Baba_Yaga
Name:Baba Yaga, Mother of All Witches
There are few in the entirety of the multiverse that have not at least heard of the crone that is the source of all witchcraft, a hideous and bent old woman full of malevolence and dark magic that has brought ruin to almost all that she has met. Little do most people realize that the old stories are true...but few would make the connection between the wizened witch of the stories and the beautiful creature that is the reality. Many, many years ago a young woman delved into the forbidden mysteries of magic and stumbled upon a ritual best left forgotten, one that froze her in the prime of her youth and granted her incredible abilities to manipulate forces beyond the ken of normal people. Thus she became a constant...a source of legends and myths that has grown beyond the reality and is overshadowed by it at the same time, the fear of the Baba Yaga is strong but few know the witch as she is and thus do not know why they should be afraid. Fewer still realize that some young women, plagued by visions and symbology and lead towards a path of magic...have been visited by Baba Yaga, the Mother of All Witches who shows a particular interest in girls that she knows has 'the gift'. She rears them from the shadows, guiding them along the path she knows they will take...then when the time is ripe, she takes these 'daughters' into herself. The stories vary on what happens to these chosen ones then, but in general the consensus is their fates are absorbed into Baba's own to strengthen the witch's 'existence' as a Fated being. A constant that is a contradiction of terms...mortal, but indestructible. The ravages of old age or violence will never be the end of Baba Yaga, but they will destroy her body and force the witch to meticulously rebuild herself from what remains so long as she has an abundance of flesh and youth stored to do so. Some of the myths have it right, Baba Yaga finds tender young things...and devours them, taking their youth and 'fates' for her own. By now she has attained the fates and youth of millions of people, becoming something greater then a person but lacking all the qualities that make mortals so grand. Her existence depends on her feedings, if Baba Yaga was to go too long without one of her special meals...she would disappear. How long this would take and what would happen to the legendary witch is unknown, partially because she takes such a pointed effort to keep it from ever being an issue. No one is truly safe around the Baba Yaga, she's taken to flights of whimsy and is incredibly capricious...but those with the most to fear from her are young women...and young, in this case, is an incredibly broad category.
Whats more is that those who would seem to have the least to fear from Baba Yaga, other powerful witches or sorceresses, in fact have the very most to fear though it's a closely kept secret why. Vindictive and prone to cursing others, Baba Yaga has actually cooled off from her hot-blooded youth and no longer seeks to shape the world to fit her designs instead taking a far more passive role in how the future is shaped. While she does venture out from her chicken-legged hut, it is for mostly mundane acts such as gathering supplies or meeting with people for one reason or another; nor is she as stingy about being visited as she used to be, welcoming guests into her home even if there isn't so great a chance to get back out without losing something in the process. She's still very fond of giving people humorous (to her) curses or hexes just to see how they will cope with what she's done to them. She's also a bit of a hedonist as well, enjoying the simple acts in life now that she no longer needs to claw and scratch her way for power and safety. Having that kind of security does wonders for mellowing a woman out!
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