A Crone's Oaths

There is only one killer in this world that rivals man in cruelty, and that is the Crone. A dark and extremely powerful fae-spirit borne of the realm of Secrets, a Crone is a wicked predator that feasts on ruined hope and despair, and consumes the flesh of its tortured victims. They are a deadly breed of curse-giver, whose curses are said to be fatal, and unbreakable.

Crones predate the weak and desperate by vowing to help them with their powerful magic, taking advantage of their distress and manipulating their trust. They craft intricate disguises of friendly faces, often posing as witches capable of taboo miracles, or wise sages, or sometimes even as priests offering salvation. Their glamours are as perfectly convincing as their lies, undetectable by mortal eyes and even extremely strong magic. Their true forms are inhuman, great looming monsters with heads like vultures, sharp, needle-like teeth, and three piercing white eyes. Sometimes they build their nest in one place and lie in wait for sufferers of great misfortune to come to them seeking miracles, and sometimes they will hunt, appearing to the tragic and wretched in their darkest hour offering aid.

It doesn’t matter how dire their prey’s troubles are or their nature. Whether it’s curing a deadly disease, or saving one’s ailing mother, or returning a lost loved one back to life, or bestowing a poor family with riches, or making one’s unrequited love become so, or ensuring a struggling woman will successfully have a child, the Crone will promise it. Their wishes could be frivolous or impossible, the Crone will swear to grant them.

Crones are tricksters by nature. They are bound to fulfill their promises, but will only ever do so dishonestly.

The Crone will tell you what it will do for you, that it will stop your disease, return your mother’s mind to her, bring your dead loved one back, turn your farmstead into a castle, make the one you love fall for you, guarantee you will bear a child. It will tell you what the price of your miracle will be, and it will be severe, but you will be willing to pay it. Then the Crone will ask if you will accept the cost, and you will say yes, but what you wouldn’t have known is that the true cost is not the same as the price, and the Crone will put a curse in you.

The deception might last long enough for the victim to believe it truly worked, or might end the second their fate is sealed. The Crone will have done what it said it would, but with a cruel twist, and it would not be what you really wanted, and you would be left to live with the consequences, and with the curse.

Most victims of Crones don’t even realize the truth of their curse, or even what it really was that tricked them. Crone curses are unique in that they manifest physically within the body of the bearer, in the form of an egg.

The shell of the egg is softer than a bird’s but stronger than a snake’s, very dense, and dark green in colour. It grows within the victim like a tumor, embedded deep amongst their innards, slowly absorbing their life energy for several years until the victim eventually dies. When they do, the egg hatches, and a newborn Crone erupts from the corpse. Once the newborn eats the corpse it is ready to go out into the world, never having met its progenitor and never will, needing not to be raised, needing not to be taught to know how to hunt.

That is how the life cycle of the Crone begins. No one knows what happens when one dies, because no one has ever killed one before.

Siromsja held the round mass up to the lamplight, revealing a curled shadow within. “In order to use their powers, Crones must follow certain rules. That’s why they play tricks, so they can get their way around the rules,” she said in her typical matter-of-fact manner, which paired strangely with the blood covering her hands completely to her writsts and running in rivulets down her arms. “‘The egg cannot be removed through surgery’... well, no one would call this surgery. To best a Crone, you have to use tricks, too.”