Witch Species: Difference between revisions

** What's interesting about the obsession with pure blood is that at one point it's explicitly stated that all pureblooded families are, to a greater or lesser degree, related. The character who says so probably just meant "in Britain" since it's a big world and for all pureblooded families everywhere to be related would be a hell of a trick, but nonetheless, it's not going to be long before even the pureblood enthusiasts have to start marrying Muggles lest their children turn out like innumerable rulers throughout history, some of whom couldn't chew their own food. It's explicitly stated in ''The Half-Blood Prince'' that one notable blood-purity-obsessed family ''had'' gone down the route of insanity due to inbreeding.

*** It is also notable that most pureblood families seem to have very low fertility in spite of the generally longer lifespans and better physical health of the wizarding population. The Weasley family is seen as a noteworthy exception, with the majority of other pureblood families only having one or two children. Without the addition of half-bloods and muggle-borns this trend would have resulted in the virtual extinction of wizards and witches.

*** Pedant note: "Warlock" was originally an Anglo-Saxon word for a witch of any gender, meaning something like "faith-breaker" for the association with pacts with the Devil.

** There's also a Witch Species ''within'' the Witch Species: Metamorphmagi, who can change their appearance at will, are born with the skill, and those who aren't, can't learn it.

 

== Tabletop [[RPGs]] ==

** The Warlock class has it a bit more concrete: In 3rd edition, they gain fey-like powers, to match their implied origin of [[The Fair Folk|fey ancestry]] (or some kind of pact), or can instead select [[Deal with the Devil|fiendish attributes]] for much the same reason. In 4th edition, this is illustrated via selecting a [[The Fair Folk|fey]], [[Deal with the Devil|infernal]], or [[Cosmic Horror|star]] pact.

** The various types of Hags in the game are quite literally species that have the attributes of fairy tale and mythological witches.

** In ''[[Pathfinder]]'', all Sorcerers have a "bloodline," which usually implies some kind of supernatural ancestry.

*** Although there's the bloodline Arcane, for those of us who don't want to picture what happens when a mommy human and a daddy demon (or elemental, or dragon...) love each other very very much. It's sort of the "my family are all sorcerers, so I am too!" bloodline.

** The increased potential for mutations among human psykers (caused by drawing their power from the twisting and corrupting Warp) means that a fair number could be considered a separate species. A few psyker sub-groups, such as Navigators, actually do constitute a separate branch of humanity.

*** Though it varies from edition to edition the suggestion has often been made that 40K humans are on the dege of evolving into a Witch Species, hence all the psykers.

[[Category:Fantastic Sapient Species Tropes]]

[[Category:Wizards and Witches]]