Paizo Iconics - Feiya

I suppose making the iconic witch be a woman is, probably, iconic, but once again, she has a bizarre deus ex machina tragic backstory. Bizarrely, she's a "Japanese" girl, daughter of two "Japanese" merchants who lived in fantasy Viking-land. Kidnapped as a child by hags, and tortured and abused for years, she somehow escaped after following her fox friend, and an avalanche or something killed the hags. Unexplained. Then she was on her own, with yet another tragic Cinderella backstory, just like at least half of these iconic characters. 

Sigh. She also has white hair, but I guess that's kind of a Chinese witch ghost story or whatever thing that probably makes her somewhat iconic of sorts. The reality is that the witch isn't an iconic archetype, except as exemplified by the hags in the monster manuals. Even the Asian witch character, which Feiya kind of looks like, is still a villain, not a PC archetype. Witches, of course, are also the darlings of weird Seattle hipster woke retards, because of Wiccans and pagans and other weirdos who claim the title. That said, mechanically, the witch is probably a fine alternative to the sorcerer or wizard. Maybe a bit darker and edgier... a little... but y'know, what are you doing to do? The attempts to rehabilitate the reputation of what was always considered black magic go back to Tolkien and his inversion of wizards. Even Merlin from Medieval romances was an often shady figure, although not always... they tried to rehabilitate the idea back then too.

Of course, if I'm playing a "guy witch" I'd almost certainly have to rename the class. I just can't imagine calling a man a witch. Warlock would probably be my go-to. But I don't really love playing spellcasters, so the idea that I'd actually play one is probably moot. The idea that I'd play any Pathfinder 1e game is pretty remote, and if I did, I've got tons of non-spellcasting options that are front of witch in line to be used.

For whatever reason, probably because of the popularity in general of the class, Wayne Reynolds did a refresh of it after a few years, so there are two Wayne Reynolds portraits of Feiya.

Also, for whatever reason, her fox turned from being a normal-looking fox to being some kind of weird magical being. Probably level differences.