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Sister Witches and Monastic Wizards

Wizards and Witches

In Centerra, men and women are equally adept at magic.

However, attitudes towards women and magic use vary across
the continent (most of which is dominated by the Church).
These attitudes usually take one or more of the following
forms:

Danger: Magic is dangerous and women will

incompetently endanger themselves and/or others.
Immoral: Magic is corrupting and women will all become
evil thralls to demons.
Burn the witch!

In truth, magic is dangerous and corrupting, and male wizards

explode their heads, unleash horrible psychoplasmic plagues,
and become skin-cars for demons with alarming frequency.
Just the same, these prejudices are enacted against women
with both communal shunning (in the east) and state-ordained
executions (parts of the west).

A few wizards are aware that women are just as capable as men.

So, men are called wizards, and this is a term of prestige, power, and respect.
And women are called witches, and this is a term of fear and loathing.

A few women take to calling themselves wizards, with varying degrees of success. This usually involves lying about
where they were trained. In a few rare cases, women have successfully gotten educations in wizard colleges or
monasteries, always by disguising their gender. Wizards hate being tricked and will usually invest a lot of effort into
making sure the witch is discredited, exiled, imprisoned, or executed for crimes against magic.

Digression: lots of people suffer under the tyranny of wizard institutions, not just the women who dare pay for an
education there (wizarding colleges require shit-fuck-tons of money, wizarding monasteries usually require familial
links and/or years of service).

So, wizards have rich traditions with rich, old institutions. Portraits of the last 50 headmasters hang in the halls. That
sort of shit. They have libraries with thousands of spells (mostly variations).

Monastic wizard enclaves function pretty much the same way, except that they retreat from the world instead of
entangling themselves in it.

And witches struggle to get any sort of tradition going. They have no libraries, small repertoires of spells, and only oral
histories.

However, there is a lot of evidence that show that the most powerful spellcasters in the world have been women.
Zandara the Magnificent disappeared the city of Bastoc, a feat that has never been replicated or even approached
(although her detractors will point out that she studied at the College of the August Star in the middle of her illustrious
career). And Ozur the Unscarred dueled every wizard she came across, and never lost a single one (although she
was a pretty amoral character, and is pretty directly responsible for a lot of the evil witch stereotypes). And Yalys the
Shaper created over a dozen life forms during her life, in a time when that was thought to be impossible. Even now,
teams of wizards labor for years to create a single, viable organism.

Because of the way that magical talent is sought after and recognized in boys, girls are more likely to become
sorceresses.

Digression: When a person is filled with magical talent but never given the opportunity to exercise it, the magic
sometimes overflows, burning out their ability to control what spells they can cast. This is what a sorcerer is. Pure
sorcerers can only cast a single spell (determined at random), but they can cast it many times per day. They may
eventually learn to cast many variations of that spell, but they will never be able learn the variety of spells that wizards
go. For them, it is not a cerebral event, but an organic, gut-churning, orgasmic experience.

Digression, cont.: Wizards don't like sorcerers because they are consistently overpowered by them. (Sorcerers get a
bonus to caster level.) The only humanoids with more spellcasting power are the elves (let's not even get started on
them). Because of the way sorcerous talents emerge, nearly all sorcerers are young people with mild brain damage,
usually manifesting as poor impulse control. They tend to go mad. Some of them kill a lot of people. Very few live very
long.

Covens and Stuff

Covens are partly social things. They're a secret

community, and if a coven sticks around long enough,
they usually end up being based on either (a) family or
group of families, or (b) a bunch of women in a singular
profession. Aside from a bunch of old ladies teaching
their granddaughters how to turn snakes into rabbits (or
curse people), there's also just a bunch of women
hanging out, eating food, and shooting the shit.

Digression: For comparison, a big chunk of colleges are

just young men experimenting with drugs and alternative
sexualities, and a big chunk of wizard monasteries is
sweeping floors and fasting.

In the countryside, towns who discover a coven in their

midst usually try to disband it using social pressures.
Neighborly surveillance, friendly interventions, loss of the
possibly a wizard
meeting place, husbands pleading with their wives
“You've got to stop meeting with those. . . witches! What if the paladins found out? I don't want anything to happen to
you. I love you.”

Small towns might have more understanding views of witches, though. Sure, you're surprised when your 17-year old
daughter fires off a magic missile, but if she did it to stop the guy who was robbing your shop, bully for her!

Townsfolk are very rarely stupid/cruel enough to do the whole torches and pitchforks thing. If things escalate, they'd
rather just go to a city and contact a college or the Church.
Major cities have colleges, and when they find out about about witch covens, this is what usually happens: A bunch of
wizards and guards show up at the witch's house during dinnertime. They round them up, see if the witches have
developed any spells that they don't already have in their files (they often do), throw the ringleaders in jail, and fine
the rest.

Darker colleges will have a heremancer or two among their ranks, and these scary dudes will perform a barancation
(drilling holes in the crown of the head, pouring some stuff inside, casting some spells) and burn out a witch's ability to
cast spells forever.

Then they do the jail thing.

Monastic wizard enclaves will usually do pretty much the same thing, but minus the city guard and with a few more
shaven-headed acolytes.

Witch Hunters (The Third Lantern of the Church of Hesaya, mostly paladins but also other types of specialists) like to
catch the witches in the act. Kick down the door. Witches who make a fuss are killed. The other ones are rounded up
and put on trial. The worst offenders are burnt at the stake. The others are also burnt at the stake unless their families
can pay their fail/fee (most of which goes to the Church), and then the surviving witches go to Angelmar where they
can atone for their sins in person, in front of the Godhead. Then they go on probation for the rest of their lives.

Lots of people don't like the witch hunters, because they've killed a lot of people's grandmas, mothers, and sisters.
This often extends to paladins, who are often met with distrust. No one likes a cop at the reunion when grandma is
smoking weed out back without a license.

Digression: If these paladins sound like assholes to you, remember that their unswerving morales are also their
greatest virtue. These are the same guys who charge into fight demons when normal men shit their pants and go
mad. These are the paladins who unhesitatingly throw themselves into the jaws of death to protect their part of the
world. (Don't fuck with them.) They're probably too uncompromising to make good PCs in most games (but there are
other orders of more reasonable paladins if a player still wants to play a holy knight).

Also don't forget that there are plenty of evil witches, plague covens, corrupt colleges, and diabolical wizard towers.
Everyone has a right to be evil! Huzzah!

Gender and Roleplaying in Centerra

It's no fun to play a woman in a game if the DM uses fantasy prejudices to shit all over you. That sucks.

But I believe that gender issues should not be excluded in a setting, because (a) your group can just choose to ignore
them, (b) sexism is interesting, and fantasy sexism potentially much more so, (c) it brings up questions of morality,
which can lead to interesting discussions (although your group may prefer black and white morality (“all orcs are evil”)
which can be great because it allows your group to go straight to the part with the unambiguous heroism)

So if a player wants to play a witch, it shouldn't be a big deal. Adventurers are already sketchy people who smell like
blood and carry too many weapons. No one trusts then anyway. Only after they save the town will they go from “those
murderers, thieves, and witches who probably want to steal our gold and bugger our horses” to “those murderers,
thieves, and witches who might be sort of okay”.

Perspective
The terms “college” and “university” are synonymous with schools of
wizardry (a university is a collection of colleges), but these huge institutions
usually exert their tentacles into all sorts of other worldly affairs, from
politics to finance to warfare. So “military college” = “military college of
wizardry”. The idea of going to college and learning non-magic stuff is
unheard-of.

The wizards of Shar are also experimenting with allowing a few women into
their wizarding colleges (which teach non-wizarding topics, too! Like
mathematics! How insane!) But everyone knows that Shar is pretty batshit
anyway, and is probably going to be overrun by sexual deviants and orcs
any day now.

At the edge of the map, on the next continent over, the women of Basharna
and Abasinia suffer no such prejudices, and learn magic freely alongside
the men. (However, wizardry is very different over there, since it is wedded
tightly with religion, and is seen as only a small part of the religious powers
of the temples.)

Demographics
Male magic-users outnumber their female counterparts, and they are vastly
more visible.

Male Magic-Users
70% Monastic Wizards (learned in a monastic enclave)
20% Hedge Wizards (usually an apprentice to a single teacher, but possibly
self-taught)
10% Meltherian Wizards (learned in Meltheria, a magocracy of fashionable,
flashy wizard colleges)

Female Magic-Users
70% Hedge Witches (usually an apprentice to a single teacher, but possibly
self-taught) the snake is also a wizard
20% Coven Witches (belongs to a secret coven in a city with familial
membership)
10% Mystery Cult Witch (product of the gynomantic mystery cults in Abasinia/Basharna)

Wizard Observances and Schools

Every wizard is part of a school. This is not just a theme of magic that they abide by. It is a philosophy, way of life, and
a set of weird rules that wizards must practice if they wish to maintain their spooky powers.

Gamewise, this has three effects:

1. Spell list. Wizard spells not on their spell list take 2 slots or cost 2 MP. Level 1 wizard spellbooks contain 1d3
spells from their level 1 list, rolled randomly.
2. Observances. These are taboos and practices that a wizard must abide by. Failure to follow observances
causes loss of powers for days (minor) or months (major).
 3. Unique Power. Every school has at least one of these. They are magic powers, but they are not spells. Every
school guards these things jealously.

Arrgaghgleblaidontwanttowritehistoryontopofallthis

Here are two sample monastic orders of wizards to show what I'm talking about.

They used to be one order, called the Order of the Red Hand, then bad shit happened and they split up into two
groups: The White Hands and the Black Hands. Now they regard each other as rivals.

A few crazy fucks are always trying to restore the glory of the Red Hand, but the White Hand and Black Hand always
team up to stop them, like clashing cop duos that argue a lot but always get the bad guy in the end.

The Red Hand wasn't "Evil", but the guys trying to restore it always are, because jingoism.

Anyway, the White and Black Hand wizards have their own monastic enclaves and communities and rich traditions
that I don't want to rewrite now. Let's just get to the good part.

Wizards of the White Hand

The Wizards of the White Hand have the ability to cure injuries, wither
limbs, and empower the flesh. Their most famous power is the ability to
touch a person and then cast a spell on them later on, over great
distance.

They wear no uniform, but they traditionally wear a white circle, whether
it is a design on their tunic, a white earring, a white belt, or something
else. They go shirtless when they can.
They drink alcohol in moderation and take wives, but do not eat meat.
They will free slaves, pets, and mounts whenever they can, and do not
use these things themselves. They steal, earn, or find, but they never
give nor accept gifts. Attempting to give one a gift or do him a favor is the
foulest of insults. Nothing is free, they will neither accept nor give
hospitality without payment. They have a reputation for being
unsympathetic.
this is actually probably tokyo. unrelated to wizards

They answer to no law save their own.

Must wear white circle unless matter of life and death.

Cannot eat meat.
Cannot use slaves, pets, or mounts. (Unless that animal can talk, agree, and be paid.)
Cannot give or accept gifts. Hospitality must be reciprocated.
Can touch a creature and create a link with them. If the linked creature is the only target of a spell, you may
choose spend the link and ignore any range limits of the spell, up to 10 miles per wizard level. You can only
have 1 link at at time, and can dispel your old one with a thought.

White Hand Wizards use their link ability to cure allies at a distance, ensure loyalty among their servants, and send
messages.

Level 1 Order of the White Hand Spells

 1. Cure Light Wounds
2. Detect Magic
3. Endure Elements
4. Light
5. Magic Missile
6. Mighty Thews*
7. Olfactorial Revelation*
8. Pain*
9. Necrography*
10. Vigor*
11. Vivigraphy*
12. White Hand*

Mighty Thews
Touched target treats their Strength bonus as 1 point higher when calculating
weapon damage. Lasts 1 hour/level.

Olfactorial Revelation
Caster has an unbelievable sense of smell. Doesn't allow you to identify things
you haven't smelled before. Lasts 1 minute/level.

Pain
Touched target saves or takes 2d6 psychic damage. Only works on things that
feel pain.

Necrography
Touched corpse is compelled to answer 1 question (like speak with dead). This
is the flesh body answering, not the mind. The body will answer honestly, but
flesh bodies technically see/hear/experience everything the living body does,
but they only remember things that involve food, sex, pain, adrenaline
even you are a wizard
responses, and stuff like that. Usually the corpse will talk using it's normal
mouth, but it may also communicate the response in other ways. It's always understandable, although sometimes a
bit cryptic.

Vigor
Touched creature has it's maximum HP increased by 1/level. Lasts 6 hours.

Vivigraphy
As Necrography, except it works on living bodies. It's pretty funny when you ask a person's body a question and they
clench their mouth to avoid answering—sometimes the answer is spelled out as freckles across their forehead.
Sometimes they just fart it out.

White Hand
One of the caster's hands becomes as hard and durable as steel. It doesn't become any heavier, so it doesn't do any
extra damage if you use it for karate chops or punches. You can't bend it, so it's stuck in the same shape as when you
cast it. But you can stick it in fire and it won't burn. You can even use it to parry sword blows (as a shield, +1 to AC).
Lasts 1 minute/level.
Wizards of the Black Hand

The Black Hand has illusions, things that affect the mind, and power over wood. Their most famous ability is the
power to see through a wooden likeness of themselves that they carve.

They wear a uniform (a black tunic with triangular shoulderpads) and bathe every day. They carry soap, and if water is
not available, they will cover their body in olive oil and scrape the dirt off with a sea shell. They eat meat that was
killed humanely, but do not drink alcohol nor take wives. They tolerate slaves, pets, and mounts, and do not use
slaves or pets. If they have a horse, they are exceptionally kind to it.

Every Black Hand Wizard considers themselves noble, and this pride is part of the source of their power. They must
be addressed respectfully (“sir”, “lord”, “master”). If you fail this small token of respect, they are obligated to destroy
you. This is not always due to arrogance on their part, it is simply part of the ordinances that they must observe to
practice their magic. Many of them sigh as they explain that you must apologize for your insult, or they will regretfully
have to destroy you. Their humility is (sometimes) sincere.

They answer to no law save their own.

Must wear black robe with triangular shoulderpads

unless matter of life and death.
Must bathe every day.
Cannot drink alcohol or have sex.
Must deliver vengeance to all you insult you and
refuse to apologize.
Can carve your likeness into wood. Must look exactly
like you. Thereafter, you can close off your other
senses and see/hear/feel/smell/taste through your
wooden visage as if you were actually inhabiting the
wood, up to 10 miles per wizard level. This cannot be
dispelled, and you must destroy your old visage if
you want to create a new one.

Black Hand Wizards use this to create a “security

camera” in their homes. Sometimes they put their faces
on a staff and use it to peek around corners. Sometimes
they'll carve a whole body one while in prison, send it to a
whore house, and then send money for “conjugal visits”
at a distance. Sometimes they drop their visage into a
swamp, and are sad for the rest of their life because all
I actually have no context for this picture and I'm okay with that
they can sense through it is darkness and cold water and
they can't destroy it to make a new one.

Level 1 Order of the Black Hand Spells

1. Audible Illusion*
2. Black Hand*
3. Charm Person
 4. Detect Magic
5. Detect Illusion*
6. Dendrigraphy*
7. Fog*
8. Magic Missile
9. Protection From Evil
10. Read Magic
11. Sleep
12. Woodbend*

Audible Illusion
Creates whatever sounds you want to make. Can be as loud
as 4 rowdy dwarves or a couple of lions. Range is 100',
duration is Concentration or 1 min/level, whichever is
shorter.

Black Hand
One of your arms turns invisible. You get an illusory arm on
the same side that you can control freely, but it can't appear
to do anything your arm couldn't normally do (like turn into a
cannon). Small things that you hold in your invisible arm (up
to dagger size) are also invisible. If you cast this twice, you'll
have two invisible arms. Lasts 1 min/level.

Detect Illusion
Allows you to see if something is an illusion. Works on all the
senses. If there is something invisible, you can see where it
is, but it is just a blurry, undifferentiated blob to your vision,
so you probably can't identify it.

Dendrigraphy
Allows you to ask a single question of a tree that you touch.
Answer appears in letters on the trunk (permanent until the
tree grows new bark). Trees know a good bit about weather
and have a great sense of time, but they have a hard time
differentiating between animals, except by size. They also
gossip among themselves, and may have news from distant
parts.
senior year wizard thesis: look what I can do

Fog
You breath out a bunch of fog. Everything up to 30' out from you is pea soup.

Woodbend
Like warp wood, but must touch object to cast it. A bit of wood bends or unbends, as if warped by wood. Straight
doors can be warped and stuck. Warped doors can be straightened and unstuck. Wooden-hafted weapons will get -2
to hit while all bent up.

If I ever do end up running an adventure in Centerra (Land of Flowers, yoblintown), these will be valid choices at
character creation.

Monastic wizard schools are so numerous that I figure they're sort of like orbital gods in ASE. If a player wants to
invent one, they can. My only requirement is that they have to stick a couple of unrelated themes together. The world
is too big for one order of wizards to be THE pyromancers.

elves are intentionally OP in Centerra

this guy is too weird looking to be a warrior. probably a wizard. or bard, I guess.

i bet you think this is a wizard