Witch World: Text

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The idea that the Witch World is a shared reality - only really existing when those who believe in it gather to continue it; i.e. "The Dream" of the SCA. To say that the Witch World is also a place, a sanctuary, for magical creatures and arcane things is an extension of that metaphor.

Also, with the Witch World, the portal - the means by which one accesses this place would be a semi-difficult process. Pennsic is just a campground until the other 10,000 ritual participants show up to open the portal. So, opening the portal to the Witch World is a lot more difficult than closing it. Mundania's bane is a lot stronger than the will of a few people trying to "go" somewhere.

In the "War on Terror" genre of the Witch World story, you could say that small groups of people would create the equivalent of a node to "anchor" their corner of the Witch World. Similar to the game of people grabbing the edges of a parachute and flipping it up and catching air under it like a bubble, you would need several "anchor points" to hold the edge of the "balloon" that is the shared dream of the Witch World.

The nodes would be small places, hidden from view since their discovery would get people arrested, with small items or paintings or something that would help the group channel themselves together as an anchor. Routinely, say on the new moon, all of the nodes could "go active" to inflate the balloon again.

Those nodes who had the strength to push a lot of energy into the balloon could also see into the space created, perhaps across it to other windows of nodes. Messages can be sent, etc., perhaps as an owl or something.

Some places within the Witch World would be like an island, built near a node. The process would be slow - like pouring a bucket of sand at the edge of a stream - but with time the "land" could be build firm and strong.

A great deal of the void of the Witch World would be equivalent of water - a vast sea of stormy waters. As the "balloon" deflates, the waters go grey and terrible but each moon it is calmed and the sun is bright and the islands grow strong.

It would be near impossible for each node to construct their own island, grow plants and food on it and release magical creatures to its sanctuary let alone create a home for its people. So most nodes would work in concert with each other to build upon a common ground.

The creation of the nodes, the building of islands and their connection to other islands would take quite a while. For it to have any affect within the story, they would have to be started a decade or so before Demeter was released. To know that it was needed and how to create it, you could say that an oracle from within the Witch World reached back in our time to start things moving along.

Perhaps one of the first islands within the void was Avalon, sealed there centuries ago to protect it and begin the next phase of its function.

As the center of the balloon would be the location with the most energy - to hold up the canopy - Avalon was put there to act as a "support", a backup in case the nodes failed from time to time. Meetings of the nodes could happen on Avalon's shores. The ??? would be hard to get far one place but the dragon boats from Avalon could come and get their emissaries. They could also move people via Avalon from one "short" to another - crossing the world by boat or dragon or cloud.

So, the reason that people haven't just ran away into the Witch World at the first sign of trouble is that there's no where to go; Avalon isn't THAT big. The oracle - perhaps a lady of "the lake" - was able to punch through the canopy to the "far shores" (the mundane world" and influence the covens and the solos to start creating the nodes.

The nodes have to pour energy from the far shores into the Witch World to keep the canopy full, to keep the seas calm, and to build their own island. By now, some of the first nodes would have forests and small creatures on them. Dragons would dwell within or below Avalon – it’s the only place large enough to hold one.

There is another idea - for the sea - that it wasn't always a flooded empty expanse. If Avalon was "pulled" into the Witch World so long ago, it's possible that other areas were as well.

Over the years the lands slipped back beneath the waves and only the faintest edge of the short was left by the time the nodes were created. The dragon boats of Avalon originally able to cross the rivers and such were too small to cross to the lands of the other shores as the waters rose and took more and more of that which had been saved.

Like the great flood, only the tallest areas would survive for long and some creatures fought to claim it as their own. Dragons took to the waters and griffins to the tall mountains. Those places high enough to survive the flood were lost to Avalon and the small boats could not search the void for long without tempting the dragons below.

The Witch World, now, can be just as dangerous as the far shores. So many things are forgotten that many think that there will not be enough time to rebuild the land before the world slips into the grip of chaos.