Witch

You are a master of potions, using herbs, minerals, and even bits and pieces such as frog eyes and dragon scales as your metaphorical canvas and paint. When you work with these materials to brew potions,youimagineandcreatenewsubstancesimbuedwithwondrousandmagicaleffects.Butyour magical talents extend beyond potioncraft—youcan call down curses on your foes with very real effects and, depending on your choices as you continue to study and explore, eventually learn all manner of other spells.

You are one of the most versatile members of your group, given that you can brew a potion for almostanyneed—healing,hiding,empowering,orstraight-upblasting.Whenfacingconflict,youprefer to let others take the brunt, but you’re not inexperienced when it comes to weapons, and can give as good as you get if the need arises.

Background Options

• You suffered demonic possession for years but finally cast them out, and now you do what you can to fix all theharms you wrought.
• A reclusive crone raised you, claiming she found you alone in the woods as a babe, though you’ve always been suspicious that there was more to the story.
• Weird glyphs appeared etched onthe cliffs last week; you’ve seen them before in your dreams.
• When enemiesoverran your homeland, you swore dark oaths to obtain your witchcraft. Eventually, however, the soul debt youowe will come due.
• You cursed a noble aftertheir carriage splashed you last week, and now they’redead.
• Creatures from a distantstar seeped down and destroyed a nearby village three months ago.
• Raised by healers, you’ve always tried to further your parents’ craft, though sometimes what you can do surprises even you.
• Unexpectedly, a potion you brewed last week transformed into an albino bat and flew away.

Witch Abilities

Yougainallofthefollowingbenefits: Able to taketwo more minor wounds and one more moderate wound

Add+3 to Intellect Pool Add+1 to Speed Pool Add+1 Edge in Pool of your choice Freely use light and medium weapons Freely use light armor Gain one weapon of your choice At tier 3and tier 6, choose anability fromthe Fantasy Genre Abilities list

Brew Potion: You brew a potion. You can choose its effect from the low-power manifest cypher table. Your brewed potion cypher counts toward your cypher limit (or to anyone yougive the potion to), plus the allowance granted by Potion Cyphers. If you arealready at your cypher limit, your choice of one of your current cyphers loses its magic so you can have the new potion cypher. At tier 3, you can choose a low or medium-power manifest cypher as your brewedpotion. At tier 6, you can choose a low, medium-, or advanced-power manifest cypher as your brewed potion. Ten minutes to brew.

Evil Eye (1+ Intellect): You make thesign of the evil eye, targeting a creature within short range with your Intellect attack. On a success, they are afflicted bya spirit of misfortune for about a day. During this

period, the GM afflicts them by introducing (or intruding, if against a PC) inconvenient events such as tripping,losinganitem,missinganappointment,andsoon. Effort: Increase the misfortune duration so it lasts until you use a ten-hour recovery. Inflict 2 Intellect damage per level of Effort on a successful attack (in addition to the misfortune aspect of the ability). At tier 3, you can use twolevels of Effort to make the misfortune permanent; it is a level 4curse for the purpose of abilities that remove afflictions. Lastaction. PotionCyphers: You can bear two additional cyphers at a time as long as they are cyphersyou created with Brew Potion. Enabler.

[!example]

Witch Equipment Bundle

Choose the following equipment bundle to quickly outfit your character, or assemble your own starting equipment. A quarterstaff, a dagger, appropriate clothing, a bag of light tools (including basic potion ingredients and brewing tools), a backpack, a bedroll, a book of lore, three torches, rations and water for three days, a tinderbox,and enough extra currency to buy a moderately priced item.

Part of Swords & Sorcery