Witchcraft
For use with Dolmenwood.
Rites by which the old gods are asked to interfere.
A witch is bound to one of the Gwyrigons and may learn its rites.
Each rite leaves an Obligation. It may not be used again until the Obligation is fulfilled. Refuse it, and the Gwyrigon falls silent until the debt is paid.
Ertta
Ertta the Devouring Mother concerns ageing, death and decay. She moves in the winds above the Wood.
Empty Season
Dead leaves, nail clippings and a mouthful of grave soil are sealed in a clay jar. It is broken upon forest ground.
All vegetation touched withers into late autumn in moments.
Obligation: Leave something you killed in the spent ground until only the bones remain.
False Grave
One of the witch's teeth or bones is buried beneath a gravestone bearing their name. An open grave is dug beside it and slept in until dawn.
By morning the name has weathered from the stone. At the witch's next unnatural death, the body turns to ash and scatters upon the wind. Three days later they wake in the open grave.
Obligation: Cut off a limb and leave it in the grave to rot.
Last Answer
The jaw of a corpse is hung from a dead tree by seventeen strands of its hair. The witch asks one question.
The next gust rattles the teeth. The dead answer as best they knew in life.
Obligation: Return the jaw to its grave and fill the mouth with warm earth.
Maggot Stitch
Seven maggots taken from a corpse are held in the mouth, spat into a fresh wound and sewn beneath the flesh.
A day later they crawl free, swollen and grey. Only an old scar remains.
Obligation: Keep vigil over an unburied corpse, allowing nothing to disturb the maggots until the flesh is eaten away.
Seventh Mouth
Seven severed mouths or snouts of carrion eating beasts are arranged around an object. The witch whispers into each something it is to consume.
By dawn, the named qualities have been eaten from the object.
Obligation: Sew the mouths into your clothing and wear them until they rot away.
Wind Riding
Grave ash is scattered into a storm and followed barefoot until the witch's feet leave the ground.
The wind bears the witch through the sky to any place in Dolmenwood within hours.
Obligation: Cut open the soles of your feet and walk until the bleeding stops.
Withering Name
The witch writes a person's name in their blood upon fresh hide and hangs it beneath the open sky.
Each dawn it remains hanging, the named person ages seventeen years. Taking down or destroying the hide ends the curse.
Obligation: Once taken down, wear the hide against your skin for a lunar cycle.
Hasturiel
Hasturiel Thrice-Crowned concerns metamorphosis, vision and speech. She manifests in fire and embers.
Ash Witness
A splinter from the place to be watched is pushed beneath the eyelid of a dead bird. The eye is sewn shut and the head cast into fire.
Until the skull blackens, the place from which the splinter was taken is visible in the flames.
Obligation: Carry the cold ashes back to the place watched.
Borrowed Face
A likeness of another is burned and its ashes mixed with the witch's spit. The mixture is smeared over the face.
The witch takes their appearance until the ashes are washed away.
Obligation: Make a likeness of yourself and leave it in the possession of the person whose appearance was taken.
Changed Flesh
Something shed from the witch is burned with a piece of a living creature. The witch passes naked through the smoke.
The parts from which the offerings were taken are exchanged.
Obligation: Another piece from each is burned together, returning what was borrowed.
False Tongue
The tongue of a dead liar is pierced with copper pins and dried over an open flame. It is worn about the neck until it rots away.
Any deliberate lie spoken nearby is repeated by the tongue in the liar's voice.
Obligation: Tell a lie that puts you in harm's way.
Other Eyes
A pair of eyes is painted upon a living creature in soot from three fires.
When the witch's eyes are closed, sight passes into those of the marked creature.
Obligation: Swallow the creature's eyes.
Waxen Shape
A wax likeness of the desired creature is made with a lock of the witch's hair and a part of the creature's body. The likeness is melted and smeared over bare flesh.
The creature's shape is taken until dawn.
Obligation: Sleep beneath a likeness of yourself with its face burned away.
Words Unmade
Words previously spoken by the witch are written upon a strip of their own skin. The strip is cut free and fed to a flame.
All who heard those words forget they were spoken.
Obligation: Reveal a secret to someone who could use it against you.
Limwdd
Limwdd the Quiet Brother concerns stasis, growth and rejuvenation. He sleeps beneath the earth.
Buried Twin
A tooth pulled from the witch is planted in a clay pot filled with earth from beneath their bed. For three nights it is watered with their blood.
On the third dawn the pot splits and a naked copy of the witch crawls out. While the witch sleeps, they see through the copy's eyes and move in its body as their own.
Obligation: Cut the second body into nine pieces and bury each beneath a different tree.
Chalk Sleep
A living creature is rubbed from head to foot with chalk ground from humanoid bones and laid naked upon a stone beneath the sun.
By sunset the body has hardened into pale stone. It neither ages nor changes until wetted with warm blood.
Obligation: Cut away a finger or toe of the restored creature, burn away the flesh and grind the bone into chalk. Mark the stone with it.
Cold Palm
The witch's hand is cut open and buried to the elbow beneath a living tree until the arm grows cold and numb.
For the next hour, the tree's roots break through the ground anywhere within sight and move as the buried hand moves.
Obligation: Bury beneath the tree something valuable made by your own hand and never reclaim it.
Earthseed
Thirteen pine cones are packed with the witch's hair, nail parings and blood, then sewn beneath their clothes from throat to groin. The mouth is sealed with pine resin before the body is buried face-down beneath bare earth.
The earth swallows the witch until no trace remains. Below, they are sustained by Limwdd and are aware of all that disturbs the ground above.
Obligation: Bury a living creature in the place where you emerged until it dies.
Hollow Fruit
A small item is smeared with blood and dung and sealed inside a cut made in a living tree. The bark is bound shut over it.
At the next full moon, the tree bears a single fleshy fruit containing a perfect copy of the item. The copy begins to rot after a month.
Obligation: The original is offered to the tree. Its roots take it overnight.
Old Growth
A shallow grave is filled with leaf mould, dung and milk of an animal that has recently given birth. The person is laid naked within and buried until only the face remains.
At dawn the old skin splits and peels away. The body beneath is nine years younger.
Obligation: Wrap the shed skin around a younger person and bury them until dawn. They emerge nine years older.
Root Graft
A severed limb is buried beside the body that lost it. Thirteen different seeds are planted in a circle around it.
By dawn, roots have drawn the severed limb through the soil and grafted it back to the stump. It moves as before.
Obligation: Sever a limb from a living creature and bury it where the restored limb lay.