Hedge Witch

Class: Peasant

Status: Brass

Skills: Bushcraft, Lore

Witchcraft is not about arcane precision and following magical formulae, but about primal incantations and manipulating raw magical energies. Witches do not use spell slots to determine how many or which spells they can cast per day. Instead, they have a pool of dice, the Witchcraft Pool (WP), representing the depths of their magical power and their connection to the ley-lines of chaos.

Witches learn new spells as a magic-user would when leveling up, adding spells to their grimoire exactly as a Vancian magic-user adds spells to a spellbook. Spells must be prepared from the grimoire by committing them to memory. A Witch may memorize a number of spells of any level as indicated on the Witchcraft table. Prepared spells remain in memory until the Witch chooses to replace them by preparing another spell. Preparing a spell requires one hour per spell level in deep concentration, accompanied by burning incense worth 10 sp per level of the spell.

To cast a prepared spell, the Witch rolls a number of d6 equal to the spell’s level from their Witchcraft Pool. Dice that show 1–3 are returned to the pool, while dice showing 4–6 are lost. Witchcraft Pool dice can be restored by resting for one hour per die restored, but a Witch may only restore their WP once per 24 hours. Witches in a coven—or party members who can see each other—may freely and spontaneously share the dice in their Witchcraft Pool.

A Witch can also cast a spell they have not prepared, but must roll and expend twice as many WP dice as normal and must clutch their grimoire with the spell written within. Witchcraft can be empowered through blood sacrifice: for each Hit Die of a creature sacrificed as part of a spell or rite, the Witch requires one fewer WP.

Where witchcraft is cast, normalcy becomes undone. If, when casting a spell, two or more of a Witch’s WP dice show the same number, a chaotic surge of energy known as an Undoing is triggered. The effects of an Undoing vary depending on how many dice match:

• Two-of-a-kind: Lesser Undoing

• Three-of-a-kind: Greater Undoing

• Four-of-a-kind: Final Undoing