform, drive insane, and bind the powers of their targets.

Chapter’s over. Have some pictures.



That guy doesn't look like he's bothered by his predicament.





There's nothing really wrong with this one (other than the Wingdings name tag). I just like the penguin's expression.

Up next: New character creation options

How to Play a Wicked Character Using Charts

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Part 3: How to Play a Wicked Character Using Charts


Meanwhile, Lucinda probably already has her pegged as her top Hench-Witch.


This book is about as long as the Respelled one and this chapter and the fourth one are why. It’s a shit ton of new character creation options. It also has this lovely picture right at the start.



Yes, I’m pretty sure that is Harris and Soto getting transformed into furniture by their underage NPCs.

First up is the new cliques. As to be expected, they are all different archetypes of wicked characters.

Brat


Brats are ignorant little shits who think all of the bad things they do are normal, and ignore everyone who says otherwise. They also tend to have goals behind their wickedness and are loyal to their friends because Lucinda is obviously part of this clique and they need to say something positive about her. Even though her old skill block shows that she definitely knows that what she’s doing is wrong and just doesn’t give a fuck. Their starting bonuses are Tantrum (+1 to rolls against the first target that hits her in combat while losing 2 points in Reflex) and Wicked Wonder. (+1 to rolls when doing wicked deeds. If it’s a spell, they can spend a zap point to do +5 damage or make the spell permanent.)

Bully


I don’t know if I prefer the cotton candy swirl or the anime hair on her…

Bullies like to establish a natural pecking order by making others fear them. Also “many are brave to the point of foolhardy knowing seeking weakness as the greatest weakness”, whatever that means. Their starting bonuses are The Glare (targets get a -1 to all rolls against them for D6 minutes and cannot take any actions against them if they fail a Will vs Will roll. This has a range of 30 feet and costs 1 zap.) and Wicked Rage (+1 to rolls to do wicked actions and wicked attacks cause +D6 damage and ignore D6 points of armor).

Imp


Imps like to make chaos reign (which is apparently the new raison d'être of all witches) and show others how to have fun. That latter aspect tends to make them a lot of friends. Their starting bonuses are Wild Magic (can mimic a spell from a type she doesn’t know once a day at the cost of double zap and with the restriction that it can’t be of a rank higher than her highest one) and Twisted Wicked. (+1 to rolls to do wicked actions, successful and funny actions make the target lose their next action. This only works once per target per combat scene.)

Prima-Donna


Prima-Donnas think they’re perfect and get frustrated when others don’t acknowledge their perfection. On the plus side, they tend to make others want to be more confident… somehow. Their starting bonuses are Ego-defense (Can spend a zap to add her Social die to rolls to resist damage) and Wicked and Right. (+1 to rolls to do wicked actions, +2 if they’re Will or Social rolls.)

Ringleader


Ringleaders use minions to get things done and are well known for their excellent organizational skills. Their starting bonuses are Minions (10 starting allowance points to spend on minions) and Wicked with a Plan (+1 to rolls to do wicked actions; minions and allies helping her get the bonus as well).

The book says that they are slightly more powerful than the vanilla ones from Respelled, but starting stats wise, they’re pretty much on par with the standard cliques. All of the new cliques get 10 starting Magic ranks; D8s or 10s for their Magic die; a die spread of either a D4, three D6s, and a D8; or a D4 and four D6s; and either 15/15 starting skill points or a 12/18 or vice versa spread. None of them have Niches.

Next is a rundown on 3 new Classes: Nobility (Wealth 4; +1 to Social; a free rank of Charm, Gossip, and Leader), Traveler (Wealth 2; +1 to Body; 2 free ranks in Language, Hide, and/or (due to a missing word) Streetwise), and Underworld (character’s family is an organized crime group; Wealth 3, +1 to Will, 2 free ranks in Streetwise and Urchin). None of them are higher than Rich, but Rich doesn’t get a bonus in one of its attributes. So there’s something of a fair tradeoff now, I guess.

Next is Skills. There’s only one new skill: Insult. The rest is just a rundown of all the ways you can be an asshole using some of the existing ones. As for the other ones…

Fib has a difficulty chart and is contested by Will.



Leadership has a new “Supervise” action that lets them give +1 roll bonuses to another person for a minute or combat scene if they succeed on an Easy roll for one person, or a Hard one for a group. They also have a “Tactics” action, which comes with another big old chart.



If they fail the roll, everyone involved gets -2 Reflex to dodge attacks and -3 Armor. Tactics can be resisted with Mind + Tactics... even though it’s not a separate skill.

Leadership is also either a Mind skill or a Social skill depending on whether you go by the chart at the top of the section or the blurb for it.

Scare can be used to “Intimidate” (-1 to rolls against them with a successful Scare vs Will or Plucky roll) and “Break” (three successful Intimidate rolls in a row makes them obedient to you if they fail an Easy roll to resist for an hour) targets.

Urchin now has a roll chart for picking different types of locks…



…and can be used to pick pockets by rolling it against the target’s Mind or Senses.

Insult is a mundane Social skill that determines how well you can verbally shit on a person. It has two sub-actions: "Belittle" (give a target a -1 penalty to rolls with a successful Insult vs Will or Plucky roll) and "Taunt" (Belittle, except it also forces the target to attack them until they are either defeated or resist the insult with an Easy Will roll).

On the magical skills side, here are two magic skills: Naming and Sympathetic Magic (which was an ability/knack in Coventry). Unlike other skills, they have prerequisites. Naming requires Casting 4 and Mysticism 3 before you can use it, and Sympathetic Magic requires Casting, Craft (which isn’t a skill), and Curse 2. There's no mention of what happens when you fulfill the requirements. Do you get a rank automatically? Do you have to put points into them?

Naming is a system developed by the Fae that is used to augment spells and dig up info on other people. It requires learning a person’s true name. For mundanes, it’s just their full name. For inanimate objects and animals, it’s just a generic name that is commonly known. For magical people, it’s more complicated.


I should point out that up until now, there has been no mention of this true names stuff or witches taking on alias to prevent this from happening. Every witch NPC that’s been introduced goes by the name their parents gave them. So I’m going to guess Harris saw the shadow name/true name stuff from Changeling or Mage and thought it would be cool to add it in despite the fact that there’s no in-verse justification for it.

To discover a true name, you need to do a series of Impossible rolls or ask the DM to run a personal campaign for you.


If you recall, an Impossible check requires rolling an 18-22.

Once a person’s name is discovered, the namer has to spend 2 zap and succeed on a Magic vs Magic roll against them. The namee knows instantly when it is happening. Failure means they can never use that name again. Succeeding lets the namer use the person’s name do all of this crap.



People who have had their names used like this can resist their tormentor’s spells by spending the same amount of zap points spent on the spell and succeeding on a Hard Will or Spell Breaking roll.

Sympathetic Magic is the art of using voodoo dolls, called “poppets” here. Doing this lets you get around the range limits of spells. To make one, you get a bit from the person or thing, spend 5 zap, make a Hard Sympathetic magic roll, and wait the target’s Resist Magic score in hours, or 3 + D4 hours for non-magical items. If the target has a higher Resist Magic than the creator, they can’t make a poppet for them.

When using one, you add 2 to the zap cost and can do all of this stuff.



Witches who suspect that someone has made a poppet of them can do an Easy roll to find it.


To demonstrate one of the many ways a poppet can be used, here's a picture of Lucinda drowning someone.



(By the way, Lucinda doesn't have all of the requirements to use sympathetic magic.)

Next: More wicked character creation crap.

Lists of Wicked Traits and Magic

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Part 4: Lists of Wicked Traits and Magic


New traits, y’all.

Talents

Ambitious: Spend a zap to add a +1 to magic or combat rolls if the one point will make it a success.

Cold: . +2 to resist things that alter their emotions.

Critical:

Can spend an action to get a +1 to rolls against a target and ignore a point of their armor.

Cruel: Likes to see people in pain. +1 to rolls against targets they’ve already caused pain to or humiliated.

Liar: A free rank of Fib and can spend a zap to “remove the minus to a fib that show its difficulty”.

Larcenous: A free rank of Urchin and Wealth.

Narcissistic: “The character’s confidence about themselves gives others confidence in them.” Can spend a zap to declare a roll a success once per day.

Snarky: A free rank of Insult and “all minuses caused by her insults are improved by 1”. Which basically looks like it adds an extra point to any penalties Insults cause.

Sneaky: A free rank of Hide and gain a +1 to damage dealt when they’re behind cover.

Whimsical: +2 to see through illusions and resist damage from them.

Heritages

Circeress:


Of course this list starts off with the pre-requisite bonuses for Alteration users. Circeresses get a free rank in Alteration, can make a spell to turn someone into an animal permanent for 1 zap and -1 to the Casting roll, and can spend an extra 2 zap to add the Lingering augmentation to an animal transformation.

Commander: +2 ranks to Leader, all of the maneuver bonuses are doubled, the character starts with 10 Allowance points to allocate towards minions, (It doesn’t say whether or not it stacks with the 10 you get for being a Ringleader.) +2 to rolls to see through disguises and hidden characters, and gets a +2 to attacks and damage against a target after a successful attack. If the character is a Ringleader, they should probably take this.

Enchantress: A free rank in Mentalism, Charm, and Scare; mind control and altering spells always use the lowest either the target’s Magic or Will to calculate resistance; and +1 to their Social die.

Echidnist: Wants to awaken Echidna; too insane to realize that they’re just being used by her. Not that this matters because Echidna seems like she should be the last of anyone’s worries in this setting. +2 to rolls when dealing with monsters and non-witch echidnists, can speak the secret language of Echidna which makes them immune to negative uses of her name and something called the “Gibbering of Echidna”, can spend 2 zap and speak the language to give people within 10 feet a -1 penalty to all rolls for a minute if they fail a Hard Will roll, +1 to Casting when invoking the name of Echidna, +2 if the spell causes misery.

Ghulvin: Ghulvins are descendants of Echidna who need to eat other witches, otherkin, and/or humans to heal and regain zap (up to their maximum amount). The favored method of consumption is turning people into foodstuffs, though some go the Hansel & Gretel route and just chuck people into ovens. The WWC officially says they’re a myth while unofficially condemning them, while Highbinders fucking love them when they exclusively eat humans. They gain +1 to their Magic die and can spend 2 zap to give themselves a rank of Legendary Strength, Fitness, or Speed (with a max of three, if you can find the rules for the last two) for a minute.

Hate-Blood: Witches who are part Hate, the primordial beings that Echidna made vampires, Ghulvins, and shapeshifters out of. They look normal until they feel any negative emotion, then they gain dark hair, blue or dark purple skin, bat wings, and turn into violent assholes. In this form, they also get a +1 to their Body. In and out of those forms, they also gain night vision, get +1 to resist darkness and shadow spells, can spend a zap to use their wings to fly at 50 mph, and spend a zap to gain talons that let them do +2 damage.

Highbinder: +2 to Casting against mortals, +1 to Casting against “lower class” witches and otherkin, +1 to Magic and Social dies, and can recognize other Highbinders by sight somehow.

Nobility: The Titled talent from Coventry in heritage form. Applies to nobles and royals in power and exile. The blurb suggests that you consult with the DM before taking this since it might affect the other players and game. They get +1 Wealth and 5 extra skill points at creation, get an additional +1 Wealth and +2 to all of their Social rolls when they’re in their homeland, and gain +3 to any roll once per day as they call on contacts from their land.

Shadowmancer: A free rank of Shadow magic, which is explained further in the chapter, and +1 to rolls when using it; +2 to resist shadow magic; can see in the dark; +1 to social rolls with shadow creatures; and “-1 to Casting and +1 to zap” when adding the shadow advantage to spells.

Terror:


The Creepy Kid clique from 13 Magazine in heritage form for witches over the age of 11. Usually unnervingly calm and have a deadpan voice. In other words, they’re Wednesday Addams. They get 2 free ranks of Scare, all of the penalties when they scare someone are doubled; they themselves are immune to fear-causing actions; and when someone is frightened by them, they can spend a zap to either make them lose an action or get a “-1 to casting and +1 to zap” to spells against them.

For new Knacks, we have…

Positive
Claws - +2 to damage when using their freakishly thick nails.
Coquette - +1 to social rolls when interacting with people she’s attracted to. Can only be taken by witch girls tween and up.
Crazy Eyes - -1 to Initiative to one target.
Envious – Can spend a zap to gain +1 to their next roll when a friend succeeds on a roll.
Gluttonous - -2 to resist magical poisons and harmful potions.
Infamous - +2 to social rolls when dealing with other wicked characters.
Monster Whisperer - +2 to social rolls with monsters.
Night Vision – Self-explanatory, but also gets weird-looking eyes.
Pointed Ears - +2 to Senses rolls when hearing.
Screech – Spend a zap and an action to screech. If targets fail an Easy Will roll, they get a -1 to their next roll.

Negative:
Arch Enemy – Must make a Hard Will roll to harm the person they considered to be their arch. Because they define themselves through them and want to keep them around, you see.
Bad Habit - -1 to Life points due to an unhealthy habit like eating only sweets or smoking “despite [witches] being magical”. Yes, it’s been mentioned multiple times that smoking doesn’t harm witches. This knack is an exception because reasons.
Clothes Horse - -1 to Initiative because they spend so much time picking out their outfits and sometimes wear cumbersome ones.
Itchy Spell Finger – When someone annoys them, they have to succeed on a Hard Will roll to not lash out at them magically.
Hater –
Monologue – Enemies gain +1 to rolls against the character “starting at round there”.
Maniacal – Succeeding on two rolls in a row forces the character to make a Hard Will roll. If they fail, they start laughing and acting wildly, reveling in their own greatness.
Plotter - -2 to resist being surprised, since they spend a lot of time thinking up plans.
Softy - -1 to rolls against children, animals, and the elderly.
Sun Shy - -1 to rolls in direct sunlight. Can be avoided with an umbrella.


The Magic section begins with that and the note that the only thing really stopping witches from destroying whole cities with a wiggle of their finger and having them stay destroyed is the WWC. Lovely.

A lot of the new advantages/augmentations have “Alter Resistance” under their title for some reason.

Addictive: Makes the target addicted to the caster and their magic. -1 to resist the caster’s Social rolls, which can be increased to -3 with each subsequent hit in an hour. Last D6 hours.

Dark: Can be applied to damage-dealing spells to make the target lose a D6’s worth of zap per hit.

Grinding: Will make harmful spells stay on a target and increase the duration and damage MTR of the spell by 1 per round, up to a max of 3.

Horrific: Makes the target make a Hard Will roll. If they fail, they get a -2 to all rolls against the caster and will try to flee from them. Lasts D6 combat rounds or minutes.

Knockback: Targets hit by the spell must make a Body or Athletics (probably the latter since that adds the Body die) vs the spell’s rank + 3. Failure gets them knocked back D4*5 feet. Hitting something makes them take half falling damage. Works on inanimate objects as large as a car as well.

Lingering: Lets the caster recast the spell if it fails a round later instantly at no extra cost.

Subtle: -2 to detection rolls and the spell doesn’t have any visual effects.

Tagging: The spell tags the target, letting them know where they are from up to 50 miles away.

Unstoppable: The spell partly ignore resistance and armor and always does 1 point of damage for 5 dealt normally.

Weakening: The target makes a Hard Magic roll. If they fail, they get a -1 to their Body die for an hour. If it drops to less than 0, they will die in D4 minutes.

Like the Skills section, the Magic section introduces two new types of magic powers: Binding and Shadow. (The book also mentions that they will be similar to the powers that will be explained in the “upcoming” Otherkin book. This book is over a year old and, as of this writing, said Otherkin book has not materialized.) Unlike other types of magic, these types only give one kind of ability per rank.

Binding is a rare, secret art that is difficult to learn and supposedly kept secret from the general witch pop, even though it’s one of the WWC’s primary ways of punishing criminals. Only witches can learn how to do it, and it requires having Curse 6, Healing 3, and Mentalism 3 to do so. Binding people without the WWC’s permission will get you bound or exiled, and undoing a binding notifies everyone involved in the binding. (In case you’re wondering, Millicent, Lucinda’s older sister, can’t bind her. She doesn’t have the required Curse score.)
Rank 1: Can sense if people in the area are bound witches.
Rank 2: Can see the face of the person who bound the person when touching them.
Rank 3: Knows the reasons why a person was bound.
Rank 4: Can actually bind people. This is a Rite roll and can only be done to people with a lower Magic die than the rite leader’s.
Rank 5: Can undo bindings. Also a Rite roll.

Shadow is Obtenebration from oWoD Vampire with different abilities and without the weird focus on tentacles. It gives you night vision for free and replaces all of the shadow abilities that were previously covered by Necromancy. There are no prerequisites listed for it.
Rank 1: Can cover a 5 by 5 foot area per rank in shadows, giving anyone without night vision a -2 +1 per rank penalty to sight rolls.
Rank 2: Can create a hand-to-hand or melee weapon out of shadow. +1 to attack rolls per rank, 5+1 damage per rank, and lasts for a minute per rank.
Rank 3: Can bind a target in shadow, creating a prison of 3 HP and 2 Armor per rank that must be destroyed to free the person.
Rank 4: Fire a blast of shadows that does standard MTR damage. Successful hits cause the target to succeed on a Hard Will roll or get a -2 to all of their rolls for D4 minutes.
Rank 5: Teleport from one shadow to another.
Rank 6: Can turn into a shadow and move as a 2D image along surfaces at double speed. It’s a -4 to detect them and they’re immune to mundane attacks.

Next: Another big equipment section.

Lists for Minions and Sanctums

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Part 5: Lists for Minions and Sanctums

The equipment section in this book introduces two new systems: Minions and Sanctums.

Along with the usual stat block, minions have an extra attribute, Loyalty. Whenever they are told to do something, their Loyalty score is added to a roll of their Will die to determine whether or not they’re willing to do it. The blurb implies that it’s a die, but the stat blocks have it as a static number. Have a chart.



If/When they die, minions can be replaced by spending 10 voodollars. This will give you a new one with the same stat block and abilities. (Which the book refers to as a “new hire”.) The stat blocks are always the same and can only be changed through add-ons. The book doesn’t entertain the notion of someone going out of their way to bring a minion back from the dead or undoing an ailment with their magic. If it’s good enough for Channel M’s villains, it’s good enough for you.

For minion types, we have

Assistant: Runs errands, does research, anything that doesn’t require actual combat. Costs 5 points, has a Loyalty of 3, and has a stat block of D4s and 6s. Their special ability lets a character spend a zap to have them instantly be nearby.

Brute: Dumb muscle that is only good for kicking someone’s teeth in. Costs 8 points, has a Loyalty of 2, and has a stat block of mostly D4s with a D6 in Senses and a D6+1 in Body. Their special ability gives them a +1 to resist diseases and harmful potions and poisons, and they ignore 2 points of damage. They can be outfitted with 5 points worth of weapons and armor.

Lackey: Used for menial jobs that even the assistant is too good to do. Cost 3 points, has a Loyalty of 5, and has a stat block of D2s and 4s. They don’t have a special ability.

Ninja: Deadly, stealthy assassins. Costs 10 points, has a Loyalty of 4, and has a stat block of D6s, some D4s, and a D2 in Social. They have two (actually three) special abilities: a -2 to be seen and hit in dim light or darkness, move twice as fast, and have a +2 to Initiative and Dodge rolls. They can have 5 points worth of weapons.

Pawn: Inside agents in positions of power. Costs 6 points, has no Loyalty stat, and a stat block of D4s with a D6 in Mind and a 2 in Magic. Their special ability gives them a +2 to social rolls when dealing with their superiors.

Spy: Acquires info and items. Costs 10 points, has no Loyalty stat, and a stat block of D6s in everything except Magic, which is a D2. They can be equipped with 5 points worth of weapons.

After picking a template, you can spend points to add stuff from a list of minion add-ons. Right on down the line, we’ve got

Bodyguard: (Costs 3 wealth) Can spend a zap to automatically take a hit for the character.

Homunculus: (4) The minions has spare clones of themselves. When they die, it only takes 2 zap and 5 voodollars and they keep all of their memories.

Hyper Reflexes: (7 per rank, up to 3 ranks) +1 Reflex, agility, and dexterity. The latter two don’t exist, so just Reflex.

Hyper Stamina: (5 per rank, up to 3) +2 life points, +1 to resist disease and poison, and halves the amount of rest the character needs.

Hyper Strength: (5 per rank, up to 3) Oh hey, finally some god damn rules for this thing! +1 to Strength based Body rolls, +2 to hand-to-hand damage, +10 feet to jump distances, and can lift +1,000 pounds.

Loyal: (1 per rank, up to 3) +1 to Loyalty.

Magic Resistant: (5 per rank) +1 to Resist Magic against everyone but their boss.

Monster: (7) The minion is one of the following:

• Automation: A robot or some steampunk clockwork nonsense. Immune to mind control abilities and spells. +1 Body, +1 Mind, +1 Armor, and can be repaired with a Very Hard Build/Repair roll.
  
• Doppelganger: A featureless grey humanoid being that can change its shape at will. Not quite what a doppelganger is, but having witch clones running around sounds awful. They can change into any humanoid between 3 and 7 feet tall. Which is pretty much everyone, so… The first hour in the form is free. After that they have to spend a zap an hour. They also get +1 to Social.
  
• Flying Monkey: +1 Body, +1 Senses, 4 ranks of Flying, +2 to damage in combat due to their “teeth and monkey rage”.
  
• Golem: Frankenstein’s monster. Immune to electrical and cold attacks. +1 Body die, +2 Armor, can be rebuilt with a Necromancy 3 spell.
  
• Shadow Folk: Blue-skinned humanoids who live in the dark. So night elves. +1 Senses, has night vision, +1 Body in dim light or darkness.
  
• Zombie: +2 Loyalty, +1 Body, immune to Mentalism spells, -1 to Resist Magic against Necromancy spells.
  

Skilled: (“1 3 skill points ((Maximum 3 ranks)” “A Minion is limited to have 5 ranks in any one skill.”

Quantity: (2 per minion, up to three) Get more minions. The extras have a -1 to their Body and Mind dice.

Shrinkable: (3) The witch in charge of the minion can shrink them down to 6 inches or less for 1 zap. The minion cannot resist the spell. Blah.


So Titania Morganne, the headmistress of the best magic school in the multiverse and the former director of education for the WWC, is evil now?

Sanctums are places witches have set up for themselves where they can go and do magic in private. The only requirement in terms of location for one is that it must belong to the witch. (This means that bedrooms in parents’ houses are okay, but dorm rooms are not. Even though children technically do not own their bedrooms any more than a college student owns their dorm room.)

Standard sanctums cost 10 points, are 50x50x10 feet, and have 10 life points and 5 armor. While in their sanctums, witches have a +1 to all of their rolls, a -1 to the zap cost of spells, and automatically stabilize if they get knocked out in it. The witch can spend a zap to change the color of the walls and anyone trying to find it has a -2 penalty. All other features require buying an add-on.

Architectural Control: (3) Spend a zap and change the walls, floors, furniture, whatever to anything.

Bigger on the Inside: (3) Turns it into a TARDIS without the time travel abilities.

Death Ward: (7) Prevents the owner from dying if they’re in the sanctum. They may need to be healed to full first before they’ll reform though. Maybe. The blurb is a bit confusing.

Dungeon: (7) The sanctum has a dungeon for keeping prisoners. Has 20 life points and +4 armor. Needs to be taken multiple times to have more than one cell.

Guardian: (7) The sanctum either has a physical being protecting it or the sanctum itself is partly sentient and can defend itself from intruders. The stat block for all types of guardians is 12 life, 3 Armor, 10 Reflex, 9 Resist Magic, D6+4 Fighting, D6+4 Scare, and 1 Action. Their special abilities are Illusion Body (Makes them immune to Mentalism spells, lets them camouflage themselves as anything, and lets them reform in the sanctum if they die if the owner spends 5 zap.) and Attack (does 10 damage and lets the guardian attack from anywhere in the sanctum).

Increased Size: (4 per rank) Doubles the size of the sanctum for every rank taken, along with adding 10 life and a point of armor each. Has a note telling directors to make sure players don’t ruin the game by making their sanctums the size of whole towns. This and “Bigger on the Inside” could probably be used as a workaround for people who don’t want to go through the effort of making a pocket dimension.

Increase Alignment: (10 per rank, max 3) Adds an additional +1 to the owner’s rolls, while adding a -1 to other witches in it.

Off the Grid: (3) All of the appliances and doodads in the sanctum are powered by magic.

Place of Peace: (5) To heal, the owner only needs half the amount of sleep and gains +2 to Focus rolls.

Place of Power: (5) The owner regenerates zap at twice the rate and always has at least one zap.

Recall Door: (4) Lets the owner access her sanctum from any entrance way. Doesn’t work as an exit.

Self Repair: (10) The sanctum and objects in it repair themselves at D4 life points a day.

Spectral Servant: (3 per) Hires ghosts that take care of the sanctum’s upkeep. Must have a designated job.

Traveler’s Door: (5 each) Let’s the owner place multiple entrances in multiple locations to their sanctum.

The final section of this chapter is an overview of character creation. It is focused on this lovely individual.



Bad copy-paste or a wig? You decide.

This is Maggie Root, a Snarky Ghulvin with a shitty Temper. She’s a member of the Imp clique and has “Shrink Person” as one of her signature spells. Despite not having the requirements for them, she has a +4 and +6 in Naming and Sympathetic Magic, respectively, and uses the latter frequently for pranks.

Annabelle doesn’t like ghulvins.


And now, pictures.



Oh look, Lucinda just assaulted the (arguably) most visible and important mundane on the planet. Also, this totally won’t date this book in a few months.



One thing I've started to notice is that Harris likes to reuse the “fanart” that other people made for him. Usually by editing the pictures into new pieces.




Next: Why is there a write up for the Underworld in the chapter about game themes?

I Don’t Know What Moods and Themes Are. Also, the Underworld.

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Part 6: I Don’t Know What Moods and Themes Are. Also, the Underworld.


The chapter starts with a list of possible moods. All of which are actually genres. It stresses that having a consistent mood is important because otherwise, the game will either devolve into slapstick silliness or get so dark that it becomes unplayable.

Adventure: The easiest one to run. More exciting than one with a cast of characters that aren’t assholes. How? Use your imagination.

Comedy: Take a lot of effort. Best used as satire.

Drama: Lets you focus on the repercussions and consequences of when a character “breaks bad”.

Horror: Seems easy until you realize that the logistics of the main characters being the hellspawn causing the horror can be tricky to figure out. Instead, it might be better if the game was about them dealing with the hellspawn they unleashed. That’s their words, not mine.

Mystery: Characters with questionable moral codes are great for mystery stories. You could also put a twist on it and have them trying to frame someone else.

Romance: Bad girls need love too. Totally done all the time in trashy paperback novels and soaps. Considering the characters in this book do not like being told “no”; kidnap, torture, and kill people on the regular; and are stupid kids either on the cusp of or going through puberty, I can only imagine what would happen to the people who catch these assholes’ eyes and don’t just conveniently happen to have a transformation fetish.

For potential themes, we have

Anti-Hero: Beat up Highbinders and hunters while being just as much of a dick as they are. Good for people who want to be good and bad.

Caper: The characters break into places and steal shit. Takes players and a DM that are willing to do a lot of roleplay, but can lead into more capers if you want to make a long-term game.

On the Run: Play a game where the characters are accused of and possibly did commit a crime. Good for globe-trotting games that keep things exciting by putting them in different locales.

Raising Echidna: Echidna is totally still a thing that’s relevant, you guys. Why not run a game where the characters actually awaken her? The conflict is they have to do it in a way that won’t make her just murder them when she wakes up.

Super villain: Superheroes! Fight the WWC and hunters in silly costumes with grandiose plans! Doesn’t make mention of the next supplement and the game it’s tied to, oddly enough.

The Game: Game of Thrones with witch and otherkin families. It even mentions weddings going wrong.


Emotional attachment to a character is usually what keeps people from being willing to kill them off. I bet that if you put Lucinda or any of the other obvious creator darlings in this type of game, Harris would probably throw a fit and make up some bullshit excuse as to why they don’t die.

World Domination: Can be worked into other themes. Players fight against the DM to take over the world. Can be fun for everyone. Harris was out of ideas at this point.

The last part of this chapter is a very barebones write up of a pocket realm simply called “The Underworld”. It sits between the Witch Girls World and another realm called The Shadow. It was founded in 10,081 BC and is ruled by an individual named Lord Hades P. Anubis, who is assisted by an “undercouncil” of criminal guild leaders. The next chapter has character sheets and bios for NPCs. He and the other NPCs in this section don’t get one. It’s very obvious that this was just shoehorned into this chapter at the last second for… some reason.

Anyway, Anubis is actually a fusion of three different people. The first is a man named Hades who came into the then empty Underworld when his “dimensional barge fuel” ran out and the ship destroyed by “outriders” when he was in the Shadow. He eventually came across two alternate dimensional versions of himself, Pluto and Anubis. The two of them, both lacking the power to escape the Underworld on their own, worked on a ritual to combine their powers. Somehow, Hades knew that the ritual would combine the three of them together and leave him as the dominant personality. So he tricked them into doing it. When they merged, he realized that he could just stay and turn the realm into his own personal kingdom/criminal refuge. So he did just that. Now it’s a thriving place full of zombie farms, night metal mines, and where anyone can find anything for a price.

If any of that doesn’t make sense, don’t worry. That write up is just as half-assed as it is in the book.

While in the Underworld, characters only regain their zap at a rate of D4 points a day instead of whatever their Magic die is, and Necromancy and Shadow spell rolls and MTR get a +1.

Getting into the realm without a Toll Portal requires Time and Space 4 and a -4 penalty to the Casting roll. If you fail you get teleported to The Labyrinth. As the rule implies, access to the realm is regulated by Toll Portals, which require going through immigration bullshit and giving the guards either 5 zap or an item of value. Portal agents can find people who need their services and arrange passage into the realm. The portals always dump travelers into the station in New Hades, the largest town in the realm, where all the immigration and travel regulation nonsense takes place.

Surrounding New Hades and something called “the night land” is The Labyrinth, a maze of caverns and cliffs separating the town from the rest of the Underworld. As mentioned, people unsuccessfully trying to get in without a toll portal get dumped here. Though it can be entered normally from entrances around the Underworld. Flying and teleporting out are impossible due to “alterations in reality”. To get out, a character either needs to hire a guide (who may or may not actually guide you) or get successes on 24 Impossible Mind or Games rolls. (Remember: An Impossible roll requires at least an 18 to succeed.) Getting out of the Labyrinth takes, on average, a month, an dumps you out into someplace called “the river bad lands”.

The landscape of the Underworld is nothing but black stone and infertile dirt broken up by hills, valleys, and the river Styx. The sky is a red haze during the day. Nothing grows naturally in the Underworld, so the main economy outside of criminal enterprises is zombie farms and night metal mining. In the middle of the Underworld is Hades City, which may or may not be New Hades. Despite being run by conmen and bribes are required for any sort of peacekeeping, it’s a very orderly city. There’s socio-economic issues among the populus, but this entire realm is full of criminals so who gives a shit.

Anubis’s palace sits in the center of the city. He never leaves its throne room.


Uh oh, looks like little Makaylah and Addysyn just got exposed to a swear word in this children’s game for children. (To be fair though, tweens probably hear worse in school all the time.)

Turns out the source of Hades’s power is his throne. If anyone sat in it, they could take control. Where did it come from when he found out he could just stay and make the realm? Who knows.

Other places of note include:

The river Styx: Tastes like rotten flesh so everyone has to purify it with magic or import bottled water. Despite this, most of the townships are right by it. Also it’s poisonous so you couldn’t even drink it if you got past the taste. Despite this, it’s a tourist attraction.


Repeatedly making your children violently ill: a national pastime.

The Necroworks: The largest employer in the Underworld. Augments zombies. Run by a witch named Lilia Adams that is plotting to overthrow Hades and take over the underworld and her family. Is the second largest polluter in the realm next to…

The Nightmetal Refinery: Owned by Hades. Does exactly what you think it does.

Under Market: A market run by the “under guild” that deals in forbidden magical goods. Trades in either other goods or Joss, crystals of pure magical energy.

After this is a very short rundown of notable NPCs. They only get a paragraph each. The ones for Hades and Lilia tell you everything I’ve already said other than that Hades still has multiple personalities due to the other two dudes in him despite the fact that it said Hades is the one controlling them. The other two are

Anna Ranne: The high priestess of the Temple of Echidna that’s in the underworld. Has written books on how great Echidna is and attracts tons of pilgrims. Also wants to overthrow Hades.

Boss Rogon: The current leader of the Under-guild and former resident of some place called Farsia. Doesn’t want to overthrow Hades because he realizes that making himself the center of attention is bad for his business.

That’s it. Are you wondering why Hades is immortal despite the fact that it never says what he is exactly? Wondering where the whole throne thing came from? Wondering why the fuck anyone who isn’t a criminal that would shiv the first person who tries to make them a slave would live there? Fuck you. The book doesn’t say.

Up next: NPC character bios, some of them repeats with Soto art. One of them would probably piss Tumblr off.

A List of Redundant Character Sheets – A to J

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Part 7: A List of Redundant Character Sheets – A to J

I just realized something while I was writing this part: If the WWC considers Curse and some Mentalism spells to be a form of assault, why do all of the WWC accredited schools that have write ups have courses on them? There’s no indication they’re “Defense Against the Dark Arts” types of classes.

Anyway…


The last chapter is just a bunch of NPC character bios. There’s a blurb before everything starts about making villains for your game. It’s just basic common sense stuff and “don’t make the same character over and over”.

I’ve noticed going through these character bios that, while they’re mostly just copy-pasted from the core, some of the more questionable bits have been removed and some things have been added in an attempt to make the characters a bit more fleshed out. So there is some indication that Harris has caught on to some of the problems with the game and made some attempt to fix them. Or at least paid lip-service to them.



Captain Alphonse de Oso

Alphonse is your generic dashing rogue type of pirate who does it because it’s fun and exciting. He probably talks like Jack Sparrow. Like Boss Rogon, he comes from Farsia, a magical steampunk version of Earth that was constantly at war with the shitty evil empire that Lucinda is from before heroes killed her parents. During the confusion caused by the Nightbanes’s deaths, he stole one of their “dimensional galleons”, hired a crew (that is completely loyal to him so don’t even try to incite a mutiny), and now travels the multiverse looking for adventure and treasure. His first stop was Oz. Yes, that Oz. He tried to raid the Emerald City, but failed. Then stole a magical artifact from an almost magically dead world after almost getting stuck on it and jumped to the Underworld. Then he pissed off Hades by stealing 3,000 Joss and his favorite coat. He’s been traveling the multiverse for 2 years. Most of the allies he has in Farsia assume he’s dead. Some of the plot ideas for him include him disguising himself as a teacher to get at something, and wanting help activating an artifact called the “Eye of Echidna”, because you’d definitely want the help of a bunch of 12-year-olds and not a grown adult expert in such things. Then again, stat blocks being the way they are in this game…

Alphonse is credited to someone named Kalen S. Lewis. Based on a quick Google search, he looks like a self-insert. Or Soto assumed he was and just based him on the dude’s pictures. Who knows.

Alphonse is a Rank 3 NPC. He is a “Mortal-Charmer” with the Entertaining (the Entertainer talent without the ability to add MTR bonuses to spells) and Witty (can use Joke or Insult with Charm; completely different from the version in Respelled) talents, the Farsian heritage (free ranks of Mysticism and Crytozoology, can purchase magic items, can have Farsian occupations, and get a nebulous bonus to Magic), and no Knacks. He has a D10 Social, D8 Body and Mind, and D6 everything else (with a +1 in Magic). He has 95 mundane and 11 magical skill points. His clique gives him a +2 to resist fear-inducing skills, abilities, and spells, and let him spend a zap (up to 3) to add a +1 to a roll or resistance or ignore damage. These are not the abilities that are given to the Mortal-Charmer template that shows up in a later supplement. Per his heritage, Alphonse gets to have an occupation. His is a “Performer (Rank 5)”, which gives him the “Maestro” ability, which lets him regain a zap point with a successful Hard Singing roll. His other abilities are “Calming Song” (spend a zap and roll Singing vs Resist Magic to give people within earshot a -5 to all of their rolls), “Ballad” (spend a zap, sing about a person or group, Singing vs Resist Magic or the targets get a -3 to resist Social rolls and a -1 Hit or Dodge from the subject of the song,), and “Glib Tongue” (+2 to Fib rolls against a specific target for 6 hours if they succeed on a Fib roll beforehand). Along with the galleon, his equipment includes a crew of 12 lackeys and a night metal cutlass (which inflicts wounds that can only be healed magically and drains a zap from the target when it hits). No, his bio doesn’t mention anything about him being a singer before he took up piracy.



Anna Raj

Anna has the same bio from the core. The only difference is she was born 421 years ago instead of 406. That is still long before the British Empire had any control over India. So the part about her family living under their rule and wanting to raise her as a proper British lady still makes no sense. She also hangs out with Harris’s second self-insert and helps his organization out on the weeks when she decides to play Robin Hood.

For stats, Anna is now a Rank 3 NPC instead of a Rank 4 one. The Urchin talent from her other sheet has been replaced with Trickster. Her Magic die has been bumped down to a D8+1 (instead of a D12+2). She’s gained ranks in Divination and Offense and lost two in Protection. Her illegal ability to turn into a snake with only Alteration 1 has been replaced with proper signature spells. These are “Danger Sense” (Divination 1; senses traps and gives a +4 against them), “Fumble” (Curse 1; makes target drop carried objects), “Invisibility” (Illusion 3; makes character invisible to one sense), and “Forget” (Mentalism 3; makes person forget up to a day’s worth of events). For new equipment, she has a Bag of Holding and a cobra familiar that can turn invisible and is either named “Djinn” or is part-djinn. It just has “(Djinn)” next to it. No explanation given.



Argus Society Member

Like minions, Argus Society members are given a set stat block (with D6s and D6 +1s in everything) that is added on to by assigning them a role. They’re just the specialties from 13 Magazine with the Techie renamed to “Engineer”. Each specialty gives a +1 to an attribute die, 3 ranks in 4 skills, and a special ability, which are copy/pasted from 13 Magazine, typos and all. While they can pick their Talents, all members have the same heritage that gives them a nebulous bonus to Magic, lets them see ghosts and magical stuff, and makes them immune to mortal avoidance charms.



Arthur Pendragon:

There’s nothing new in Arthur’s bio. It’s just the one from the core. Though Silas Black and various Echidnists want to get their hands on Excalibur now. The former because he thinks it’s the greatest witch-killing weapon, and the latter because they think it prevents Echidna from awakening somehow.

Arthur is an “Immortal-Leader”. The Otherkin book is not out at the time of this writing. So if you’re not Harris or Soto, have fun trying to figure out what that means. His attribute dice have been lowered; D8s in everything except Social (D10) and Senses (D6). His weird unusable “Warrior: Righteous” trait has been replaced with the Brave talent and a heritage called “Ancient Item”, which gives Excalibur and himself extra points of armor and lets him spend a zap to know where it is. Along with all the buffs to his physical stats, he also has the ability to heal people and remove poisons and diseases by spending a zap and touching them. He doesn’t have Excalibur’s scabbard anymore, and the sword itself still has its crazy portal-making abilities, damage buffs, and magical immunities.



Denora Desade

Denora’s bio is more fleshed out in this book. She was born 75 years ago in Nice (spelled “Niece” in Coventry), France. (Presumably. This bio just says “somewhere in France.) Her parents owned a “small and struggling” winery. Somehow, they didn’t equate having a good product with making more money, so they used her as slave labor and I guess tried a bunch of crazy schemes that didn’t involve making wine or… something. When she was 11, the staff of Coventry discovered her and brought her to the school. The power and wealth on display turned her into an evil shit. She dropped her accent, learned English, and started pretending to be a “posh” British sorceress. (Which brings up another question: What does Coventry do about the whole language barrier thing with students from non-English speaking countries?) After school, she moved to Los Angeles and helped prop up the elite of Hollywood. Then she became the Great High Witch and moved to San Francisco. Naturally, being evil, she wants to become the Exalted Enchantress. Witch hunters on the east coast, not the west, want to kill her, and while she has allies among the Highbinders, she herself is not officially one. Right. One of her plot hooks is forcing the player characters to be friends with Claudia. Helena was still her roommate, but Denora’s age has been bumped up by 25 years. So unless Harris bumped up Helena’s age and didn’t see the need to point that out anywhere, Denora was still in Coventry at 25 and rooming with an exceptionally talented fetus.

Denora is a rank 5 NPC. She’s now a member of the Brat clique with the Narcissistic and Sneaky talents and the Enchantress heritage. The blurb for Enchantress doesn’t mention some of the stuff she should be getting. Her Mind and Will dice have gone down a size (D8 and D6) and her Magic is now down to a D10+1 (from a D12+5). She now has 60 mundane, 56 magical, and 25 magic ranks. (Highest is still Alteration, but it’s gone down to 5. She also has points in Sympathetic Magic. Which she can’t have if you assume that by “Craft”, they meant “Build/Repair”, which she has no points in.) Along with “Cigar” (which is now an Alteration 5 spell), her signature spells now include “Denora is Always Right” (Mentalism 4; target has to obey Denora and not do stuff she hates), “Improve Life” (Curse 5; improve a person’s life for a week), and “Time Edit” (Time and Space 4; can make a small change to a person’s past a day before). She also gets 5 free points of armor because fuck you. Along with her cigarette holder wand and car, she has a Purse of Holding and a penthouse apartment that serves as a sanctum.



Dracula

Dracula’s bio’s been tweaked a little bit; Him and Echidna are now lovers (Cthulhus need love too, I guess), and it implies that he was the historic Vlad the Impaler. Near the end of World War II, his sense of duty to “what was once his people” made him betray Ingrid Frieze and the Nazis. (Presumably, this would have been around the time Romania had that coup and switched sides to the Allies.) She tried to kill him with a spell, but thanks to one of his caskets, it just put him in hibernation for 50 years. Now he’s back and plotting to resurrect Echidna with that three keys thing that never comes up. He’s prone to monologing and generally a good dude to women and children that aren’t trying to screw him over.

Dracula is now a rank 7 NPC. His clique is just “Vampire”, his talents are “Cold” and “Jaded”, and his heritage is a new one called “Dabbler”. It gives him the ability to cast spells, free ranks in Casting and Mysticism, and a nebulous boost to his Magic attribute. His attribute dice have been lowered to D8s (Body, Mind, and Senses) and D10s (Will, Social, and Magic). Thanks to his heritage, he has 14 ranks in magic; highest being Shadow. He has a bunch of stat bonus for being a vampire, a vulnerability to gold and haloium weapons, and gets a free rank of “Hyper Movement Flight” and a +1 to rolls against vampires that aren’t part of the Dracul bloodline. He also has 10 points of armor that works against all kinds of damage… because. For equipment, he has 30 points worth of minions (and can use 6 of them to make them a vampire), 5 magical caskets (one in the Underworld) that make him immune to Divination magic and let him reform in them when he dies, and “The True Castle Dracula” that acts as his sanctum.



Echidnists

Echidnists are handled in the same way as Argus Society members. (While an Echidnist can be any kind of witch beforehand, they always have these templates.) Their base stats are D6s in everything but Social (D4) and Magic (D8), 28 pre-selected mundane skill points, 21 magical skill points, and a heritage that is a little hard to decipher due to no editing and bad image layering.



For equipment, all Echidnists get a Twisted Wand and a Dark Mark Mark of Echidna tattoo that grants them 2 points of armor and a zap point while identifying them as an Echidnist.

Every different type of Echidnist gets a +1 to a attribute die, 3 free ranks in two skills, 2 or 3 ranks in four different Magic types, and a special ability. For types, we have:

• Cassandra: The diviners of the group who speak to Echidna and tell her will to the others. Their special ability, “Third Eye”, opens a literal third eye on their forehead that lets them see other Echidnists and what they’re doing.
  
• Screamer: Chanters who… I guess invoke Echidna’s blessings during meetings. The wording is weird. Their special ability, “Maw”, gives them higher penalties to the effects they give through their evoking abiltiies. Their singing sounds like screaming gibberish to anyone who isn’t an Echidnist. Which makes the one plot hook where the group goes to see a band of them make no sense.
  
• Twister: Poor men’s Tzimisce who interrogate others by warping their flesh with their long fingernails or some shit. Their special ability lets them do this for one zap and gives the target Body and Social roll penalties for D4 days.
  
• Wrangler: The beastmasters of the group. They can summon shadow creatures for free and get a +2 Social bonus to dealing with them. Others don’t like them because they look and smell weird.
  
• Umbra: The leaders of the Echidnists and therefore, the best. They get two attribute bonuses instead of one (Mind and Magic) and get cool horns and talons. Their special ability lets them teleport anywhere in the world for one zap.
  

Gary Reed

Gary still believes in the Witchspiracy and is still a shitty human. Except now, he has more money and equipment thanks to Harris’s second self-insert buying out his tabloid and giving him money. Even he wonders why someone is willing to give him so much money, seeing as he has never found hard proof of the Witchspiracy. Oddly enough, the WWC protects him because they think his presence keeps witches on their toes. The WWC is just trolling everyone now, really.

Gary’s been bumped down to Rank 2. His attributes and traits are the same except for his heritage, “Detective”, which give him a Senses die boost, a +2 to solving puzzles, +1 to find traps, and can make a roll to see if someone is telling the truth. For equipment, he has a car, a camera the size of a matchbox, and a Smart Phone that has a -3 to hack it.



Ingrid Frieze

Witch Hitler no longer killed her parents, and the thing about her only getting ousted from her job as a Magistrate because she killed the wrong person has been changed to her just leaving after realizing that she didn’t believe in the WWC’s policy when it came to mortals. (She is still a student of Reinhexxen though.) The WWC bound her when they caught her during World War II. Since then, she’s been trying to build up her forces in any way that she can. Everyone except the Highbinders, Echidnists, alternate versions of herself, and Queen Gothel want her dead. So she has the distinction of being the one person in this universe that nearly everyone looks at and goes “Fuck that bitch”.

Ingrid is now a Rank 7 NPC. She is a Ringleader with the Critical and Cold talents and the Amazon heritage, despite the fact that her bio makes no mention of her actually being one. She’s got 82 mundane skill points, 46 magical skill points, and 43 magic ranks. (Highest is Alteration, Curses, Offense, and Necromancy with 6. Her Mentalism has been brought down to 4.) Her signature spells are “Bend” (Time and Space 3; -3 to hit her), “Disintegrate” (Offense 5; completely destroys a target), “Ghost Army” (Necromancy 6; calls D4 wraiths), “Hounds of War” (Alteration 6; turns a person into a bull sized wolf that she can control, kind of terrifying), and “Lightning Bolt” (Elementalism 3; does 20 points of damage). She also has 5 points of armor thanks to wards. Along with the soul-sucking ring, she has a hidden sanctum base and thousands of minions, 60 points of which are available at any given moment.



Jezebel Wilkins

Jezebel is 1,638 years old, so her bio about being the daughter of Swedish immigrants from Kansas makes no sense now. I think that might have supposed to have been the year she was born, but that still doesn’t make sense since a lot of the original 13 colonies and the Louisiana territory weren’t even established then. The part about her trying to protect the family cattle from the local native tribe has been changed to her meeting a medicine woman who was just hanging out somewhere outside of her family’s farm.

“Jez”’s Social and Magic dice have gone down to a D8 and a D10 +1, respectively. Her heritage has been changed to “Arcane Aptitude”. She has 64 mundane skill points, 40 magical points, and 34 magic ranks. (Highest is still Divination with 6.) Her signature spells are “Brambles” (Elementalism 3; doesn’t 10 points of damage if you try to escape them), “Cuff” (Conjuration 2; creates handcuffs), “Forget” (Mentalism 3; makes the target forget a day’s worth of events), “Jezzy Sense” (Divination 4; knows if a witch is breaking the law “witin a vitithin a away”), “Reflect” (Protection 3; does what it says), “Six Shooter” (Offense 4; turns her hand into a gun and does 15 damage), and “Silence” (Alteration 2; remove’s the target’s mouth and vocal cords). She also has 5 points of armor on her thanks to wards. Her equipment is her motocycle, her magistrate “bade”, and 20 points of worth of potion pellets.

More characters later.

A List of Redundant Character Sheets – M to S

posted by Adnachiel Original SA post

Part 8: A List of Redundant Character Sheets – M to S



Mcdonald/Macdonald Hartman

Meet Malcolm Harris Self-Insert #2. He is the head of Maximum Institute/Incorporated. He first discovered witches when he was 12, when his homemade miniature radio telescope caught sight of a girl flying around on a broom. Eight years, several homemade computers, and an ion-engine flight pack later, he finally caught up with her again. His bio doesn’t say what happened between them, but all of his homemade inventions made him a lot of money and turned him into the WGA World’s Tony Stark, complete with the power suits, but not the alcoholism, womanizing, morally questionable defense contracts, or stint as a terrorist group’s hostage. (He also created the setting’s most popular video game console because why not?) Two years ago, he discovered Trinity Valley, a pocket dimension in the Dallas area, with a miniature black hole. Somehow, that black hole didn’t destroy both dimensions. Instead, this and not the witch chick he met when he was 20, introduced him to the WWC and the rest of the magical world in general. He kept the discovery to himself and his inner circle of friends and uses his company’s immense wealth to go on magical time and space adventures. He’s allies with Arthur and Gary, Silas really fucking wants one of his power suits, and the plot hooks section is borderline gibberish.



Macdonald is a Rank 5 NPC. He is a “Mortal-Adventurer”, something that is not in any of the books, with the “Brainiac” and “Jock” talents and a custom heritage called “Gadgeteer”. This halves the time it takes him to build and repair devices, let him instantly figure out how something works for one zap, and “spend a zap point to make a one use mundane device instantly from available supplies device". (I guess that means he can MacGuyver things.) His attributes are D10s in Body and Mind, D8s in Will and Social, and D6s in Senses and Magic. For skills, he has 118 mundane skill points and a 3 in Mysticism. (Fun Fact: He’s fluent in 8 languages.) Most of his skills are at a 6 or higher. For equipment, he has a smart phone with ultraviolet and infrared cameras, the Maximum Inc. compound as a sanctum, and the Gladius Armor Mark 2.



Someone with a high enough MTR in Alteration can get around all of that in one action. Then again, someone with a high enough MTR in Alteration can instantly win nearly every fight if no one’s immune to it.



Malleus Maleficarum Trooper

Rank 2, D6s and D8s in attributes, 51 pre-determined mundane skills (not including points in Computer that aren’t listed), 9 pre-determined magical skills, +2 to resist things that induce fear, can add +1 to rolls for a zap, works the same way as Echidnists and Argus Society members. Their heritage gives them a +2 to resist mind control abilities, +1 to rolls if they’re working in a group, and +2 damage against witches. For specialties, we have

• Chaplains: The drivers and coordinators of groups. Tend to stay back and give orders. Instead of a special ability, MM troops get armor bonuses, a +5 against poison gas, and two or three pieces of equipment. Chaplains get 5 points of armor, night vision goggles, and a hand gun.
  
• Confessors: Does exactly what their title implies. They get 10 points of armor, the goggles, the gun, and a crown that forces people to tell the truth through pain.
  
• Purifiers: Heavy assault guys. Have the highest turnover. Gets 10 points of armor; the goggles; a flame thrower that does 15 damage, has an ammo stat, and doesn’t have rules for things being on fire afterwards; and a cold iron axe that does 16 damage.
  
• Rooks: Generic MM troops. Get no bonuses in anything. Gets 5 points of armor, the goggles, and a rifle that does 15 damage.
  
• Vespers: Silent, deadly assassins. Gets 5 points of armor, the goggles, the rifle, and a cold iron sword that does 13 damage.
  
• Vicars: Elite soldiers. Gets the Rook equipment plus cold iron bones that give them a +4 Resist Magic and halves the damage and duration of all spells cast on them.
  

Maximum Inc. Member

Instead of going through the various types of Maximum Inc. employees, the specialties section just runs down the members of Macdonald’s special world-saving inner circle of friends. All of them, save for one, is a Rank 4 NPC with D6s and D8s in their attributes and 44 predetermined mundane skill points with a 4 in Cryptozoology and a 5 in Mysticism, and the same “clique bonuses” as MM troops.

• Emily Foster: The group’s resident programmer when she’s not teaching classes at Coventry. It says to use the Coventry sheet. No one outside of the group knows she’s a witch.
  
• Generic Specialist: For when they need an extra person. Gets a Gladius Mark 1 power suit and +4 in a skill.
  
• Jose Perez: A genius engineer/world renown racecar driver. Has a friendly rivalry with Macdonald where he’s completely loyal to him, yet will occasionally disagree and go against his wishes. +2 to Mind and Will; Brave and Rebel talents with the Detective heritage; 3 ranks of Bargain, Drive, and Leader; and a smart phone, Gladius Mark 1 suit, and a Cryo-Cannon that does 10 damage and covers things in ice for equipment.
  
• ”Marvelous” Martin Hartman: Macdonald’s pro-athlete, Olympic medal-winning younger brother who gave up his entire “carrier” to be Macdonald’s head of security and bodyguard. Thrill-seeking and flirtatious where Macdonald is an “annoyingly positive” know-it-all. Somehow, he keeps Macdonald grounded and not vice versa. Has a plot hook where he and Jose chase a flying character for the hell of it. +2 to Body; +1 to Social; 3 ranks of Athletics, Charm, and Fighting; Jock and Flirt talents with the custom “Daredevil” heritage (+2 to resist fear, +2 to death-defying rolls, can spend zap to ignore a point of damage, and a free point of armor); Gladius Mark 1 armor, a smart phone, and “twin slam pistols” that do either 15 points of damage or stun the target.
  
• Seamus O’Hare: A genius psychiatrist/doctor and Macdonald’s equally geeky bestie. Has a plot hook where he tries to cure someone of Hag’s Syndrome. +2 to Mind and Social; 3 ranks of Charm and 6 ranks of First Aid; Brainiac and Gloomy talents with the custom “Medic” heritage (First Aid checks are lowered by one difficulty, healing amounts are doubled, time is halved, and can stabilize targets without needing to roll for it); Gladius Mark 1 armor, a smart phone, and a hard light projector that can do 10 damage or give 5 points of armor.
  

I see we’re backsliding into the “NPCs have things PCs can’t get” thing again with the custom heritages…

Oh, and here’s the stats for the Gladius Mark 1.





Olivia Maxis

Way back in the original core, there was a mention of West Grove, the Grecian magic school run by Hestia Maxis that’s gone to shit because her sister’s been funneling money from it into her own projects. Say hello to that sister. Their mother was a famous Greek actress, and Olivia wanted nothing more than to follow in her mother’s footsteps. She would have been able to do it if the assholes at Coventry hadn’t dragged her to the school. (There are mentions of witches being homeschooled. Why couldn’t they have just done that with her? Child actors are homeschooled and have on-set tutors all the time.) She resented no longer being the special snowflake of her social circle and immediately used her powers to regain her fame when she finished school, along with starting her production company, Maxis Studios. (No relation to Will Wright’s game studio, of course.) The company is now the most successful film studio in the Mediterranean. She used her money to modernize West Grove and set her younger sister up as its headmistress. She frequently uses the school to mine for new talent. Not anyone that outshines her though, because she’ll crush you if you’re more popular than her. The WWC is worried that she’ll take over the AAN, Macdonald and her had “sparks” when they met, Denora was a schoolmate of hers and hates her, and Queen Gothel wants to be her ally.

Olivia is a Rank 4 NPC. She’s a Prima-Donna with the Ambitious and Mary Sue talents and the Hypnotic heritage. She has D8+1s in Social and Magic, D8s in Mind and Will, and D6s in Body and Senses. She has 74 mundane skill points (and speaks 6 languages), 38 magical skill points, and 16 magic ranks. (Highest is Mentalism with 4.) Her signature spells are “Hideous” (Alteration 3; makes the target ugly and gives them -3 to Social rolls), “Mesmerize” (Mentalism 2; +3 to Social rolls), “Perfect Lighting” (Illusion 2; +3 to Social rolls under the light), and “Talentless” (Curse 3; -3 to all performance based and art rolls for a day). For equipment, she has her golden feather headpiece that gives her 5 points of armor and lets her ignore damage from falls, 60 points of minions, one of the 7 “great magic mirrors” that gives her bonuses to Divination spells and lets her view people for a zap, and her villa sanctum.



Pay-Back/Payback

Remember the guy who had his family set on fire by Denora because he asked for her insurance info after a fender-bender?



This is him. Dan Glover is a sergeant and member of the U.S. Special Forces who had just come back from the Middle East when Denora murdered his wife and children. The event broke him mentally, causing him to start referring to himself in the third person and narrate his life. He spent a year in a mental hospital before being dumped onto the streets, homeless and penniless. (You know, like a cartoon and not real life.) Thankfully, he was found by one of the employees of a person named Mr. F. After some time, Mr. F revealed himself to him.



No, Denora didn’t do that to him. It was another interchangeable sexy wicked witch that he accidentally annoyed.

He used Mr. F’s vast fortune to buy some witch-hunting equipment and went after Denora. The second he got to her house, Claudia turned him into a rabbit.



He obviously got better though, and he’s been spending his time hunting wicked witches in order to build himself up for another encounter with Denora. Highbinders and Echidnists want him dead, while Denora doesn’t seem to give a shit since it doesn’t mention her being one of his enemies. Him and Gary are friends, but Gary thinks he’s weird.

Payback is a Rank 3 NPC with the Brave and Unshakable talents and a custom heritage called “Hunter”. (+2 to recognize witches, ignores 2 points of damage from witches, does +2 damage to witches, +1 to resist spells.) He has D6s and D8s in everything (with a D8+1 in Body) with 57 mundane skill points (with an unlisted amount of points in Computer again) and 9 magical skill points. For equipment, he has binoculars, body armor that lets him ignore 5 points of damage, a crossbow with cold iron arrow tips that does 10 damage, flash bang grenades that can deafen a target for D4 minutes, a katana that does 13 damage, a motorcycle, a smart phone, a pair of shades that give him immunity to bright light bursts, and a taser that makes the target unable to move for a minute, then staggered for D6 minutes.



Project Stormwall Agents

Exactly what you’d expect. Rank 1 NPCs with set attributes (D6s and D8s), skills (41 mundane, 9 magical), and heritage (Detective).

• Seeker: The investigators of the organization. They “want to believe”. For equipment, they have a wrist mounted smart phone, a hand gun that does 10 damage, and a device that lets them detect magical energy, dimensional fluctuations, and ghosts within 100 feet of them.
  
• Sly: The talkers who use their charisma to gather information. They get the same equipment as Seekers.
  
• Squints: Scientists and technicians who research things. They get a taser instead of the hand gun.
  
• Soldiers: The fighters, who are always ex-military personnel. Get the same equipment as the Seekers.
  

Puck

I… Hmm…

I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and don’t automatically assume that everyone that does something that could be even slightly perceived as problematic is a Secret Turbo Hitler, but this is…

Also, they somehow managed to make Anderson Cooper look like absolute ass. I didn’t think that was possible.

Anyway, Puck. He’s an unseelie fae who is super old and no one really knows anything about him because he’s so hard to pin down. He might be one of Mab’s sons or grandsons. He’s played pranks on a lot of the characters in this chapter. (Silas Black kicked his ass when he tried and now wants to kill him.) Young witches and fae think he’s hot and will sometimes summon him just to meet him. He’s friends with Alphonse and Loki, who is an Immortal and doesn’t have a sheet.

Puck is a Rank 5 NPC with the Snarky and Trickster talents and a custom heritage called “Shifter” (+2 Reflex, can alter his shape to twice his size or half as small and has a -1 zap cost to do it). Because he’s fae, he can spend a zap to turn into a human; alter his shape, voice and clothing; and he’s vulnerable to both regular iron and cold iron. For attributes, he has D6s in Body and Senses, D8s in Social and Will, and D10s in Mind and Magic. For skills, he has 68 mundane, 10 magical, and 7 magic ranks. (Illusion 4 and Mentalism 3) He can fly up to 160 MPH, stretch his limbs, and has a pair of “7 League Boots” that let him teleport up to 100 feet away for a zap.



Queen Gothel

The evil queen and fairy from every Brothers Grimm story ever and the headmistress of Reinhexxen, the Evil School. Gothel was born to mundane parents and lived as one until adulthood, until a local witch decided to point out that she was one and oopsie, because she didn’t know that until then, her magic was almost gone. Thankfully, she got so pissed off that she reawakened her powers through sheer force of will. She went on to turn her husband into a toad (but it’s okay because he was an abusive shithead) and took over the German town she lived in and the nearby Black Forest. After several centuries of terrorizing mundanes, she tried to stage a coup of the WWC, failed, and only got a slap on the wrist, it seems, since she still has all of her powers. She eventually reappeared and opened Reinhexxen. She’s using the school and its students to try to take over the world again. The WWC has her under surveillance, but they still accredited her school and let her run it, so they must not have that much of a problem with her. I refuse to believe they don’t have someone as powerful as her that they can throw at her.

Gothel is a Rank 4 NPC. She’s a member of the Imp clique with the Cruel and Whimsical talents and the Nobility heritage. She’s got a D12 in Magic, D10s in Social and Will, a D8 in Mind, and D6s in Body and Senses. For skills, she has 76 mundane skill points (and speaks 6 languages fluently despite having only 4 points in Languages), 78 magical skill points (with an 8 in nearly everything she has points in, and a 7 in the ones she doesn’t), and 96 magic ranks (with an 8 in everything except Protection (9) and Time and Space (7)). Her signature spells was “Contract” (Curse 5; target gets +2 Social, but Gothel can leech their HP and zap forever), “Go Away” (Time and Space 5; sends the target to a random dimension), “New Life” (Mentalism 5; replaces a person’s entire identity, memories, and skills and makes them completely loyal to her; makes the plot hook where she tries everything in her power to make the PCs to join her kind of pointless), “Toad/Frog” (Alteration 3), and “Warped Witch” (Conjuration 6; creates an item the target wants that lets Gothel see through it). She also ignores 15 points of damage because of wards. For equipment, she has 50 points worth of magical artifacts, 60 points worth of minions, a menagerie of monsters of all ranks, another of the magic mirrors that Olivia has, and Castle Gothel, her sanctum that she can control the architecture of and can defend itself.

If you need any more evidence that NPC rank is a pointless stat that means nothing, it’s the fact that Gothel, with her ridiculous amount of near GM fiat “I snap my fingers and win” abilities, is a rank lower than Macdonald.



Silas Black

The only thing that’s changed in Silas’s bio is a paragraph that adds that he took a break from witch-hunting to help the Allies’ magical community during World War II. To make up for the dreaded crime of not murdering witches on sight, he killed the ones he worked with when the war ended.


As subtle as a sledgehammer to the face.

_{Silas Black still did nothing wrong.}

Silas is a Rank 7 NPC. He’s a Brawny Immortal, whatever that means, with the Cold and Relentless (“+1 to rolls at half Life o points and +2 to rolls at 1/4 life points”) talents and the Promethean heritage (gives him control of fire). He’s got D10s in everything except Mind (D8) and Magic (D12) with 90 mundane skill points and 31 magical skill points (he knows Leyology). Along with ranks in the various hyper movement abilities and 10 points of armor, he has 9 ranks in something called “Fire Control”, which lets him control, sling, and turn into fire. For 8 zap, he can throw a fireball that does 50 damage. For 3 zap, he can cover himself in fire and do 16 damage to anyone that touches him. For an additional 2 zap, he can add a caveat that the fire from any of his abilities can only be extinguished with magic. He also has a communicator, minions in the form of MM troops, and a sanctum in Ireland.



Shadow Kin

Shadow kin are the descendants of humans and otherkin that ended up in the Shadow for whatever reason. They hate light and creatures of light, don’t have much in the way of technology, and can be hired for the right price. They’re mostly nomadic and evil.

Shadow kin are Rank 2 NPCs. They have D6s in everything except Social (D8), 41 mundane skill points (with 3 points in language with no free point for their native language like other characters have had), 9 magical skill points, variable talents, and no heritage. They can see in the dark, get 2 free ranks of Shadow magic, are immune to said Shadow magic, take -4 damage from light attacks, -1 to all attributes when they’re in a well-lit area, and take a point of damage every minute when they’re in said areas.

Shadow kin are divided up into clans, which determine their attribute and skill bonuses and special ability. All of the names of the clans are awful.

• Clan Darken: Warlike warriors. Also the most common. Can imbue a weapon with dark power, giving it +5 damage and have it ignore 3 points of armor for 1 zap.
  
• Clan Ibos: Spies. Only gets a +1 in their attribute (Senses) where everyone else gets 2. Can see or hear anyone through shadows in… Shadow or on Earth for 3 zap.
  
• Clan Nix: Witches. All the female members are masters of Shadow magic. Gets +2 ranks of Shadow magic and +3 of another magic type of their choice.
  
• Clan Thul: Intellectual leaders. They claim to be the oldest clan. Can understand all languages and find anyone and anything within 10 miles of them in Shadow for a zap.
  

For equipment, which can be assigned and added to however the DM sees fit, include night metal arrows that do 10 damage that can only be healed with magic; night metal swords that do 13 damage that can only be healed by magic; and little squid-like creatures called Shadowsite that gives the person they’re attached to 5 points of armor, +5 HP, and +1 Body in return for -1 Magic.

Up next: The appendix, with stuff about Saint Joan’s Reformatory and more character sheets.

The Reform School is Run By Awful People

posted by Adnachiel Original SA post

Part 9: The Reform School is Run By Awful People



The write-up for Saint Joan’s Reformatory was, at one point, posted on Facebook. I made a post about it way back when. (A lot of the stuff from that post has been scattered around the various supplements.) It’s been reprinted nearly word-for-word in Wicked Ways. So you can just go to that link and read it yourself. But if you can’t or don’t want to do that, here’s another one.

Saint Joan’s was created in Antarctica in 1789 to contain and reform minor witches (12 to 18 years old) who have a history of committing crimes. For some reason, the WWC treated it as a “dirty little secret”, because punishing repeat criminals is bad somehow. If you’re at Saint Joan’s, you are one crime away from having your magic bound for life. The living conditions are cold, cramped, drab, and grey. Students’ magic is not bound, but they have to keep their hands visible at all times, and it will be bound for up to several weeks if they end up in a “gulag”, which is basically solitary confinement.

The write-up stresses that the school is not for typical witches who like to occasionally turn people who annoy them into things or shoplift.




Along with the write-up is profiles for three of the 15 staff members (divided up between 30 to 50 students the school has at any given time).



Paulette “The Stone” Stonebriar

I see Agatha Trunchbull is still getting work.

Paulette is the first and only headmistress Saint Joan’s has ever had. A Norwegian ghulvin, she was originally one of the cruelest magistrates ever employed by the WWC before they sent her to the school as both a form of punishment and as a promotion. No, I don’t know how that works either. She hated it until she realized that she could eat the occasional student, teacher, and wayward explorer and no one would give a shit. (She likes to turn them into mice and swallow them whole.) She likes making her students miserable.

Paulette is a Bully with the Cold and Cruel talents and the Ghulvin heritage. She has D6s in Mind and Social; D8s in Body, Will, and Senses; and a D10 in Magic. For skills, she has 33 mundane skill points, 18 magical skill points, and 20 magic ranks (with 4s in everything except Necromancy, which doesn’t have its score listed). There are no signature spells are listed for her, but I imagine the Alteration move to turn people into mice so she can eat them is one. For equipment, she has wards that let her ignore 5 points of damage and minions in the form of reanimated zombies of corpses that died of exposure.



Marceline Swenson

Marceline is the half-witch daughter of Olaf the Blue, a giant chieftain. (Who is apparently a Marvel style Jötunn.) When she was 18, she stole one of his boats, got lost on Earth, and ended up at Saint Joan’s. Stonebriar needed a Crytozoology teacher to replace the one she had secretly eaten, so she gave Marceline the job. She also teaches Elementalism.

Marceline is an Imp with the Friendly and Whimsical talents and the custom Half-Giant heritage. It doesn’t say what the heritage gives her exactly, probably the ranks of the various hyper movements, the 5 free points of armor, and the bonuses (+1 to Casting and MTR) to ice spells that she has. She has a D10 in Body; D8s in Senses, Social, and Magic; and a D6 in Mind. For skills, she has 38 mundane skill points, 16 magical skill points, and 12 magic ranks. (Highest is Elementalism with 4). She doesn’t have any signature spells or equipment listed.



Nora Vanderhoven

Nora is a former Saint Joan’s inmate (one of the first), a classical pianist, and the one bright spot that the school has. She was sent to the school when she enslaved most of her hometown of Boston at the tender age of 15. At the school, she did the unimaginable for a wicked witch in this setting: she realized that what she did was wrong. (Though she probably still casts malicious spells on people who annoy her like all the other designated good characters in this setting. She has ranks in Alteration, after all.) The fact that Paulette ate one of her friends (she has no proof that she did it) probably had something to do with it too. One of her likes is pissing off Paulette, so her decision to give up her “luxurious life” to come teach music to the students was probably to spite her for doing that. Either way, crimes committed by former students have gone down by half thanks to her.

Nora is an Insider with the Friendly and Entertainer talents and the Melodious heritage. She has a D10 in Magic; D8s in Mind, Will, and Social, and a D6 in Body. For skills, she has 35 mundane skill points, 12 magical skill points, and 31 magic ranks (with an unlisted amount for Necromancy). (Highest is Mentalism with 6.) She has no signature spells and uses pianos as her foci.

These characters all seem under powered for their age. Either the WWC doesn’t see the need to put competent witches at Saint Joan’s, or it’s to deliberately make a “breakout” story easier. (Probably the latter.) Considering how the headmistress acts, the book does heavily imply that’s what the setting is for.

The last section is, you guessed it, more character sheets. This time for characters players can use.



Princess Dominique Opal

Dominique (or Opal as the write-up calls her) is the youngest child of Glyndora’s ruling family. She’s secretly plotting to bump off the 8+ people in front of her in the line of succession and take over the island kingdom. How precious. Her character model looks incredibly familiar to me, but I can’t put my finger on who she is.

I’m getting tired of summarizing the character sheets, so this batch is just getting screenshots.



Imagine these sheets as massive columns of words. That’s what I’m trying to transcribe most of the time.



Maggie Root

Yes, you can play the awful sample character! Maggie hails from Noir Aubrey, Louisiana. Her mother and aunts are also equally terrible ghulvins that the rest of the town blames for all of the awful shit that happens there. Half of which they’re actually responsible for. Maggie’s just fine with this and wants to live up to their legacy.





Miranda Contessa Malderojo

Nice lips. Miranda is the descendant of an infamous family of wicked witches that terrorized Spain, Mexico, and the Philippines. Her mother, a member of the Godmother’s Guild, wants to get away from that legacy. When she’s not around, Miranda is an awful little shit that terrorizes mundanes.





Roxie Kildare

Roxie’s family is boring. She doesn’t want to be boring. So she's decided to be a punk rocker. She also has lesbian parents thanks to what is probably a typo.


Roxie’s model is very obviously Pizzazz from Jem. (Her name is from Roxy, another Jem character.) There’s a picture of The Misfits casting Bellum Maga style Alteration spells on the Holograms on Soto’s Deviantart. So she’s probably got into the show and suggested that Harris put this character in. Considering how The Misfits act like spoiled children in the cartoon (and rarely suffer major, career-destroying consequences for it), they’re kind of a perfect fit for this setting. Links!





Sarah Austin/Kay

Sarah lives in the shadow of her older sister, Kay. (Who will not come up for another book or two.) To separate herself from the bookish Kay, she became a hacker. That seems like a lateral move to me, but okay. Her style makes me think the one Bellum Maga Alteration expert is based on her.



It’s over! But I’m not done with this book yet!

Up next: A bonus post. Just how much punishment is Lucinda dodging by being a writer darling, and why even the in-verse justifications for why it happens don't work.

Killing Channel M’s Darling

posted by Adnachiel Original SA post

Part 10: Killing Channel M’s Darling

I’m sorry. This post is incredibly pointless and assumes that the WGA universe operates under real world logic in any way. Just humor me please.

So Witch Girls has now outlined just what exactly is supposed to happen when witches go around turning defenseless mundanes into shit and breaking the masquerade wide open on the regular. So now I get to do something I’ve been wanting to do since I discovered this supplement:

If Channel M wasn’t so dead set on making sure that Lucinda never faces any sort of serious consequences for her crimes against humanity, just what kind of stuff would she charged with and how long would her punishment be?

(I was going to include Annabelle in this too, but she’s small potatoes compared to Lucinda. Also, the fire-breathing grasshoppers destroying a city should have sent her straight to Saint Joan’s. She doesn’t have an in-verse “Get Out of Jail Free” card like Lucinda does. As we’ll see in a second.)

Now, to start off with, there are now two “Extenuating Circumstances” that keep Lucinda from getting her powers bound. The first one is “Youth”. This one’s pretty easy to excuse. Even in this fake universe with its questionably effectual government, the excuse of “kids will be kids and don’t know better” has its limits, as seen by the existence of Saint Joan’s. In the real world, if a 12-year-old child acted the way Lucinda does, ignorant or not, they would be facing years of criminal charges and/or extensive therapy sessions. (Not to mention probably not living with a family member that just lets them do whatever and has to get their permission to go out with friends.) Want some proof? Here’s a 14-year-old who got life for killing someone. Here’s an 11-year-old who served 12 years for killing two toddlers. Here’s the two idiot 12-year-olds that tried to kill someone in the name of Slender Man. Now, I’m sure Channel M will argue that no one Lucinda transformed was killed. But considering there’s mentions that little crimes like this get ignored all the time, we’ve been told that Lucinda gives no fucks about mundane fee-fees, and in one version of her sheet, making spells permanent is free for her, do you really think she changes these people back when she’s done having her “fun”?

The second circumstance, and the one that was probably solely added in so she could walk free, is one that hasn’t been mentioned yet. According to her character sheet in another supplement, Lucinda has “Diplomatic Immunity”.


The WWC, and possibly Willow-Mistt’s staff, won’t punish Lucinda because of some previously forgotten treaty that says they can’t touch her. Unfortunately, diplomatic immunity laws can be that shitty. Multiple people have gotten away with rape and slavery, among other things, thanks to it. So as awful as it is, it is a valid excuse. However, there’s one big problem with that excuse:

Lucinda and Millicent are not royalty. They are political refugees.


Lucinda’s parents were the evil rulers of the Empire of 12 Worlds (or whatever it’s called on any given day). They were overthrown by some heroes and that is why she and Millicent are on Earth to begin with. Multiple books state that the coup was successful and that their parents are now dead. The monarchy, at least with the Nightbanes at its head, no longer exists. Ergo, the Empire as an entity, and presumably the individuals responsible for that treaty, no longer exist. And if the Nightbanes were as shitty as they supposedly were, I really doubt that many people are going to be willing to acknowledge Lucinda or Millicent’s claim to the throne if they ever return. I’m willing to bet that the heroes involved in the Nightbanes’ demise are probably looking for Millicent and Lucinda right now to prevent one of them from reestablishing the family’s rule. Something Lucinda would definitely do if given the chance, whether by herself or through Millicent. And if there’s some “no take-backsies” clause in the treaty, well I’m sure it would be no trouble for the WWC to contact the new rulers and have it voided, or just have it voided with the argument that there is no certainty in the Empire even having a functioning government at this point if they can’t get in contact for whatever reason. I mean, they have no problem undermining other otherkin governments. That shouldn’t be an issue for them.

So despite what Lucinda might think and insist, she is not a princess anymore. And refugees don’t get special rules that make them exempt from the laws of another country. If this were written by better people, the WWC would have just laughed in Lucinda’s face when she threatened to turn them into cigarettes or whatever and told Millicent to either send her somewhere else or hit the road.

(Lucinda or Millicent could probably try to pay off people too. But taking all of that into account, what’s to stop the WWC from just taking the money and running? No one’s morals are really static in this universe. It’s plausible.)

(Also, if the WWC sees the Nightbanes’s titles as legitimate even after the Empire has fallen, that’s just more proof that the WWC is a bunch of assholes who shouldn’t be governing anyone.)

So now Lucinda is a normal citizen subject to all of the WWC’s rules and restrictions. So over the course of the source books she’s in, how many demerits and years of binding would she rack up if she didn’t have writer’s favorite immunity. If you remember, Willow-Mistt runs on a demerit system of punishment.


For general crimes, I’m going by the binding time chart.



Along with this mention that, when minor crimes like toading one person are caught, they usually get a few days binding.


For that, I’ll go with 3 days for a single person who doesn’t get killed. 3 seems like a good number.

Now, if you’ll notice, there are no static sentences for any crime, the examples on the Binding Time Chart are kind of vague, and the punishment often depends on the temperament of the magistrate that catches it. So there may be some fudging here or there. I generally assumed that the Willow-Mistt staff doesn’t care much about minor crimes outside of Willow-Brook, that they care more about mundanes seeing magic than having it cast on them, and that Lucinda never works off her demerits. Whether or not someone is dead permanently after being killed is a crapshoot too, since death is cheap in this universe, allowing a lot of witches to avoid the 1 to 10 year binding sentence, I imagine.

This also doesn’t include instances outside of the books because fuck it.

• Turning Two people into animals with one guy dying from being eaten, plus 5 masquerade breaches. 0 demerits because not in Willow-Brook and Amora Mistt doesn’t act like she gives a fuck when she sees it. 1 to 6 months binding
  
  
• Torturing a mundane by shrinking them and holding fire over them, plus using magic in front of mundane. - 1 demerit; 0 to 3 days binding.
  
  
• Summoning ants on a guy’s face. - 1 demerit; 0 to 3 days binding.
  
  
• Turning a guy into frog. -- 1 demerit; 0 to 3 days binding.
  
  
• Turning a guy into a frog outside of school uniform. -- 0 to 1 demerits; 0 to 3 days binding.
  
  
• Turning two fellow students into a mouse and snake. -- 1 demerit; 0 to 3 days binding.
  
  
• Feeding student mouse to student snake. -- 4 demerits; 1 to 6 months binding.
  
  
• Turning a jogger into snow. – 0 to 1 demerits because not in Willow-Brook; 0 to 3 days binding.
  
  
• Blowing up a person. 4 demerits; 1 to 6 months binding.
  
  
• Summoning a T-REX in front of four mundanes in school uniform. -- 4 demerits; 1 month binding.
  
  
• Transforming three people into candy. 4 demerits; Two weeks binding.
  
  
• Shrinking and kidnapping 5 people. – 4 demerits; two weeks binding.
  
  
• Shrinking another student’s head. -- 1 demerit; 0 to 3 days binding.
  
  
• Turning mundane’s head into frog’s head. – 1 demerit; 0 to 3 days binding.
  
  
• 6 instances of removing someone’s free will, 1 person transformed. -- 4 demerits; 1 to 10 years binding.
  
  
• Turning Santa Claus into a frog. -- 1 demerit; 0 to 3 days binding.
  
  
• Transforming 3 Argus Society (?) people into things. -- 4 demerits. Two weeks binding.
  
  
• 7 instances of transforming mundanes into things. -- 4 demerits; 2 weeks to 6 months binding.
  
  
• Turning a mundane into… donuts? – 1 demerit; 0 to 3 days binding.
  
  
• Turning 3 mundanes into rats. -- 1 demerit; two weeks binding.
  
  
• Shrinking and murdering another person by stepping on them, in school uniform. (Another student?) – 1 to 4 demerits; 1 to 6 months binding.
  
  
• Smoking a mundane. -- 1 demerit; 1 to 6 months binding.
  
  
• Buzzing a group of Willow-Mist teachers and students. -- 1 demerit; No binding.
  
  
• Teleporting a mundane somewhere – 1 demerit; 0 to 3 days binding.
  
  
• Teleporting on school grounds. – 1 demerit; no binding.
  
  
• Turning another student into a cigarette and smoking in the dorms. – 2 demerits; 0 to 3 days binding.
  
  
• Turning two mundanes (???) into frogs – 1 demerit; 0 to 3 days binding.
  
  
• 14 instances of shrinking and casting magic in front of mundanes. – 4 demerits; 1 month binding.
  
  
• Turning a mundane into a frog. – 1 demerit; 0 to 3 days binding.
  
  
• 11 instances of turning mundanes into presents. -- 4 demerits; 1 to 6 months binding.
  
  
• Turning a mundane into frog. -- 1 demerit; 0 to 3 days binding.
  
  
• Turning a mundane into a frog. – 1 demerit; 0 to 3 days binding.
  
  
• Turning a mundane into ice cream and eating them, summoning giant fire-breathing grasshoppers to destroy a city, shrinking a mundane and turning them into a cigarette to smoke, turning a mundane into a pig, turning a mundane into a mouse, turning a grown man into a little girl, and turning a person into a house plant. – TILT 4 demerits; 1 to 10 years binding.
  
  
• Turning a mundane into a lamp – 1 demerit; 0 to 3 days binding.
  
  
• Using a poppet to drown/torture a mundane – 4 demerits; 1 to 6 months
  
  
• 12 instances of shrinking and kidnapping mundanes – 4 demerits; 1 month binding
  
  
• Mind-controlling the President of the United States – 4 demerits; 1 to 6 months binding.
  

Total: A lot. You get the point. Let's move on.

Next Book: Magical Minutia #3: “Crossover”, wherein I go over a 37 page advertisement that came out nearly a year ago for a superhero game that isn’t out yet. Also, comic book multiverse shenanigans.