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A lesson told by Tefina to her daughter, in the Age of King Eldricar II:
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My daughter, there are three kinds of mages in this world. The first are the nobles in their high towers, spending their days boasting of their knowledge of the world, pretending they know of reality, and that it is theirs to command. The second are the priests, who claim to be the inheritors of all creation, whispered secrets from their gods and given, like little spoiled children, whatever they ask for.
The third kind, are those such as me, and soon to be you.
We are witches, and we were here first.
The men, oh how they love to stamp about and claim they’re the masters of all the lands. The king in his high castle, the soldiers and the smiths, parading about being all self-important and thinking that the ability to yell loudly is what gives them power.
But do you know where they all return in the evening? Their homes, their beds, their wives, and it is there that true power lies, for the household is the domain of the witch. No witch need ever worry about their husband beating them, making demands of them, or blaming them for their misfortune.
It’s because we’re clever, dearie, and because we know our households. When you grow up and get yourself a husband and gain your own home, you’ll start to learn the little tricks. The squeaky floorboards which can alert of an intruder, the drafty part of the roof where sudden gusts of wind can come through, the tiny hole in the roof from where water can drip through. We know our homes, and our homes know us.
But just as important, if you place a bit of bread out here while humming the Offering of Hospitality, you’ll attract the brownies and they’ll give you a hand. Just treat them well, be kind to them, and you’ll never suffer. The really clever ones, like little Old Silver here now, he’s the kind to help you figure out the little eddies of magic where a snap, a little diddy, and an old ember will let you light a fire in the hearth just like so. Yes, you are a clever little one aren’t you?
There you go.
While the menfolk always go to boss around those they come across, what a witch is good at is listening, learning, and using your household to your own benefit. Those floorboards which squeak so loudly when trod upon? Well, the right treatment and they’ll start to warn you about anyone nosing about where they shouldn’t be, whether in the garden or just down the hall. And yes of course sweetie, I’ll teach you all of this in time, and I’ll teach you everything my mother taught me, and the tricks I learned myself. By the time you’re a grown woman and need to make your own household, you’ll know everything I know about this house, and you’ll be well-set to do it in your own house as well.
You’ll know how to persuade our sticky door towill stay firmly shut to anyone who wants to hurt us, get the drafty breeze to lend its breath to help us dust, and to let the leaky roof know when we want to keep water out, and when we want lots of fresh water for washing or cooking.
Now, the menfolk don’t understand. They don’t know how we persuade a rock to cry for us, for the wind to lend its breath, but it’s not so hard, just a listening ear and sage advice.
Because that is how a household is made. It is our words which raise children, and our words which raise a house. Should our husbands go against us, they go against the household, and the household would never allow that. But remember, our strength comes from being wise, from being subtle, from listening and learning. Let the menfolk assume they run the world, because then they leave the household for us. Let them deal with the chaotic, messy outside with all of its problems and mysteries.
We are witches, we are our household and our household is us, why would we ever leave?
And someday? You’ll teach your daughter, and she’ll be a fine witch of her own.
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A warning from a sworn court mage in service of King Eldricar XIV to his son:
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Beware the witch, my son, for their appearances may be deceiving. Though untrained and unlearned, the magic of a witch is nonetheless potent and strange. With their bubbling brews and mastery of their own domain, to assault a witch within her home is tantamount to, if not worse than, assaulting an archmage in their tower.
This is because a witch’s home is their magic. Though they lose power when outside of it, when inside of it they are power incarnate. The magic within is challenging and difficult to contain, heightened by decades of their own spells and difficult to wipe clean with even Tabula Rasa, but to them it is but second nature to set your staff on fire with a laugh, to bar the door to your entry, and brew up all manner of noxious poisons from which they may slay you while you are none the wiser.
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They mock you and scorn you, using magic that you have never seen before and never will see elsewhere as easily as breathing. They need no reagents, no foci, no grand arrays to work their magic, for it is always at their fingertips. The closest thing they have to a staff is a broom, from which they can call forth water, fire, wind, and more. Knives which dance to prepare vegetables may be just as easily turned against your skin and flesh, and if they claim to be capable of turning you into a newt, do not scoff and doubt that such a thing is impossible.
For their very existence is impossible, what is one more thing?
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Extract from The Primitive Magics, by Scholar Kitzveh of the Grand College:
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Witches, I have noted, are split between heavy and nigh-nonexistent usage of Elemental Song. While at first I thought that their daily routines, always the exact same steps undertaken the exact same ways as they wake up their household, make breakfast, and clean their homes, must surely have been part of a grand ritual feeding off its own repetition for substantial Song and Significance, I no longer think that is the case.
Rather, I believe that witches in truth have no clue what actions they undertake to cast their spells. This is in many ways understandable, given the number that they cast at any given time, but ultimately I believe they are simply performing the exact same motions with each day because they know that to do so is to empower their spells. They do not know whether their hand-washing is a key part of their daily ritual or simply a useless affectation, so they undertake it every day for fear of interrupting their protections.
It is remarkably superstitious, for magic, and makes many witches a complete nonfactor in terms of true danger. While it may seem as though they are capable of freeform magical usage, they instead act according to a strict script and cannot deviate from it, lest their spells be ruined and they be forced to start anew the following day.
Now while they may be ignorant, but they are dangerous in their ignorance. Even the most experienced witch still does not command the elements, but they assign personalities to their spells, and will make no apology should their magic misbehave as they assign the agency to the fireplace, or the wind, to the magic itself misbehaving. Interrupting their spells does not cause the immense power their workings have accumulated to merely dissipate, after all, and such outlashes of magic are often focused directly upon the disruptor.
Now, I said that most witches are unaware of how they cast their spells, and this was quite intentional. For some house-witches, particularly the elder ones, are quite aware of what they do, magically speaking, and are singing their Song of Significance, their daily routine not one of habit but of power. They dance through the day, their every action feeding into and preparing for a dozen spells at a time. It is a naturalistic and truly impressive display of spellcrafting, made all the more impressive by their awareness and conscious manipulation of the magic around them.
Alas, it is impossible to determine whether a witch is the former or the latter kind with simple casual inspection. It may be tempting to provide minor interruptions to attempt to assess if the magic around them collapses, but such thoughts are mistaken. Minor interruptions, and oftentimes even major ones, are easily handled by all forms of witches, smoothly accepting the disruption caused by you or even their children with utmost ease, somehow not disrupting their countless ongoing rituals even as other people, mages, animals or more seek to throw their work into chaos. Neither are weakened, and some are even strengthened instead, pulling order from chaos and making something beyond their comprehension.
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Extract from Not just Wands: Magic Through the Ages, a Codex Publication
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The pinnace example of magical creativity and variety has to be the witch. Despite their contentious history as a heretical existence, sometimes a mystical creature meant to be purged or an abomination against the laws of magic, more recent analysis with some of the few remaining traditional witches have told a much different story.
While most mages utilize Rasan techniques to stabilize the magic around them and thus create consistent conditions for their own rituals to create consistent outputs, witches do so through sheer practice. While yes, there do exist some mild Elemental Significance benefits drawn from the witch’s household being ‘theirs,’ Significance is no less fickle for them as it is for anyone else, and that makes an unreliable base for casting.
Rather, what makes a witch so potent within their home and powerless elsewhere is simply that they are intimately familiar with the Tapestry within their domain, and even at shaping it to better suit their needs. Through simple practice, they have managed to learn how to work around or with the strings of fire, of water, of light, of shadow, and more to pluck their symphony of magic. They cannot simply summon fire wherever, but they do know a small ritual that may be performed upon their hearth in a very specific way which will create a semi-natural magical phenomenon of a lit fireplace for as long as they desire.
In addition, some were very basic summoners and binders. They did not possess the tools which modern mages have for empowering and guiding spirits, their communion with native beings was remarkable for their time, and in fact much of modern shamanism was born either in part or wholly from adapted witches’ rituals.
The skilled ones also rearrange and shape the house to better suit their mystical needs, acting more upon instinct than a properly-developed mana sense. It is perhaps accurate to say that the witch’s entire house is their focusing tool and ritual circle, and they are constantly utilizing it and improving it. No wonder, then, that they are such unparalleled masters of their own domain, for what mage could possibly hope to beat another while inside their staff?