Within all life dwells a living essence, and this essence is the key to the most powerful magic imaginable. Do we use that essence to preserve the natural world, or devote life's power to our own mighty ends?— Sabain Croctooth, Witherbloom professor of blood studies
The College of Essence Studies
At Witherbloom, the College of Essence Studies, mages draw power from the opposing forces of life and death. These mages brew their spells from natural components and the essence of living creatures, using that power to heal or harm the living or to raise or entreat the dead. They can cause entire forests to blossom out of nowhere or call down old curses that scourge flesh from bone. Some Witherbloom mages defend ecosystems from pollution, while others revel in the power of corruption. They’re at home riding zombie crocodiles down a languid river, picking herbs for a potion to treat a disease, brooding over a chorus of swamp frogs, or summoning fearsome avatars of nature.
Studies and Philosophy
The curriculum of Witherbloom College focuses on various sciences, revolving around the life sciences. Biology, ecology, botany, chemistry, and related sciences combine with the study and manipulation of the magical energy of the Positive Plane and the Negative Plane, the primal forces of life and death. Witherbloom’s curriculum shares some overlap with Quandrix’s analysis of the mathematical patterns in nature.
Growth and Decay
The two deans of Witherbloom are traditionally called the Dean of the Root and the Dean of the Vein. These titles are a somewhat abstract way of framing the core division in the college’s philosophy: is growth or decay the driving force in nature?
The philosophy of the root (growth) focuses on life and its irrepressible drive to thrive. This view celebrates the diversity and adaptability of life-forms, from the tiniest cells to the most complex networks of living things. The growth philosophy asserts that the urge to survive and reproduce is the most essential principle in the cosmos. Mages who adopt this view wield positive energy and practice healing magic.
The philosophy of the vein (decay) focuses on the inevitability of death and decay. Its traditional name comes from the prominence of vampires within the college, whose conceptions of draining life through the vein have long proven an important counterweight to the growth philosophy of Witherbloom. The decay philosophy sees life energy as a resource to be consumed, rather than a good to be nourished for its own sake. Mages who adopt this view wield negative energy and practice necromancy.
THE DICHOTOMY OF WITHERBLOOM
Black
Black mages of Witherbloom focus on exploiting life energy for their powerful witchcraft. Ritualists, bleed doctors, pestcatchers, dissectors, and vein witches squeeze the essence out of crumbling living creatures to fuel powerful dark spells. Banelocks and cauldron-weirds use foul concoctions of noxious ingredients to weave withering curse magic. Bloodstirrers, skullmancers, dreadbones, and other necromancers infuse dead tissue with magic to do their bidding.
Green
Green mages of Witherbloom focus on encouraging life energy to blossom and grow. Herbalists, boon witches, and leafbinders use medicinal herbs to soothe wounds and empower living creatures. Earthcrouchers, mudmasks, and bayou druids connect directly with the land, literally getting low and touching the living bog of Sedgemoor, to power their nature magic. Boughcallers, trudge gardeners, and pest wardens summon bog creatures and harvest the microlife that dwells upon them.
Witherbloom Faculty
Lisette, Dean of the Root
Dean Lissette (human Witherbloom professor of growth) is a world-class healer and herbalist; it’s even said she once cured the Lorehold founder dragon of a secret illness. Lisette’s classes lean more toward demonstration and hands-on experience than lectures. When Lisette speaks, her words are soft and full of colorful metaphors.
Lisette believes in preserving nature and life, and she instills in her students a respect for all living things. While Dean Valentin’s exploitation of living creatures disgusts her, she also knows she can use the results of his cruelty to help future lives.
Valentin, Dean of the Vein
Dean Valentin (vampire) is ancient and drinks the blood of living creatures throughout the bayou. Valentin is a kind of sangromancer—he receives visions from the blood he consumes, which he uses to learn things about a creature or place. He has no qualms about exploiting the bayou’s creatures for personal gain.
Valentin’s classes focus on dissection and decay. He and Dean Lisette often clash over his cavalier treatment of animals, but that hasn’t stopped her from using his discoveries for her research.
Willowdusk, Essence Seer
No one knows how old Willowdusk (treant) really is. This professor of growth claims to be older than Strixhaven itself, and although many suspect that she exaggerates, no one else who has lived long enough to refute her cares to do so. Many years ago, a group of rebellious students got lost in Detention Bog and took shelter in what turned out to be Willowdusk’s roots. She protected them from a pack of hungry groffs and shepherded them back to Widdershins Hall, offering a lecture on proper herb-gathering practices during the journey.
Her lessons proved so effective that she was asked to stay as a professor. She loves passing on her knowledge of medicinal herbs, pest mascot cultivation, and dissection techniques to generations of new students, and she almost always has a pot of tea brewing.
Tivash, Gloom Summoner
It’s tough to study the secrets of life and death without getting your hands dirty—which is the first thing Tivash (human Witherbloom professor of decay) teaches Witherbloom students. Some call the forces he manipulates evil, but he asserts that power is only as good or evil as how you use it.
Verelda Lang, Arcano-Biologist
Verelda Lang (dryad) is a respected Witherbloom professor of growth who teaches introductory courses in magical physiologies, helping students in every college learn about the many unusual creatures they’re likely to encounter, whatever the students’ field of study. Her research extends to the vital functions of fractal creatures and other artificial life-forms, leading her to teach courses at Quandrix College as well.
Yedora, Grave Gardener
Yedora (treant) is the head groundskeeper and unofficial undertaker of Strixhaven. Students and graduates often wish to spend their afterlife at their beloved university, and she honors that wish. Each tree she plants represents the essence of a fallen mage, and she remembers them all by name.
Gyome, Master Chef
Anyone who thinks a troll can’t be a great chef has never met Gyome (troll). He combines local ingredients with flavors from his homeland into an ever-changing menu of delicacies. Students from every college trek through Sedgemoor in droves for his food. The only complaint he ever receives is that he gives out unreasonably large portions.
LOCATIONS
Witherbloom Campus
Witherbloom’s campus is tucked away in a wide bayou to the southeast of Strixhaven’s central campus.
Sedgemoor
The bayou area that encompasses the Witherbloom campus. Sedgemoor is known for a range of strange swamp beasts: undead animals, bats, crocodilian monsters, decomposing bayoustriders called trudges, and marsh-dwelling canine beasts called bogroffs. Sedgemoor is an excellent place to find pests, herbs, spidersilk, fungi, and other potent ingredients for potions and spells.
Widdershins Hall
The center of the Witherbloom campus is Widdershins Hall, a kind of bog mansion that looks like it was grown out of Sedgemoor itself. Widdershins is a network of interconnected wooden pods with planked walkways leading out of it like the tentacles of some kind of swamp creature. Widdershins Hall has a cozy inner chamber where professors bring together student witches for classwork.
Detention Bog
A stinking, thoroughly unpleasant marshland adjacent to the Sedgemoor, plagued by cantankerous creatures called vineclingers. Witherbloom professors send misbehaving students here as punishment, but it's also an excellent place to gather herbs for certain powerful cures and curses.
COLLEGE MASCOT: PESTS
Witherbloom mages need life essence in order to channel their magic, and the creatures that most frequently do the job are simply called pests. Pests are salamander-like, generally irritating creatures that dissolve readily into magical power for Witherbloom spells. Most mages outside of Witherbloom think of pests as awful creatures: they are disagreeable, hissing, spiky, untrainable monsters that bite without hesitation. But Witherbloom mages often carry pests around, doting on them as pets—pets that also serve as convenient sources of life essence.
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