Witch trials in German society were a dark period in history characterized by mass hysteria and the persecution of individuals accused of witchcraft. These trials took place primarily during the 16th and 17th centuries and had a profound impact on German society. During this time, belief in witchcraft was widespread and deeply ingrained in German culture. The fear of witches and their perceived ability to cause harm led to a witch craze that swept through the country. Ordinary men and women, particularly those who were marginalized or vulnerable, were accused of witchcraft based on rumors, superstitions, and hearsay. The trials themselves were often marked by brutal and unfair proceedings, with the accused being subjected to severe torture to extract confessions.

The witch is dead ttrpg

Once upon a time, there was a kind and wise and beautiful witch who lived in the forest with her familiars, and her life was peaceful and happy until a FUCKING WITCH-HUNTER broke into her cottage and dragged her out and fucking MURDERED HER and now she’s DEAD. But: if you get revenge and kill him and bring his EYES to her corpse within a week she’ll come back to life. Or so you’ve heard. Even if it doesn’t work, at least he’s dead.

GM: remember to divide tasks into smaller parts. Some tasks remain impossible, as you’re animals. You can talk to other animals of the same or similar species.

If the task is dangerous, you are gain a point of danger if you fail. Using magic is always dangerous. If you roll equal to or under your current danger, you’re out of the game. You can lower your danger by running away or solving the problem.

1. FOX (C2 F2 S1 Q1)
2. CAT (C0 F1 S3 Q2)
3. TOAD (C1 F1 S2 Q1)
4. SPIDER (C2 F0 S3 Q1)
5. OWL (C3 F1 S1 Q2)
6. HARE (C0 F0 S2 Q3)
7. MAGPIE (C2 F1 S1 Q2)
8. CROW (C2 F1 S2 Q2)
9. DOG (C1 F3 S0 Q1)
10. RAT (C1 F0 S2 Q2)

1. Unseen hand
2. Conjure Light
3. Speak Human (d6 words)
4. Lock/Unlock, Open/Close
5. Conjure Snack
6. Make Flame
7. Tidy, Clean and Mend
8. Plant Growth
9. Distract/Confuse
10. Make Book Read Itself Aloud

1. Under the thumb of the baron
2. Filled with cheery gnomes
3. Controlled by a cult
4. Devoutly religious
5. Incredibly superstitious
6. At war with forest tribes
7. Built around a wizard college
8. Full of hardy mining folk
9. Shady and dangerous
10. Oppressively perfect

1. Armoured and tough
2. Wizened and wise
3. Drunk and violent
4. Pious and aggressive
5. Guarded and cowardly
6. Magical and jealous
7. Clever and cruel
8. Duplicitous and hidden
9. Jolly and well-meaning
10. Headstrong and wild

1. The village are in on it
2. A rival witch set her up
3. The witch hunter didn’t do it
4. The witch hunter is waiting for you
5. The village folk are having a festival
6. The witch-hunter died, and is being buried
7. There are two (rival) witch-hunters in town
8. The village is abandoned for some reason
9. The witch-hunter has dragged a suspect up for questioning
10. The village hate the witch-hunter

The trials themselves were often marked by brutal and unfair proceedings, with the accused being subjected to severe torture to extract confessions. Once an individual was accused of witchcraft, they were presumed guilty and faced little chance of acquittal. This resulted in the widespread execution of innocent people, typically by burning at the stake.

WHO MADE THIS?

Rowan, Rook and Decard are a London-based RPG company comprising of Mary Hamilton, Grant Howitt and Chris Taylor. They’re most famous for their free monthly one-page RPGs (such as Honey Heist, Crash Pandas and Jason Statham’s Big Vacation) and Spire, a fantasy-punk game of dark elf insurrection in a mile-high, high-elf-controlled nightmare city. For more information (and over 20 free games) go to rowanrookanddecard.com.

TTRPG REVIEW: The Witch Is Dead

The Witch Is Dead is an interesting little TTRPG game that you can get for cheap/free at itch.io and DriveThru RPGs by Rowan, Rook & Decard. It’s a simple one-shot module with everything you need to know on one piece of paper:

Once upon a time, there was a kind and wise and beautiful witch who lived in the forest with her familiars, and her life was peaceful and happy until a FUCKING WITCH-HUNTER broke into her cottage and dragged her out and FUCKING MURDERED HER and now she’s DEAD. But if you get revenge and kill him and bring his EYES to her corpse within a week, she’ll come back to life. Even if it doesn’t work, at least he’s dead.

The witch-hunter has retreated to the VILLAGE, the FUCKING COWARD. Get him.

And that’s it! That’s the premise. The players are the witch’s familiars, meaning they can play as one of the following (which is randomly rolled): fox, cat, toad, spider, owl, hare, magpie, crow, dog, rat. You have four stats: Clever, Fierce, Sly, and Quick, as well as a simple cantrip from the following: unseen hand; conjure light; speak human; lock/unlock, open/close; conjure dinner; make flame; tidy, clean, & mend; plant growth; distract/confuse; and make book read itself aloud. These are not big or flashy cantrips, they are very simple magics, making things all the more interesting. Whoever is present plays as an animal familiar trying to hunt down the witch-hunter and get his eyes back to the witch within 1 week, with the die of choice for this game being the D10. Murder-hoboing is often encouraged in this game, which (IMHO) plays out best when no one is taking it too seriously.

There are a few things you can roll to set the scene as well. The first is about the aforementioned Village that the players will encounter. The second is about the aforementioned Witch-hunter. The final, and the one that is kept secret from the players, is the twist. I do have an issue with the game in that all of the potential twists are outright listed on the page where everyone can read them, but I remedy that by often ignoring the paper and making up my own, or combining several from the list.

I’ve played this game perhaps about 4-5 times and it’s a really good starter TTRPG for people who haven’t played before. Not unlike Liminal_, it’s also a good game to help test player dynamics and chemistry. It’s also a really easy game to get into low-stakes character RP. While Liminal_ has you essentially playing as yourself, The Witch Is Dead has you roll your woodland creature and your spells, so everything is streamlined and simple, no need to overthink if you’ve never done this sort of thing before, yet it does allow for some light RP for those who are interested.

This game is also really good for practicing GM improvisation. As you can tell from the game sheet itself, no one is really expected to do any prep for this game, so the GM often has to make up everything on their random whims and whatever the players are doing. While Liminal_ gets you in the mood of action and reaction, The Witch Is Dead gets you into practicing move sets and general improvisation and helps with the overall flow of story-based RP, for which Liminal_ is not so useful.

What I’ve enjoyed best about The Witch Is Dead is exactly how customizable it is. Of course, if you have a rules lawyer in your group, they may not appreciate the GM going off-script, but I’ve personally hosted both a Halloween-themed and Christmas-themed session of this game, where I’ve completely ignored the paper’s suggestions in order to suit the seasonal game.

If you’re looking to gradually introduce someone to TTRPG gaming, I’d say that Liminal_ is perfect for a first-time-ever, while The Witch Is Dead is good second one-shot to run if you want to add a few more new things, like rolling a character and having basic stats. We’ve used The Witch Is Dead to test out player chemistry before starting up campaigns in bigger systems like Mörk Borg, Zweihander, and Dungeons ‘n’ Dragons 5e and I do think it’s a great game to play both for people who can’t commit to longer game sessions or longer-spanning campaigns, yet who still enjoy a night of RP.

Review: The Witch is Dead

The Witch is Dead is a one page RPG by \u\gshowitt on reddit about murder- the witch has been killed and her entourage of woodland creatures must kill the witch hunter and take his eyes in order to revive her. My group had a lot of players out this week so I ran it as a quick old-school revival style bloodfest for the two people who had made it and everyone had a blast.

Taylor the witch was killed by a wild and headstrong witch-hunter from the nearby oppressively perfect village of white supremacists at war with the local forest tribes. The mortality rate for the night was 150%-Hadvar the hare bolted across an open field and managed to convince an orphan boy that he was his father using magic before he was carried off by a falcon. His player rerolled and returned as Gonzalez the rat in about 30 seconds. The predator guarding the village now busy eating, the rest of the party entered through a creek but Tony the NPC toad was almost devoured by koi until Roger the rat beat them back with his unseen hand. After a shouting match with a cat, they managed to infiltrate a rally led by the witch hunter. Gonzalez dropped a bag of sand on him back stage, badly injuring him, and Roger the rat managed to steal a war horn originally taken from the forest tribes and get Tony to blow it as a distraction, at the cost of Tony’s life.

Seeking to finish off the witch hunter at the doctor’s office, the party mistakenly entered an exterminator’s office. Roger attempted to kill said exterminator with his unseen hand spell and the knife he had used to avenge Tony, but was instead killed by a flying mousetrap. His player rerolled as Mosey the cat, and successfully lead the forest entourage and Gonzalez in mobbing the exterminator’s ankles until he fell into his own poison stash and died.

Armed with the information that the sign with dead and hurt animals on it was not the hospital, they soon located the witch hunter. A pitched battle ensued in the doctor’s office, and Mosey was mortally stabbed by the doctor’s pet dove Archimedes before he swallowed it whole. His player took over the NPC Errol the arsonist owl who set fire to the building and with Gonzalez’s help removed the witch hunter’s eyes and flew off. Regrettably, Errol could only carry Gonzalez and the rest of the forest creatures burned to death.

With the high probability of failure and death I think you can’t run it as anything but a funnel world style game, with disposable characters and a deep pool of backups. Using this set up the game flowed well and the quick rerolling and simple rules encouraged the players to take risks- combined with the random generation the group ended up in a lot of interesting situations; it didn’t feel like there was any dead time with this game.

What I would say the downside is like Dungeon World your (meaning the dungeon master’s) ability to improvise is very important. In particular the concept of failing forward is very applicable. Working a vague degrees of success system into this helped- if you stop dead on a bad roll The Witch is Dead is not going to work. The random tables help things get moving quickly but you have to make a lot of snap decisions about how difficult things should be and how to lay out a world created with dice rolls. If you can do that, the system is very good for one shots- I ran mine in about 2 hours with no prep and I think it was one of the best sessions I have ever run. The rules provide a good deal of structure for the players while leaving room to maneuver- a good system for old and new players.

TL,DR; A quick and fun one page RPG in the OSR style- if you are good at improv and don’t take it too seriously you will have a good time. Give it a try.

The witch trials had a significant impact on German society. They created an atmosphere of fear and suspicion, causing neighbors to turn against one another and families to be torn apart. The trials also served as a means of social control, as those in power used accusations of witchcraft to eliminate individuals who posed a threat or challenged the established order. Furthermore, the witch trials had a lasting effect on the perception of women in society. Women were disproportionately targeted as witches, with accusations often being rooted in misogyny and fear of female empowerment. The witch hunts reinforced existing gender stereotypes and reinforced the idea of women as inherently dangerous and evil. In conclusion, the witch trials in German society were a dark and troubling period marked by mass hysteria and the persecution of innocent individuals. These trials had a profound impact on German society, creating an atmosphere of fear and suspicion and perpetuating harmful stereotypes about women. It is a somber reminder of the dangers of fear and the devastating consequences of mass hysteria..

Reviews for "The Fates of Innocent Victims in German Witch Trials"

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The Political Influence on Witch Trials in Germany