The Witch Preview (Heroes of the Feywild)

There's a preview for the witch up today on the Wizards of the Coast site. The witch was a subclass I worked on for Heroes of the Feywild. It can do all kinds of nifty things, like turning people into frogs and predicting the future. The witch stays true to its roots in fantasy and folklore--it consorts with a familiar, which acts as its teacher; the moon is an important factor for the witch, especially the full moon or the new moon; it leans toward nature type skills and religion; it can shapeshift itself and others...

There are a number of elements that were designed for the class that I don't yet see, so I can't really comment on them at the moment, as they may have been removed from the class or simply placed at higher levels. When all's said and done, the witch should not only present a subclass that works very much like the iconic witches of fiction and fairy tale, but it will hopefully present an interesting and viable alternative to the standard wizard builds. Depending on what's made it into the final version, there should be a lot more surprises coming our way from the witch.

The way I wrote it, the witch feels similar to the D&D warlock, storywise. It's also something like a druid. And a little like a priest. The witch, however, is a proto-wizard. They were the first ones to wield arcane power; they didn't learn it from books--there weren't any magic books--they learned it from intermediaries that instructed them on the casting of spells (familiars). They don't have pacts with the entities that instruct them. In fiction and literature, there's a pretty wide range of things that witches can do. Some of them throw fireballs and call lightning, others raise armies of the dead, others are master enchanters. In D&D, these tend to be wizardly abilities. The witch has its own focus--mostly involving charm, transmutation, and calling down ill fortune on their enemies--however they can easily tap into the wizard's massive inventory of spells every time they consort with their familiars.

That's the thing about the witch, and why the common folk, jealous wizards, and priests hate them: the powers at their disposal are vast, changeable, and don't require years of formalized academic study or merit. Just about anyone--even the lowest of the low--can become a witch and call down powers beyond mortal ken. 

There's an art order I wrote for the iconic witch that I don't think made the cut--not for the witch illustration anyway. The art reference was inspired by this wonderful photograph by Ed Vallette, and portrays a village witch.

I'm excited to see the class in its final version once it appears in the book. Again, I anticipate the class will open up some significant--and very, very different--kinds of characters for D&D. Want to know more? Crack open a book of fairy tales, do some internet research, or go read Stardust or The Last Unicorn. The witches in Heroes of the Feywild are firmly grounded in real world legends and lore; that's the best place to go to learn more about them or get ideas for playing one.

They'll be doing some pretty crazy stuff. To say the least.