| Witchcraft | ||
| Major School of Magic. | ||
| This school draws its power from the magician's body.. | ||
| ||
Witches describe their magic as a "feeling," which makes it similar to warlockry. However, while many of the most blatant applications of witchcraft are telekinic (moving objects, warming, heating, drying, etc.), these activities are very wearing on witches and not their best application. Wichcraft centers on the sense of self and others, particularly including emotions, which is a clear difference from the Warlock's sense of space. Witchcraft is generally considered to be weaker than many of the "great magics" because it is powered by the witch's own body, providing a sharp limit to their maximum power. Whereas a warlock may feel more powerful after a great effort (because their ability to draw on the source increases with use and takes no energy from the user), a witch is often physically exhausted after a major use of witchcraft. As with the other forms of magic, witches may be male or female.
Witches use rituals, chants, trances, and so forth, but can improvise them apparently at will. Witches have individual spells, but seem to be able to modify them far more readily than wizards can and they do not require the kinds of arcane substances that wizardry calls for. They have specialties, but almost any witch could tackle almost any piece of witchcraft—though naturally, a specialist in a given field could outperform a novice.
Applications of Witchcraft
- Healing; witches can heal or sustain people by transferring energy to ward off fatigue or illness or simple telekinetic manipulation to heal wounds.
- Telepathy; One of the fundamental powers of witchcraft is sensitivity to the feelings of living things around them. Developed and focused, this means that a witch can read the mind, and ultimately manipulate the feelings and thoughts, of subjects.
- Telekinesis; Witches seem to be able to do everything Warlocks can with regards to telekinetic manipulation, however being limited to the power their own body generates sharply limits their feats compared to those of Warlocks.
- Precognition; Witches make excellent seers and are one of the few types of magician that routinely forsees the customers that will visit during a day.
- Learning languages; witches can easily and quickly learn the language of people among whom they find themselves and become fluent in it. In this witches have an advantage over those whose physical magic is more powerful but does not confer this ability.
Witchcraft and Society
Because of the limited power of witches, they are sometimes considered a "lesser" type of magician. Many witches find another limitation imposed on their craft is their acute sense of those around them, as they can easily sense (and suffer from) the negative emotions of others. Despite this witches were used during the Great War- supplementing their limited power by creating "war locks"; Linked witches whose shared power was greater than any one, and the process for which Warlocks were mistakenly named.
Unlike other types of magicians, there are two organizations for witches; the relatively powerful Sisterhood for female witches and the much weaker Brotherhood for male witches.
Notable Witches
Witchcraft and Warlockry
While warlockry was originally mistakenly named for the war locks formed by witches for large uses of power during the Great War, it has been discovered that witches can draw power from warlocks, using the warlocks nigh-unlimited strength to supplement their own power. This discovery was originally made by Teneria of Fishertown, who remains the leading expert on the practice and has performed some remarkable feats of witchcraft by being able to bolster her personal strength by drawing on warlocks.