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<blockquote data-quote="TheCosmicKid" data-source="post: 7712834" data-attributes="member: 6683613">There's no such thing as real magic, real witches, or real warlocks. All these words refer to imaginary concepts. So when English-speaking culture uses the words &quot;witch&quot; and &quot;warlock&quot; specifically for imaginary practitioners of malicious magic -- and, with all due respect to modern neopagans trying to redefine the words, this really is how they were and continue to be used -- that's the end of the story. That's what witches and warlocks are. There's no &quot;truth&quot; for the speakers to be misrepresenting or mistaken about. Saying you don't put much stock in that definition is like saying you don't put much stock in unicorns having one horn.If that general fact about how words work isn't enough to convince you on its own, consider that warlock in the most literal sense means &quot;oathbreaker&quot;. The war- is related to the ver- in verify and means something like &quot;truth&quot; or &quot;trust&quot;; the -lock means &quot;liar&quot; and (believe it or not) is from the same root. This is not a name one calls a person who is doing things of which one approves. It's as if there were a class called &quot;Traitor&quot; and you were telling me that characters of this class don't actually have to do any betraying.That italicized quotation in my last post about corruption and destruction? I didn't just make that up. That was straight from the PHB. Again: the difference can be whatever you want it to be in your campaign, but that's not the difference that's in the core rules and you can't expect it to be the difference in future content based on the core rules.A lot of the domain abilities actually do stuff like that. Cool things happen whenever a tempest cleric deals thunder or lightning damage, for instance.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="TheCosmicKid, post: 7712834, member: 6683613"] There's no such thing as real magic, real witches, or real warlocks. All these words refer to imaginary concepts. So when English-speaking culture uses the words "witch" and "warlock" specifically for imaginary practitioners of malicious magic -- and, with all due respect to modern neopagans trying to redefine the words, this really is how they were and continue to be used -- that's the end of the story. That's what witches and warlocks are. There's no "truth" for the speakers to be misrepresenting or mistaken about. Saying you don't put much stock in that definition is like saying you don't put much stock in unicorns having one horn. If that general fact about how words work isn't enough to convince you on its own, consider that [I]warlock[/I] in the most literal sense means "oathbreaker". The [I]war-[/I] is related to the [I]ver-[/I] in [I]verify[/I] and means something like "truth" or "trust"; the [I]-lock[/I] means "liar" and (believe it or not) is from the same root. This is not a name one calls a person who is doing things of which one approves. It's as if there were a class called "Traitor" and you were telling me that characters of this class don't actually have to do any betraying. That italicized quotation in my last post about corruption and destruction? I didn't just make that up. That was straight from the PHB. Again: the difference can be whatever you want it to be in your campaign, but that's not the difference that's in the core rules and you can't expect it to be the difference in future content based on the core rules. A lot of the domain abilities actually do stuff like that. Cool things happen whenever a tempest cleric deals thunder or lightning damage, for instance. [/QUOTE]

Verification