Elemental Witches

Those who wield ritual and cyclical elemental magic.

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Maasa

Type: Crone

A maasa is a witch who has met Death Herself and been tasked with a specific purpose.

Most maasas spend their lives as women of the community, witches who provide the basics of all witches. Some of them were other kinds of elemental witches previously. They are revered in elemental communities. In their old age, knowing death will come soon, they sometimes choose to invoke a special rite called the Final Conversation (Pēdējā Saruna). This rite brings them face to face with Death Herself. Believing they have time for something important before they die, they make a deal - power from Death Herself in exchange for service in the afterlife.

If Death Herself deems them worthy (meaning they are an enemy to the undead, a friend to nature, and accepting of their deal), they are granted between four and sixteen years of time to complete a specific task. If a player chooses to be a maasa, they will work with the GM to determine how much time they have left (less than the whole amount of time) and what their task is - but it will likely involve finding and defeating some specific undead being or curse.

Some of the magic they are granted includes the following:

• Soulsight: they can see the souls of the living and the dead if they are present.
• Soul sending: they can send any souls without bodies into the afterlife with a spell.
• Cleansing spell: they can cast a spell that cleanses a body of the corruption of undeath.
• White gate: they can open a gate to the Nether Realm draw in the undead to the afterlife and allow communication Beyond.
• Beyonding: they can let their soul leave their body and enter the Beyond, the Nether Realm, or other afterlives, at some risk.
• Funeral rite: they can perform a rite during a funeral to prevent undeath.
• Spell of prevention: they can cast a spell on someone to protect them from either death or undeath.
• Final spell: they can give up their life to take the life of another, if and only if that person is an enemy of death.

Maasas are sisters to Death Herself, and they cannot avoid their deaths. But they are extremely feared and powerful while they seek to complete their tasks. Imperials burn them alive.

PRO +1 ATH -1 STR -2 AWA +3 WIL +2 PRS / STH / ESS +4

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Moonwitch

Type: Witch

Moonwitches are attuned to the cycles of the three moons.

There are three moons around the world of Shem: the Grey Moon, the Green Moon, and the White Moon. The cycles of the moons affects the amount of elemental moon energy cast upon the world. The White Moon is the weakest, but it is better when used for attacks and bindings. The Green Moon's is the next weakest, but it is best used for transformations and emotional magic. And the Grey Moon's is the most potent, which is best used for protections, healing, and findings.

Each moon has a cycle ranging from new (unseen) to full (wholly visible), waxing and waning from crescent to gibbous. The White Moon has a 26 day cycle; the Green Moon has a 30 day cycle, and the Grey Moon has a 28 day cycle. Lunar magic is solar magic reflected from the moons. When a moon is new, it produces no accessible lunar energy. When it is full, it is at its greatest strength. (This is reverse if you are on the moons, but that is unlikely to come up.)

The phases of a witch's life are reflected in the phases of the moon:

• Daughter (waxing): associated with the Green Moon (Devica), the Daughter phase is a witch before she reaches maturity. In this phase, she is associated with youthfulness, innocence, newness, rising, energy.
• Mother (full): associated with the Grey Moon (Mati), the Mother phase is a mature witch (not necessarily a mother). In this phase, she is associated with nurturing, protecting, healing, fullness, power.
• Crone (waning): associated with the White Moon (Krona), the Crone phase is an elderly witch. In this phase, she is associated with wisdom, death, withering, age, insight.

Each phase comes with its own powers. A witch casts spells based on the moon her phase is associated with, so if a crone uses magic under a full White Moon it does not matter if the Grey Moon is new.

The practice of witchcraft is a series of rituals, dedications, and traditions that allow them to access the flow and cycles of lunar energy. The practices include sacrifices to the moons. These rituals involve a set of symbolic materials, a giving of blood, and either incantations or readings from ancient texts.

Witches often gather in covens, groups in multiples of threes (no less than three, no more than 27 - though the latter would be a massive coven). A coven always has a maiden, a mother, and a crone for every three witches. These always form subgroups within the coven, each teaching the other generationally. Covens, when gathered and performing rituals together, are immensely powerful. In the colonies, they tend to be covens of three to eleven. Witches may join a coven either by inheriting it via a matrilineal succession or by being initiated. Those who are not born of a matrilineal line of witches must be initiated. Initiations are rituals that occur under a waxing moon.

A brother-witch is a witch who, regardless of gender, serves as a counterpoint in a coven or triad, a fourth member of any three witches who represents the masculine (whether they are or not), represents outsiders, represents the sun. They still wield all the powers of a regular witch, but their outsideness gives them the ability to use certain powers without the presence of moonlight. To become a brother-witch, a witch must be literally or symbolically resurrected after dying (again, literally or metaphorically) under a new moon. The ritual to cause this resurrection is one of the most closely guarded secrets of witchcraft. The power of the brother-witch derives from their crossing of lines between day and night, gender lines, ancestral lines, etc. These are very rare.

Powers that reflect the powers of the Moons:

• Soft light: a witch make create a soft glow of moonlight, usually an orb of it, to appear via simple incantation.
• Finding: a witch may cause a missing or hidden object to glow with soft light via incantation and simple ritual.
• Light step: a witch may make herself or others lighter, as if less affected by gravity, by sigils on clothing or shoes or by potent ritual.
• Tidal draw: a witch may make water react to herself, her will or her gesture, by washing in pure water under the full moon and performing a blood ritual within it.
• Returning cycle: a witch may invoke the ending or re-beginning of a cycle of any kind through powerful ritual.
• Invisibility: a witch may, under a full moon, become invisible by invocation of a complex ritual, washing themself and their clothing in blood, moonwater, and ash.

The most powerful ability witches have is reflecting other powers. Lunar energy repulses other energies, especially infernal ones, providing protections to anyone affected by it. Witches have many rituals, traditions, superstitions, and spells that provide protections to others, giving them lunar energy in some form or another to repel other powers. Marking with one's own blood, creating a poppet or mirrored amulet, or drawing a circle of power are the most common ways.

Witches can engage in a form of divination by looking into mirrors, which absorb lunar energy when left out under the full moon.

Witches can heal and soothe people by using their breath to drive away other energies. They supplement this with herbalism and other arts.

By affecting emotional resonance with lunar energy, witches can affect the emotions of others. They do this through simple incantations.

Powerful witches who have tapped into their ancient, ancestral magic can use the power of the new moon, the absence of lunar energy, the deep night, to draw in and devour targets. This is done via an ancient blood rite.

The most commonly used power of witches is to bind a person, place, or thing to a cycle. This is done via ritual involving something belonging to the target. When the target is bound to something, it will be affected by the cycle of it; for instance, witches use lunar energy to connect themselves to a moon during their initiation (unless they inherited a binding). For others, they may use lunar energy's senstitivity to cycles to cause something to be attuned to a cycle, thus making them react to the cycle. This can be binding to a different energy, or it can be binding to a natural cycle, etc. Unbinding is done similarly, but using lunar energy's reflective properties to break a cycle.

Witches bind to animal familiars via rituals that synchronize their living cycles with the animal. This allows them to sense the thoughts and feelings of the familiar, draw powers from it, see through its eyes, and influence its behavior.

Witches can send their consciousness into the flow of lunar energy around them during full moons. They do this by falling into a special sleep. They can send their consciousness anywhere under the light of the full moon.

The completion of a cycle is a moment of transformation. When witches complete a cycle, they have a moment of transformation, which usually results in their moving from one phase to another in a larger cycle (cycles within cycles, leading to greater and greater transformations). Knowing when they are near a completion, they can tap into the power of lunar energy to transform as the moon shifts phases. They must never do this going to or from a new moon, but any other phase shift will work. They can use a ritual in these circumstances to transform themselves or others (including objects or places), usually subtle changes such as an improvement or penalty, but sometimes major changes, including changing physical or metaphysical forms. The ritual to create a brother-witch is the most powerful example of this.

PRO / ATH -1 STR -2 AWA +4 WIL +4 PRS +1 STH +2 ESS +2

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Peidetrinna

Type: Daughter

A peidetrinna is a witch who draws her magic from eclipses.

To become a peidetrinna, one must be chosen by other peidetrinnas to be trained in the magicks of the moons, the sun, and the night. They are taught the arts of witchcraft, the rites and rituals, the customs and traditions, the healing and protections, the service to the elemental community they are part of (usually in Surva). Eventually, within a few months, they are called to view an eclipse, and thus begin their magical training in full.

To gain the magic, one must stare into six eclipses, at least one solar and one lunar. If an eclipse is a total eclipse, this counts as two in the count. Because Shem has three moons, eclipses are more common. Instead of once every 18 months for a solar eclipse, it's once every nine months; instead of four to seven lunar eclipses a year, it is 12 to 21. Doing this primes them (and often damages their eyesight) to see into the shadows. They then go out every new moon for the next year and meditate, attune to nature, and attempt to see in the darkest shadows they can find. Eventually, they find they can see not what is there within the shadows, but the elementals of shadow and the moons and the night.

After they speak with the elementals, they must perform a task for them, and then they will be directed to a lunar or solar elemental. This same process repeats - perform a task, then go to the next. Once they have a shadow, lunar, solar, and earth or water (for the planet) elemental's support, they must look into the very next eclipse. If this is done, their vision will be restored and they will find themselves in the "moment of the eclipse", a negative-vision zone wherein they can sense the elemental of the eclipse itself. They perform three tasks for this elemental, and if they are worthy, they are given spells drawn from the power of the eclipse:

• Rite of eclipse: under an eclipse, they can perform a rite that corresponds to the power of the eclipse (partial or total), calling upon a specific effect: a protection against light or dark, a revelation or sealing of a secret, or the arrival or departure of someone or something from the community at the next eclipse.
• Dark within light: they can create a zone of darkness in the brightest light that goes unnoticed by everyone around them.
• Ward of the moment: they can shield a person as the moment of eclipse blocks light from the sun, creating a cone of protective power.
• Shadow sending: they can send their shadow to spy for them.
• Ring of light: they can create a ring of light around themselves that both illuminates and repels.
• Restoration of light and dark: they can cast a spell on someone that means that at the next eclipse, they are fully restored to health.

Every eclipse gives them magical power, which they store up and use sparingly until the next one.

PRO -1 ATH +1 STR -1 AWA +3 WIL +1 PRS / STH +2 ESS +1

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Slepusleest

Type: Mother

A slepusleest is a witch of the night.

Slepusleesti gain their magic from performing rituals at midnight. They are friends to nature, protectors of the night, and servants of their elemental communities. They work in small covens, which they teach and protect, and they are known for their powerful rituals that have lasting effects on communities. They are also known for their terrible vengeance if they are wronged.

Their magic is an elemental power, drawn from special rituals of blood and invocation, that give themselves to the night. They join together in their covens and go deep into the dark night, form a circle, and give something potent to the cold and dark. They do this three nights in a row under a new moon to gain their magic for the first time. From then on, they must perform these ceremonies every month in some form to maintain their power.

Their role in the community is more protective and healing, but they are feared for their power by their enemies. The magic they gain includes the following:

• Darkvision: they can see in the dark.
• Blackest oath: they may require an oath of someone if there is at least one new moon (best if all three are new) and magically enforce it.
• Midnight form: they may take a special form at midnight that lasts until dawn based on a local animal, but black in hue.
• Chill of night: they can invoke a spell that cools the area around them.
• Shadowy invocation: they may cast an invocation without being heard by anyone but their target that makes their target’s shadow attack them, leave them, or protect them.
• False dawn: they may trick up to nine people nearby into thinking dawn has come.
• Rite of the setting sun: they may perform a rite as the sun sets to give their community or allies special protections through the coming night.
• Sleep of the long dark night: they may whisper into someone’s ear at the start of the night and let them sleep through the night without interruption, giving them deep healing.

Slepusleesti are feared and hated in imperial lands.

PRO +1 ATH -1 STR -1 AWA +3 WIL +2 PRS -1 STH +3 ESS +2