Witch

While even the oldest texts in Urnketh mention the existence of the Witches, until the Age of War, they were quite a rarity, to the point many stories assumed that only one of them could exist at the same time. But as the technology using Colors was developed more and more, and, during the Age of War, it was finally used in warfare, spreading the Colors everywhere, and Oversaturating more and more lands, turning them into uninhabitable wastelands, the appearance of the Witches became a way more common.

Witch titles

Cause what is a Witch without their title?

It is rare for a Witch to be known only by their name or be called just a "Witch" for too long. Many of them quickly receive a title or multiple that correlates to one of many things:

• Colors - the Witch who mostly uses one kind of Color in their magic, wears the clothes with one dominant Color, or has said Color dominant present on the big part of their body quickly will receive a title related to it. Examples: Maroon Witch, Purple Witch, Lilac Witch
• Ranks and titles - a Witch known for other rank or title they possess. Examples: Witch-Commander, Goddess-Witch
• Location - if a Witch is known to reside in one place, own it, or protect it, their title might reflect that. Examples: Witch of Lerver Woods, Witch of Zetalph, Deep-Sea Witch
• Achievements and skills - the titles that require the Witch to accomplish something first or be known for some of their abilities. Examples: Bartering Witch, Witch of Words, Witch of Wealth, Witch of Weaponry

Anatomy of Witches

It's not that they are embodiment of Colors, despite what some cults might say, they are closer to being endless wells of them.

One of the most important differences between Witches and normal people are the Color Nests. What normally would be a location where one's Colors are stored, doesn't exist for Witches. They could be born without them or they could burst the moment they became a Witch, a fate that would be deadly for a normal person. So instead of being enclosed within specific body parts, the Colors flow freely within Witches, mixing, shifting, and separating all the time. For people capable of seeing Colors, that is quite a mesmerizing sight. Additionally, it is said that Witches bleed Colors. While not entirely true, their blood is so saturated with Colors, that when it is spilled, it still keeps changing for quite some time.

Colors inside Witch's body by Revyera

Aging - Once someone becomes a Witch, all of their aging processes stop at that point. Instead, Witches can use spells to change their bodies to the age they desire more, retrieving their youth, or getting older.
Eating and sleeping - the Witches still need to eat and sleep normally, though when it comes to eating, they don't need to fear the foods saturated with Colors, opening up the new, Witches' cuisine as an option for them. However, any non-Color based poisons still work on them normally.
Conception and pregnancy - it is quite rare for a Witch to impregnate or be impregnated by someone else without their desire to do so. Normally, the amounts of Colors within their bodies work as quite powerful contraceptives. There are also some dangers coming with the pregnancy and the Witches that comes from the fact that most of the children of the Witches won't be ones (as it is not transferred genetically) but some might. If a Witch is the one pregnant, unless a child is also a Witch, the amounts of Colors within their body might be very dangerous to a child. And so, if a Witch wants to keep them, they need to create an area within their body that always has all the Colors balanced out like they would be for a normal person. On the other hand, if a Witch is the one who did the impregnating, should their child be a Witch too, and the mother isn't one, the amounts of Colors generated by the baby could instantly oversaturate them, should no protective spells be cast on them. In any other case, there will be no problems.

How does one become a Witch

There is no way to become a Witch by choice, every transformation happened to seemingly random people at various stages of life. Some were born as Witches, some could become them even a few days before their normal life would end. Despite what one might assume from the name, not only women can become Witches, for example, one of most famous male Witches was Witch-Commander. Only beings that are sapient can become Witches, and there were some of them appearing within the species that are more unusual than the most common 5 sapient races.

Witches of various species

While there is no defining appearance or personality trait common among all Witches, individuals of some species might show their condition in some ways more common to that specific species.

Beteclaw

Claws, teeth, and magic

The most common species for the Witches, mostly due to their sheer numbers in Urnketh, the Beteclaw Witches vary a lot in appearance. However, should one tend to use one Color or mixture of Colors over any other, their fur, fur patterns, and mane might start taking on the same hue. While hiding it by using Blue magic or using other spells that will balance out the ones cast previously and return the fur to normal is possible, some beteclaws want to show off their uniqueness by mixing and matching the Colors used to achieve the most eye-catching, eye-hurting, or pleasant combinations.
Beteclaw Witches tend to feel all the emotions stronger than before their transformation, often going from one extreme to another, though it isn't a case for all of them. Their magic is similar to their changed personalities, often being very explosive, sudden, and hard to predict.

Human

Quite the sneaky ones

Though Humans, thanks to their thin skin, are more susceptible to the effects of Colors, the bodies of human Witches don't express their influence as much as beteclaws. Compared to them, only the hair, and eye color of a human Witch tends to change. What is interesting, is that both of those things change independently of each other and at different rates, so it is quite rare to see a human Witch with the Color of their eyes the same as their hair unless they exclusively use the same Color magic every single time.
When it comes to the personalities of human Witches, they tend to "want" and "desire" more strongly. While all the Witches at some point awake the desire for power, the humans seem to be the ones that start working on their desires the quickest, using their newfound powers. The magic of human Witches tends to differ the least from normal casting. With their bodies also not being changed too much, they tend to be the ones for whom it is the easiest to pretend to not be Witches, should such a need arise.

Rockwing

A dam that holds the sea

On the other side of the scale, Rockwings are known for their hard, stone-like shells and carapaces. Thanks to their natural resistance to the effects of Colors, it takes many years of Color usage for a rockwing Witch to show any of its influence. When it actually does show up, a slight colorful glow starts to show up in the grooves of their shells. Another common change are the patterns related to each of the Colors that might start to show up all over their body, that at first look only as a discoloration, but gain on the intensity over the years. When using many different spells that are mixes of different Colors, that don't balance each other out, different patterns might show up at the same time, creating pretty complex markings.
There is absolutely no difference in the personality of a normal rockwing and a Witch of their species. at least in the first many years after becoming one. It is said, that over the years, they tend to start becoming more and more eccentric, but that as well could be a case for normal rockwings that live for long enough. When it comes to their magic, the "straw that broke camel's back" is the best way to describe their spells. Subtle at first, their spells quickly gain in power over time. If one decides to challenge their power, they will soon experience an enormous wave of Color coming their way.

Smeltspark

Energy given form

Smeltspark Witches are the ones that go through the second biggest change to their appearance and their personality. Appearance-wise, their armor immediately manifests multi-colored, chromatic sheen to it that shifts in hue depending on the angle one looks from. This sheen tends to stay no matter what, unless suppressed by spells. On the other hand, using spells of specific Colors tends to change the main color of their armor, becoming a metallic variant of said hue. Additionally, while their eyes and some sparks showing up in the gaps of their armor used to reflect the Color that was used in their creation, one that filled their vessels, their cores, once a smeltsparks transforms, said Color starts to constantly change.
Thanks to now endless source of power within them, smeltspark Witches tend to be way more hyper and energetic than they were before. It feels like they constantly need to do something or they will burst. Additionally, thanks to said source of power, smeltspark Witches cannot die of old age or by their metal breaking down normally. Instead, it is way easier for them to overexert their bodies, quite literally ripping themselves apart.

Huerustler

Living cataclysms

The rarest of Witches, Huerustlers gain a lot by becoming ones and risk even more. While a normal huerustler lives only about 30 years thanks to the Colors constantly spilling out of their bodies and with only option to recharge them is to either consume Pigments or by returning to Oversaturated areas to "recharge", the huerustler Witches no longer have that need, becoming endless suppliers of Colors for themselves. However, it is rare for any of them to even reach what would be a normal lifespan for their species.
Normally, huerustlers don't have Color nests, and all of the Colors fill their cytoplasm-like body, flowing within it, but not mixing. When a huerustler becomes a Witch, those Colors start to mix, shift, pulsate or gradually change, quickly, almost stroboscope-like or so slow, it is hard to even notice. The distinct borders between each Color disappear.
Huerustlers go through a pretty interesting change when it comes to their personalities. Normally, when "growing up", huerustler will try to mimic the first person they meet. Once they lose contact with said person, they find someone else. And so, when they grow up, they can be a mixture of many individuals or someone really similar to another person. However, once a huerustler becomes a Witch, either before or after "growing up", they suddenly gain a new, distinct personality. They become a completely new person, with all the previous memories being kept as they were. When using magic, they don't seem to care about how they affect the world around them, often creating Oversaturation wherever they go. Because of that, other Witches tend to heavily protect their territories from them, and might even hunt down huerustler Witch, to protect what belongs to them.

Desire for power

While at first it might not show up, all of the Witches start to feel a desire to for power and to control. Once they start to feel it, many of them will try to gain as much influence as they can as quickly as possible by any means necessary. And thanks to their many powers, they can back those desires with many skills at their disposal. This is why so many of them are at the seats of power, reach the status of nobility, gather treasures or people serving under them. The younger Witches, either by age of the time since their transformation might not even realize they have already started doing that. Such a young Witch might start by gathering friends around them, or striving for an ambitious goal will all their might, but once the first brake is released, that drive will only accelerate.

Reception of Witches

A lot of cultures perceive Witches in many different ways. Thanks to their skills and powers, they manage to easily get into positions of power, earning respect or even worship of other people. Some places might consider them living gods, others see them as just really powerful people. There are also the cultures that see them in more negative light, though the smarter ones manage to hide that the more antagonistic attitudes towards them, especially since attacking or even killing a Witch would bring the repercussions not only to them, but to everyone around too. The ones who fail that and openly show their hostility towards the Witches either end up dead, under their control after witnessing their true strength, or bring the cataclysms to the worlds by becoming Witchkillers.

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Studying the Witch transformation

Many of the most brilliant minds, either working with School of Theoretical and Practical Application of Colors or independently tried to find some reasoning for the Witch transformations. Was it caused by some specific trait, stressful situation, a cast spell, exposure to saturated Colors, bloodline, the exact cause is still unknown. While many of the mentioned factors could be present for many of the Witches, the sample of the ones that share the exact same origin factors is always too small to come to any conclusions and there are some Witches that came to be without any factor that was considered before.

Witches and oversaturation

Witches, as one of the very few beings of Urnketh, have the ability to balance out the Colors of oversaturated lands and bring them back to normal, getting rid of any corruption, though healing oversaturated beings seems to be out of their reach. According to what they say, however, this process is both extremely complex and extremely draining and so they need a lot of preparations, some even taking years to clear up any bigger corrupted areas.

by Revyera

Killing a Witch

Is the price even worth it?

Death of a Witch is always a very dangerous thing. Since their bodies are filled with unimaginable amounts of Colors, when they die, said Colors have to go somewhere. In most cases they will seep out of their bodies, corrupting the land and living creatures with oversaturation. In case of natural death, this process will last many years, but ot can be negated, by enclosing the corpse of a Witch inside a special coffin or tomb or giving it to another Witch to neutralize, a procedure after which a Witch's body will be no different from any other corpse.
However, if a Witch suffers from a sudden, violent death, all of those Colors will burst in a gigantic explosion, immediately corrupting everything in the surrounding area. Additionally, if there was a killer of a Witch, all of those spilled Colors will first go through their body, warping and changing them, transforming them into a Witchkiller Beast, haunting the area oversaturated because of their act until a Gray shows up and puts them out of their misery.

by Revyera

Witches and casting spells

Being completely filled with Colors, it is no wonder that compared to normal casters, Witches are in the league of their own. Firstly, they don't need to draw the Colors from any other sources and when they draw them from their own bodies, there is never any risk of damaging themselves. Furthermore, while normal casters have a limited pool of Colors they can use, the so-called palette. People lucky enough can use all of them, but most of the casters are restricted to at most 3. At the same time, most casters can only weave 1 Color into their spells at the same time, maybe two, with only few extraordinary individuals reaching the maximum of 4. The Witches don't have any of those restrictions. If they wanted, they could create spells that use all of the Colors at the same time, though magic like that would require quite an imagination to come up with and a focus to cast, even for them.

Witch-Commander's spell by Revyera

Covens

Three are better than one

While most of the Witches work alone, sometimes they decide to create a Coven, a form of a contract between a few of them (mostly Covens consist of 3 Witches, but any other numbers or even covens of covens are possible). The Covens serve many different functions. During combat, the Witches of the Coven protect the blind spots of their comrades, both literal ones and the ones creating by using mostly one kind of magic. In that case, the Witches that come into this pact tend to prefer different Colors whenever they cast. Outside of combat, a Coven might help split the territories of the Witches on equal conditions, it may ensure loyalty to each other, it assures there will be help from other members of a Coven should need arise.

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Abandoned task

You want to know why there's so many Witches? They abandoned what they were supposed to do. All of the Witches have capability to heal the world from the Oversaturation. But they don't want that. They want to keep their powers they want to divide and conquer. The only ones safe from Oversaturation. The only ones who can spread it more. Even if one of them decides to do some good, the other ones will get them back in line like one big crab bucket. Or they will do to them what they did to the Deep-Sea Witch.