Hexes

Curses are one of the most vicious and inscrutable forms of magic in the Witcher world. Luckily for most people, curses are very dificult to cast. Most people do not decide to cast a curse. Curses are magical phenomena that come about when tension is high, blood is flowing, and hatred is permeating everything. Hexes on the other hand are much simpler and much more easily tamed.

Many mages and priests are capable of casting hexes just like they cast spells or invocations. Channeling magic through their body, the magic user can inflict small, less-dangerous curses on their targets with the knowledge that the hex will take hold as long as it’s cast appropriately and against a weak-willed enough target.
Unlike curses, hexes are formulaic. They are cast a certain way and can be lifted with a certain ritual. These rituals are often strange and esoteric, leading to many folktales and bafling many mages.

Unlike regular magic (spells, invocations, and rituals) hexes and curses appear to draw on magic from somewhere other than the elemental planes. Some magicians and scholars have postulated that while standard magic draws energy from elementals, curses and hexes draw power from the devils that live in the vast void beyond the mortal plane.

Of course, this make hexes and curses much more dangerous than their tamer cousins. Rolling a fumble while casting a hex has a percentage chance to affix itself to the caster rather than their target. Many mages have suffered for weeks with the effects of a

Low Danger Hexes	Medium Danger Hexes	High Danger Hexes
Curse of Temperance	The Devil’s Luck	Bones of Glass
The Eternal Itch	The Evil Eye	Hex of Forgetfulness
The Hex of Shadows	The Nightmare	The Hex of the Beast
The Odious Hex	Unending Need	The Pesta’s Kiss