Enchantress/ForestWitches
The Forest Witches: A new power in the East
In Outcastes the Forest Witches come across as a very insular group, aside from a few noteworthy examples with a grudge against the Realm they’re mostly content to play in their fantasy world.
Changing that aspect was relatively easy, the Forest Witches resort to banditry in order to play a tithe of minor artifacts and other sources of essence to the Sea of Mind. Stressing that aspect of the background can make the Forest Witches quite aggressive, even evil if these sources of essence include living sacrifices.
So, now they’re working outside their sphere of influence- what do they want? That depends largely upon the needs of your chronicle. Possibly the Sea of Mind is a malign presence that seeks the conquest of Creation? Or is the ambition behind this expansion all too human? I went for a combination of the two personally- Ghandava’s megalomania coupled with the Sea of Mind being a fragment of Cytherea that had an “ends justify the means” plan to end the divisions and disharmony within Creation.
The next issue is, what do they offer that the various other Outcaste groups don’t? That’s an easy one – they’ve got weird crap and lots of it. Ophelia the Forest Walker is pretty much a behemoth that looks like a forest- It could be Lord of the Rings influencing me but I could certainly see the trees moving around to confuse people or uprooting themselves to give chase!
Dominica the Mist is even more interesting in that she can remake exalts into Numina, that’s more impressive when you consider that the only other things we’ve seen that changes an Exalt’s nature like that is the direct action of the Primordial Autocthon or the infamous spirit charm Investiture of Infernal Glory.
Dominica’s Mantle is a great plot device- it’s effectively reincarnation with all memories intact and some say in who you’ll be next. With this the Forest Witches could have sleeper agents anywhere and if they’re young enough they don’t even know it yet. That’s insidious in a way that makes even Mask of Winters envious!
You’ve also got the dead, who via an artefact called a Walking Stone can effectively haunt suits of armour and even Warstriders. Even more disturbing for people who’ve already faced the undead and think a haunted Warstrider is nothing special. When they finally bring it down they’ll realise that there really was nobody at the controls, there’s just an odd stone sitting where a pilot should be.
Finally that brings us to the Sea of Mind- what does that do besides make them think they’re in a perfect world and save a copy of them when they die? Simple- while artifacts found in the Sea of Mind simply aren’t real, the same can’t be said for knowledge gleaned from it.
I’d imagine Forest Witches are strongly predisposition to be sorcerers with the sort of things they’ll find in Asiluth Eternal. Their spell books may not be real but the information in them isn’t necessarily- also if you want to play up the Sea of Mind as the impetus for what the Forest Witches are up to then you may want to consider giving them something conceptually like the Whispers background- that lets them know things they couldn’t possibly have known.
FFS! Summarise Kate! What do they bring to my game?
Potentially human sacrificing antaginists (for those who like their antagonists evil?), Renegade Dynasts with a grudge (better for Dragon-Blooded games I imagine) An Ancient Evil (Sea of Mind used to be Cytherea's could still be under Yozi influence), Killer Attack Trees (more Hurrons than Ents), Numina (How Infernal or Spirit you want them to be is up to you), Reincarnated sleeper agents (I KNOW I like my players chasing shadows), Haunted Armour and Warstriders (I shouldn't have to explain this) Sorcery Power! (helps them be weird) and Whispers (well not exactly but- some sort of attunement to a higher power).
