Fear of Mages

The fear of Mages is deeply ingrained into the varied cultures of the Kingdom. Indeed, a distrust of witchcraft predates even the Consolidation, laying the seeds from which the Holy Order blossomed. Though much of the once common knowledge about magery has been lost in the centuries since witches were forced underground, a strong informative base remains, based equal parts on victims' experiences and superstition.

• Possession: Making eye-contact with a witch allows him or her unfettered access to the soul; by holding their eye, victims open themselves to tainted possession. Though mages are rumored to be capable of taking control of even an unwilling host, eye-contact beckons the taint.

• Lifestealing: Mages drain the life and youth from virtuous souls and imbue them into objects, causing otherwise common items that glow or hum. A glowing or humming object has had the stolen youth of a victim imprisoned within it, and if touched the energy - twisted by the taint that bound it - taints also the unwary.

• Defects and Twins: Mages imbue their taint into their offspring. A child born with physical defects was born to a cursed mother, and he is almost certainly a mage himself. Should a child be delivered with a twin, one of the two babes is a demonic partner to the other.

• Surveillance: Even from across great distances, witches are always watching. They listen and watch for any sign of unfaithfulness and descend with greater curses when they find a weak member of the flock. Speech, action and thought are all subject to the witch's surveillance.

• Starvation: As Magery is a blight upon the soul, so it must be upon the land. In the presence of a witch milk sours, food spoils, and grains rot. Fresh meat decays in moments, spreading blight, corpserot and illnesses of the gut. One mage alone could starve a village, simply by straying too close to the fields, larders, and silos.

• Doubt: The Erra Pater never says "Figure it out." Instead, the believer is called to trust, for the Holy Order has already figured it out. Magery makes its victims question the Holy Order, question their faith, and question their Priest. The most dangerous taint a mage can manifest is the taint of doubt. When a believer experiences - worse yet, openly expresses - doubts, he is under the effects of witchery.