What are witches like in your setting? What covens exist? What influence do they have?

What are witches like in your setting? What covens exist? What influence do they have?

Also, post character art. Bonus points for sexy sorceresses with a gothic motif like pic related.

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Witches are just one of the gender specific terms used to describe about any spellcaster in the setting, though the connotations tend to invoke images of independent casters who live outside of civilization.

For the connotative definition, the biggest influence witches had was keeping the magical arts and knowledge alive during the hundred twenty years magic had been all but snuffed out from the world. It was an extremely dangerous thing to do but the pay off has been that since the return of safe magical use, the foundations were remained understood and magic was readily getting adapted as best it could to the new technologies that had come about in the ages in between.

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Wearing the fingers or poor defenseless butterbear bottles as a necklace. Truly Luna was the most brutal witch of her age.

I've been toying with the idea of Witches being a more specific terms for spellcasters who cut deals with Fae. I think it fits their general themes of being mysterious, living in the woods, and having animals as familiars.

Witches always seemed as sort of a half-step between druids and mages to me. A mix between nature magic and arcane study, distrusted because they're outsiders like druids, but have the wildly varying ethics like wizards.

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Do they only cut deals with women or are there manwitches too? Not that that's without historical precedent given that places like Salem were just as happy to pile stones on top of men or see if they float.