Magical Organisations : What do you want?

[Byron Alexander]

For this Witchcraft monograph, I'm writing up an overview of an organisation of witches. I've got a very good idea of how it is organised etc. but what I'd like to know is... what would you want to know? What would you be looking for in a description of an organisation that PCs could join or could serve as an NPC's organisation?

[pulpcitizen]

Hierachy, capability, resources, role.

I think hooks to make inclusion worthwhile are important.

[cjbowser]

I think having NPC witches would be pretty important.

Another thing I would find useful, and I'm not sure of the scope of your work, but different witch organizations for different settings. For example, a high fantasy, a pseudo-historical ancient, a Victorian revitilization coven, and one useful for modern day horror/thriller/action.

[Sunwolfe]

My brother and I were just talking about different character classes this morning and wondering if we needed to come up with more "Kit-like" packages for PCs. "You wanna play an apprentice/adept/full mage? Here are the skills you should start with, variables and how many spells your PC knows..." ala RQ III. I'm wondering if such might not be appropriate for your Witch manuscript. What does a beginning witch from the Victorian era "look" like characteristic, stat and spell-wise; what makes her different from her Dark Age cousins?

Just a thought

Cheers,

Sunwolfe

[sdavies2720]

I'd want to know:

* Goals and Aims

* Who opposes them and whom do they oppose

* How to identify members

* Techniques/Style/Tactics: How do they opperate, esp. how they deal with people who cross them

* Centers of Power

* People of Power (members and allies)

* Type and source of power (e.g. money, control of resource, popular support, etc).

* Sects and subgroups (these could be short, but it's useful to know about the subcurrents in case PCs need a lifeline, or a player wants to play one as a character but doesn't like the full package).

Steve

Edited March 9, 2009 by sdavies2720

[MrJealousy]

I would like to see a bit of history. Where did they come from and what motivates them.

[sdavies2720]

ANd maybe a typical career path: "Organization X recruits mainly from the slums of Y, with a few converts also coming from the merchant and noble classes of Z. Typically initiates spend 3-5 years as novices, stoking fires and fetching water before they are initiated into the outer circle. At this point..."

Which leads me also to:

* Major Rituals: key dates and ceremonies throughout the year, and key ceremonies throughout the life of an initiate. If other things are important, e.g. For a temple/building-focused organization, there might be key ceremonies for the temple. For a Coven, there might be key ceremonies that move them from informal meetings to a new circle, to a major circle.

[Byron Alexander]

Thanks for the responses guys. Got most of it covered but I must admit I hadn't thought of statting up NPCs or doing different organisations for different eras (as witchcraft is most suitable for Dark Ages through to Renaissance I'm making an organisation that spans that period... however there's definitely something to be said for writing up another that spans, say, Victorian to present just to show how such an organisation could fit into play) so I'll probably do a couple of organisations.

As for NPCs - would you want a leader, a mid-ranking member and a junior member described? Most of the leadership? A standard member?

[Simlasa]

I'd be wanting information for playing those old fairy tale witches... the solitary ones who live in stumps and talk to dead things... the Macbeth witches... Baba Yaga and her walking hut... the ones who put children in cages to fatten them up.

Wicked and dangerous but not necessarily evil...

I picture them having a fairly loose organization... and loose guidelines/hierarchies. Each one a fairly unique character... rather than 'all members of X have Y powers and Z interests' (... meaning NOT like the vampire traditions in the White Wolf games).

I guess I'd want write-ups of notable members... past and present... not necessarily the coven leaders but the other witches who might be met in the course of the game because they had specific talents or lived in interesting places... each NPC being something of a plot hook unto themselves.

What I'm really not interested in is some New Age/neo-pagan take on the subject that attempts to be 'historically accurate' or 'politically correct'... I want the stereotypes and legends... warts and crooked noses and broomsticks and flying kettles and houses with chicken legs and cannibalism and kissing Beelzebub's backside.

Edited March 10, 2009 by Simlasa

[Byron Alexander]

What I'm really not interested in is some New Age/neo-pagan take on the subject that attempts to be 'historically accurate' or 'politically correct'... I want the stereotypes and legends... warts and crooked noses and broomsticks and flying kettles and houses with chicken legs and cannibalism and kissing Beelzebub's backside.

Well... you're getting both! I'm not currently writing a sample infernal organisation (though I have described what they would look like and how they would operate in general), but there are rules there for black and white magic and for running witchcraft as being based on infernal, pagan or neutral powers. Believe me, if you want the wicked old crone that turns people into toads, looks 200 years old and flys around on a broomstick she is there (I have all those bases covered, in fact). However, if someone wants the kindly man with a beard who knows the old pagan ways of mystical healing and is persecuted by a fiendish monotheistic tyranny, he's there as well glaring disapprovingly at the evil old witch.

I say you're getting both but there really is no attempt at historical accuracy. I mean, I'm including rules for Margaret Murray-style Keepers of the Old Ways but that isn't historically accurate as her work has been almost totally discredited. If I was sticking to historically accurate witches I'd have... what... iron age witchdoctors who were as much persecuted as they were sought out (the Romans had laws against witchcraft) and then a big gap until some innocent people with no powers at all are burnt or hanged for being weird or frightening and then another big gap until modern neo-paganism. I could probably write a (short) book on historically accurate witchcraft but this monograph isn't it.

[Simlasa]

Well... you're getting both!

Ok, cool... can't complain about that.

[Byron Alexander]

Ok, cool... can't complain about that.

Excellent, I'm glad you approve! :thumb:

EDIT:

Oh, you did give me an idea btw. I've been planning on including some unique, powerful magic items. I already had one idea in the Hand of Glory but I think I'll put Baba Yaga's hut in it as well. So thank you very much for that! A nice inclusion for people who want an eastern, rather than western, european flavour.

Edited March 10, 2009 by Byron Alexander

[p_clapham]

I don't think this has been mentioned so far.... but what about Magical Organizations within the Church itself?

Church Services, particularly the old Catholic Services closely resembles a ceremonial magical working of sorts. What could better act as a witch hunter and inquisitor than a witch itself. The Knights Templar are an obvious choice, but what about the others?

[Byron Alexander]

That is a good idea for a game-world, but as my monograph is on Witchcraft I don't think it'd really work in that (there are few reports/tales of witches hiding within the Church).

[Simlasa]

That is a good idea for a game-world, but as my monograph is on Witchcraft I don't think it'd really work in that (there are few reports/tales of witches hiding within the Church).

I wouldn't think they'd be 'hiding' so much as using witchcraft to further the church's cause... fighting fire with fire... sleeping with the enemy... etc.

Kind of like the witch hunter character in Warlock... who isn't a witch himself but uses hex signs and various magical techniques/knowledge to combat the warlock who would otherwise be far to powerful for him. Kind of a counter-witchcraft witchcraft.

Some write up of a background for such characters... some secret organization barely condoned by the church... or parallel to the church... its member's constantly teetering on the edge of heresy... could be interesting even if it's not historically accurate.

Barring that maybe some set up of several covens and their allegiances with/against each other... with some being secretly in league with some mainstream religious organizations.

Edited March 19, 2009 by Simlasa

[Byron Alexander]

Some write up of a background for such characters... some secret organization barely condoned by the church... or parallel to the church... its member's constantly teetering on the edge of heresy... could be interesting even if it's not historically accurate.

That's true, and in the section of the possible sources of witchcraft I do explain that even given an infernal source those who sell their soul might do so in order to have magic which would help others. So it is a possibility.

I was only going to describe one organisation in full, but I think I'll do about three or more in the end in order to show how varied they can be.

[sdavies2720]

Slightly off topic, but are you including Gypsies?

I know it's a little off your core subject, but they never seem to belong anywhere (comes with the package, I'd guess) and never seem to be weighty enough to merit their own treatment. I'd think that Gypsy Magic would sit somewhere between hedge magic and various coercion magics that witches always are good for.

[Byron Alexander]

I don't mention gypsies much but...

Familial Organisations

Some witchcraft traditions are taught within a family and kept to the family. Witches that travel in gypsy troupes are commonly familial witches, as are the descendants of pagan priests who pretended to forsake their old religion while still teaching it to their children and their grandchildren.

This is a section from the broad overview of organisation types. I think the type of witchcraft covered by the monograph could easily fit with the mythology that surrounds gypsies tbh, I just don't say that very much. There are rules for creating one-shot talisman's, though, so that strange gypsy woman selling you a lucky-rabbit's-foot or a love potion can certainly be made using the monograph.

[sdavies2720]

I don't mention gypsies much but...

This is a section from the broad overview of organisation types. I think the type of witchcraft covered by the monograph could easily fit with the mythology that surrounds gypsies tbh, I just don't say that very much. There are rules for creating one-shot talisman's, though, so that strange gypsy woman selling you a lucky-rabbit's-foot or a love potion can certainly be made using the monograph.

Great, this sounds really useful. In general, I use (steal) the general purpose rules (e.g. one-shot talisman creation) and morph them for my campaign. Much of the rest I read for ideas, but little else gets used directly.

[christopherhouse]

but I might need to point out that Eden studios has a copyrighted booked named WITCHCRAFT that is also an RPG. I DO NOT KNOW about trademark.

>>>>>>>>

[Simlasa]

I like the idea of the 'familial organisations'... that lends itself to suggesting a lot of legends/stories involving hereditary rot... such as with Lovecraft's Whatelys, Waites, and Martenses.

Either with forbidden knowledge passed down through the ages or with the lineage cursed by some ancestor who struck up a pact with an infernal being of some sort... gaining power and a curse... even to the point of the family no longer being completely human.

[Simlasa]

but I might need to point out that Eden studios has a copyrighted booked named WITCHCRAFT that is also an RPG. I DO NOT KNOW about trademark.

So call it Witchkraft instead...

[Byron Alexander]

but I might need to point out that Eden studios has a copyrighted booked named WITCHCRAFT that is also an RPG. I DO NOT KNOW about trademark.

>>>>>>>>

1./ It will actually be called BRP Witchcraft.

2./ While the contents of EDEN Studios' Witchcraft are certainly copyrighted, you cannot trademark/copyright a single word in common parlance, so anyone can write a book titled 'Witchcraft' if they like (and I expect there are at least a hundred works with that exact title).

Simlasa, that's exactly what I was thinking - adventures which involve entering the crumbling mansions of creepy families who turn out to be witches, that sort of thing. As well as PCs which escaped the tyranny of their family after taking the family's secrets with them, of course.