Issue #2 Otherworldly Patron: The Sea Witch

Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.

What secrets lie within Issue #2 of Unplaytested?!

None. None secrets here, folks. I’m an open book.

Below you’ll find a folklore-steeped witchy warlock archetype for 5e, community spotlights, and vague descriptions of UO Publishing news that I act very nonchalant about but are actually deeply important to me.

See? No secrets. Let’s go!

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Folklore and superstition surrounding sea witches are plentiful. Man has been terrified of dark open waters for as long as he has been afraid of independent women, so the overlap is rich. Sometimes the sea witch is a creature, like a selkie or a cecaelia, sometimes she’s just an old woman who is committing the unforgivable taboo of living by herself near a larger than average body of water.

One common aspect of sea witch folklore is the gifting of a knotted rope. The broad strokes for most stories are; a young sailor approaches the witch for a favor and is given a rope with 3 knots, each producing a powerful effect when the knot is loosed. These effects range from creating the perfect gust of wind for the sailor’s sails to creating a tempest that destroys everything he loves, to just outright murder.

For this archetype, I wanted to dig into that key piece of folklore and turn it into something that fits the normal warlock narrative of receiving gifts from an otherworldly patron.

Otherworldly Patron: The Sea Witch

“My gifts are not for children of the dirt, hill girl. You may be standing on the shore, but you brought the stink of roots and goats with you.”

The Sea Witch smiled when she said this, revealing two lines of grey teeth that, to the girl she was mocking, appeared dangerously healthy despite their odd color. The girl looked down at her feet, planted firmly on the rocky outcropping perched just above the inky waters. The people of her village had warned of the witches in the sea. Hideous creatures who ate flesh and danced with devils in moonlit tides, they and the salt waters they called home were best avoided. 

  The being that floated effortlessly before the girl was strange, certainly, almost purposefully feral in her appearance and a far cry from the types of people that the girl had known during her life. But despite the warnings of her family calling from the back of her mind, the girl was not afraid. She could feel energy flowing from The Sea Witch, lapping at the edges of her spirit like the ocean she now faced for the first time. But beyond the power, the girl could feel something more, something that drew her to call The Sea Witch from the waters in the first place. 

  “You’re trying my patience, hill girl. What is it that a creek hopper thinks they can bargain from the sea?” 

  The girl looked up quickly and met The Sea Witch’s black eyes, answering with a fierceness that drew another wide grey-toothed smile before the words even left her mouth.

  “Freedom”. 

Expanded Spell List

1st-level Sea Witch feature

The Sea Witch allows you to choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a warlock spell. The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you.

Sea Witch Expanded Spells

Spell Level 1. bane, fog cloud

Spell Level 2. enhance ability,  gust of wind

Spell Level 3. bestow curse, call lightning

Spell Level 4. conjure minor elementals (air or water only), polymorph

Spell Level 5. cone of cold, reincarnate

The Brine Oath

1st-level Sea Witch feature

You have sworn your oaths and mixed your breath and blood and can now count yourself a part of The Sea Witch’s coven. You gain a swim speed equal to your walking speed and you can breathe both air and water. 

Witch’s Ladder

1st-level Sea Witch feature

The Sea Witch grants you a small length of rope known as a witch’s ladder and the knowledge to tie knots containing great power. After finishing a long rest, you may select 3 of the below knots to tie in your witch’s ladder (you may select the same knot more than once), which you may untie to activate. Once a knot has been untied, you cannot activate its ability until it has been tied again. Your witch’s ladder cannot contain more than 3 knots at a time. 

Dracken Eye Knot

As an action, choose a creature within 30 feet of you. For a number of rounds equal to your proficiency bonus, when the target creature successfully deals damage to another creature, that damage is increased by 1d8 plus your proficiency bonus.

Kelpie Head Knot

As a reaction to a creature within 30 feet moving 10 feet toward you, you may force the creature to make a Wisdom saving throw against your Warlock spell save DC. On a failure, until the end of the creature’s next turn it has disadvantage on attack rolls and any damage it deals is reduced by an amount equal to your proficiency bonus. 

Otter’s Paw Knot

As a bonus action, choose a creature within 30 feet of you. That creature regains a number of hit points equal to 2d6 plus your proficiency bonus. 

Siren’s Tongue Knot

As an action, choose a creature within 30 feet of you to make a Wisdom saving throw against your Warlock spell save DC. On a failure, the target creature must use its action to move its full movement toward you. The target creature will not move in a way that will obviously cause it harm (jump from a cliff, move through fire, etc.) but will otherwise take the most direct route in your direction.

You may use your witch’s ladder as a spellcasting focus for your warlock spells and if it is destroyed or lost you may perform a 1-hour ceremony to receive a replacement from your patron. This ceremony can be performed during a short or long rest, and the previous witch’s ladder becomes a mundane piece of rope if it still exists or if you die.

Deep Coven’s Strength

6th-level Sea Witch feature

You have been granted a greater portion of your patron’s power and your coven’s protection. When you use your witch’s ladder as a spellcasting focus to cast spells of 1st level or higher, they deal an extra 1d8 cold or lightning damage (choose each time this ability activates). When you reach 10th level in this class, this damage increases to 2d8.

Binding Ties

10th-level Sea Witch feature

Your connection to The Sea Witch and your coven grows ever stronger, allowing you to pull more of their power as your own. When you untie a knot on your witch’s ladder to activate its ability, you may target 2 creatures within range instead of 1. 

Additionally, when you untie the last knot on your witch’s ladder, you immediately gain a number of temporary hit points equal to your warlock level.

Mistress of Maelstroms

14th-level Sea Witch feature

You can harness your patron’s control of the seas to bring a furious maelstrom against your foes. As an action, you create a 30-foot-radius sphere of swirling waters and flashing lightning that appears at a point you can see within 120 feet. Each creature in the sphere must make a Constitution saving throw against your warlock spell save DC. On a failure, creatures gain 2 levels of exhaustion, take 5d10 cold damage and 5d10 lightning damage. On a success, they gain no exhaustion and take half as much damage. 

Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.

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Community Coolness

Our community is just so damned cool.

But you don't have to take my word for it…🌈

One day a wizard and a sorcerer were experimenting in an Arcane Lab and by pure luck a company was born. We love to find additional ways to put your dice to work! Our goal is to create products that make people happy and deliver a little bit of extra magic to your gaming table.

That’s the description on the website of Arcane Spectacles, my tabletop accessory maker of choice. Not only is it run by two of the best people you will ever meet, but they make fantastic ttrpg goods that don’t make me cry when I look at the price tags. Spell slot trackers, health trackers, dice vaults, the above sneak attack vault, and a lot more awesome gaming accouterments. Check out their site here and peruse their fine wares.

What started as a local game shop learn to play Dungeons & Dragons program in 2018 has evolved into an amazing group of friends sharing their love of improv & storytelling. Crafted by skilled dungeon masters and fellow accomplished character performers with you as a guest at the table.

The Games Tavern is running a stream event starting May 14th and running through May 18th to raise money for No Kid Hungry. The schedule is packed with fine folks raising money for an amazing charity and if that wasn’t enough incentive to swing by, they’re also giving away tons of stuff for donating. If you can’t make one of the stream events, they are accepting donations currently right here.

This "tome" represents nothing but trouble. A collection of some of the most bizarre magic ever created, this "Glitter Grimoire" is a surprisingly powerful tool. The magic contained within must never be unleashed, lest pure chaos overtake the realm. The Grimoire was given to Candlekeep for protection by Elminster himself after what he would refer to only as "the custard pie incident." 

Steven Pankotai, leading a team of 24 other DMs Guild creators, just released the above “powerful arcane spellbook by way of Lisa Frank” and I love it. You can take a look at the preview of The Glitter Grimoire on the product page here, but I think the cover and description really serve to get the tone of what’s inside across.

(The complete list of Glitter Grimoire authors: Steven Pankotai, Ryan Langr, Chris Hopper, Ashton Duncan, Kai Linder, Drew Dawes, Jos Wijchgel, Sean Shannon, Lucas Zellers, Lucas Anderson, Kyle Wagner-Totty, Maxwell Zener, Mark Litton, Sam Maijala, Benedict Hall, Koen van Eijk, William Lawler, Bum Lee, Jordan Carmichael, Massimo Tartaro, Dan King, Nathan Doyle, Tyler F.M. Edwards, Darren Kenny)

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Down in The Underground

There’s a ton of news on the Underground Oracle Publishing front, so I’ll jump right to it.

• We’ve just partnered with Fabled42! We’ll have tons of cool stuff happening in the future, so follow them for updates.

• We just released the first Dracken Snake from our setting (see rad image above). They’re massive, nasty dragonkin that have been wreaking havoc in our UO home games for over a decade, so it’s pretty great to get it out in front of people.

• We’re running a flash promotion for our Patreon until 5/17. Join at our $3 or $6 per month tiers and—in addition to the normal cornucopia of sign-on supplements—you’ll get our first quarterly bundle. (Patrons also have access to pdfs of the materials I create here in Unplaytested)

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That’s Issue #2 in the bag, my dears. Let me know in the comments what you think about the Sea Witch or if you like what I’m doing here and where we’re going with Unplaytested. Shares are super appreciated.

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If you want to see some playtested materials, check out my work for Underground Oracle Publishing on DriveThruRPG or our Patreon. And if you’d just like to throw a little support my way, you can find me on Ko-Fi or Twitter.

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