Coven Tree
Bewitched Wood
All those urban mages seek to have their wands made out of the most ancient of trees. I simply pick mine off the branches in the woods.
Coven Trees are a species known to produce extensive amounts of arcane power within their roots. Tapping into the power of Aetheryical Hot-Spots, they provide one of the oldest and easiest way for someone to tap into magic. Even if they come with their own dangers.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Coven Trees are distinct by their thick trunks and spread out crowns, looking close to spruce but with a greyer tone to its bark. One can notice it from afar with many visible roots, raising the tree an additional foot and exposing a wide bed of them beneath it.
Considered an evergreen, its leaves remain a dark green colour throughout the year. Throughout its entire structure, one may find faint shifting colours as well.
Biological Traits
Dormant Magic
Deep arcane powers run through the wood of Coven Trees as the plant feeds off magic within the soil. This grants them innate magic abilities, often dormant until provoked by outside forces.
The result is a chaotic force of nature, capable of doing weird and unorthodox things. Some question whether it has any control over the magic it casts, but that furthermore raises the question of how sentient they truly are. Regardless of what one believes, the results do show.
Those that disrupt a Coven Tree, such as eatings its fruits or cutting it down, come face to face with its dormant magic getting released. Everything from illusionary effects to straight up combustion, making it a roll of the dice to harvest from them.
Ecology and Habitats
Coven Trees thrive in areas with a large presence of magic. Anything from Aetheryical Hot-Spots to regions where Fae thrive, they like to emerge here and survive on background arcana.
Their appearance and growth seems affected by the type of magic it interacts with. More volatile powers make it reactive and hostile, while others may cause hallucinatory effects with their fruits. This makes the tree strong to adapt, if not unpredictable to some extent.
Additional Information
Uses, Products & Exploitation
The plant plays a crucial role in the creation of magic tools, both medical and practical.
Its leaves can form the basis for several medicines and enhancers to magical prowess, acting like a drug. When taken, it allows casters to tap into greater forms of magic for brief periods, even if overdosing is a known danger. Hence why dosages get made in small sizes.
People use the tree most for its wood, known as Witch Wood. Its ability to transfer magic makes it great at conducting spells, with it being used to make wands and staves for mages.
When burned, it also can expel wild spells into its surroundings, which Witchsticks utilise to create emergency spells. Something helpful for non-casters while travelling.
Geographic Origin and Distribution
Coven Trees seem to emerge in long-term Aetheryical Hot-Spots or other areas where magic is common. They can appear across the globe, making them rather well known.
It is also possible that other tree species can mutate into Coven Trees. Through immense exposure to magic, they take on the traits, resulting in any magic-touched forest having a few of them pop up. How they exactly cause this is debatable.
Civilization and Culture
Common Myths and Legends
The Death of Witches
The origins of its name come from its ties with Witches. During the old days, many believed unnamed mages dying in the woods would become a Coven Tree, as their wands or staffs consume them to sprout branches. From their remains, one of these trees would grow.
Many believed that when an old witch dies, its body provides the wands and staffs for new ones. Most assume this to come from the traditions of witches using the Coven Tree for their tools, twisted by centuries of tales and propaganda spewed by local powers.
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