#white-haired witch

[incorrect-webtoon-quotes]

Lumine: #2

Eira: Orion?

Kody: That’s right! It’s me: your son. And it’s ‘Kody,’ Mom.

Eira: No.

Eira: O-R-I-O-N. I named you.

Kody: You ruined my life!

Eira: How could I ruin your life? I wasn’t even there!

[sovenasark]

Day 13: Demon Witch

Today, my friend, @stabstabtime‘s, tiefling character, TJ, with her familiar, Snips.

[zoeflake]

Olwen Fouéré  by  Courtney Brooke

[dailycharacteroption]

White-Haired Witch (Witch Archetype)

From the two-mouthed futakuchi of japanese folklore to various western heroes and villains, the idea of having prehensile hair that can be used as a limb is pretty cool. You can already sort of emulate these hair-mastering characters with the prehensile hair hex, today’s archetype expands upon their unnerving ability, pushing it above and beyond what others can do. White-haired witches are unnerving not only with their powers, but with their motives and methods. They might appear suddenly, attack with both spells and hair, then vanish again after their goal has been accomplished, leaving survivors and bystanders befuddled.

Unlike other witches, learning the secrets of prehensile hair is necessary to becoming a white-haired witch. In fact, in some settings they might have been the first to invent the technique. Certainly they have perfected it, dealing more damage and having more control over it, crushing, maneuvering, and even strangling foes with their uncanny locks. Additionally, they learn to extend their magic hair further and further as they learn more, making them deadly from afar. Rather than the art of hexes, these witches instead learn many cunning tricks like those associated with the unscrupulous underbelly of society, focusing on those that improve their combat agility, control over the battlefield, mastery of magical techniques, ambushing, and maintaining their aura of mystery. Now this is a fun archetype. Changing the balance of the class by taking away hexes and replacing it with a reliable attack with so much potential for controlling the battlefield, these witches actually make decent secondary melee combatants, focused on keeping the enemy down rather than dealing damage. I recommend a patron and spell list based around buffing and control spells.

As implied by the name, members of this archetype usually have stark-white hair, likely losing all color as they learn the secret to this technique. Given the archetype is found in the Dragon Empires, it likely has some reference to eastern folklore that I am unaware of, too. Still, I imagine that encounters with these witches are often spoken of for years afterward, becoming local legends. Those who recognize characters as one of them might be alarmed or intrigued by their presence.

Recently, people have been going missing in the Pass of Tingasso, their footprints stopping dead, but no body or blood to be found anywhere. In truth, the victims were snatched up by a white-haired witch, specifically a strix capable of carrying off foes, though why she had decided to do so is anyone’s guess. The white sky-devil will not be an easy target, though.

Not every white-haired witch is a mysterious outcast from society. In Wai Xan, the head of the watch is a witch named Ning. Criminals attempting to escaper her will find themselves ensnared, for her patron is the agility spirit Leaping Deer, and her hair grasps where her hands cannot. She is usually merciful, but traitors to the royal family are always brought back dead, their throats crushed.

In goblin culture, white-haired witches are called Liceless, for their prehensile hair instinctively pins down most parasites for later consumption. One is currently stowed away aboard a local barge carrying darkwood, requiring the party to clear him out. What is of real interest though, is the map tattooed to his scalp, only revealed after death when the magical hair all falls out.