Witch

Standing on moss-covered steps in the path of an advancing ogre, a young shrine maiden carefully pours a hot cup of tea. She whispers a word of thanks into the rising steam, and as she raises the drink, the ogre drops the greatclub from his hand as he sits in wonder, gazing at the offering.
Peering over a bubbling cauldron, a mother watches her child breathe raggedly under a patchwork quilt. A crow alights upon her shoulder with white-blossoming herbs in its beak, and she sighs with relief as she adds them to the magic brew.
Striding through the great mead hall, a wizened crone strikes terror into the hearts of once-brave warriors. She points a bony finger at the old king, and as shadow and fire leap to the fury of her cackling command, the king dies knowing he has earned this fate.
Witches are powerful mages as well as devoted caretakers, combining patience, insight, and subtlety with extraordinary willfulness. While other spellcasters might use magic in grand gestures that bend the world to their whims, a witch’s power works in harmony with the people, plants, animals, and magical forces around them. The practice of witchcraft is often rooted in everyday rituals and chores, emphasizing the value in doing things with care and deliberation rather than taking shortcuts.

Powerful Consequences

Witches are infamous for their curses, but they don’t curse others on a whim. A witch’s curse is most often a consequence for causing harm or engaging in disrespectful behavior, to the witch themself or the people and places under their care. Curses range from a minor, temporary rebuke—causing a bully to startle at their own shadow—to permanent ramifications meted out as justice for wicked acts—transforming a greedy poacher into a helpless deer. If the recipient of the curse demonstrates increased understanding and remorse for their actions, the witch may be persuaded to lift the spell.

Connection and Community

A home—both a location and the people who live there—is a foundational part of witchcraft. A witch often serves as a protector, counselor, and healer to the people (and animals, plants, and spirits) who live near them, whether or not this role is sanctioned by the local authorities. 
Often, this spellwork is seamlessly incorporated into simple home goods and handcrafts, familiar gifts that comfort their recipients and lie dormant until needed. While a witch doesn’t necessarily stay in one place, they understand the importance of community, and work to preserve balance between people, the natural world, and supernatural forces wherever they go.

Creating a Witch

When making a witch, consider your character’s relationship to the world and the creatures around them. How closely do they live to the subjects of their care, and what would it take to make your witch break away from them? How did they meet their familiar, and what do they do for each other? What everyday rituals ground them in their work?
Perhaps your character is new to witchcraft, or perhaps they spent years as an apprentice learning traditions, rituals, and hexes from their mentor. If your character had a mentor, what was your relationship with that witch, and what lessons did they impart to you beyond the practices of spellcasting and magic?

Quick Build

You can make a witch quickly by following these suggestions. First, Wisdom should be your highest ability score, followed by Dexterity or Constitution. Second, choose the cackle, guidance, and mending cantrips (the cackle cantripis included at the end of this class).

Witch Spells

---

Witches In Dicathia Lore

Covens

The Covens, Three

Witch's BInding

Taboos of Witchcraft

Laws of Witchcraft

Witch Table

---

Level	Proficiency	Features	Cantrips			Spell	Slots	per	Spell	Level
	Bonus		Known	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th
1st	+2	Spellcasting, Witchcraft	3	2	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
2nd	+2	Coven	3	3	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
3rd	+2	Retributive Curses	3	4	2	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
4th	+2	Ability Score Increase	4	4	3	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
5th	+3	Wracking Curses	4	4	3	2	—	—	—	—	—	—
6th	+3	Coven Feature	4	4	3	3	—	—	—	—	—	—
7th	+3	—	4	4	3	3	1	—	—	—	—	—
8th	+3	Ability Score Increase	4	4	3	3	2	—	—	—	—	—
9th	+4	—	4	4	3	3	3	1	—	—	—	—
10th	+4	Coven Feature	5	4	3	3	3	2	—	—	—	—
11th	+4	—	5	4	3	3	3	2	1	—	—	—
12th	+4	Ability Score Increase	5	4	3	3	3	2	1	—	—	—
13th	+5	—	5	4	3	3	3	2	1	1	—	—
14th	+5	Coven Feature	5	4	3	3	3	2	1	1	—	—
15th	+5	—	5	4	3	3	3	2	1	1	1	—
16th	+5	Ability Score Increase	5	4	3	3	3	2	1	1	1	—
17th	+6	—	5	4	3	3	3	2	1	1	1	1
18th	+6	Willful Walls	5	4	3	3	3	3	1	1	1	1
19th	+6	Ability Score Increase	5	4	3	3	3	3	2	1	1	1
20th	+6	True Craft	5	4	3	3	3	3	2	2	1	1

World's Beyond Number

Witch

hit dice: 1d6

hit points at 1st level: 6 + your Constitution modifier

hit points at higher levels: 1d6 (or 4) + your Constitution modifier per witch level after 1st

armor proficiencies: None

weapon proficiencies: Simple weapons

tools: Two types of artisan’s tools of your choice

saving throws: Wisdom, Charisma

skills: Choose three from Animal Handling, Arcana, Insight, Intimidation, Medicine, Nature, Perception, Persuasion, and Survival

starting equipment:
You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:

• (a) a light crossbow and 20 bolts or (b) any simple weapon


• (a) a component pouch or (b) an arcane focus


• (a) a scholar’s pack or (b) an explorer’s pack


• Two daggers

spellcasting:
As a custodian of old folkways and the balance between worlds, you can cast witch spells. Your magic works through subtle but emphatic suggestion, channeling your will to influence the wellbeing, fate, or opinions of beings who need a little (or not-so-little) nudge to exist in harmony with others.

Cantrips

At 1st level, you know three cantrips of your choice from the witch spell list. You learn additional witch cantrips of your choice at higher levels, as shown in the Cantrips Known column of the Witch table.

Preparing and Casting Spells

The Witch table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your witch spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell’s level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.
You prepare the list of witch spells that are available for you to cast, choosing from the witch spell list. When you do so, choose a number of witch spells equal to your Wisdom modifier + your witch level. The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots.
For example, if you are a 3rd-level witch, you have four 1st-level and two 2nd-level spell slots. With a Wisdom of 16, your list of prepared spells can include six spells of 1st or 2nd level, in any combination. If you prepare the 1st-level spell cure wounds, you can cast it using a 1st-level or 2nd-level slot. Casting the spell doesn’t remove it from your list of prepared spells.
You can also change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of witch spells requires time spent practicing your craft: at least 1 minute per spell level for each spell on your list.

Spellcasting Ability

Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for your witch spells, since your magic draws upon your profound attunement to the presence of magic in all things. You use your Wisdom whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Wisdom modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a witch spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.

Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier

Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier

Ritual Casting

You can cast a witch spell as a ritual if that spell has the ritual tag and you have the spell prepared.

Spellcasting Focus

You can use an arcane focus as a spellcasting focus for your witch spells. Witches may also have unusual, homemade, or repurposed objects as their arcane focuses, such as brooms, kitchen knives, kettles, dolls, or similar household objects. To use such an item as your arcane focus, you must spend an hour-long meditation dedicating it to that purpose.

class features:

Witchcraft

You bring a touch of magic to everyday materials and tasks, and as a result, the fruits of your labor bear a subtle—but potent—power. Savvy witches soon learn that common chores can be just as useful as flashier forms of spellcasting; they can channel magic just as easily by cooking up restorative meals, growing strange medicines in their gardens, weaving charm bracelets, and stitching protection into the seams of clothes. They also empower their familiars to aid them in spellcasting.

Tokens

The minor results of a witch’s craft—potions, salves, oneuse charms, and favors—are commonly called tokens, and any given witch can expect to make countless numbers of them in their lifetime. Many witches make a living by trading tokens with those in need, although few ever become wealthy that way.
Any 1st-level witch spell that targets one or more creatures can be crafted into a token with 1 hour of labor. To craft it, you must have an unexpended spell slot of a high enough level to cast the spell (you need not have the spell prepared) and you must succeed on a Wisdom check using artisan’s tools with a DC of 10 + the spell’s level. On a failure, the item isn’t created; if the check fails by 5 or more, you also expend a spell slot of the spell’s level.
You can attempt to make a single token during a short or long rest. Tokens take a form appropriate to the artisan’s tools you use to create them. An herbalism kit might produce a potion or salve; chef’s tools might produce a cupcake.
Once created, a creature holding the token can cast the spell from it using your spell save DC, spell attack bonus, and spellcasting ability. If the spell requires concentration, the creature must concentrate. The token then loses its magical properties, becoming a mundane item of its kind.
At 9th level, you can create a token with any witch spell of 2nd level or lower. At 13th level, you can create a token with any witch spell of 3rd level or lower.
You can maintain a number of active tokens equal to your proficiency bonus. If you make an additional token while at your limit, the magic fades from your oldest token

Talismans

When you put your back into your craft and devote a little part of yourself to what you’re making, you can weave your magic into a talisman that will last forever. Many witches make talismans of their hats, boots, cloaks, or walking sticks. Brooms, athames, keys, and tools are also popular. Some witches guard their talismans jealously, but others craft them specifically for heroes, loved ones, or younger witches under their tutelage.
Any witch spell that doesn’t require a costly material component can be crafted into a talisman if you have an unexpended spell slot of a high enough level to cast it (you need not have the spell prepared). To craft a talisman, you must spend 24 hours of labor (this time need not be continuous) and make a DC 20 Wisdom check using artisan’s tools. On a success, you permanently sacrifice a spell slot of the spell’s level to complete the talisman.
A creature holding the talisman can cast that spell from it, using your spell save DC, spell attack bonus, and spellcasting ability. Once the talisman is used to cast its spell, it can’t be used that way again until the next dawn.
You can add more spells to a talisman, or more uses of the same spell, with an additional 24 hours of labor, another Wisdom check using artisan’s tools, and another sacrificed spell slot of the appropriate level.
You can recover the sacrificed spell slot by holding the talisman for 1 minute. The talisman ceases to be a magic item, and you regain that spell slot the next time you finish a long rest. Similarly, if the talisman is destroyed, you regain the spell slot when you finish your next long rest.
Alternatively, you can sacrifice a 3rd-level spell slot to craft an item from the Common or Uncommon Items table, or a 6th-level spell slot to craft an item from the Rare Items table.

Common and Uncommon Items
Magic Item	Attunement
amulet of proof against detection and location	Yes
bag of tricks	No
boots of the winterlands	Yes
brooch of shielding	Yes
broom of flying	No
cloak of the manta ray	No
eversmoking bottle	No
gem of brightness	No
lantern of revealing	No
necklace of adaptation	Yes
periapt of health	No
periapt of wound closure	Yes
ring of mind shielding	Yes
slippers of spider climbing	Yes
stone of good luck	Yes

Rare Items
Magic Item	Attunement
cape of the mountebank	No
cloak of the bat	Yes
dagger of venom	No
folding boat	No
gem of seeing	Yes
handy haversack	No
horseshoes of speed	No
mantle of spell resistance	Yes
periapt of proof against poison	No
ring of feather falling	Yes
rope of entanglement	No
staff of withering	Yes

Witch’s Familiar

A witch’s familiar is their lifelong companion and friend. You can choose to invest a willing bat, cat, crab, frog (toad), hawk, lizard, octopus, owl, poisonous snake, fish (quipper), rat, raven, sea horse, spider, or weasel (or any other CR 0 creature approved by your GM) with magical power. Your familiar acts independently of you, but they generally heed your requests. In combat, they roll their own initiative and act on their own turn.
When your familiar is reduced to 0 hit points, you can use a reaction to expend a spell slot of 1st level or higher to make them drop to 1 hit point instead. If your familiar dies, you can perform a ritual to revive them during a short or long rest. The ritual requires 10 gp of herbs or incense, and your familiar returns to life with all their hit points.
You can communicate telepathically with your familiar, regardless of distance. Additionally, as an action, you can see through your familiar’s eyes and hear what they hear until the start of your next turn, gaining the benefits of any special senses the familiar has. During this time, you are deaf and blind with regard to your own senses.
You can’t have more than one familiar at a time. If you choose another animal as your witch’s familiar, you lose your connection to your previous familiar.

Magical Assistant

When you cast a spell with a range of touch, your familiar can deliver the spell as if they had cast the spell. Your familiar must be within 100 feet of you, and they must use their reaction to deliver the spell when you cast it. If the spell requires an attack roll, they use your attack modifier for the roll.
While you are maintaining concentration on a spell and touching your familiar, you can transfer concentration to your familiar as a bonus action. Damage that you take can’t break your concentration on the spell, though the spell your familiar is concentrating on ends if you cast another spell that requires concentration. You can transfer concentration on the spell back to yourself as a bonus action by touching your familiar.
Your familiar can use your Constitution saving throw bonus in place of their own if they must make a saving throw to maintain concentration. The spell ends if they lose concentration or if they are killed or incapacitated.

Witchtongue

At 1st level, you learn Witchtongue, the language of witches. It is a strange and eerie language, one that alters magic when used and possessing beautiful sounds that some have described as ghostly singing. You can speak the language and use it to leave hidden messages. You and others who know this language automatically spot such a message. Others spot the message’s presence and can recognize its script with a successful DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check, but can’t deicpher or understand it without having at least one level in this class or a Blessing of Vezenar.

Retributive Curses

Witches are quick to punish those who wrong them. A witch’s curse carries a personal grudge, imbuing certain spells with additional potency, as shown in the Curse Spells table below.
Starting at 3rd level, when a creature within 60 feet of you deals damage to you or forces you to make a saving throw, you can cast a curse spell on the triggering creature as a reaction. You must have the spell prepared, have a spell slot of a high enough level to cast it with, and can only target the triggering creature. However, the spell’s range becomes 60 feet and you can cast it even if you can’t see the triggering creature.
You can also use this reaction when a creature within range deals damage to or forces a saving throw from a creature holding a token or talisman you’ve created.
At the GM’s discretion, you may be able to use this reaction when you come within range of someone who has dealt serious harm to you, or to people or things under your care. Someone who burned down your house while you were away might be subject to a curse as soon as you track them down.

	Curse Spells
Spell Level	Spell	Concentration
1st	bane	Yes
1st	hideous laughter	Yes
1st	witch’s grasp	Yes
2nd	blindness/deafness	No
2nd	ray of enfeeblement	Yes
2nd	tongue-tie	Yes
3rd	bestow curse	Yes
4th	phantasmal killer (Coven of the Wicked only)	Yes
5th	othershoes	Yes
6th	irresistible dance	Yes
6th	flesh to stone	Yes
8th	miser’s menace	No
9th	imprisonment	No

Ability Score Improvement

When you reach 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Wracking Curses

A witch’s curse inflicts added harm on any who have wronged them. Starting at 5th level, once per turn when you deal damage to a creature that is under the effects of a curse you cast with your Retributive Curses feature, you can deal an extra 1d10 psychic damage to it.
When you reach 11th level in this class, the extra damage increases to 2d10.

Willful Walls

At 18th level, a witch’s labor bears so much of their connection to magic that the very sticks, stones, walls, and hearth of their dwelling respond. You may take 8 hours to fashion a place where you’ve taken a long rest into a sanctum. If the place is already owned or inhabited, you must have permission from its owner to reside there. You determine the boundaries of your sanctum, but you must be able to traverse its perimeter in an hour or less.
If you have a sanctum that’s at least 7 days old, it becomes highly resistant to intrusion; you can cast the hallow spell on one 60-foot-radius area within your sanctum without material components. If you are in your sanctum when a creature tries to force its way into this area, you can impose disadvantage on the Charisma saving throw it makes to ignore the spell’s effects.
You can only have one sanctum at a time. Whenever you fashion a new sanctum, your old sanctum goes dormant, and if you decide to restore it, it takes another 8 hours of labor and another 7 days to regain its full power. If you designate a new sanctum, any hallow spell you cast on a previous sanctum with this feature immediately ends.

True Craft

True witchcraft knows no limits. At 20th level, you can create a token or talisman using a spell of 8th level or lower from another class’s spell list by expending a spell slot one level higher than the spell you choose.

subclass options:

Covens

A witch’s coven reflects their approach to practicing witchcraft, the intertwined discipline of high spellcasting with the rituals of daily life. A witch’s coven is usually shared by a mentor or small group of more experienced witches, although some witches find their philosophy and coven drift from that of their fellows into another, and some have even been known to find their way to a coven’s philosophies self-taught.

Coven of the Claw

Living far from civilization in remote places of wilderness and isolation, the Coven of the Claw’s wisdom is piercing, contemplative, and often ascetic. Claw witches tend to their fellow outsiders, trappers and hunters and hermits with no one else to watch over them, and to those compelled to travel the hard path, deep and far, to seek them out. Their care is harsh and truthful, but they fiercely protect their territory and those within it against harm and exploitation.

---

Coven of the Green

The Coven of the Green are custodians of ancient medicinal wisdom, showing their care by attentively cultivating things that grow and transforming them into nourishment, charms, salves and poultices. They understand best the symmetry between people and the natural world, the dancing of bees and the games that hares and foxes play, and how the roots of trees and fungi lace together and support a stump that’s been cut. But being so aware of the big picture places them beyond and apart from it; green witches tend to settle well outside of towns and villages, if only a short trip away. A gardener tends the flower beds, but she isn’t herself a flower.

---

Coven of the Heart

Of all witches, witches of the heart take the most interest in the lives and troubles of ordinary people, and they excel as matchmakers, advice-givers, and gossips. Whether they dwell in the charmingly odd house at the edge of town or in the attic apartments above a busy store, heart witches tend to live among the people that their magic serves and become fixtures of community life, attending town halls and festivals and helping out around town until others hardly think there’s anything remarkable about a witch living among them.

---

Coven of the Wicked

No witch sets out to be wicked, and no witch chooses the wicked coven. Players may not pick the Coven of the Wicked at 2nd level; this coven is a doom that befalls witches whose care turns to selfishness and whose magic sours with misuse. Members of this coven like to paint themselves as misunderstood victims, but it’s not tragedy that turns a witch’s heart to darkness—it’s the inability to let go of their suffering. A wicked witch might claim to be an enemy to all the world, but they always have one kind of person in particular—usually related to their past self, and what soured their magic—that they despise above all else. When you become wicked, choose a virtue that is anathema to you: courage, fairness, generosity, innocence, loyalty, kindness, optimism, prudence, selflessness, or being in love. Beings that display this virtue are especially tempting targets for your ire.