#rage class

day 95

The Witch of Rage. One who actively manipulates and changes anger, fear, and falsehoods on a massive scale. 

Say hello to the adrenaline junkie. 

Witch- extremely active manipulators. Witches will redefine their aspect in a major way closer to end-game. 

Rage- major themes of anger, fear, falsehoods, pain, and negative emotions. Minor themes of temper, spite, and base instincts.

Abilities 

Manifested Malice

The Witch of Rage manipulates and alters anger and fear. This is in every way. Metaphorically, the Witch is capable of supporting and rallying negative emotions, being toxic or marking their enemies as scapegoats for unchecked aggression. Literally, the Witch is capable of weaving spells to literally, physically, grasp and distill negative emotions. Negative emotions are a physical substance, acting as miasma or ichor, harboring the literal manifestation of blinding hate, abject misery, sheer terror, etc. 

At lower levels this power remains largely metaphorical, or at the very least, less flashy and more subtle. The Witch of Rage would excel at directing anger and fear, shifting their target. For allies, this would grant increased focus and dedication. Against enemies, this may manifest as hexes that cloud the mind, amplifying and overwhelming them, causing them to panic, either lashing out against their allies or to flee for their life. The Witch of Rage triggers the ingrained fight/flight response, dialing it as they please.

As the Witch progresses this manipulation becomes more fine tuned, turning less from suggestions and closer to outright control. The Witch could mute the anger and amplify the fear of enemies, causing them to doubt, to falter, or in extreme cases, even become pacified. For allies, this could allow them to become fearless, possibly even sparking a berserker-like battle fury.

At medium levels the Witch of Rage has begun tampering with Rage as an actual, physical material. The twists they create, the rising and diminishing, the intensity at their control is so real, so material and ingrained, it is a physical object. The chills down a spine, a wave of anger spreading, is all real, physical material. Enemies overwhelmed with emotion literally drowning in hate, fear so intense it is literally heavy, clouding the air and creating an intense weight on its victims. Disgust and disdain manifested as a thick miasma, choking its victims.

(The Boar God from Princes Mononoke, infected with hate after being shot with a ball of iron)

By higher levels, the Witch can use these physical substances and are able to draw so deeply to all but control their enemies, creating rage-fueled puppets to toy with and mad berserkers to string around and lure to the slaughter. 

(The Gray Legion from Legends of Runeterra is an army of undead, forced to relive as rage fueled zombies. Plenty of wonderful art for inspiration)

These substances can be manifested in such great amounts and to such quantities to be akin to natural disasters, literally raging across the battlefield as the embodiments of nature’s wrath. A raging storm of anger, a flood of overwhelming fear, a thick fog of guilt and shame. The Witch steers not just the Rage in others hearts, but the heart of the universe itself. 

Renewal of Disbelief

Perhaps better known as Nightmare Dimension to everyone but the Witch.

At some point in the session a Witch will redefine the role their aspect has played in the session, introducing a new element to how it can be interacted with. For Feferi as Witch of Life, the dream bubbles to allow characters to live after death and introduce branching paths. For Jade as Witch of Space, her interaction with the Green Sun and fenestrated planes. For a Witch of Rage, this is a session-wide alteration/invocation of anger, fear, doubt, and rejection.

Sburb is a system where the powers, themes, and aesthetics are one and the same. Vriska is a thief of light taking up attention, forcing herself to be relevant. Gamzee is a clown sowing discord, he won’t die no matter how much you want him to, as an annoying gag. In this way, the Witch of Rage is capable of shifting the genre and tone of the session around them, dismissing hope, idealism, and faith. The area around the Witch, perhaps the entire session, becomes more grim and gritty, taking on an R movie rating, M video game rating, and a parental advisory music warning. Knowing Sburb, these just might be literal settings on the session they can control.

This often violent and nightmarish tone shift can manifest in any number of ways depending on the Witch’s themes. It starts as aesthetics, but it quickly radiates to the actual themes and what the world is capable of. This tone shift is based around any of the facets of the Rage aspect: cynicism, bitterness, anger, dismissal, disbelief, cynicism, spite, difficulty, outright edginess, etc.The power of friendship is fake, violence is the only option, etc. There are no lucky breaks,  you never win a high stakes gamble, there are no glimmers of hope, etc. 

Nothing but the cold, hard, crushing reality that the Witch enforces. 

This is the world now. There is no alternative. In simple terms, 

“This isn’t that type of story”

For gritty detective novels and movies, the world can become black and white with jazz in the background, things naturally spiraling into tragedy. 

For something like Warhammer 40k/Absolute DC/Berserk/Bloodborne/Dark Souls levels of grimdark and ultraviolence, the world can be forced to run off of blood, sweat, and tears. Bleeding more blood than anyone has in their body, pushing forward through broken bodies with sheer anger and hate, guns that never seem to run out of ammunition or jam unless to inspire dread, etc. 

The restrictions and enforcement may not always be ironclad, able to be twisted by a clever individual or overpowered by an especially annoying/stubborn/foolhardy person. With the Witch setting the tone, it may even be hijacked by someone entirely willing and able to engage in these rules. By completely giving up and giving in to the reality the Witch made, anyone is able to benefit from the rules of that fiction, even enemies. 

This would start as a localized effect, a temporary claim to the surrounding area. It could be akin to a domain expansion from Jujutsu Kaisen, temporarily dragging the surrounding area into a pocket dimension that plays by their rules. 

As the Witch of Rage progresses, this effect begins to linger, spreading outwards with repeated use and mastery. With time, this effect may consume the land they are on and eventually, the Incipisphere, or even beyond into a more 4th wall breaking, metatextual space. This may create permanent zones of the Witch’s nightmare realm, areas scarred and marked and altered. It may also take the form of things rising out of them, like demons or cursed objects that are able to impose that tone shift on unaffected areas. 

While the session has always been about snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, the Witch of Rage is raging a very literal ideological war over the heart, mind, and very soul of the session.

Skills 

Word of the Demons- through cunning, guile, ragebating, or outright toxicity, you are able to subtly inflict a negative emotion on a creature. If the creature is already affected by this emotion, this may even spiral into an outright stat debuff or condition

Wrought- your feelings of anger and fear have physical interactions with the source of that anger and fear. What makes your blood boil becomes hot, that which you are scared of becomes larger, what does not scare you at all becomes weaker, etc.

Potential Lands

The Land of Music and Smoke

Potential inspiration

CAIN the ttrpg! Which is in turn inspired by things like Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man. Psychic exorcists hunt down and wipe out Sins, manifestations of humanity’s fear, hate, greed, etc. Each exorcist uses abilities known as Blasphemies. Each Sin creates an extradimensional Palace where they are that serves as their lair

Personally I think just about anything stolen from CAIN works perfectly for a Witch of Rage, particularly on the Sin side of things

Also: Geto from JJK, consumes and commands and cursed spirits. His constant summons based around negative emotions of people is an interesting way to show Manifested Malice, less as a raw physical material but instead the creation of totemic spirits. Could be neat!

Theme songs

Sticks and Stones by the Pierces