Musings From the Swamp: Witch Ludmila Blogs

Witch Ludmila

Hello.

This was suggested to me by a friend--who will go unnamed--as a means to bridge the cultural gap between mundane humanity and the various wizards, witches, and warlocks who populate the other side.

So please, ask away, about any and all things magical.

I will at times also use this as a place to record thoughts, and musings about the world.

Obā-san

are there any ogres in your swamp?

Witch Ludmila

Jugwul lives down the way. Mostly keeps to himself, generally only ever talks to me when he needs something brewed or some illness cured. The man's a bit of an ass, to be honest.

Imipolex G

Do you know Marisa?

Witch Ludmila

Some questions are best left unanswered. u_u

Imipolex G

well ok

Tanya

How tasty are Sand witches?

Witch Ludmila

Presumably about as tasty as any other witchbean stew.

But I've never had witchbeans from a desert.

One-Winged Eagle

How does magic work?

How do you work your will upon the world?

(I will judge you harshly for this, be warned, magic systems are very important to me, but at the same time feel free to ignore the question if you so wish)

Witch Ludmila

If I could just explain that to you, everyone would be a witch.

One-Winged Eagle

Well you could just lightly elaborate the procedures, protocols, and rituals that you perform to work your will.

Witch Ludmila

Well, I could easily describe to you the long hours that go into working out how a spell works. 

It's a long way from deciding that you want to be a wizard to throwing your first fireball, you understand. Most apprentices spend years if not decades doing things like meditating in rooms where all the walls are mirrors, staring at bowls of water for hours on end, and burning hundreds of decks of playing cards to ash. 

Magic is inherently the art of making the impossible and illogical happen. It has been compared to both mathematics and language, but the truth is that it's closer to the opposite of both.

Math and language both use symbols to describe reality, so does science. Magic changes reality to fit the symbols. The only reason a magic wand works is because it's a magic wand. There is nothing special in a scientific sense about the wood that mine is carved out of, yet, you will find that if you took a log from the same tree, carved it in the same way, and prepared it with the same rituals (in my own case, this involved soaking it in tree sap for several months, among many other less time-consuming things), it would not work. At the very least, it would not work the same way.

Plus, magic works differently over here than it does over there. For a long time we just thought it didn't work over there. We now know that that's not true, but even though I am a true witch through to my soul on this side, I'd probably be powerless on yours.

Let's take mixing potions as a specific example of all this.

In practice mixing potions sounds simple--and if you're a nonmagical herbalist, it is, at least comparatively--you just add ingredients X, Y, and Z to a pot, add something to dissolve them all in, and stir.

But that's not how it is. I can make you a potion to cure your cold, but if you asked a witch from Zengil to make you a potion to cure your cold, she'd hand you something completely different than what I would. And yet, you'd find that--provided she knows what she's doing--they'd both work almost exactly the same. This is how spells are passed down from generation to generation.

The basic Fireball is an excellent example, being older than recorded history. Today almost any mage worth their salt can cast a fireball. It's as elementary as magic gets, yet, you'd find that even amongst the regimented, disciplined Magorian Magic Infantry, no two soldiers cast it the same way. The differences can be incredibly small from person to person, or incredibly large (I personally know at least one mage who can cast a fireball out of his left eye, and nowhere else).

This is why explaining how magic "works" is so hard. Because the mechanizations that lead to a spell being cast successfully are so contrary to the way that the human brain is used to thinking that it is near impossible to elucidate them for an audience of nonmagi. This, incidentally, is why many mundane beings find spellbooks essentially incomprehensible.

If this was a frustrating read, I apologize, but it is as close as I can come to even beginning to explain how magic functions.

Witch Ludmila

Magic is a deeply personal and intimate art, and that is precisely why the Wizard-Knights of Magor-Ahn (also known as Magoria) infuriate so many practiced mages.

More formally known as The Imperial Mage-Knight Force, the Wizard-Knights are trained from childhood in both the arts of swordfighting and magic. The Wizard-Knights are skilled in both of their fields to be certain, but their strict discipline reflects a lack of adaptability, and they tend to falter when faced with more organically-trained mages. The Wizard-Knights wear pristine white armor that gleams like porcelain, and is always kept spotless.

Witch Ludmila

The Brackenvelanden, also known as Heavy-Footed or Big-Hat Witches, are both the creators of the modern granhuga ("witch hat") and practitioners of one of the oldest still-active magical traditions in the world. Brackenvelanden are largely nomadic, though in the modern day some have settled into small communities within larger cities, and live in organized units of extended family called thells. Each thell is headed by a Meitzerin, or "Grand Witch", Brackenvelanden society is matriarchal, and only women my hold the position. The Meitzerin are selected from among the most skilled witches in the thell by a complex process known as a Brackening (from which the Brackenvelanden derive their name for themselves). The exact details of a Brackening ritual are unclear to outsiders, as the ritual is done only in secret. But the process takes place over several days (up to a week), and is believed to involve seering magic in some capacity. At the end of the week, the new Meitzerin is chosen, and the thell has their new leader.

Those Brackenvelanden who are not magically-inclined typically work (if women) as the famed and feared Bracken Archers, defending their small nomadic camps against thieves and other threats. The men typically gather necessary resources for the thell (in ancient times this was very literal gathering of food, today, it just as often involves trading various Brackenvelanden-made goods for food and other supplies).

The Brackenvelanden are also responsible, as previously noted, for the invention of the modern witch hat, which they call the granhuga (literally "a big and heavy object"). Even today, authentic granhuga are distinct. They are quite a fair bit larger and wider-brimmed than more stylized forms that came later. They are also adorned around the edges with heavy baubles--typically crafted from either precious metals such as bronze or silver, or precious or semiprecious gemstones--which give them their trademark weight. Brackenvelanden religious belief holds that magic comes from the heavens, but is heavy, so it sinks to the earth. Granhuga are designed, essentially, to "catch" magic, where it is then stored in the baubles. Relatedly, many Brackenvelanden--especially women of high status--will wear many pounds of jewelry and heavy, thick-fabriced clothing. Often an amount that is simply impractical without magical assistance. A typical Meitzerin might wear her granhuga, three or four layers of robes, up to a dozen large necklaces, and rings on each finger, sometimes more than one.  Brackenvelanden fabrics favor earthen colors in most cases, such as blacks, greys, browns, and darker oranges. Some thells however, prefer deep reds, blues, or purples.

Brackenvelanden magic traditions vary to some degree from thell to thell (many thells are older than some nations, and their traditions may stretch back many thousands of years), but the manipulation of fire and the telling of fortunes always factor in heavily. One particular thell--for better and for worse--is also the oldest practicing necromantic tradition in the world. This thell (The Ingenhluir) is also one of the larger ones, at several thousand members strong, and infamously clashed with the First Magorian Empire in the battles that would eventually spark the Nomad Wars, but this is a topic for another time.

All mages currently practicing owe some debt--however small--to the Brackenvelanden, even if it is only in recent times that the stigma they face as uncivilized nomads has begun to lift.

Witch Ludmila

Cloenks, who are also called Clothids, or more disparagingly, "Ogres", are a race of crocodilian humanoids that populate the southern swamps of the Angor-Aldo continent. Clothids have few large settlements and were mostly nomadic prior to the arrival of the Magorian Empire in the region. In more recent times, they have begun to build cities, and many have gathered into the borders of the Principality of Cloenknuzt, which is ruled by one of their own*, albeit under the protection of a dwarven and human kingdom (ancient Angor-Mondar and young Telethestria, respectively).

*His Majesty Prince Ca'rancozejzk II. Who, for the purposes of full disclosure, was one sponsor of many in the writing of this tome.

Witch Ludmila

We have already explored the Bracken witching tradition quite thoroughly (or at least as thoroughly as a volume of this breadth allows), but there are other witching traditions, drawn originally from the Bracken, but whom have over the years diverged significantly from it. These are as follows:

The Lumi -- Witches who deal in seering and the curing and inflicting of diseases and curses. I myself was raised in the Lumi tradition. Lumi are the most closely-related, conceptually, to the Bracken, we live in many of the same places (such as swamp villages), but have no thells.

The Hwhim -- The Hwhim are solitary witches who specialize in cold magics. Hwhim value their isolation, and are not generally kind to outsiders. Many command a bevy of fairies, bound elementals, and other such creatures.

The Ulmi -- The Ulmi are the newest, relatively, of witching traditions. The Ulmi live amongst other civilized peoples, and Ulmi rarely congregate in groups of more than a dozen or so. Ulmi learn how to create multiple identities for themselves and usually have an object (called a phylactery, though this is distinct from a lich's phylactery) that allows them to switch between these identities. Each identity can channel raw magical energy of a different type, and older, more experienced Ulmi may have as many as nine or ten identities.

One-Winged Eagle

What kind of animals are there in the swamp?

Miss Miko Mayonegg

Witch Ludmila

kingCrackers said:

What kind of animals are there in the swamp?

Lots of amphibians--giant frogs and insects in particular are very common. I'm not a biologist, so I don't know the most about them.

There are more plants and fungi than animals overall, but there's still a good deal of biodiversity.

Witch Ludmila

"The Party", as they came to be known, were the
legendary heroes who slew The Iron Lich, banishing his soul forever:

Simon
The Vagabond -- Knight who took a vow of poverty, known all across
the continent for his great deeds. His sole possession was The Blade
of Heaven, a sword forged to steel from the iron of a meteor, and
blued to a near pitch black. Was killed during the assault on the
Lich's pyramid, where he died fighting The Iron Lich himself. According to Lockhard's account, he thrust his sword into the Lich's phylactery, killing them both.

Meitzerin
Mimilah "Mimi" Gogsberg -- Meitzerin of the Gogsberg clan
of Bracken witches, one of the most powerful pyromancers to have ever
lived, travelled with her familiar, the elemental Cinders.

Cinders
-- Mimi's familiar, an unusually tame fire elemental.

Khalifah,
the Bandit King -- Self proclaimed King of Rogues, Khalifah was an
expert thief and trapper, about whom little else is known. Was killed
during the assault on the Lich's pyramid.

Cz'miersz
-- Former leader of a Clothid war-band, an expert soldier, and a
deadly spearman in particular. Was killed during the assault on the
Lich's pyramid.

Sun'durg
Ipt-Ash -- Grappur Dwarf shaman, was capable of calling upon the
powers of storm. A hermit, who returned to his home--a far-flung cave
in the canyons--after helping to defeat The Iron Lich.

Lockhard,
The Squire -- A young knight apprentice sent to aid Simon the
Vagabond. Lockhard ended up raising the knight's daughter after her
father's death, and never ascended to knighthood himself.