Customer Reviews

Hunter Witch Finders

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The first supplement for White Wolf's 'Hunter: the Vigil' RPG, this book marks a brilliant new move in their releases. Appearantly, each supplement will detail how Hunters fight a particular supernatural threat - slashers, the undead, shapeshifters and, in this case, witches! Note that I said witches and not mages. That is intentional, because although this book details magic users of all kinds, you don't need 'Mage: the Awakening' to use this supplement. In fact, you don't even need to acknowledge the existence of M:tA if it doesn't suit your chronicle.

Everything in this book is optional and customizable, allowing you to easily plop mages, witches, sorcerers and the like into any Hunter game and still make them scary and new to your players. The book looks at how Hunters have interacted with witches over the centuries, including write-ups for each of the Compacts and Conspiracies from the core and how they view witches. Each of the Conspiracies also gets a new Endowment, specifically aimed at hunting witches, and there are several new Tactics as well, like Excision (lobotomy that prevents a witch from using magic) and Corruption (changing the 'feng shui' of a site so it doesn't generate power for a witch).

The book also provides us with three new Compacts - the Keepers of the Source (hippies who believe witches drain power from Mother Earth), Division 6 (who believe they are a secret government agency protecting reality) and the Promethean Brotherhood (who sacrifice witches in order to steal their power) - and a new Conspiracy - the blasphemous Knights of St. George and their Goetic Gospels, strange powers that help them in combatting witches and their spells. All four groups are dedicated to hunting witches in particular. The Knights of St. George receive a fair amount of coverage in this book, as well they should, and they fit the World of Darkness perfectly!

The book also details how to run witches in your chronicle, including a system of 'Gutter Magic,' which basically allows you to replicate their spells and magical powers. It's not quite the same system as Mage: the Awakening; more like a 'magic lite,' but its great for incorporating witches into other World of Darkness games, not just Hunter by the way. It includes details not only on running witches, but also on the occult scene in Philadelphia (Hunter's signature city) from the Lene Lenape shaman to Pennsylvania Dutch hex-masters to African-American Hoodoo, and includes several NPCs and antagonists for players to encounter.

To be honest, I'm really loving this new approach that Hunter is taking. Not only does it give enough information that storytellers can easily incorporate mages into a particular game without owning the respective corebook for another game line, but it also contains JUST ENOUGH crossover potential that lovers of Mage: the Awakening can use some of this stuff as well. In fact, the write-ups for Gutter Magic and Philadelphia are great for new Mage antagonists as well! I look forward to seeing how they will cover vampires, werewolves and other creatures down the road.

Lets get this straight, this book is perfect for Hunter the Vigil, but its also a very solid book for use with the world of darkness game line. It presents a "light" version of the magic system found in Mage the Awakening. It basically presents mages or "witches" as antagonists.
Chapter One presents the history of witches and their relationship to hunters. Chapter two presents new compacts, (Division Six, Keepers of the Source, and the Promethean Brotherhood) and one new conspiracy for the Hunter the Vigil game line: the Knights of St. George the Dragonslayers. Chapter three offers a new magic system (Gutter Magic, Ritual Magic, Mysteries for the Hunter game, new endowments and also new Hunter tactics. Chapter four offers lots of background information on magic as it pertains to witches, witchcraft and setting information on the Hunter signature city of Philadelphia. I'm probably mostly interested in this book as it pertains to the Mage the Awakening game line, not necessarily because Im interested in running a Hunter game. However, this book this offer alot of ways of introducing a less "crunchy" or rules light magic system to your world of darkness campaign.

This supplement for HtV focuses on and details those Hunters who deal with and fight magic. There's plenty of material and storyhooks given for an ST to work with. Also introduced is Gutter Magic, a Mage Lite system and rules for magic for the Hunter ST who lacks Mage. The set of rules presented can also be used with Mage and Second Sight as another set of rules and offerings for magic.

Several new tactics, endowments, relics, compacts and conspiracy are also given who focus on hunting Witches, Cultists or Mages.

All in all it's a decent supplement worth picking up for Hunter or to complement other games.