Ice Witch
The Ice Witches are women of great magical power and one of the most famed and feared political groups in Kislev. [1a]
They are physically and spiritually linked to the seasons, growing weaker in the summer and stronger in the winter and being able to command the very elements and bring to bear the might of the land in defence of their great nation. [1a]
Contents
History
According to the Ice Witches themselves, long ago a great spirit — called variously The Ancient Widow, Kislev, or simply The Land— whispered to a Gospodar shaman-priestess. It promised great power if she seized a distant, frozen realm where the spirit was trapped by the Daemon Gods of Chaos. Desperate to aid her people, the shaman agreed and was granted the power of winter in return. She quickly mastered her new powers and used them to bind the disparate clans into a single people, naming herself herself the first Khan-Queen. [1b]
She then led her people in search of the Ancient Widow’s land and after generations of bloodshed on the Endless Steppe, a descendant of the first Khan-Queen led the Gospodars across the Worlds Edge Mountains. There she found a vast snow-covered plain pulsing with icy power. Once there, she immediately collapsed to the ground and wept frozen tears, for she knew her search had finally ended. By this time, there were many women wielding the Khan-Queen’s Ice Magic.[1b]
Tzarina Katarin is their most famous and powerful member and some say she is a reincarnation of Miska the Slaughterer, the first ice witch and Tzarina of the early Gospodars. Katarin, in turn, favours the ice witches, granting them legal privileges similar to those possessed by the nobility. [1a]
Sisterhood
The ice witches of Kislev are an organised sisterhood who work together to achieve shared goals. They were formed more than a thousand years ago by the Khan-Queens and have manoeuvred their way into influencing almost all matters in Kislev. They seek to ensure that nothing is beyond their reach and they ruthlessly suppress competing philosophies and magic, promoting instead those sympathetic to them. [1b]
Even the religious cults of the nation are carefully monitored, having been guided through the centuries and the Sisterhood is keen to ensure no Kislevite religion ever gains the same all-encompassing power seen in other Old World nations such as the Empire. [1b]
The ice witches guard the icy magic that courses through Kislev and although most Kislevites believe the ice witches’ first duty is to protect Kislev, they are wrong. However to most ice witches, defending Kislev is simply a means to that end. [1b]
Status
They have very little to do with the common people of Kislev, remaining aloof and studying their Ice Magic. [1a]
Quotes
| Now many centuries later, those who practise the old, cold magics of the legendary Khan-Queens are known as Ice Witches, and our power has not been diminished by time.
~ Militsa Lushadoch, Ice Witch.[1b] |
See Also
Sources
