Witch and Witchcraft Reading Challenge: Winter Witch

Winter Witch:  My second review for the 2017 Witch and Witchcraft Reading Challenge.

Winter Witch by Elaine Cunningham is a fantasy novel set in the Pathfinder world of Golarion.  The beginning of the book starts with a pseudo-viking village being attacked by minions of of the winter witches.  They are looking for a child who is born with magical abilities.  We get a nice action-packed battle scene.  The book fast-forwards fifteen years as the sister of the magical child has traveled south on a mission to secure her rescue.

Winter Witch reads like a fun role-playing campaign.  The main characters join a caravan and trek to the frozen north to the city of the winter witches.  There are lots of standard fantasy tropes with interesting twists on them.  There is a magic school originally built for gnomes, marauding nomad warriors for the characters to fight on their trek,  and the titular winter witches.  My favorite part of the book is how one of the characters uses drawing and art to cast magic.  This book is a quick read full of fights, magic, and spellbinding places.   I recommend it to fans of fantasy and Pathfinder.

Gaming Inspiration:

If you are a Pathfinder fan then this book will give you background information the cities of Korvosa and Whitethrone as well as the winter witches themselves.  If you are not a Pathfinder player this book is still full of useful items for a fantasy game.  You can use the characters as NPCs and use the locales in your own campaign.  I would steal the art magic that one of the main characters uses for my game.  I give this book 2 natural 20s.

Witch and Witchcraft Reading Challenge: The Good, the Bad, and the Undead

The Good, the Bad, and the Undead:  My first review for the 2017 Witch and Witchcraft Reading Challenge.

The Good, the Bad, and the Undead by Kim Harrison is the second book in her urban fantasy "The Hollows" series.  I reviewed the first book, Dead Witch Walking, back in 2015.  Dead Witch Walking set up the series as it ended with Rachel Morgan severing her official ties with law enforcement and becoming an independent runner.  The Good, the Bad, and the Undead starts with her working on her own.  Rachel is a witch who lives with her vampire roommate/business partner.  They run Vampiric Charms, a private investigation/bounty hunter firm located in Cincinnati.  In this book Rachel has to track down a killer who has been targeting ley line witches.

Harrison adds more depth and background to all of her characters in this book.  We learn more about Rachel's history as well as the world of the Hollows, where vampires, witches, werewolves, and other supernatural creatures exist alongside humans.  One of the strengths of this series is how Harrison explores the practical and legal matters that have arisen because of this arrangement.  For example, I like how demons are not held accountable for their actions in court, since when a pact is made with them that are compelled to complete it.  Thus they have a status similar to weapons.  Another thing I like about the book is the humor and levity.  The fun parts help to keep the story moving along quickly.  I enjoyed the book.  My favorite parts of these books is Harrison's world-building.  My only criticism is that the main mystery is solved but its solving felt anticlimactic.  I would recommend this to fans of urban fantasy.

Gaming Inspiration

This book and series is great inspiration for anyone running an urban fantasy campaign, particularly one in which supernatural creatures exist in the open.  Harrison provides some fresh takes on familiar creatures.  Vampires exist in living and dead versions.  The rules for dealing with demons  is explored more in this book.  These rules are perfect for any game that features demonic pacts.  If you need some fresh takes on urban fantasy, particularly with how legal and bureaucratic issues would intersect with the supernatural, the Hollows series is a great place to look.