The Unwaking

Stay away from the mountains is my advice, no bounty is worth death at the hands of those witches. Leave them to their business and they will leave you to yours.

• An Easthaven innkeeper gives some mercenaries advice on dealing with the Unwaking.

The Unwaking are a group that very little is known about, a coven of 9 witches who are exceptionally old and hold themselves in a current state of both sleeping and waking. None have ever been killed and they are a savage group that have many secrets and knowledge that outdates many divines... though it is their power to grant wishes that has brought them the most fame. The habits of the Unwaking witches are archaiac and strange. They feed off of fresh blood to empower their spells and they will often use bones (especially thumb bones) of creatures to cast spells through and draw power off, making them outstanding practitioners of necromancy... also making them a deeply cautionary tale about the evils of Aist Magic. However, they are also known to be exceptionally reasonable creatures that may have discarded their humanity but did not discard their pragmatism and desire to be left alone. As a result, they have only killed those that wander through the mountains as an easy threat or those that seek to destroy them, leaving behind their days of mischief and murder when The Dread King fell for the final time.  This has also led to practicioners of magic to seek them out to judge if they can be trained in the arcane arts but, far more commonly, adventurers and desperate individuals seek them out to arrange deals for their wishes to come true (though it is always with direst consequence). There is something very Macbeth in the witches speech patterns and use of language.  The party have so far only met 1 of the Unwaking Witches... freshly escaped from a pit.

Type

Religious, Coven