Family Witch Tradition — Bloodline, Kinship and Inherited Craft

Family Witches inherit a magical tradition through kinship: bloodline, adoption, marriage, fostering or apprenticeship into a household that guards its craft across generations.

Description: The witches of the Family Traditions are among the most diverse of the witch traditions; but the thing that unites them all is a strong sense of tradition and family.

Choose the Family Tradition If…

• You want your Witchcraft tied to family history, inherited secrets and household politics.
• You like ancestors, heirlooms, old grudges and magical obligations that existed before your character was born.
• You want relatives to matter as allies, teachers, rivals and complications.
• You enjoy the idea that leaving home does not mean escaping what the family expects from you.

At a Glance

Play style	Tradition-heavy Witch with strong social and story hooks.
Signature identity	Inherited teaching, household patronage and ancestral magic.
Best stories	Family enemies, disputed inheritances, vanished relatives, inherited curses and secret obligations.
Legacy powers	Family-enemy bonuses, bloodline sensing and summoning tied to inherited magic.

What it feels like to play: every spell has a history. Someone taught you the words, someone owned the book before you, and someone in the family probably thinks you are using it incorrectly.

5.5e / 2024 Tradition

Level 3: Family Lore

Choose Insight, Medicine, History or Arcana. You gain proficiency in the chosen skill; if already proficient, gain Expertise instead. You also choose one heirloom, book, charm or household object as your family focus. It can serve as a Spellcasting Focus for your Witch spells.

Family spells: Aid and Detect Magic are always prepared. At Witch level 5 add Augury; at level 7 add Remove Curse; at level 9 add Scrying.

Level 6: Defend the Family

When a creature you can see within 60 feet damages you or one of your allies, you can use your Reaction and expend one Hexcraft use to mark that creature until the end of your next turn. The first time each turn that you or an ally damages the marked creature, it takes extra Psychic damage equal to your Hex Die.

Level 10: Kinship Sight

As a Magic action, choose one creature you can see within 30 feet. You learn whether it is affected by a curse, magical transformation or possession, and whether it is a shape-shifted creature. If the creature is willing, you can also determine whether it is closely related by blood to another willing creature you can see. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier, regaining all uses after a Long Rest.

Level 14: Call the Household

You can cast Summon Fey or Summon Undead without expending a spell slot or Material components; the summoned spirit appears as an ancestor, household guardian or family-associated spirit. The spell is cast at 5th level and still requires Concentration. Once used, this feature returns after a Long Rest.

Legacy rules source

Liber Mysterium: The Netbook of Witches and Warlocks, Timothy S. Brannan and the Netbook of Witches and Warlocks team.

The members of Family Tradition all learn their witchcraft the same way, from an older family member, usually a parent or grandparent (who also learned it the same way). Old witch families can track their ancestors as having been witches for dozens of generations. What each Family Tradition does with their witchcraft differs from family to family.

Not every family member develops Witch magic, and different households identify potential in different ways. Family traditions exist among humans, elves, halflings, dwarves, orcs and other peoples; what matters is the household’s history and teaching, not ancestry alone.

Role: Strange and mysterious families, especially those in power, often attract attention and rumor. Some of these families are mundane, and their peculiarities are those of any other, but some others have deeper secrets. Some of these families are involved in generations old practices of witchcraft. To the members of these families there is no difference in being in the family or being a witch.

Family traditions exist because at one time it was more advantageous to keep powerful witches within the bloodline, or because of the feelings of the time, it was wise to trust only your own family. Often the tradition is an oral one, or very little of it is actually written down, thus the rules, laws and even motives of the tradition can change with the passing of the generations.

Many Family covens believe magical potential can travel through a bloodline or household across generations. Others give equal weight to adoption, ancestral patronage or inherited teaching. “Blood is stronger” is therefore a belief held by some houses, not an objective law of Witch magic.

Joining this Tradition: Some houses restrict teaching to blood relatives, while others recognise adoption, marriage, fostering or formal apprenticeship as genuine kinship. Powerful families may guard their secrets fiercely, creating political pressure around marriage and inheritance, but those customs belong to the family rather than the Witch class itself.

Some Family traditions guard their secrets tightly and teach only recognised members of the household. Others accept adopted kin, spouses, fosterlings or sworn apprentices. Decide how inclusive the family is when you create the character; that decision should generate relationships and adventure hooks rather than restrict every Family Witch in the same way.

Leaving this Tradition: A Witch can leave a household, though doing so may cost access to family teachers, rituals, property, contacts or inherited magical objects. Some families reconcile with former members; controlling or criminal families may pursue them, but violence is not an automatic class rule.

Skills & Feats: Family witches often have some sort of family business, which is used as a cover for the witch’s coven. As such, they receive a +4 bonus to a Profession skill of their choice.

Occult Powers

Minor: 7th Level: Favored Enemy. Under the legacy rules, the Witch gains bonuses against a longstanding enemy of the family. Choose a rival house, faction, monster type or specific hostile organisation rather than an entire playable people. The bonus begins at +1 and rises to +2 at 13th level and +3 at 19th level.

Medial: 13th Level: Detect Bloodline. Under the legacy rules, the Witch can sense close genealogical relationships and inherited supernatural traits within 10 feet, tracing approximately one generation per Witch level. This can expose a false claim of kinship or identify inherited lycanthropy, but it does not determine a person’s moral worth, culture or personality.

Continued observation can reveal approximate age, supernatural vitality and family resemblance, and grants a +1 cumulative bonus to Sense Motive checks while the Witch studies the target. Bloodline detection does not reveal alignment or read personality as an inherited trait.

Greater: 19th Level: Thicker than Water. A Family witch of 19th level or greater gains a supernatural awareness of her bloodline. She can detect the general well being of any family member she knows, no matter what the distance between her and the family member is.

In addition, once per day, a Family witch can attempt to Gate 1d3+1 Family witches of lesser level than her family with a 35% chance of success. Roll 1d20 to determine the level of each witch gated. Gated witches stay for 10 minutes per caster level or until released, then they return to where they were.

Another Family witch could summon a Family witch the same way once reaching 3rd level. GM’s must carefully judge this.

Family Witch Summoning
1d20	Level of Family Witch summoned
1-5	3rd level
6-7	4th level
8	5th level
9	6th level
10	7th level
11	8th level
12	9th level
13	10th level
14	11th level
15	12th level
16	13th level
17	14th level
18	15th level
19	16th level
20	17th level

Special Benefits: Family witches have a built in support system of contacts. Often these are other, very high level witches that are usually on good terms with the witch. They can aid in terms of research, providing minor magic items, or even money. The GM must decide the level of aid the family is willing to give.

Special Restrictions: To maintain the above benefit, the witch must stay on good terms with her family. Often donating magic items or money for the younger generations as she increases in personal power.

Equipment: None special. But often the witch will get a ritual tool as a gift that had belonged to a deceased family member.

Coven Domains: Law, Chaos, Good, Evil

Preferred/Barred Covens: This tradition is so closely tied to its family and coven that it is often difficult to separate the three from one another. The leaders of the coven are often the oldest and most powerful witches in the family. Generally there is only one coven per family, though some large families have split into various factions.

Relationship to the Patron: Family covens often link patron worship to honoured ancestors and household spirits. Some believe particular ancestors remain nearby to guide later generations; others expect the dead to pass fully into the afterlife. Reincarnating familiars are a tradition-specific possibility, not a universal Witch belief.

Source/Views of Magic: Magic is the Blood. Family witches believe as sorcerers do that magic is in their blood, but that is where the similarity ends. Family witches all believe that magic is part of their blood, mind and spirit. Magic is provided by the Patron and spiritual ancestors, but shaped by the blood, mind and spirit of the witch.

Wealth: Family witches start with the normal amount of wealth allotted to any witch. She may supplement her wealth by adventuring or through her family.

Other: Family witches may be of any alignment and have any number of motivations. They do not get along well with other covens, but generally have nothing against the other Traditions. Family witches are allowed to multiclass to any class that suits their or their family’s needs, but their primary class will always be a witch. Due to some differences in ideologies they usually do not opt for cleric or paladin classes. The Family witch cannot put another organization (such as a church or guild) above the family. Also Family witch/sorcerer combinations generally do not work, as both groups believe their blood is the root of their magic, but each manifests it differently. Families with sorcerers often have quite a few.

Family witches often have some sort of identifying mark, like a birthmark or an odd shaped mole that all members can recognize. This is known as a “Witch’s Mark” and is used as a test to determine if one is a potential witch. The downside to this, of course, is that many witch hunters have also identified this mark.

In a family of witches it would be hard to imagine someone standing out as special, but often someone extraordinary is born. In addition to the Witch’s Mark, these witches have something else: strikingly different hair color (like a red head in a family full of brunettes), two differently colored eyes, or being the seventh son of a seventh son. These individuals are referred to as a Taltos, and they are almost always chosen to become a witch. In some cases, they are believed to be a reincarnated family member who was also a very powerful witch. These special witches are said to have strange gifts and much is expected from them; GMs may wish to award a bonus metamagic or witch feat to these rare individuals.

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