>Witch Hunters act like huge bigoted dicks >The witches

>>49768019
>How do you make Witch Hunters not look like the bad guys?
By not being a cuck. There are no good magic users, those who try to play god deserve punishment.

>>49768019
>>The real witches are actually controlling the witch hunters and the towns people to sacrifice good magic users
That alone kinda makes teh witch hunters look okay. They're just mooks who've had the wool pulled over their eyes.
Standard protocol calls for one guy to get curious about where the orders are coming from, investigating deeply either their victims or their superiors and uncovering the details and then going out on a killy killy murder fest against the true witches.

Or just play Witch Hunters like its a Delta Green.

Toughly investigate the situation probably have to run most of the time from some witch dancers or some random magical bullshit. Once you have proper evidence AND reason to purge then you are allowed to go in guns blazing and kill any magic fucker who stands in your way

>>49768053
This

BURN THE WITCH

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>>49768019
Witch Hunters are merely slightly more paranoid than normal people, dedicated to rooting out potential threats within their own community and beyond. Apart from that, I can't see why they'd be massive assholes to anyone mundane, since they're protecting them in the first place.

The Witch Hunter in Vermintide, while far from a total nice guy, has plenty of playful banter and dry wit which makes him one of the most likeable characters in that group.

>HOLY SIGMAR BLESS THIS RAVAGED BODY

>>49768019
>ugh seriously guys it's CURRENT YEAR and the witches are still being hunted
>#notallwitches
They don't look like bad guys to me. Just heavily overworked with no time for bullshit from the ignorant masses.

>>49768019
Don't make Wisdom/Perception/Insight/ Dependsonthesystem their dump stat, maybe.

>>49768019
>Can't decide if Fantasy or 40K
Need more cables and artificial eyes for 40K, I guess. Also, that wood stake bayonnet.

>>49768320

It's fantasy I thinks it's a concept for a high level witch hunter in war hammer online

Is it the witches' goal to distract attention from themselves? They could cause senseless, catastrophic tragedies and frame these people for it. The public would eventually become so outraged that they wouldn't actually care if the person is guilty or not. This would make witch hunters look like heroes in the public eye.

>>49768218
I mean, the khmer rouge were just a little overworked too taking the cultural chaff from the grain.

In 40k I played mine as more of a recruiter for the Psykana

>>49768424

The setting was about multiple magic using groups since a lot of humans are born with magical talent and they all hate each other the witch hunters were formed out of humans who lack magical talent

>>49768320
I thought 40k because he has the =][= on his hat.

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>>49768173
This. Vernintide did whf parties so right.

>>49768019
>following a degenerate nature goddess
heresy detected
>>>/pyre/

>>49768019
I want to run a WFRP campaign where the PCs are all Witch Hunters or working for them, probably not willingly.

>>49768746
Good luck

>>49768019
Well, if you sub witches for an power crazy eugenicist pope and replace "sacrefices" with "remove from the picture to make my influence stronger comparison" this has basically happened in real life, and yet "witch hunting" and "evil witches" are still non-ridiculous archetypes. So, draw from reality?
1. Followers of the Other Gods are weird. Like they're foreign, have big noses and dark skin, talk and think funny, and are so devote to their lifestyle that they have little income other than trading their wares and are considered lowly outcast weirdos by most upper and even lower classes. Their shabby shelters, homeless, and gathering places are regularly victim to crime and assault and nearly everyone turns a bond eye to it. Witches thus don't trust or like non-witches that much, they have lots of bastard children, and sometimes just to get a moment's rest from constant harassment they need to threaten to curse some asshole whos trying to start shit. That makes them pretty unlikable. Also, make them all woman. That will also make them seem weird, weak, and unlikable ask on it's own, especially of that aren't sexy waifu, ESPECIALLY in the context of a fantasy setting.
Make it so you need qualifications to be a Witcher. You need to be fit as a fiddle, top-bred, offspring of an influential and rich family. They're all stocky and healthy looking, they're all attractive in a heavily gender-conforming way, they've had lots of training in lots of things, they dress luxuriously and demand respect, and they and everyone else have been told they're the Kings of Shit since anyone can remember. Or not, if you want to maintain a grungy low-culture world. But there should be some sort of witch-hunting authority that matches most of these ideas that's spear heading the anti-witch movement you really wanna make them look like the bad guys.

>>49770025
Bonus points: witches are perverse, bathing in animal blood, ripening their raw meat for days in sunlight to improve the flavor and not minding the smell, not bathing, fucking animals. The works. It's disgusting, it's inhuman, it's against God and sanity and goodness. Throw in a superstition that they act this way because they're possessed by demons or something, or that they do Satan's bidding, and give them weird powers like scrying or animal-whispering or cursing people with plagues or just somehow knowing if you've been taking about them. Creepy.
Badda-bing, batta-bomb. Witch Holocaust no-one will stop or see anything wrong with.

>>49768173
He's also a very noble man if you look beyond the surface, despite seeming like a bit of a dick.

He hired on Kruber because he knew Kruber (who had just seen his beloved regiment wiped out) had just been denied leave to see his family, and knew he was going to his home town.

He arrested Sienna because he knew she wouldn't get a fair trial if he didn't see to it personally.

he would have made Captain, but he was denied promotion because he refused to lie to the people he was supposed to protect. and REALLY fucking hates Skaven, with good excuse, but it was partly for benevolent reasons

>>49768019
Matthew Hopkins pls go

>>49768019
If I ever play a Witch Hunter/Inquisitor/Paladin/whatever, I do so with the mindset that they are keepers of peace and something akin to roaming police officers. They aren't going to murder any and all witches or people of other faiths, that's reserved for those that are actively causing harm. If there's a witch who works in an alleyway selling charms and various potions who actually helps people even if she's kinda gross, you leave her alone. Nature witches who live in the woods and heal people are a-okay. Even a necromantic witch who uses her undead to keep the countryside safe from encroaching threats is a pass in my book.

As soon as they start eating children or sacrificing people? *That's* when they get hexenhammer'd. If you're intentionally frightening people or causing pain, you gotta go. If you're actively threatening a community/kingdom/country then you're going down. It's all about viewing lawful alignment for what it is: Obeying the law. If someone is of an opposing religion, but causing no harm, then live and let live. If they're distasteful to you, but not doing anything to harm others or break the law, suck it up, they're doing no wrong. You only intervene when it's to actively protect or to prevent grievous harm from coming to pass.

Just because you are specialized to fight a particular enemy doesn't mean that you have to fight/kill every single one of that type you come across. That would be like a ranger with beasts as a favored enemy killing the family cat because it's a beast, even though poor old Fluffy was just trying to get in on that baked ham action.

>>49771747
Fucking this. Just because someone is a cop doesn't mean they're going to run around arresting everyone they see. The "all witch hunters/paladins have to be mindless walls of PURGE THE UNCLEAN" mentality is just stupid.

A case can be made for or against inquisitors, though, because grimdark.

>>49771424
>He arrested Sienna because he knew she wouldn't get a fair trial if he didn't see to it personally.

How do you figure that?

>>49772042
A case can be made against this based on the real life witch trials in which everyone who so much as sneezed during church was ruthlessly tied and burnt to death by their would-be loved ones, but I see your point. You can't really take that mentality into a fantasy game with most players/DMs, the "cop" mentality is def more relatable today.

>>49768511
I mean if the cultural chaff had highly dangerous magical powers I might be more sympathetic to the khmer rouge.

>>49772230
>I am afraid of things I don't understand, therefore it must be killed

>>49768019
witches in D&D are undeniably evil though. unless you're talking witch=any magic user, witches deserve to die

>>49772390
Hags =/= witches
Also historical witch hunters wouldn't have made the distinction.

>>49772177
It's in the bios.

Sienna lost control of her powers and set fire to a village, IIRC, and was facing a lynch mob.
Victor was in the area and took her into custody instead, so she could stand trial in Ubersreik

>>49772414
that's why i brought it up. There's so many fucking obscure ass classes in dnd that you never quite know if someone is talking about the concept or the class/monster

>>49768019
Witch hunters actually investigate what's going on and don't just burn people because uneducated peasants don't like them, perhaps they also try to get the witch to convert and receive proper sanctioning and training or whatever.

>>49768019
>herbalists who follow a nature goddess

if they don't follow sigmar, they are witches

>>49768019
You just need to make them fair balanced people; they look for signs of wrongdoing and proper evidence and only then do they act.

Then as a GM you just have to justify the harshness of their actions by having them fight a suitable insidious and horrific evil.

For example; in a recent fading suns game (admittedly a sci-fi setting but one very much based off medieval history and christian Apocrypha), I'm playing a witchhunter who is very dutiful in his work and genuinely cares about the souls of the people who cross his path. He's been described as one of the better confessors in the game as he takes it seriously, but never asks more than the person can handle, whilst insisting on good moral character from those around him.

What he is fighting though are people who make deals with demons, and in particular those who worship one of the major qliphoth who grants his followers the power to control and kill any of those who are sworn to them (and not just in a demonic fashion, but anyone who has sworn loyalty to them, including those unknowing of their leige's demonic pact) in a feudalistic setting where like 60% of people owe fealty to someone above them.

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>>49768019
Make them act as investigators and zealous but just.

It's really not hard, most of the bad rep witch hunters get is from overzealous murderhobos within their ranks. They are, after all, doing the Lord's work.

>>49772675
This

If going by the book a warhammer fantasy witch hunter is bound to submit any magical user under the age of 25 thats not actively summoning demons or the undead or blasting peoples faces off to the Colleges of magic for assessment. A lot of them dont but if you wanted a 'good' one thats what they'd do.

>>49768019
make witches a much bigger problem

>>49768019
SUFFER NOT THE WITCH TO LIVE
The only way witch hunters, or any other extrajudicial killers look like the good guys is if the people they are fighting are worse.

>>49772675
>>49772769

What about that book Warhammer "Witch Hunter"

If I recall a girl was still burned since the evidence against her but the MC Witch Hunter gave her a drink so she felt no pain during the execution.


Warhammer Witch Hunters are pretty based but they are kind of considered "Paladins of Sigmar"

>>49768746
sounds like a Fantasy version of Dark Heresy, might be fun

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>>49768019
What you're describing sounds a bit like the synopsis to that show Salem. In Salem, there is a witch hunt panic, but it's orchestrated by the real witches themselves to a) remove political rivals and b) mask the sacrifice of innocent people necessary for some plague ritual. The witches used the witch hunters own zeal against them, pointing them at innocents. When the witch hunters executed an innocent, they thought they were doing God's work, when in reality they were unwittingly helping the witches complete their spell. I thought it was really fucking clever and hope to incorporate something like that into a future game.

As for how to make witch hunters the good guys? Make them hunt actual witches. Make the people they target ACTUALLY BE the horrible, heretical monsters that the witch hunters claim them to be, and make them PRETTY FUCKING GOOD at singling out actual hostile magic users, and not just be blindly zealous lunatics hanging people because they float in water or some other nonsense.

>>49772832
>What about that book Warhammer "Witch Hunter"
Those were pretty good books.
But Witchunters being sort of dicks makes sense in the setting.
There's no such thing as a "safe" amount of chaos taint. You have to pull it all out by the roots, or it'll get worse. There's only so many innocent children you can burn before you become callous.

>>49772909
>I thought it was really fucking clever
Naw. Shit was awful.

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>>49772912
Yeah, you're right. That series made it particularly clear that in Warhammer, sadly, innocence proves nothing. Chaos taint isn't based on one's behavior, it's a physical status that turns someone evil and/or dangerous whether they like it or not and regardless of their personality prior to taint. That's why it's so grimdark. Genuinely good people may become tainted and all their prior goodness counts for nothing. The risk simply can't be taken, or else they'll turn into a spawn or a portal for a daemonic incursion. They have little choice in the matter.

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>>49772966

>tfw my favorite model on display
>its to fucking small

I hate miniatures sometimes I would prefer large figures

>>49772966
I really liked the villain in that book. He was just trying to help people, but was woefully underestimating how dangerous warpstone laced medicines were. You very quickly started hating his guts.

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>>49768019
Because the law is the law

These heretics worship a god not of men, not of law, not justice and truth but one that lies deep in the woods and dances with beasts!

This forest spirit would rather that the hearth of home not be lit but made a nest for the foul creatures she favors over men.

True it be that our faithful guardians have yet roust the sorceresses from their tall towers and govern us with hex and spell, but fear not! For as any good gardener knows, the flowers of evil must be taken at the root of it's heresy, one befouled tendril at a time...

Fear not the hunter, but rather weakness that threatens the heart of man

>>49772257
Your strawman doesn't really work. The reason they're hunting witches is because they aren't ignorant of how dangerous magic is.

>>49768053
>>49768137
Zigurnath pls go.

>>49773083
>Magic is dangerous therefore the people who wield it should die
>Everyone knows exactly everything about magic the same way any human alive knows all about chemistry
>Somehow crazed zealots with swords aren't worse

Let's be honest here, the rl witch hunts happened in the middle of the worst religious wars in european history, and even the possibility that most of the victims might have been npc mages (which means still low level as hell) wouldn't offset the part where most of the people doing the killing were morons with a sword in hand and their pet version of god in their heart.

>>49773055
Legalism is a morally bankrupt ideology.

>>49773229
>Legalism is a morally bankrupt ideology.
Irl, maybe, but if you've got a literal God of Law handing down divine mandates it makes more sense.

>>49773295
That god is still morally bankrupt and unlikely to be anything besides LN or LE.

The gods are still bound by universal rules after all.

>>49773325
>>49773325
>That god is still morally bankrupt and unlikely to be anything besides LN or LE.
Possibly. If you believe in divine mandate theory, they're all, arguably, Lawful Good.

>The gods are still bound by universal rules after all.
Maybe. Depends on the setting.

>>49772189
Interestingly enough, the real-life Spanish Inquisition didn't hunt or burn witches, and in fact considered even the belief in witches to be heresy. Anyone who claimed to have seen or been a witch was considered insane or a charlatan.

Witch hunting in general was more of a Protestant thing.

>>49773040
Oh yeah, that Doctor? He was a really interesting character. I liked him. There were a couple things about that series I didn't like, though.

1) The main character, the Witch Hunter, was a terrible investigator. In the first and second books, there was so much going on beyond his knowledge, and he just blundered into the right place at the right time.

2) The series just randomly ended. I think it was supposed to have more sequels, but the writer just stopped making them, leaving the books ended on this weird, inconclusive footing.

Witch hunters aren't persecuting random magic users, they are simply making sure magic users obey the laws of gods and men and don't pose a threat to the social order.

If you want to be a magic user, you go to an accredited magical college and get a license. In fact, most witch hunters are magic users themselves, and sometimes even protect other magic users from unwarranted persecution by superstitious hicks.

>>49776088
Ok, so more like magic cops. Maybe make it clear that the term "witch" is a technical term used to refer to renegade and/or dangerous magic users who use unsanctioned magic, and does not refer to all magic users, especially licensed magicians. Maybe make it so that calling a licensed magician a "witch" is a really nasty insult, like calling a black person the N-word or something.

>>49776289
Witch is a vulgar contraction of "warlock" and "bitch"

Warlock, meaning oath breaker, is the technical term for an illegal magic user.

>>49776313
It;s from the old english for a wise elder, dummy