Magic 101

"I hate witches...Always spewing their bodily fluids everywhere...It's creepy, you know? It's downright unsanitary!"--Dean Winchester

Witches: There are two kinds of magic. Black Magic and White Magic. The White Magic is mainly the domain of the new age, Wiccan earth mother types. Those witches are good, they don't cause trouble and they don't harm anyone. It's the dark magic we'll be dealing with here, since that is the nature of most of the magic depicted on the show Supernatural, and as it is on television, so shall it be in RP.

Witches, the evil kind at least, are practitioners of old world black magic. That is, spells used for gain or to harm others. These witches get their power from Demons, presumably in exchange for their souls. Witches can be extremely long-lived because of their power.

It is notable that some Hunters use the same spells, although they would never consider themselves witches.

Most dark witches perform their magic through either chanting or placing a hex bag in the general area where their target is at the time of the spell. They also use a magical tome known as a Book of Shadows or a Grimoire.

A group of witches (of either alignment) is called a Coven.

The term witch in its broadest sense refers to a person who claims to tap into some form of supernatural power. These people exist in cultures around the world, and may take the role of a healer or wise person in a community. Their powers could be used for either good or harm. The modern use of the term and its associations are rooted in the pogroms of the Middle Ages, against people, particularly women, who practiced any form of belief or healing that could be deemed anti-Christian. During these witch hunts in Europe and later North America, tens of thousands of people were tortured and killed based on the justification that they were in league with Satan.

In the 20th and 21st century, people who follow a form of Neopaganism may refer to themselves as witches. The most well known of these is Wicca, which originated in the 1930s, although its beliefs are formed on older pagan cultures such as those of the Celts and the Greeks. The religion involves the ritual practice of magic.

Magic: Unlike in say, the Harry Potter universe, you can't just say a few latin words, flick your wrist and fire off a quick spell. Magic of any alignment doesn't work that way. Magic in this RP is ritual-based. Performing a proper spell takes preparation. Think of it as like cooking. You need the proper ingredients, utensils and recipe to bake a cake. Some rituals can only be done under certain conditions, such as in a cemetery at a murderer's grave under a full moon on a Friday the 13th. The more evil spells may (and often do) require human sacrifice.

The bottom line is: Black magic is not a good thing. Even though witches are for all intents and purposes human, the harmful things they do forfeits their claim to humanity, and so for most hunters, they are as fair game as ghosts and vampires.