7 Witch Archtypes

1. The Plague Witch

The Plague Witch castes spells of disease and suffering. Communities are ravaged by diseases, sterility, miscarriage, and inexplainable fatalities. She revels in the suffering of others as they waste away from diseases that she has crafted in her cauldron or summoned from distant lands. She is withered and twisted by the diseases and the parasites that are her calling card. Unlike other witches, the Plague Witch is a loner, and seldom has more than a familiar, or a handful of terrorized disease ridden servants who are only alive because she doesn't allow the diseases the destroy them completely.

2. The Storm Witch

The Storm Witch commands the elements: fire, earth, wind, and water. With this she conjures and controls the weather, call summon dust storms, call lightning to set fields and forests on fire, and lay waste to large stretches of land. She can flood rivers, set lightning dancing through ranks of armored men, and likewise bring prosperity or ruin for agricultural communities. Storm Witches are powerful, but are also very direct. They do not mince about with plans and machinations, but rather stride forward with the storm, or laugh as the seas rush inland to throw ships into the homes of the land dwellers.

3. The Swarm Witch

The master of small creatures, the swarm witch has communion with the small and unclean creatures of the earth. This includes but is not limited to rats, mice, snakes, frogs and toads, all varieties of insects, and their supernatural and fantastic counterparts. The Swarm witch sends forth her host of crawling chaos to unleash terror, disease, and ruin upon those who have vexed her. They can devour untold amounts of stored food, spoil that which they do not eat, spread diseases and fear through their parasites, bites, and stings.

4. The Witch of Great Beasts

Where the swarm witch commands small animals, the Witch of Great Beasts is in communion with monsters and horrors of much larger size, and can summon anything from infernal tainted animals to actual denizens of the outer realms. A lesser witch summons infernal animals and dire versions of normal dangerous animals, a stronger witch summons devils and dragons, and the greatest and most dangerous of these witches can call forth the lords of the Abyss, the elder gods who dwell beyond the stars, and creatures older than mankind.

5. The Witch of the Dead

Also known as a Corpse Witch, this witch can summon the dead from their graves, ranging from ghosts to literal undead like zombies and skeletons. With her host of the dead, she makes war against the living and leaves the land barren and wasted in her wake. She will surround herself with elite undead, war ghosts, and the like.

6. The Temptress Witch

A master of machinations, the temptress witch keeps a fair face and lives among mortal society, where she sows avarice and envy, and leads nations to war with themselves, playing the seductress or the damsel in distress, all the while sowing discord. Temptress witches are the hardest to unveil because they are very subtle, and their magics are disguises and tempting men to do things that they would already do. A Temptress will lead deacons to molest girls so that the witch has more choices to recruit from, and she will lead a king into adultery so that it sparks a war of jealousy between everyone involved. Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet are her primers, crossing the stars of people who have no business being lovers, enticing paramours to murder, and invoking leaders to madness and debauchery.

7. The Revenge Witch or War Witch

The Revenge Witch was created out of a singular event, and she has struck her pack around a singular act of revenge. This can be as trivial as punishing the man who wronged her or as grand as declaring her intent to see a kingdom slaughtered and it's people's bones ground to dust. These witches are very focused, and within their focus, they are very powerful.