Witch Hunter, The Invisible World - CoreBook.pdf - Witch Hunter - siemszak

Cover

Pat Loboyko

Playtesters

Timothy Chandler, Phil Collins, Robert

Farnsworth, Greg Ferguson, Joanne Fisher,

Andrew Garbade, Bryan Leclair, Dee Leclair,

J. Wayne Parrish, Cori Petrea, Michael Petrea,

Erica Reeder, Gail Reese, Brian Schoner,

James Todd, P. Dennis Waltman

Interior Illustrations

Paul Carrick, Paul (Prof) Herbert, Veronica

Jones, Pat Loboyko

Cartographer

Keith Curtis

Special Thanks to

Gail Reese for her tireless efforts and Willie

and Jarad for those late night talks.

Authors

Scott Charlton, Rucht Lilavivat, Henry Lopez,

M. Sean Molley, Brian Schoner, Robert J.

Schwalb, Robert Vaughn

Team Paradigm

Jim Beck, Pedro Barrenechea, Matt Blank,

Henry Lopez, M. Sean Molley, Nelson

Rodriguez, Eric Wiener, and James Zwiers

Editors

Anna Maria Leon and Eric Wiener

Character Sheet

Pedro Barrenechea

Layout

Ruben Smith-Zempel

Art Direction

Jim Beck

Additional Material

Pedro Barrenechea, Sean Smith and Eric

Wiener

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION .............................................3

CHAPTER ONE:

THE ORDERS OF SOLOMON ...........................5

THE AGE OF SOLOMON........................................5

HISTORY OF THE ORDERS....................................7

THE ORDERS.....................................................19

CHAPTER TWO:

THE MAKING OF A WITCH HUNTERS .........36

CHARACTER CONCEPT.....................................36

BACKGROUNDS.................................................37

WITCH HUNTER CATALYST................................48

ABILITIES...........................................................49

GENERATING ABILITY SCORES.........................49

PHYSICAL ABILITIES..........................................50

MENTAL ABILITIES............................................51

SPIRITUAL ABILITIES.........................................52

SKILLS..............................................................53

SKILLS CATEGORIES.........................................54

GENERATING SKILLS.........................................56

SKILL DESCRIPTIONS........................................56

TALENTS...........................................................71

FINISHING TOUCHES: HERO POINTS, TRUE FAITH,

DAMNATION, SINS AND VIRTUES.....................84

SINS AND VIRTUES...........................................87

CHAPTER THREE:

WEALTH AND EQUIPMENT .........................93

CURRENCY AND ECONOMY.............................93

GOODS AND GEAR..........................................94

WEAPONS........................................................98

ARMOR............................................................101

CHAPTER FOUR:

PLAYING THE GAME .....................................102

THE BASICS....................................................102

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER..............................103

COMBAT..........................................................103

CARRYING, LIFTING, SHOVING,

AND THROWING THINGS..................................114

FEAR...............................................................116

REWARDS........................................................118

CHAPTER FIVE:

THE THREE CIRCLES OF SORCERY ..........119

THE SIX TRADITIONS.......................................120

RITES...............................................................120

ANIMISM..........................................................122

HERMETICISM..................................................126

PRAYER...........................................................131

CHAPTER SIX:

FIGHTING TRADITIONS ................................135

CHAPTER SEVEN:

THE WORLD OF 1689 ..................................139

THE INVISIBLE WORLD....................................173

CHAPTER EIGHT:

GRIMOIRES AND RELICS ............................176

ENACTING A RITE FROM

A WRITTEN TEXT.............................................176

GRIMOIRES......................................................176

RELICS............................................................193

CHAPTER NINE:

ADVICE TO THE GRAND MASTER .............195

CHAPTER TEN:

CREATURES AND ADVERSARIES .............208

ANIMALS.........................................................210

LIEUTENANTS.................................................211

…AND VILLAINS..............................................212

NPC GENERATION WALKTHROUGH...............214

WITCH HUNTER THREATS...............................216

THREAT TALENTS............................................245

VILLAINOUS SORCERY....................................248

DIABOLISM......................................................248

NECROMANCY.................................................251

WITCHCRAFT..................................................253

THREAT POWERS...........................................255

INTRODUCTION

To you who read this, by choice or chance, greetings. I

know not who you are or how you may have come by this

text; indeed, as I write it, I have no assurance that I will

live to complete it, nor that my words will out-live me

long enough to be read by any but their author. In truth,

such a statement is true of any work done by the hands

of man, for which of us can begin any day with absolute

certainty that we will be alive when that day reaches its

end? The Almighty has entrances and exits scripted for

us all, and rare indeed is the man who knows the hour or

nature of his end before it is visited upon him.

But there is a possibility – a small one, and for the sake

of your sanity, gentle reader, one which I pray to God

is not the case – that you who ind this manuscript by

chance may, by the hands of Providence, be one of the

unfortunate few for whom it was written. If you have

seen things by Luna’s pale and ghostly light that you

could not make yourself forget the next day, beneath

the warm and comforting light of Sol; if you have seen

a nightmare come to life, and been unable to convince

yourself that it was only a dream after all; if there is a

moment in your past which you shudder to remember,

but cannot forget, in which you learned that the world

was not as you had been raised to believe, and that evil

was a real and tangible thing; if you have unwittingly

looked beneath the veil of Nature and glimpsed the face

of Lucifer, and stood your ground rather than led in

terror, then you are one of us, whether you know it or

not.

Even so, the risk is, I think, greater for this author and

this work; but despite the danger, the words must be

put to paper and sent out into the world, that those who

may glean some value from them have a chance to learn

by an easier tutor than the hard experience which has

taught me enough to write them. Therefore, let me write,

and assume that both I and the work will survive to

reach you, the reader, lest I give in to despair and cease

writing before I have properly begun.

If these words strike a chord within you, then may God

Almighty bless you with strength of body and of will, for

you will need both. Read on, and gather up the kernels

of wisdom in these pages, though they are bought with

fear and pain. You must know the things that are herein

set forth, and you must not turn away, hateful and vile

though the revelations herein may be. Once you have

glimpsed the face of Lucifer, know that he has seen your

face as well; and though you may look away and try to

forget, the Adversary will know you, and he will seek

you out soon enough, to ensure that you do not share

what you have learned. If you are not prepared, you

are doomed to damnation, death, or (most likely) both;

and while the humble wisdom in this book may not be

enough to keep you from such a fate, it is in truth one of

the only shields you are ever likely to have. Be assured

that the Adversary knows you, and your only hope is to

know him as well.

What is it, then, that I write, which gives me cause for

such morbid and fearful musings? That, unknown

reader, depends very much on you. It may be that

you have come across this book by chance, idly picked

up from a book-seller’s stall or in an acquaintance’s

reading-room, or discovered in a forgotten corner of

some library, ive or ifty years hence – may God grant

that the work survive so long, and may He forbid that

the need for it will still be present so far in the future!

But if you found this book by such chance, I regret to

say that it will probably bring you little enough of either

wisdom or diversion. It will seem, more likely, to be a

child’s fairy-story, full of goblins and witches and other

non-sense that enlightened men will consider beneath

them, and that ignorant men will fail to understand.

Moreover, if it is a fairy-tale, it will likely seem to such

readers as one that is told in a particularly disjointed

and ineffective manner, by an author so ashamed of his

work that he will not even sign it with his full name. If

such is the case, I offer my regrets, but not my apologies;

for you are not the one for whom this work was meant.

If the passages above mean nothing to you, then this

book is not for you; be grateful to God that it is so. Read

on, if you will, and believe that all contained herein is

phant’sy; by the grace of the Almighty, this may be the

closest you ever come to such evil. Those of us who know

better will shield you from the truth if we can.

D.G.

Cambridge, Massachusetts Bay Colony

August, 1684

Those for whom this book is meant will likely have been

given a copy speciically by one who knows already that

the story herein, far from being a childish phant’sy, is

true; and who knows that this truth must be made known

to the recipient as well. If you are such a one, I ask your

patience and forbearance; soon enough this tedious

introduction will be done, and the true revelations which

are the reason you were given the text will begin.

* * *

Welcome to the world of Witch Hunter!

Witch Hunter is a role-playing game of swashbuckling

horror, in which once-ordinary men and women face and

ight against the monstrous forces of evil in a seventeenth-

century Earth almost, but not quite, identical to our own.

From the crowded streets of Paris and London to the

unexplored depths of the North American wilderness,

those who have come face-to-face with supernatural evil

must face it down with nothing but their lintlocks and

their faith.

Witch Hunter is a game of history.

While Witch Hunter ’s Earth in the year 1689 is not quite

identical to the one found in history books, it is close

enough to allow the game to absorb the rich lavor of this

extraordinary period of history. In Europe, Isaac Newton

and other Natural Philosophers are driving the Age

of Reason forward, revolutionizing science and man’s

knowledge of the natural world. In North and South

America, colonists from across Europe are struggling to

carve civilization out of the edges of a vast and unknown

continent, while some of the native inhabitants, most

notably the powerful Aztec Empire, try to expunge their

taint from their homeland. Others extend their hand in

friendship, which at times is gratefully accepted, while

at others is slapped away with prideful arrogance and

contempt. Africa is still a dark and unknown land; the

edges are a known source for strong but unwilling slaves,

but the continent’s vast interior is a mystery to “civilized”

Europe. Asia is a realm of exotic spices and strange

cultures, little-known to the people of the West.

The world of Witch Hunter is a rich and complex one –

this is a pretty big book, as you can see, and there are a lot

more secrets we’re not ready to reveal just yet! However,

let’s start out with a few essentials about the game and the

world it’s set in. The ive points on which Witch Hunter is

based are Horror, Action, History, Folklore and Faith.

Witch Hunter is a game of horror.

“Horror” is a commonly-used word for a genre that

includes ghosts and witches, werewolves and vampires;

it’s an easily-identiiable term that gives people an idea

of what they’re getting themselves into. But monsters

alone don’t make a game horriic. Trolls and goblins live

in many role-playing worlds, but they’re common enough

that players become jaded about their existence; they’re

dangerous, but not scary. To truly make the monsters (and

the game they live in) horriic, you need something more.

Later in the rulebook, we’ll discuss the speciics of running

and playing a horror game in detail. For now, just bear in

mind that the diverse elements of horror – the dread of

an unknown enemy, the fear of a dangerous foe lurking

somewhere just out of sight, and the visceral terror of a

blood-spattered beast suddenly appearing right next to

you – lie at the core of a game of Witch Hunter.

Witch Hunter is a game of folklore.

Like our own Earth, the world of Witch Hunter is full of

myths, legends, and superstitions. The difference is that

in Witch Hunter ’s world, almost all of them are true.

Fairies do dance in mushroom circles in the woods, the

unhallowed dead do wander the earth as ghosts or the

walking dead, and demons and devils do seek to tempt

and corrupt humans into mortal sin. Average men and

women do not see these beings often (if ever), but they

know they’re out there. A farmer’s wife will always

leave milk out to appease the fairies, and a lone traveler

returning home late at night will often recite the Lord’s

Prayer to keep evil spirits from his path. For witch hunters,

however, such simple charms rarely work; monsters and

spirits are deliberately hunting them, and can only be

faced with courage, faith and cold steel.

Witch Hunter is a game of Swashbuckling

Action.

Horror can be built with a slowly-growing sense of dread,

as the true wickedness and power of the enemy becomes

gradually, terrifyingly clear. But when the enemy is inally

revealed, or when innocents are endangered, the heroes

of Witch Hunter respond with swashbuckling, bare-

knuckled action. Muskets, swords, and courage may not

be enough to put the forces of evil down, but that’s often

all that our heroes have to rely on. Intellect, learning, and

deductive reasoning will play central roles in inding and

understanding the nature of the enemy, to be sure. But

when lives and souls are on the line – when there is only

one chance for victory and the alternative is unthinkable

– the men and women of action reign supreme.

Witch Hunter is a game of faith.

The existence of God is not a theory or a belief in the

world of Witch Hunter – it is an accepted fact. Not

everyone believes in the same God, of course – Christians

of various sects, Jews, Muslims, Native Americans, and

many other peoples all have their own faiths. But whatever

speciic religion they choose, the heroes and heroines of

Witch Hunter rely on their faith to give them the courage

needed to ight the forces of evil, and to resist temptation

and corruption. This should not imply that Witch Hunter

is a religious game, nor that all Witch Hunters are pious

and holy individuals. But it is important to realize that,

for the characters, belief in a benevolent divine power is

an essential element. Even those who began their careers

without faith soon learn to believe, whether they want to

or not.

Witch Hunter, The Invisible World - CoreBook.pdf

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