Witch-Touched
A collection of countless stories, bound together by their shared moral and purpose. Late during the Second Age, the Coalition begun spreading rumors about Vita-Touched, and especially the Grand Order of the Magai. At first they were minor things, but over time they escalated, every story built on and amplified by every person who repeated the story, escalating into obscenity.
The first stories focused primarily on the Magai, painting them in a negative light. As public perception of them began going down, and people became more perceptive to the negativity, the stories became worse, and worse, until they actively demonized not just Magai, but all Vita-Touched. They were key to the fall of the Grand Order of the Magai at the end of the Second Age, and the subsequent take-over by the Coalition.
Summary
Many different stories exist, and countless more variations based on those stories. They all tie into the same pattern, however, hence them being grouped together under the same shared title. Every story describes at least one Vita-Touched in a negative light, calling them witch-touched instead, or outright witches. They are demonized over their powers, called inhuman and monstrous and many more things.
Spread
Stories about the evil witches powered by an unseen power were spread far and wide across the galaxy, sped along by the Coalition. The first rumors were designed to be enticing, to be shared easily and without abandon, and subsequent stories followed the paths those rumors had paved.
During the Third Age, when the Coalition had taken over, the stories were everywhere. It was, quite frankly, more difficult not to hear stories about witches and witch-touched than it was to hear some. Everyone knew them... but they begun losing their power.
In the Fourth Age the stories were still known, but no longer believed. They were kept and preserved for the sake of remembering the history that had shaped their world, but they had lost their power. No one spread them anymore, but kept them safe and locked away, accessible but not shared openly.
Variations & Mutation
A collection of similar stories by nature, there are many variations of the witch-touched myths. In fact, the natural evolution of stories as they were told was something the Coalition encouraged when they started the rumors, built to captivate and lead people to add their own thoughts and speculation. They wanted people to skew the stories, the amplify the fear of the Vita-Touched as they were described in the stories.
Cultural Reception
The first rumors were insidious, designed to captivate, to draw attention and pull on the listener's imagination. It inspired them to think not just about whether it was real or not, but if they could afford not to spread it if it was. Among the general populace, it was powerful, spreading quickly and turning the public's view on Vita-Touched, and doing so for decades. It didn't lose power until the Third Age, and even then it went slowly, as people begun interacting with Vita-Touched and saw that... the stories of witches weren't true at all.
Among Vita-Touched, the stories are despised and hated, but also feared. These were a key part of why people turned against them, but... didn't it show how disconnected they really were from society, that no one had noticed the spread of these stories until it was too late?
Date of First Recording
Late Second Age
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