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Portrayal of witches and witchcraft in older D&D and OSR?

Started by RNGm, April 25, 2025, 10:55:15 AM

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Chris24601

#15
April 26, 2025, 08:00:58 AM
In D&D terms I'd be more inclined to make Witches (and Warlocks) not be linked to arcane casting at all, but rather the names are a pejorative for Clerics of an evil deity (sorta like Blackguard sometimes is for the Anti-Paladin).

Mishihari

#16
April 26, 2025, 03:09:18 PM
There was a Dragon magazine, I think it might have been #80, that was a feature on witches and witchcraft.  Sadly my collection is mostly boxed up so I can't verify that right now.  I recall that I thought it was a pretty good representation of literature witches translated to D&D terms.

BoxCrayonTales

#17
April 26, 2025, 03:28:26 PM
The conceptual space for witches is already split among wizards, sorcerers, druids, and warlocks.

RNGm

#18
April 26, 2025, 07:23:24 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 26, 2025, 03:28:26 PMThe conceptual space for witches is already split among wizards, sorcerers, druids, and warlocks.

Absolutely that's the case now but half of those didn't exist as a class in the editions I'm asking about (pre-3e).   IIRC (and I admit my memory is spotty on the subject), I think druid was at times a subclass flavor of cleric for some of those earlier editions leaving just wizards/magic user as the fully supported arcane type.

RNGm

#19
April 27, 2025, 07:22:17 PM
I forgot about Symbaroum witches both in the original and the 5e variant.   They're more of the naturalist earth magic druid hybrid type and inherently evil entity pact worshippers but the setting is plenty dark and corruption rules are core to it as well scratching the evil witch itch as well.
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