Poll of the Day > Sorcerer/Sorceress VS Wizard/Witch VS Warlock

(+) Yeah! (+)

What are the distinctions

and what are the archetypal images that pop up for each?
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You looking for the DnD style answers, or what?

Red_Frog posted...

You looking for the DnD style answers, or what?

I guess so
Like why would you call someone a witch over a sorceress
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First, I'd separate Witch from Wizard - a Witch is more a female Warlock.

A female Wizard is either just a Wizard (ie, the term is unisex), or you COULD refer to one as a Wizardess.

Generally speaking, I usually use Sorceress for a female Wizard. It's just harder to do in D&D, because Sorcerer and Wizard are separate classes. And it's hard to come up with any other terms for magic user (like Enchantress), because literally every word you can think of describes something else.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

(like Enchantress)

this to me sounds like someone that works magic based on manipulating the effects of mundane objects or applying spells to them

ie working through enchantments (of items)

and female, obviously, because of the name

but "sorceress" doesn't have any specificity to it
i don't know what distinguishes a sorceress from a witch or wizardess
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YOUHAVENOHOPE posted...

this to me sounds like someone that works magic based on manipulating the effects of mundane objects or applying spells to them

ie working through enchantments (of items)

Depends on the setting/system.

A lot of games and settings do make "Enchantment" a type of item-based magic, involving putting magic into weapons, armor, and other artifacts in some way. Often done with some kind of runes (like in Dragon Age), or requiring the enchanter to also be something of a blacksmith who has to create the item as well as enchant it.

But D&D and a few other systems go with the alternative idea that "enchanting" is more an emotional/psychological sort of magic, mostly referring to spells that control minds or otherwise charming people.

It's worth noting that, in Marvel comics, "The Enchantress" is an Asgardian whose magic is like 90% illusions and mind control, who spends half her time trying to magically seduce Thor or otherwise control him. While DC's "Enchantress" is a more generic magic user who's pretty much able to do more or less anything the plot needs her to.



YOUHAVENOHOPE posted...

but "sorceress" doesn't have any specificity to it
i don't know what distinguishes a sorceress from a witch or wizardess

Again, depends on the setting/system.

In real life, most terms for magic-users mean pretty much the exact same thing and are relatively interchangeable, especially since they're mostly being used by people who are condemning magic for being the Devil's work.

In fantasy settings, the terms usually boil down to whatever a given writer chooses to make them mean. Some are relatively similar across multiple settings (like how a "Necromancer" almost always uses some form of death-based magic), but other terms can mean pretty much anything.

In D&D, the core divisions in the current system differentiate between Wizards (who have to learn magic like a science), Sorcerers (who manifest magic instinctually without training), and Warlocks (who make a pact with some dark power to give them access to magic). Interestingly, this is also how Marvel used to break down magic in its universe - Doctor Strange explicitly uses three types of magic: Universal (energies inherent in the universe that you need to learn how to tap into), Dimensional (powers granted to a sorcerer via making pacts with powerful extra-dimensional entities), and Personal (magic that comes from a sorcerer's personal energies and which can mostly be channeled via pure will). Marvel doesn't really differentiate between named for magic users who use each method, and someone who is referred to as a sorcerer today might be called a magician tomorrow, a thaumaturgist next week, and a wizard two weeks from now.

D&D also breaks magic down by giving Wizards specifically multiple sub-classes, wherein they learn different schools of magic, and each is named after a traditional term for magic. So a Wizard who specializes in Illusion magic is an Illusionist, one who uses Enchantment spells is an Enchanter, and someone who casts Evocation spells is an Evoker. Some types might even have multiple applicable terms - for instance, a Transmutation spellcaster is a Transmuter, but they could also be referred to as an Alchemist (ie, a type of magician known for changing one type of matter into another, which is what Transmuters do), while a Divination spellcaster might be known as a Seer or Oracle or the like as well as a Diviner.

(If you're interested in all the different classifications of magic in D&D, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_of_Dungeons_%26_Dragons )


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

In D&D, the core divisions in the current system differentiate between Wizards (who have to learn magic like a science), Sorcerers (who manifest magic instinctually without training), and Warlocks (who make a pact with some dark power to give them access to magic). Interestingly, this is also how Marvel used to break down magic in its universe - Doctor Strange explicitly uses three types of magic: Universal (energies inherent in the universe that you need to learn how to tap into), Dimensional (powers granted to a sorcerer via making pacts with powerful extra-dimensional entities), and Personal (magic that comes from a sorcerer's personal energies and which can mostly be channeled via pure will).

ah see
this is the stuff im talking about
that's a cool distinction to have, and it actually makes sense

gives meaning to the different terminology

thanks for the big post btw
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Aside from that, there are a few other distinctions.

"Magician" can be a general catch-all term for anyone who uses magic, but some settings use it as something of a derogatory term for "stage magicians" who use tricks and props to do fake magic rather than actually tapping into any real power. Some settings differentiate between "real magicians" and "stage magicians" by calling stage magicians "conjurers" (though in D&D, a Conjurer is someone who uses very real summoning-type magic), "illusionists" (though again, Illusion is a very real type of magic in D&D), or something else.

"Theurgy" is a term from the real world that specifically refers to magic that is channeled directly from a god - some branches of Christianity even used it to refer to what they considered the "acceptable" magic of "miracles" inspired by God, as opposed to the "Goetia", or black magic that comes from the Devil or his demons. Some settings use it to explicitly refer to holy or divine magic (like what you'd expect a Cleric or Priest class to cast), as opposed to "arcane" or "Wizard" magic. But other settings occasionally just use Theurgy as a general term for magic, with a magic-user being referred to as a Theurge.

"Thaumaturgy" is another term that gets pulled out a lot when fantasy writers are looking for fancy terms, and which also originally started out more referring to god-inspired miracles, but it never got picked up by Christianity in that way, and usually gets lumped in with the various bad black magic that religions condemn. Thaumaturges or Thaumaturgists are people who use Thaumaturgy, and the term gets used a lot in settings where people are trying to make magic sound more "scientific".

Lastly, "Nigromancer" is a term you may come across, especially in older works (or newer works trying to sound medieval) - it basically translates into "black magic user". It occasionally gets confused with Necromancer, but the two are technically different - the necro in Necromancer means death, but the Nigro in Nigromancer is Latin for black. The two DO tend to overlap (since most settings assume death magic = evil magic), but you CAN have necromancy in a setting that isn't evil, and you can easily have a black magic user who doesn't use death magic.

Side note - while most modern writers and settings assume "mancy" just means "magic use" (so, say, a Elemancer might be someone who uses elemental magic, or a Technomancer is someone who uses technology-based magic), the root actually refers to divination specifically. So a Hydromancer would be someone who uses water to specifically predict or see the future (and not just someone who uses generic water magic), an Oneiromancer is someone who attempts to predict the future via dreams, a Cartomancer is someone who uses playing cards or a Tarot deck to predict the future, and so on.


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YOUHAVENOHOPE posted...

gives meaning to the different terminology

The real problem is that different terms mean different things in different settings.

In D&D, there's a mechanical difference between a Wizard and a Sorcerer. In Xanth, there's no such thing as Wizards, and magic users are either referred to as Magicians (if you're male) or Sorceresses (if you're female), and your magic is innate and very specific/unique. In White Wolf's Mage: the Ascension game, magic users are almost all referred to as Mages, and "Wizard" is mostly a somewhat derogatory term used to refer to one specific group of Mages (the Order of Hermes, who have a very medieval European, ritualistic view of magic). In Discworld, Wizards are what we'd think of as stereotypical fantasy magic users, but Sorcerers (or Sourcerers) are people who literally bleed magic and are like walking gods.

In the real world, we tend to have a few stereotypes about Wizards (robe, pointy hat, staff), Witches (black hat, broom, old crone w/warts, caldrons, etc), and so on. But a lot of terms don't necessarily mean much of anything (ie, a Sorcerer can be pretty much anything).

So what one word for magic-user means in one setting doesn't always mean the same thing in other settings. The different uses of "Enchanter" might be the most obvious, but there are a lot of other cases where things differ.


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Someone should standardize all of that!

I guess DnD works as a quick standard huh
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tbh, as others have noted, the terms are *frequently* used interchangeably and there was never much cause to classify them as their own things outside of fantasy. Most cultures had a single umbrella term for magic-users (with a possible gender variation) and, if they had a second umbrella, it usually just separated good magic from evil.

However, they have developed their own connotations over the years. Wizard and witch are the two most commonly used terms. Witch often has a strictly negative connotation (becoming something of a stock monster) whereas wizards are seen as being more benign. Sorcerer also traditionally has a negative connotation and was used interchangeably with witch (partly because sorcery was used interchangeably with witchcraft).

Then fantasy came along and has tended to use the term "sorcerer" more in relation to *foreign* mages, to make their kind of magic seem more distinct. Partly thanks to characters like Jafar, the term tends to be associated with Arabic influences despite the fact that, iirc, the term was European originally.

The term warlock arguably doesn't have the same history as witch, since it kinda came into widespread use because witch started to have a strong gender association. Originally, witch was more gender neutral -- and, in many cultures, their variation of the word is gender-neutral.

And, of course, if you want to get *really* nerdy about it, the terms themselves derive from different words. Witch supposedly comes from bewitch (or, technically, the Latin equivocations), a term which means something close to enchantment. Wizard meant something along the lines of wizened (or wise) one, which by the way is why wizards were typically depicted as being older. Mage comes from magus, which is a pretty straightforward one.

The term warlock iirc meant something like oathbreaker, which doesn't have a real magical connotation to it.
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Zeus posted...

Witch often has a strictly negative connotation (becoming something of a stock monster) whereas wizards are seen as being more benign.

It's also worth noting that, since Wicca was invented in the 1940s, Wiccans have mostly latched onto the word "Witch", and tend to hate the more stereotypical representations. And if you're dealing with a lot of modern writers or RPers - especially ones with social justice-y leanings - you'll often see them use Witch to refer to younger, wiser, powerful self-confident women who are in tune with nature and generally smarter and more powerful than any man they meet.

Charmed is a pretty good example of that interpretation (as is The Craft, which is what Charmed was originally based on), though both of those toned down some of the explict Wiccan overtones.


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YOUHAVENOHOPE posted...

Like why would you call someone a witch over a sorceress

historically I don't think there's any distinction. it's all "witchcraft". as in summoning evil spirits (demons/djinn/etc) to do supernatural things for you.

but I don't think it's well-known that historical witchcraft is literally the same thing as the "magic" we know today (IE: sleight-of-hand). it's just that superstition was off the scale in medieval times, and so sleight-of-hand was seen as literal witchcraft.

there was a book published called "The Discovery of Witchcraft" trying to explain that witchcraft was just sleight-of-hand and had nothing really to do with anything supernatural.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Discoverie_of_Witchcraft

it was almost destroyed by King James (the same KJ from KJV) who was fanatical anti-witchcraft, and countered it with the book "Demonology", declaring that magic (sleight-of-hand) was really true supernatural witchcraft (communing with demons).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemonologie
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This is a sorceress:
https://gifimage.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/dragons-crown-sorceress-gif-15.gif

ParanoidObsessive posted...

It's just harder to do in D&D, because Sorcerer and Wizard are separate classes.

The names of classes do not have to be used in setting. There is a mechanical and in-universe separation.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Zeus posted...

Witch often has a strictly negative connotation (becoming something of a stock monster) whereas wizards are seen as being more benign.

It's also worth noting that, since Wicca was invented in the 1940s, Wiccans have mostly latched onto the word "Witch", and tend to hate the more stereotypical representations. And if you're dealing with a lot of modern writers or RPers - especially ones with social justice-y leanings - you'll often see them use Witch to refer to younger, wiser, powerful self-confident women who are in tune with nature and generally smarter and more powerful than any man they meet.

Charmed is a pretty good example of that interpretation (as is The Craft, which is what Charmed was originally based on), though both of those toned down some of the explict Wiccan overtones.

There was a similar reintroduction with modern day druids.
Turns out we know next to nothing about them, but what we do know is that they weren't people living in forests loving all of the forest animals and performing sacred rites.

All of the modern druid stuff isn't based on anything. Druids were similar to scholars and politicians who performed rites.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Charmed is a pretty good example of that interpretation (as is The Craft, which is what Charmed was originally based on)

*That* I find a little surprising, considering how different the two are.
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Zeus posted...

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Charmed is a pretty good example of that interpretation (as is The Craft, which is what Charmed was originally based on)

*That* I find a little surprising, considering how different the two are.

The biggest clue is that they both use the Love Spit Love cover of "How Soon is Now?" in the soundtrack.

Basically, Charmed started out as execs saying "Man, that movie was popular with female viewers, we should make a TV show based on it" (but not TOO blatantly based on it, because the original movie was owned by Sony, and the WB wouldn't have the rights to it, so they wanted a clone close enough to benefit from the popularity but not close enough to get sued over). And then the showrunners they brought it to flesh it out and pitch it thought it wasn't all that interesting an idea, so they changed things to what they thought would be a more interesting version of it, which is what Charmed was.

It's been mentioned that in the initial brainstorming sessions for Charmed they were originally just going to be three women, and then someone suggested they should be sisters, and then they sort of came around to the idea that a show about "three sisters who happen to be witches" was inherently more interesting than a show about "three witches who happen to be sisters".


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