Build a Witch Challenge: Maggie Blackthorn

Saw a challenge, did a challenge.

What's her name?

Maggie Blackthorn

What kind of witch is she?

Village midwife, wise woman, goat-keeper and provider of solutions.

What does she look like?

A little old woman, face brown and wrinkled as a walnut, a red scarf worn over the silver hair that hangs down in two braids. A heavy coat of dark blue, embroidered with the snowflake-like white sigils that the shepherd-mages have always worn. Heavy leather boots, well-worn.

A tall, strong-armed woman, sunset-red hair in a bun. Gone a bit soft around the middle. A sharp nose. A few missing teeth from an incident with a horse a while back. A black greatcoat and wide-brimmed hat from the south; a wedding gift. Heavy leather boots, well-worn.

A girl of ten with fiery hair no comb can tame nor braid maintain. More freckles than any sensible person would know what to do with. A white dress tailored for easy girding, with work trousers underneath. Heavy leather boots that still need a few years to fit right.

Where does she live?

In a log and sod cabin a little bit north of the village of Cormorant Tull, on the edge of the pine forest, just across the strip of open space from the seaside cliffs.

What kind of wand does she use? 

A cane of polished white pine. Everyone in town knows the rap-tap on the doorpost that signifies her arrival.

What's in her cauldron?

Perpetual stew.

What kind of familiar does she have?

Bear, a gigantic shaggy black dog who is always by her side. Is big enough that Sophie can still ride him around like a pony.

What is her dark secret?

Maggie Blackthorn has been the village witch for the last forty years, ever since Goodwife Constance died. Like any true witch she's the axis mundi of the community, but also like any true witch, she is very, very human.

See, the black fever swept through the county two summers ago. Maggie pulled off some miracles in those months, but eventually there is a limit to how far a witch can stretch a miracle. And always a cost. The world doesn't play by the rules of just reward, where miracle-workers get a bit of slack from the dice rolls of the old gods.

Maggie's daughter Mary caught ill, and then her granddaughter Sophie. Both bedridden with the fever, and with Tom out to sea, there was no one but Maggie, already spread too thin treating the rest of the village to care for them.

The toll is paid, and black fever works swiftly. It only a took a few days to work its course.

Mary and Sophie died within hours of each other. Maggie was there at the bedside when they went, but that was no consolation. Witches are old friends with death, they have to be to sit vigil, but witches are human and humans have breaking points that will never heal right.

Imagine the flickering lamplight of a dark cabin, in the suffocating darkness of night, and the words that might be said in desperation to comfort a child on their deathbed. 

And by that bedside Maggie broke. There was nothing to be done, not with the craft she practiced, but witches keep themselves abreast of the other powers. In the stillness of that dark cabin, Maggie weaved a spell that she might not ever be able to cast again: one that could revive the bodies of her daughter and granddaughter. There's nothing to be done to bring back the dead, but a body is meat and bone and blood and water are electric charge, and that can be stirred back into life.

To those brain-dead bodies Maggie bound her mind so that she could to jump between Maggie and Mary and Sophie, leaving two in a state like deep slumber and one awake and and aware. Whether that was her end goal, or simply what she was forced to settle with, no one knows.

You'll see Mary and Sophie walking around town alive as you or I, but it's Maggie behind the eyes. Folks in the village know, but they don't talk about it much. They are still grieving, just as Maggie is.

She might very well be immortal now, though she's not sure how far the spell can be stretched.

1d8 Things the PCs are interrupting

1. Milking the goats (Mary)
2. Weeding the garden (Sophie)
3. Giving advice to expectant first-time mother (Maggie)
4. Re-sodding the roof (Mary)
5. Being overly-precocious to door-to-door missionaries (Sophie)
6. Teaching herbs to the village children (Maggie)
7. Setting a farmhand's broken leg (Any)
8. Lowtide beachcombing, looking for fossils (Any)

1d6 Potions

1. Perpetual Stew - Warm and filling.
2. Contraceptive - Always be responsible!
3. Soothing Salve - Calms the nerves, centers the mind, drives away fear, makes sleep easy to come by.
4. Last-Chance Purgative - Cleans you out at both ends. You'll be miserable, but you won't be dying of poison.
5. Puckbrew - A mix of milk, honey, and whiskey, sure to lure out any nearby brownies, boggarts, hobs, pucks, goblins, pucas, and other
6. Special Sheep Liniment - Shared only with the trusted few.

1d6 Rumors & Hooks

1. Bear found a man no one knows on death's door, Maggie's been nursing him back to health.
2. Folks are seeing less and less of Mary, wondering if she's getting ill or the spell is weakening.
3. "Devil in the woods! Great leathery wings and a horses head, up in the pine woods past Maggie's!"
4. Black-cloaked outriders from the Dreg Legion have set up camp north of town. Maggie's been negotiating with them. Everyone's afraid it won't be enough.
5. Maggie says there's a freak snowstorm on the way, everyone needs to stay indoors, and shutter your windows tight.
6. Maggie's found herself a fourth body...

1d4 Spells

1. Goblin Door - Under the right slice of moon and the right time of night, the tumble of stones on the hillside can be turned into a door to the Goblin Market.
2. Kulning - Calls together a herd of cattle / sheep / goats / etc.
3. Eye on the Lintel - A glyph that will allow the maker to sense whenever someone passes through the marked doorway.
4. Bond Beyond Death - A delicate and difficult ritual that will allow the practitioner to link their soul with other bodies, so long as the bodies are very recently dead

Class: Theotokos

Ninebreaker

This is a gimmick class, a mash-up of Monsieur's Witch and Lexi's Cleric. It is above anything else an excuse to use this image, which I am quite fond of.

Class: Theotokos

Somehow or another, you ended up carrying a god's child. It might be your profession, your fate, your choice, or your bad luck, but it's where you ended up.

Uses HD as wizards, in games where this matters. No armor or weaponry skills at all.

Miraculous Magic

A theotokos gains access to the miracles of their deific partner and may only cast them when in service to one of that deity's commands, as per the cleric class linked above. They do get access to increasing spell dice as per the witch (lvl+1 d4, lvl d6, or lvl-1d8), through one of the two options applies.

1) The die size increases with level. As GLOG spell dice cap at four, this is a convenient way of marking off trimesters, with the birth of the god-child occurring at level 4.

• Level 1: 2d4
• Level 2: 2d6
• Level 3: 2d8
• Level 4: 3d8

2) Your spell die size is determined by the manner of the whole deal. The child may already be born with this option, at the player's discretion.

• d4 - Your child is particularly blessed by your deity, but otherwise mundane.
• d6 - Your child was conceived in the typical fashion with a human partner, but contains the spark of divinity within them.
• d8 - Your child was conceived purely by the god's power. A physical act may or may not have occurred. The child is a full demigod.

Followers

A theotokos may have up to their level in followers. At any given time, only one of them may have class levels.

The follower gained at first level will likely be a spouse, partner, close friend, attendant, or protector.

Gods 

A small selection of potential god-parents includes:

1. Auson, god of undeath and the wilds - Death is a thing born in cities. In the wilderness beyond those shimmering white-gold walls, the world lives and lives and lives forever and ever amen carcinogen.
2. Oublor, god of storm and elemental ooze -They are the watery greenish eye in the center of the viscous hurricane that never ends, that tamps down the waves with slime and makes sludgy wastes of the land.
3. Edu Tatanu, god of authority and nobility - Fuck this guy. Narcissistic autocratic sister-fucking wig-wearing war-starting eugenics-loving boot-licking orphan-kicking puppy-eating peasant-impaling Malthusian prick. Eat shit and die, Edu.
4. Ai-Thoth, god of knowledge and love - Rarely emerges from their hidden library, but is a tender and temperate lover in those brief moments.
5. Mammonatum, god of creation, forge, and greed - The creator of the world demands repayment from all life that came forth from their work. Interest is charged.
6. Riksennic, god of blood and vengeance - When violence is committed, violence meets it. Despite this, they are a mild god and detest the cycles they represent and perpetuate.
7. SALTY JOHN, god of elemental surprise and the crab - Wait, who's that? It can't be...it is! Holy shit! It's SALTY JOHN! Hell yeah! Salty John!
8. Mnysillias, god of the harvest and the spider - When the leaves turn orange, leave an offering in the attic. Fine silks will be granted to the devout.
9. Redmane, god of blood, battle and the lion - A roar tears across the battlefront, the god stirs in the hearts of men and is brought forth beneath the banners.
10. Sev Likon, god of trickery and undeath - Forever dancing out of the reaper's hand.

Class: Book Club Witches

Lin Jin

Monsieur came up with a template for GLOG witches, thought I'd give it a spin.

The Book Club

The story of Book Club goes something like this:

In the late 18th or early 19th Dynasties of Egypt's Middle Kingdom (That is, in the time between Akhenaten and Ramses the Great), there emerged a certain mystery religion devoted to Thoth and his consort Ma'at. The women of that order devoted themselves to unveiling the secret mystic and scientific knowledge of the universe. They sought to use it as a tool against isfet, the crawling chaos at work beneath and behind the world.

It was too late to turn back when the priests finally realized the scope of that undertaking. Isfet nibbled away at the pillars of the earth, it seeped through the foundation walls of the universe, it wore a thousand thousand masks and brought ruin in its wake wherever it was made manifest. It couldn't be stopped, only turned away for a time. They pressed on regardless.

The order endured up until Julius Caesar got his book-burning on and the cult was scattered to the winds and shadows. Practitioners would gather in twos and threes all the way from Londinium to Samarkand, keeping the art alive.

Cut to today: the ancient priesthood has transformed into a loose confederacy of paranormal investigators, fronted primarily by the academic sorority Theta Omega Theta. The religious practices and secrecy are mostly gone now, but the magic is still there.

The modern Book Club serves as a point of contact and intermediary with the preternatural world - government's not much help, and there's only so much the neighbors can do. They'll deal with most things, crawling chaos or no.

When there's something that can't be explained and discretion is advised, call a friend in Book Club. Paperback trades go without saying.

Bookworm

The boots on the ground, called together and sent out when and where they're needed. A lone Bookworm means a pretty unexciting investigation is afoot, or it's just typical inter-species disputes that need settled, or some other known-unknown. For anything dangerous or truly uncertain, they will move in covens.

Perk: You're familiar with the language and culture of one of the mythos peoples. You gain a +1 to reaction rolls with them, and have a 3-in-6 chance to answer difficult questions about them.

1. Deep Ones
2. Ghouls
3. Tcho-Tcho
4. K'n-Yani 
5. Sand Dwellers
6. Cats

Signs:

• You can ping the presence (general distance and direction) of your coven-mates.
• Can memorize a single page of text; new input overwrites old.
  

Librarian

The heart of Book Club. They call together meetings, gather covens of Bookworms, train new members, wrangle the Ibises, and maintain the network of connections and contacts. Most Librarians have settled down after colorful careers as Bookworms, though they'll go back out into the field if things get heated.

Perk: You have a network of contacts to pull on for aid and information. Roll 2d6: on a 10+ they're able to help you out no problem. On 7-9, there is some sort of cost involved (information is spotty, you owe them a favor in return, etc). On 1-6, no one can help you. You may use this ability [Template] times per session.
Drawback: 25% of income goes towards maintaining the Club.

Signs:

• You can send a secret message to the home of anyone you have shared a meal with. Messages must be less than 20 words and will vanish after being read, of if read by the wrong person.
• You have a familiar (cat, dog, crow, rat-thing) and can assign it simple tasks.

Ibis

You've been in the Club for far too long. It's all you've got left. You've torched your outside relationships and most of your social standing. People rightfully call you crazy, but crazy has kept you alive. You spite the crawling chaos just by existing.

Drawback: You've gone batshit. You have developed an obsessive phobia or a mania from your interactions with the Mythos. It has served you well and kept you alive, but its hold on your life has become absolute.

Signs:

• You can create a hideous droning piping noise at will.
• You can remove an eye and roll it around like a marble. It still works.
  

Works  

Dream-Key
R: Touch T: Person D: [dice] hours.
Sends a willing target (caster can target self) into a deep sleep. This lasts for [dice] hours in the waking world, and [sum] x2 hours of dream-time.If cast as a coven, the casters may pool or split their WD among as many targets as desired.
Craft: "Silver Key" potion.

Contact
R: 100 miles / Varies T: Magical being D: Until dispelled.
Caster makes contact with a magical / extraterrestrial / extrauniversal being. If used in the Dreamlands, there is no range limit. If [sum] > 10, non-magically-sensitive individuals may be contacted. For entities existent outside normal space, the spell must be cast at a location of some power or significant to that entity.
Craft: A small engraved or painted icon of the target.

Sign of Thoth
R: N/A T: Entryway D: Until dispelled.
By inscribing the sign of Thoth (Θώθ), the caster may invest [dice] to bar the way of any supernatural being of [sum] HD or less.  Invested dice do not return until the spell is dispelled.
Craft: Drawn upon the doorframe in chalk.


Reveal Invisible
R: 20' T: Area D: 1 hour
Any entities, pigments, or objects that are normally invisible to the human eye are revealed. If 4+ [dice] are invested, the effect is permanent.
Craft: A bag of fine, silvery dust.

Warp Spasm
R: 15' T: Being D: Instant
Target must make a save vs magic or be wracked with powerful seizures for [dice] turns. If [sum] > 12, they will gain a permanent mutation.
Craft: Wishbone charms, ready to be snapped.


Memory Fog
R: Touch T: Being D: Permanent
Target's memories of the last [dice] hours are muddled. They will not be able to recall faces, names, exact conversations, and all but the most obvious details. If [sum] > 25, this spell can effectively blank-slate an individual.
Craft: Tattoo of an eye with an X pupil on the palm.


Burning Cloud
R: 20' T: Area D: [sum] turns
Does [dice] damage / turn to all beings within the cloud.
Craft: A rough red-gold powder, warm to the touch.


Hypergeometry
R: Touch T: Self  D: Instant
Caster jumps into hyperspace and can move through walls, doors, objects, individuals etc, without detection, for [sum] x 5'.
Craft: Effigy of the caster, twisted out of shape.

Bookworm Emblem Work - Friends in Low Places

R: N/A T: Being D: Session
The Bookworm may summon aid from the mythos people she has familiarity with. Barring any usual circumstances (finding oneself in another plane, for example), help will arrive in d6 hours and will remain until the end of the job, the session, or it becomes too dangerous. Caster gets only one free use of this spell: a further favor must be fulfilled before it can be cast again

Librarian Emblem Work - Shielded from their Eyes

R: Touch T: Object D: [sum] hours
The target object (and anything inside it) is shielded from preternatural detection and the attentions of the Old Ones or Crawling Chaos for as long as the spell is active. If this spell is cast with 10+ [dice] during the Witching Hour, the effect will last for a full year and can be extended to the size of a house.

Ibis Emblem Work - Artifact Destruction

R: 5' T: Magical Object or Being D: Instant
This spell will only work if all Work Dice are burnt. The targeted item or possessed individual is immediately and completely consumed in fire and will be destroyed instantly with no save. This spell only affects material targets; the enchantment has a blowback chance as it dissipates (save vs. magic).

Wyrd Transports 

1. Shantak - Horse-headed, bat-winged, elephant sized. Smells of salt and slime.
2. Possessed Bicycle - Will never conspire to throw you off.
3. Bookmobile - Shelves full of well-thumbed paperbacks and extra ammo.
4. Nightgaunt - The tickling isn't that bad, you get used to it after a while.
5. Solar Barge - More of a canoe, really. Shiny and gold.
6. Gigantic Cat - A tabby the size of a tiger.

You Have Captured the Attention Of...

1. The Haunter in the Dark
2. The Bloody Tongue
3. The Faceless Pharaoh 
4. The Bloated Woman
5. The Crooked Man
6. The Thousand Eyes

To Shake the Attention of Chaos...

1. Pound of flesh - sacrifice 1d6 HP.
2. Lay low, lay low - You may not cast at above 1 WD for the rest of the day.
3. Fast and meditate - regain no HP or spells tonight.
4. Snuff the candle - burn off all WD used for this spell.
5. Show of Strength - all spells require an additional WD to cast.
6. Keep your cool - WD spent today are rolled with disadvantage.

Losing Your Grip

1. The magnitude of what you're attempting to do hits you like a lead brick. The spell fizzles out, and the strain of blooming existential crisis prevents you from casting again for d7 days.
2. Isfet strikes back at you. Roll d6 to select a horrible wound table, then roll d6 for the wound.
3. A horrible wound as above, but this time it heals wrong; you bear a cursed branding mark of isfet. Dogs and cats hate you. Humans know something is very wrong with you at a moment.
4. There's nothing left to be done, and there's nowhere else to go. You've reached fail-state. You have two options: taking your life, or throwing yourself into the embrace of isfet as its servant.

Tyler Crook

Callsigns and Operations

Callsign	Operation
1) Tanith Lee	"Dark Dance"
2) Margaret St. Clair	"Sign of the Labrys"
3) Shirley Jackson	"Haunting of Hill House"
4) Gertrude Barrows Bennet	"The Heads of Cerberus"
5) Mary Shelley	"The Last Man"
6) Charlotte Perkins Gilman	"Yellow Wallpaper"
7) K.J. Bishop	"The Etched City"
8) V.H. Leslie	"Bodies of Water"
9) Anne VanderMeer	"The Big Book of Science Fiction"
10) Priya Sharma	"All the Fabulous Beasts"
11) Farah Rose Smith	"Eviscerator"
12) Autumn Christian	"A Gentle Hell"
13) Betty Rocksteady	"Like Jagged Teeth"
14) Tiffany Scandal	"Shit Luck"
15) Leza Cantoral	"Cartoons in the Suicide Forest"
16) Gwendolyn Kiste	"Hardened Hearts"
17) Elizabeth Hand	"Prince of Flowers"
18) Margret Cavendish	"The Blazing World"
19) Molly Tanzer	"Creatures of Will and Temperament"
20) Silvia Moreno-Garcia	"Love and Other Poisons"

Class: Witch

Katie Shanahan

People make their entrance on the world's stage screaming bloody murder and covered in fluids. It's a terrifying experience for all and sundry, which is why most folks are just fine with only being born once.

The important part is what comes right after. The first person you will meet, even before you're set to sucking at your mother's teat, is a witch. She might be a hundred and three years old and blind, deaf, and toothless, or she might be fourteen and pimple-faced with boots two sizes too big, but she'll be there.

Witches live on the outside and look in. They live in places between, with boots caked in muck and brains full of things other people can't or won't see. They intercede, between man and his neighbors, between man and the Folk, between man and the gods. They are a vital, central part of the community, but they are not part of it fully.

You don't go to a witch for comfort. Mother will ease your pain and tell you that everything will be all right, but a witch has no such obligation. They deal in truth, and truth is useful and painful in equal measure. It is something to both live and die for, and in the case of witch-hunters, something to kill people over.

Contrary to what wizards and noblewomen who like to call themselves witches might say, witches do not have anything to do with dancing around in the moonlight with no clothes on (at least, not sober witches).

School: Witch

Perk: You get +2 to reaction rolls when interacting with the rural poor and working class, and people with a bit of sense.

Drawback:  You get -2 to reaction rolls when interacting with wizards, politicians, academics religious leaders, fundamentalists of all stripes, and people with not nearly enough sense. You get no reaction bonus, not even from Charisma, when dealing with other witches.

Cantrips:

1: You can spend five minutes to create a shamble, which allows you to detect if magic has been worked nearby. It will only tell you yes / no and relative strength.

2: You always have a piece of string, a stub of chalk, a smooth pebble and a coin in your pocket.

3: You can silently summon your familiar. This may take a few minutes if they are far away.

A note on familiars: familiars are ordinary animals that can be sent out to do ordinary animal things. they cannot speak and you are not mind linked, but they are smarter than usual and will tell you what they might see or do in their own way.

Xavier Colette

Spell List:

Woman's Work
R: N/A T: N/A D: N/A
With the proper equipment (material components, a cooking pot, water), you can make [sum] doses of contraceptive, proconceptive, or contramenstrual. These are universally-accepted trade goods, and can be redeemed for favors, mundane items, and information. This spell can also be invoked for the safe delivery of an infant.

Mending
R: Touch T: Object D: 0
An object made of stone, clay, metal, wood, or fiber can be repaired, restoring it to the state before it was damaged. The size of the object that can be mended is dependent on the [dice] invested.

• 1D: Can be held in the hand.
• 2D: Can be held in both hands.
• 3D: Waist height.
• 4D: As big as a person.

 Using this spell a second time on the same object carries a 1-in-6 chance of breaking the object completely, increasing by 1 each time it is mended. Complex items (clockwork, etc) begin with a 3-in-6 chance of breaking upon casting.

Produce Flame
R: 40' (when thrown) T: self D: as below
Creates a flame of [sum] damage. The size of the fire is determined by the dice invested:

• 1D: candle (STR 10, lasts for one hour)
• 2D: torch (STR 30, lasts for fifteen minutes)
• 3D: fire (STR 40, two hands, lasts for five minutes)
• 4D: inferno (STR 70, two hands, takes full turn to cast, movement speed halved, cannot be thrown, lasts for one minute)

Liberally inspired by Mateo's pyromancer.

Identify
R: 20' T: Object or creature D: 0
Effect depends on the [dice] invested.

• 1D: Caster reveals the common name and mundane properties. If the target has been changed by magic, and the potency of the enchantment. Mundane properties and names are revealed (ex: "this is phosphorus, it can burn underwater."
• 2D: Caster can determine the above, as well as what kind of magic was used. Advanced mundane properties are revealed 
• 3D: Caster can determine the above, when it was enchanted, and the effect of the enchantment. 
• 4D: Caster can determine the above, as well as who created the enchantment.
• 4D + physical piece of target: As above. Learn the true name of the target or of the original caster. 

Locate 
R: 100' + [sum] x 5 T: Object or creature D: Concentration

The caster can determine the specific location of the target for as long as they can maintain their concentration.

• 1D: general noun (ex: dog)
• 2D: specific noun (ex: my dog, Old Yeller)
• 3D: vague or immaterial (ex: love, help)
• 4D: paradoxical or impossible (ex: solidified time, a devil's conscience)

If you have a piece of what you are trying to locate, you will be able to know its exact location at the time of casting, no matter what the range is

Hidden Language
R: Touch  T: Surface  D: 10 hours
The caster may inscribe a message in a language that has been forgotten by grown-ups. It may be read only by the very young, the incredibly old, the simple-minded, and other witches. If 2 [dice] are used, the writing will be permanent.

Piercing Look
R: Eyesight  T: Creature(s) whose attention you have D: 0
Target must make an immediate morale check at -4. Gods help them if it is accompanied by the Crossing of the Arms and the Tapping of the Foot.

Spare the Dying
R: Touch T: Creature D: [dice] hours
The target, upon hitting death's door, can cling to life for [dice] hours, so long as they are not injured again. The caster must save against poison each hour or take 1d6 damage from shouldering the target's pain.

Magic Circle
R: As drawn T: Spirit D: Until broken
A circle is marked out on the ground which may hold and bind a spirit of [dice] HD or less. Using this will negate any reaction bonus you might have with the Folk and impose a further -1 penalty.

Gain +1 [dice] if the circle is made with salt, iron flakes, or other substances anathema to the spirit.
Gain +2 [dice] if the circle is inscribed with the target's true name.

Call Upon the Folk
R: 100'  T: Folk  D: 0
The local Folk appear to you, and you gain + [dice] to your reaction roll when conversing with them. No bonus is granted when dealing with malicious spirits. Summoning a specific being requires one of the following:

• The location is strongly associated with a particular entity 
• [sum] > 15 and knowledge of the entity
• The Folk's true name is known

Augury
R: Touch T: Creature D: 0
In reading the entrails of sacrificed animals, you look for an omen of what is to come. You have a [dice] x 10% chance of successfully foreseeing a future event or gaining a piece of knowledge (ex: "there is a settlement in the next cave"), plus 1 [dice] per hit die of sacrificed creature or hour spent cloud-watching. Even if successful, omens will often have multiple potential meanings.

Speak with Dead
R: touch T: corpse or other remains D: 10 minutes
You can communicate with ghosts and lingering spirits. The quality of spirit is determined by both its age and the [dice] invested in the spell.

• 1D: the ghost is silent, and mimes out a repeating loop of a single moment
• 2D: the ghost speaks a little and is no longer locked in action, but remains linked to its event
• 3D: the ghost knows who it was in life, and can move about its home freely as a normal spirit
• 4D: the ghost is at its most autonomous, bearing jumbled but significant memories of life

Ghosts are imprints of an individual, and so do not possess all of that person's knowledge, nor are they able to provide incredibly specific information unless it was incredibly important to the target.

Third Eye
R: Eyesight T: Self D: 10 minutes
The witch is able to see things as they are, not as how they are believed to be. With her third eye open, the witch is able to see things as they are, not as how they are believed to be. She may see through illusions, identify secret doors, see spirits that have hidden themselves, and detect lies.

Mishaps

1. Take 1d6 damage.
2. Grass dies, flowers wilt, milk spoils in a 50' radius.
3. Vomit cobwebs, hair, and tomato juice for 1d6 rounds.
4. Familiar vanishes for 1d6 hours.
5. Bleed from forehead for 1d10 hours, freaks everyone out.
6. Transformed into a cat for 1d6 hours. You can still cast spells.
   

Dooms 

1. A bleak mood lingers on you like grease on fingers. Your reaction malus is doubled for 24 hours.
2. A witchhunter demon has been drawn to your scent. It cannot harm you directly, but it will follow you for three days, dealing mental strain damage through its attacks. If damage > WIS, the witch must save vs fear - on success, fight/flight/freeze. On fail,you will be rendered too strained to make any normal action at all until the days have transpired.
3. You've gone too far on the outside, cut your ties to people, lost the things that keep you grounded. You've gone bad, a hag of the worst kind.

This doom can be avoided by pulling the millstone-in-the-pond trick in Clearsight Lake, or by delivering an accurate omen to a king and watching the fallout to the end.

Goblinwatch

"Forest in Autumn" by Gustav Courbet

This post goes best with Over the Garden Wall and Chromatic Soup: Issue 2.

**

Ho-ho! Ha-ha! ‘Tis harvest time

When all the hill’s russet and gold!

Bring in the feast! Bring on the dance!

Be bold, make a risk, steal a kiss, take a chance!

Tap us some cider! Lay out the cakes!

Pile pies on the table until the thing breaks!

It’s a night fit for chaos, in that we believe

For this here tonight’s the great Goblinwatch Eve!

** 

The Festival

You remember...

All the farmers with their oxen, their wagons overflowing for the last market of the year. Cousins you hadn't seen since the year before last, now that the Grub Port bridge has been rebuilt. Banners and flags and every color under the sun as the countryside seemed aflame with its joy. Church bells and mourning doves.

There were jugglers, acrobats, jesters, fire-eaters, stilt-walkers, troubadours, fiddle duels, medicine shows, buskers, hobos, hurdy-gurdy men, blue-ribbon goats, performing dogs, hedge-mages, a traveling show with kings and swords and red streamers for blood. Children running underfoot looking for the Third Pig. Corn-hole, ring-toss, quilt circles, the husking bee, the dunk-a-monk tank. Grinning lantern-jacks everywhere you turn (you and your friends ran through the hills with butterfly nets each evening for the last week to get proper will-o-wisps for yours).

You remember your grandpa and the other old men in their navy coats, their flat-topped caps and their shiny brass buttons, sitting on the general store porch and playing St. Anne's Fingerbones while passing around a stoneware jug of grobbo.

(A note: grobbo, or goblin-cider, tastes like getting kicked in the face by an apple-flavored Clydesdale.) 

You remember the Knights of Autumn returning home in all their russet finery, with stories of the world beyond and all their adventures in the wild places where the Folk lived. Some years one or two of the older children would be taken on as an apprentice to a journeyman knight. Your parents shot down your request instantly, on account of your main motivation being your terrible, obvious crush on Abigail Haaghenholt, who had taken her vows three years earlier.

You remember the Witches' Court, where the wise women young and old gathered in numbers you'd never see elsewhere (save the funeral of Goodwife Jemyan the winter before last). Anyone with a problem in their life, no matter the size, could bring it before the Court and have it solved right there and then, though there's never any guarantee they'd like the solution. Sometimes it was best to bury the hatchet before going to the Court.

There was the barn dance, where they crowned the Harvest Queen and Skeleton King and everyone danced and sang and drank and ate until the sun was dipping low and the lantern-jacks were lit.

And the food! Candied apples, roasted pine nuts, pop-corn, troll-ears with cinnamon sugar, saltwater taffy, succotash, four-score types of cheese, coalwater crabs from upstream on the ridge, cider from the orchard on  harvest-moon cakes, pumpkin bread, corn and squash on the grill, roast turkey and pheasant, apple flapjacks, maple wine, more pies than even the gods could comprehend.

There was always a seat left open at the head of the table, right by the King and Queen. Death is an honored guest at Goblinwatch, to remind everyone that they were alive that night.

This was the finale, the bombast before the long decline into winter.

The Watch

The first drumbeat falls at the moment when the sun has sunk completely below the horizon and the moon has risen fully above. In the hills one can see the distant fires, and hear the hoots and hollers and the beating of  hide drums and the playing of reed pipes and bladder horns.

The goblins sing and dance around their Ugly Tree, gathering their forces of mischief, and when their song is done they descend upon the town in a wave.

Actually describing what comes next is difficult due to both the inherent magic in Goblinwatch Eve and the sheer amount of tomfoolery and vandalism going on.

A good Goblinwatch Eve will include but is not limited to: theft of livestock, raiding of liquor cabinets, raiding of underwear drawers, damage to public property, arson, jaywalking, cross dressing, cases of mistaken identities, cruelty to cheeses, biting political satire, incomprehensible accents, public drunkenness, graffiti, dirty limericks, silly walks, and excessive Monty Pythoning.

Goblins will be accompanied by other creatures, their "auxiliaries in the cause of mischief." These are typically unique, region-specific beings who are generally only seen on Goblinwatch Eve, unless the Eve is set up to be a real humdinger, in which case they might be glimpsed as early as but never prior to the feast of St. Percival Tuckett, thirteen nights earlier. These companion beasts include:

• The Bugaboo - A tall, ape-like creature with shaggy black fur and luminous eyes like dinner plates.
  
• The Great Askutasquash - A knobbly green-and-yellow striped vegetable with legs like an elephant. Squashes things, delivers presents to gullible children.
• The Tagalong of Tougkepsin - A river monster, like a salamander mixed with an otter and twice as big as a man. Sings like a lovely woman, shouts like an angry priest, talks like a city slicker.
• Big Barn Owl Face - A body like a big lumberjack, axe in hand and shirt of plaid, with a barn owl's head on top. Constantly bobbing and swiveling around.
• Hopkins Gobrol - It looks like a goblin, but is not actually a goblin. Bright orange skin, unblinking eyes, laughs  before the punchline is delivered but doesn't put any heart into it.

The Witching Hour

The reign of chaos lasts until one in the morning, at which point the Witches' Court will disperse and its members will begin to round up the goblin horde. By means of the mighty Disapproving Look, the Crossing of the Arms, and the Tapping of the Foot (as well as clever counter-pranking and tactical witchery), the township's witches will wrangle to goblins into righting their wrongs, returning their loot, and fixing up the town to just as it was.

Having had their fun, the goblins will sing a final song of farewell (which has the added effect of putting the townsfolk into a restful sleep) and depart for their warren.

Witches have no obligation to stay further, and many of them return to their homes at this time.

All-Folk's Day

There is one more celebration before all is complete and winter may begin. In the quiet of the misty morning, a procession will set out to the hills, singing old songs of Folk-friendship and the Humble Art. It is not a boisterous celebration, but instead one of a different kind of life - of stillness and silence and the dew upon leaves.

The procession will meet the Folk in the appointed place - sacred grove, standing stones, enchanted spring, whatever it may be. There will be a shared meal, a recounting of histories from both peoples, an exchange of gifts. The old agreements between Folk and man will be re-affirmed. The Folk will depart, and the people will return to their homes in silence.

Thus comes the end of the harvest season and of Goblinwatch, until the next year arrives.

If dreams can’t come true, then why not pretend?

How the gentle wind beckons through the leaves, as autumn colors fall

then sink in a swirl of golden memories

the loveliest lies of all