The Coven of Adressyll
I usually have advice about how to survive different monsters you could encounter in the wilds, but I only have one for the witches of Adressyll: don't encounter them. Val Mortan, guide to the dark lands of Amaanturis
The coven of Adressyll, also called the Sisterhood of the Dark Stone, is an order of primordial semi-human witches, practicing an ancient form of arcana they are the only ones to remember. Servants of Ramatha, Herald of Chaos, worshipping her under the aspect of the Mother Goddess, they form a small but tight community, rejected and feared by humanity. Most infamous for their ability to instantly petrify any opponent, both in fear and materially, the deep forest they inhabit tend to be avoided by people, who learned long ago to leave them alone, or be deprived of their ability to move, condemned to live forever in a rocky shell, conscious of the time passing, added to their collection.
A Mother-Witch of the Coven
Mother-Witches look more humanoid than their Sister-Witch underlings, and tend to be the final evolution of the beings, once they have acquired enough years and experience. They are also considerably more powerful, capable of petrifying an entire region in one stare, as well as far smarter, which makes them the de facto leaders of the Coven.
A Sister-Witch
Close to evolution, Sister-Witches tend to have more humanoid feature and lose their distorted jaw, but haven't gained yet the characteristic red eyes, blood tattoos and Arcanic gems. They tend to frighten strangers more, which is one of the reasons they are also used as patrollers to spook potential agressors away from the Coven.
Their form of Arcanic power is extremely different from any human usage, even the more raw and closer to nature form practiced in Abzazel-Maktis. Unlike most humans and creatures of Amaanturis, they took example from the Lords of Chaos to form their Arcanic Matrixes, then following the mysterious guidance of the Mastrilial Mushroom, being the only in the entire known world to have taken some inspiration from the Node. Their petrification ability is believed to be a result of a total Arcanic drainage, leading the body to be crystallized and cut from the world, conserving the soul inside a shell of dark stone. Although this might seem cruel, the witches of Adressyll generally only tend to act to defend their coven, sisters, or forests, and if there has been examples of them luring victims to the woods, they're rarely aggressive. There is very few counts of actual encounters with them, one of the few being Val Mortan, who managed to escape their clutches by exchanging Arcanic secrets with the then-leader of the Coven.
Over time, they have mostly become a boogyman to scare children into sleeping, for fear of being turned to stone by witches.
Over time, they have mostly become a boogyman to scare children into sleeping, for fear of being turned to stone by witches.
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