#putrefactor

A common theme with the witch class is the idea that, similar to a deity granting power to a divine caster, a witch is gifted with their craft when, at a low point in their life their call for succor is answered by an otherworldly being.

Benevolent patrons may seek to uplift such would-be practitioners, healing their hearts and helping them use their power to grow into a stronger person (and perhaps deliver some needed justice to those who wronged them).

Less benevolent patrons, however, woo their prospective witches with the promises of vengeance and power, twisting the bitterness within them into a malignant rot.

For the patron/witch relationships of putrefactors, that rot is much more literal, their bond with their patron causing their bodies to become vessels of disease, rot, and infesting vermin, their bodies only functioning due to the magic infused in them.

As you can imagine, this archetype is not for the sensitive of stomach, though I imagine that fans of gross-out aesthetic as well as the Nurgle sub-faction of Chaos in Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 will get a nice kick out of it.

 The only patrons that grant this power are those associated with animals, death, disease, and rot, and the link that these witches establish with their patron takes the form of the very vermin crawling and burrowing under their flesh, though they also have one specific creature that serves as a true familiar.

Said familiar is always some manner of vermin, be it a spider, centipede, or drawing from a broader definition with rats and amphibians. Regardless, the familiar normally dwells alongside the other creatures within the putrefactor’s body, but can be disgorged and re-consumed fairly easily.

As their powers develop, the vermin within begin to substitute themselves for the various bodily functions of the organs they consume to make room for themselves, and that means that foes attacking such a witch may find themselves immediately set upon by a small swarm of biting things upon causing them harm at close range, the more powerful the putrefactor, the more vicious and deadly the creatures. Normally, however, such a discharge of vermin can happen only once every few seconds.

Eventually, there becomes increasingly less of the witch’s original organs present to be injured, making potentially lethal blows not quite so dangerous, though such strikes that are so less effective always release another cloud of vermin from deep within.

Finally, these witches can command all the vermin within them to be disgorged, swarming to attack foes at their command. However, doing those severely weakens the mage while they are away, given their symbiotic connection to them, though they recover if the swarm returns to them quickly enough.

Looking for an excuse to throw all of your favorite swarm and vermin-themed spells on the witch spell list into a single character, and also want to dial up the creep factor? This archetype could prove quite fun. Additionally, consider taking various mind-affecting area debuffs as well, as your swarms will mostly be unaffected while foes succumb.

 This archetype is a perfect for playing the classic role of the “vermin lord”, commanding swarms of insects and other small, simple creatures, although it clearly cleaves closer to the horror side of that broad concept, with the individual being consumed from within by their “pets”. I imagine at some point they stop being the person they were, and instead become a consciousness made up of the crawling things within. As such, I can imagine many putrefactors rising as worms that walk upon death, assuming they were powerful enough to do so.

  There exist rumors of a slight variant of putrefactor witch out there, tied to patrons of a more fungal nature. These witches are riddled with fungal hyphae, and sprout mushrooms from their back, channeling clouds of spores and keeping small fungal familiars, such as dweomer caps, and gaining various mind-altering spells.

 Local yokai hunters think they have Tsumimi, a local heiress and suspected jiang shi, cornered, and ready their undead-slaying tools. Alas, while the disguised kitsune is indeed literally rotten on the inside, she is not undead, belching forth a bile-coated swarm of spiders to deal with the hunters. Taking down this insidious infiltrator will require more research and more diverse tactics, lest more hunters be lost.

I grind my teeth in my sleep, so I have to sleep at different hours than my partner, so I don't wake them up... I stayed up late tonight and busted out another pixel portrait of my ugly girl, Mouthsweet...

I also did this glass-chucker they might fight with at some point. I sort of imagined it having this big glass spool in the middle with like, a shaver on the end that kind of chips pieces of it off as it rotates and ejects them through a little accelerator train on the barrel?

I called it a Keening Rifle based off the adjective, ‘Keen’ meaning sharp but I later learned there’s a type of Dirge called a ‘Keen’ which just makes the whole weapon name sound a little more cool and edgy than it has any right to be.