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Witch design, thoughts?

Eddric

Dreamer
I have a designed magic system, that I'll post about later, as it is large. The topic here are Witches in my story. Witches are women only (for the sake of this post, just go with that, there is a lot to my world/story). The vast majority of people in this world are born with Witch blood/genetics, but that in no way guarantees that they will Awaken as a Witch. The Awakening process happens when they experience something so incredibly horrifying and awful that part of their soul dies and they Awaken as a Witch. When this happens, it is almost always quite obvious, as they burst with force and power that it reshapes the land around them. They get their Witch ability, usually something that normal people and/or mages can't replicate, as many times it is a reality bending ability, or so outrageously complicated or power consuming that anyone who would try to use the corresponding circle magic would be killed nearly instantly.
Witches are effectively immortal. They are not impervious, they can be killed, but not by age. Every 100 years, they go through a Birth Cycle. They give birth to themselves, their old body dies and they are infants again. Over the following 13 years, at any point, they can have their Reawakening, when they regain their memories as Witches, and the lives they had before this. The reason for this is to have a Witch regain a connection to their human innocence and have a taste of peace and child like wonder, so they don't forget where they come from. This is the only form of birth that they ever have after Awakening, as their ability to have children is taken from them. Also, they don't always stay this way for 13 years, the Reawakening can happen at any time within those years, at which point, over the course of a couple minutes, they return to their adult body and regain all of their memories.
There are 7 families of Witches, each with a different category of abilities. Now, these abilities allow them to use a very small fraction of power to activate compared to anyone else that would attempt. They also have access to a vast well of magic, making them incredibly dangerous.
Awakening as a Witch is incredibly rare (a good thing, considering the requirement to do so), at any given point, there are probably 50 witches across the entire world, and most people (at the time the story takes place) have assumed they have gone extinct or were myths to begin with. Of course, this is not the case, but after learning the lessons of history, Witches have let these ideas spread far and wide to keep things...well, just more simple, so they can do whatever it is they are doing without interruption.

I'm sure I'm leaving a lot out, but there is a lot to go over world building wise, so feel free to ask any questions pertaining to this or anything else. I'm new here, so there's a lot to go over.

Thanks for your replies in advance!
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
I think it is thought out and presentable enough to be all the stuff behind the story.

I question the reasoning of, this is done so as to give them a taste of their innocence again. In that, that may be the effect, but probably not the reason it happens.

I dont really have any questions about the witches or the system presented above. But why this? What is the story that goes in it?


Imagine this world with Cthulhu showing up.
 

Eddric

Dreamer
Thanks for the response. The Witches in the story aren't actually directly consequential for quite a while when it comes to the actual protagonist, but they are consequential to the story as a whole. There are a lot of layers that I have set out, but as I am very new to this forum, I just wanted to do a test drive of sorts with my Witch design. There are a few that are behind the higher ups of the governments across the planet, but no one knows that. At least not anymore, as the Era that this takes place in is the 3rd, and in the previous ones, Witches ruled openly, but that never worked out well, as the people realized that those in control had power they could never actually achieve, and then societal progress plateaued. So now they rule in secret.
It's also more like they fit into the story instead of the other way around. There is a lot about their history, how they got this kind of power, where it came from, and their own practices and laws amongst themselves. I'll write it all out, promise, it's just a lot to go over.
 
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