Zawmancy, also called exploding witchcraft, was a dangerous arcane path exclusive to females of the human race. It fostered vigilante lifestyles and was wielded by members of the Coven of Fire.
Nature
Zawmar archons only naturally appeared around the uncommon magical apparitions referred to as Zawm which carried them into Legere’s plane of existence. These Zawm were undetectable to normal senses, and spontaneously blipped in and out of existence. Though not composed of archons itself, the Zawm held a large amount of them inside its otherworldly body.
A Zawm would typically appear near a sapient being committing evil actions, whom they sought out and performed an action upon that looked as if they were binding themselves inside of them. During this time, the Zawm increased the quantity of Zawmar archons within its body, though this process didn’t seem to affect the evil-doer in any way. Scholars postulated that they fed off the negative emotions of minds somehow, but they were largely not understood. If the being it resided in was killed, the Zawm would also perish, leaving behind an inanimate body that naturally persisted for only a couple of minutes before vanishing out of existence. This was the only known way to kill a Zawm.
The Zawmantic Runaway Theory
Witch rash received its name because of its connection to Zawmancy and the similarity of the disease’s terminal explosions to those created by members of the Coven of Fire. Many incorrectly assumed that witch rash was first incepted as a malevolent curse by the Exploding Witch long ago. The Arcane Hand cleared up this misconception for the most part, but witch rash’s name remained.
Link to originalIt was more likely that witch rash was simply an anomalous arcane reaction that was caused when two zawms manifested in the same spot in space at the same time. The Arcane Hand refers to this concept as the Zawmantic Runaway theory.
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Cultivation
There was only one group of individuals who could practice using zawmar, so the story of its cultivation was heavily linked to them. If someone had cast magic with zawmar, they were an Exploding Witch.
Exploding Witches
The Exploding Witches were a fabled faction of mages either found hiding in the underbelly of many cities or in obscure remote areas. These mages practiced a special kind of magic that could only be harnessed by human females, who must have had a special magical ritual performed on them before they fully matured. Exploding Witches often only lingered in places individually or in very small groups, although there was a council that oversaw the creation of new Exploding Witches and organized them called Coven of Fire.
Exploding Witches kept themselves very covert and off-the-grid because of the nature of their activities. In order to increase their power, they had to hunt Zawm. In order to kill the Zawm, they had to kill the host. Then they could drag the Zawm’s corpse back to assimilate it into their body to become more powerful. Because of this, Exploding Witches kept their head down and stuck to anonymity as best as possible. They were often found as fugitives with bounties on their heads, and people widely feared them. Some saw them as heroic vigilantes, others as crazy villains. Both were true, as since the clan was largely amoral, each witch decided how she wanted to carry out her own activities.
Due to the usual circumstances of their recruitment and the nature of the actions they must commit in order to pursue power, it was not uncommon to find Exploding Witches with violent or psychopathic tendencies. Particularly ambitious exploding witches may have chosen to pursue the path of Venomancy.
The dark magic known as venomancy was wielded by megalomaniacal exploding witches who sought to accelerate their growth by attracting zawm to themselves. The result led to an arcane path that granted its user incredible power, but left swathes of collateral casualties in its wake.
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Powers
Exploding Witches harnessed two kinds of magic. Their main source of power was actually a form of arcane body strengthening, where they were able to greatly enhance their strength and speed to the point where they could leap large distances in the air, dodge an arrow on reaction, and throw around large boulders. This also made them hardy: able to take a significant beating and still keep standing on their feet. This power was permanently active in an exploding witch, and increased in strength the more powerful she got.
Their second source of power was the ability to create their namesake: explosions. An Exploding Witch had to use this power sparingly, but when she deemed it necessary she could blast an explosion out from any part of her body. Most Exploding witches preferred to use this move when finishing off a Zawm-infested opponent at close range. Interestingly enough, each witch would awaken with different colours of explosion. The known colours that witches had awakened with were: scarlet red, orange, bumblebee yellow, emerald green, cyan, sapphire blue, violet, and a light pink. An Exploding Witch could only use this power a certain amount per day before she got too exhausted to create more. The power of their explosions and capacity for them increased the more powerful they got.
Any Exploding Witch worth her salt would know how to mix Zawm with other arcane and mundane ingredients in order to create the special potions:
- The primary potion used made use of an entire Zawm carcass and granted them a small but permanent boost in power, affecting both their strength and their capacity for explosions.
- Witches could utilize the lower torso of dead Zawm to create a potion that would restore their exploding powers should they become depleted over the course of a fight.
Culture
The staggering amount of power had created many a tale and rumour passing through Legere’s roads of mouths to spread their fear. Some may have frightened their children into complying obediently through tales of how an Exploding Witch might snatch them away in the act of doing something bad, then cook them up and eat them. Kingdoms didn’t necessarily chase witches out on sight as most of the time it wasn’t worth the hassle, but should they surface while hunting important figures, they would be quick to launch an attack. A witch who stuck to the shadows and hunted criminals could even be seen more as a boon than a threat, though trying to form relations with one was near impossible. As a result, this fed into the covert nature of witches. Most of the time, no one noticed they were even there.
The clothes of an Exploding Witch were steeped in culture. Each Exploding Witch customarily wore something that held the colour of their explosions, though some may have chosen to dye their hair or wear body paint instead. However much of their colour they wore was up to the witch, but other than that the witch wore black to blend into the dark of cities. Every Exploding Witch wore a black mask around the lower half of their face with a decal painted over its surface, usually in the icon of some sort of mouth in order to preserve anonymity and instill fear.