SKILLS
Alchemy - Competent Level
Brewing potions is one of a witch's signature abilities. By combining various reagents, herbs, and other ingredients according to mystic recipes and using magical practices, witches are able to produce magic in a bottle, salve, or other such preparations. A major strength of potions is allowing a complex effect to be prepared ahead of time, then rendered portable for quick enactment at the time of need. This means that one of the great strengths of a witch is being able to brew up magic in advance, removing any need for casting or incantations when they are put to use.
Athletics - Competent Level
Wilder is in tune with his physical presence and keeps himself very fit through a variety of activities.
Carving - Expert Level
Wilder is very skilled in taking wood and crafting from it by carving shapes into or out of it. This can extend to other substances, but wood is his preferred medium.
Cooking - Competent Level
Wilder is able to cook a variety of meals. While he is most knowledgeable about food that is made from plants, he still knows how to make many dishes that incorporate materials he is not personally able to digest.
Herbs and Gardens - Expert Level
Wilder has a green thumb. Even without his magic, he is extremely talented with growing plants and letting them thrive. He can identify wild plants and knows how to utilize them in teas, tinctures, salves, and powders primarily for healing.
Music - Competent Level
One of the activities Wilder picked up while young was playing the recorder. He has since broadened his skill into other flutes like the ocarina and panpipes.
His mother taught him how to play the violin, but Wilder took more to the fiddle.
Wilder and his mother spent many nights singing traditional songs from across America. His voice remains fit for singing, which he often does while he works.
Occultism - Competent Level
The occult Craft includes herbalism, spellcraft, research, the preparation and performance of rituals, awareness of the supernatural world, and more. A practicing witch is competent and versed in all these things, understanding the properties of plants and their role in magic, knowing a variety of spells and how to use them, and certainly knows how to seek out information they don't already have. Whether based on their own knowledge or using a grimoire, they are able to recognize, analyze, and counter spells, and even come up with original spells or alter existing ones.
ABILITIES
Faerie Nature: Aziza Nature - Enhanced Level
Wilder's Faerie blood gives him a handful of minor traits from his ancestors.
- Extreme Herbivore: Wilder is able to consume and derive nutrients from any plant he can manage to ingest. He is able to eat anything from grass to the grandest of trees. Though one of the latter would likely last many, many, many meals.
- Poison Immunity: He is entirely immune to all plant-based toxins.
- Immortal: Wilder has pretty much reached the extent to which he will age. He is immune to aging effects, natural and most magical. He typically presents as a man in is early 30s, but Wilder is able to appear to be any age.
- Leafspeak: Wilder is able to speak with plants, especially trees.
- Wings: Wilder's faerie nature allows him to manifest large gossamer butterfly-like wings the same color as his eyes. Doing this requires his back to be bared or else his wings will bunch up and possible be damaged. Thinner clothing like a simple tee shirt may be weak enough for his wings to break through, but may still cause some damage to the wings in the process. These wings allow him to hover or fly.
Faerie Magic: Beast Nature - Enhanced Level
Wilder is able to sense an animal's temperament, health, mood. Animals are extremely unlikely to perceive him as a threat unless he is hostile toward them.
Wilder is able to assume the form of most forest creatures. Typically it's much easier to assume the forms of animals native to the area. He can assume forms as small as mice and as large as elk.
Power: Concilium - Basic Level
The witch is able to perform Concilium at a Basic level, which allows them to slip past the target's conscious thoughts to control their mind on a level below awareness. This may take the form of a simple compulsion, taking control of the physical body, or even slightly influencing memory or perception, usually for only a short time. Examples of this include affecting someone's reflexes, making their body take a specific action, or creating a passing false perception or memory. More advanced practitioners may have much more powerful techniques.
Power: Descensum - Basic Level
The witch is able to practice Descensum, a form of astral projection, at a Basic level. This sometimes strange power involves entering a state of physical repose, not unlike deep sleep or a coma, and decoupling the mind from the body. While so projecting, the witch experiences the world around them as though they were physically present in it. When projecting into the physical world, the witch cannot directly affect it except via magic, such as telekinesis, but the witch can still interact with spirits or other noncorporeal beings. Those with special mental awareness may perceive them, but they are effectively invisible and insubstantial to normal senses. With sufficient ritual preparation, they may even cast their consciousness into other dimensions, and some especially reckless covens have been known to use this practice to visit dangerous realms, such as hell dimensions. In realms where thought can have more physical impact, of course, such as in the Dreamlands, they may be more freely perceived by others, yet they will also not be restricted in how they physically interact with the environment around them.
Power: Divination - Basic Level
The witch is able to use Divination at a Basic level to sense the location of objects and substances, sense unobscured emotional or magical auras, sense extremely likely upcoming events in a person's future, or predict upcoming changes in the weather. The range of this ability is usually limited to a few dozen miles, such as within a large city, and the complexity of the landscape also plays a factor. The more mentally or geographically diverse the area, the more limited in scope this Divination tends to be. For minor events, forecasting tends to be limited to the next day or so, while extremely significant events might be hinted at months or even years in advance, though what exactly is revealed is not always reliable. Use of Divination tends to require a tool, even if just as simple as a mirror, dowsing rod, or pendulum. Forecasting tools, such as tarot cards, might allow more reliable fortunetelling that extends farther out, but results will vary.
Power: Elementalism - Basic Level
The witch is able to influence the elements at a Basic level, such as conjuring sufficient fire to light a candle or a kindle a fireplace, to create a breeze, to conjure less than a gallon of water, to chill or heat a small object (such as freezing a glass of water or heating a cup of tea), or move quantities of earth equivalent to that which could be moved by a shovel.
Magic: Enchanting - Enhanced Level
Wilder is able to imbue objects with magic, either temporarily or permanently. This is easiest for him with wooden objects or objects made of other plant material. This is a process that takes time and rituals, the length of which depends on the nature of the enchantment and whether it's temporary or permanent.
Faerie Magic: Forest Senses - Enhanced Level
Due to his faerie blood, Wilder has enhanced senses, especially when it comes to forested nature. He can get a general sense of the health of plants, hear creeping things as small as bugs, smell the scents of recently passed creatures. Much of this is highly diminished the more "developed" an area is. Regardless of where he is, Wilder is able to see in complete darkness and identify plants by taste.
Magic: Greencraft - Supreme Level
Wilder's brand of witchcraft is an ancient one taught to him by trees. This style of magic gives him greatly increased ability and power over plants, fungi, and other plant-like organisms.
Witchcraft, Enchanting, Divination, Elementalism, Telekinesis, and Teleportation dealing specifically with plants is upgraded to Supreme level. Herbalism and Alchemy utilizing only plants is achieved at Expert level.
Faerie Magic: Plant Form - Enhanced Level
Wilder has the ability to assume the shape of plants of roughly his mass. This doesn't need to be a single plant, he can lie down and assume the shape of a a bed of flowers, nor does it need to resemble his shape in any way, as he can shift into a young tree and stretch his mass into a skinny column with branches.
Power: Telekinesis - Basic Level
The witch is able to use Telekinesis at a Basic level, allowing them to lift objects within line of sight. They can remotely manipulate objects in much the same way a healthy adult could directly do, up to the level of sophistication equivalent to manipulating items by hand and in terms of weight equivalent to what a healthy adult could lift, usually up to about a hundred pounds.
Power: Teleportation - Basic Level
The witch is able to Teleport at a Basic level, allowing them to instantly travel up to a mile in distance if they have a good idea where they're going. For very familiar locations, they may be able to teleport up to several times farther away, but a very clear idea of the space they're teleporting to is important, as an imprecise understanding of their destination can lead to accidents -- such as, say, teleporting into a wall -- that can prove extremely dangerous, even fatal.
Power: Vitalum Vitalis - Basic Level
The witch is able to heal others at a Basic level via Vitalum Vitalis, which allows them to cure superficial or minor injuries instantly or to quicken the healing of more serious injuries to about half the time it might otherwise take to heal them. This healing also stabilizes the target and prompts healing that may not occur naturally, suppressing trauma responses and shock to the system, allowing the body to heal over time even wounds that might otherwise overwhelm it. These effects are temporary, so if the initial application of the power is not enough to heal the patient, then additional applications of Vitalum Vitalis may be necessary. Each use temporarily drains the vitality of the user, so the witch will need time to recover afterward.
Magic: Witchcraft - Enhanced Level
Born with a talent for magic, a witch can accomplish quite a variety of effects through spellcraft. These range from conjuring, enchantment, transformation, warding, or illusion to the summoning or banishment of spirits or creatures, to a variety of other effects. For thematic, role-play, and plot purposes their abilities are nearly endless so long as they have the right spell available. For practical purposes, their castings all operate at the Enhanced level in most instances. With ritual preparation these may all be expanded, but any exceptional use would have to be approved by staff.
Faerie Magic: Wood Forging - Enhanced Level
Wilder is able to utilize wood almost as if it was metal. If he carves a dagger from wood, it is as strong as if it was forged from steel. Charms made of wood are as durable as steel by default.
ADVANTAGES
Arsenal
At any given time, Wilder is likely to have a variety of basic potions (in his signature wooden 'vials'), wooden charms, and wooden blades on hand.
Greenoire
The Greenoire is Wilder's book of magical knowledge. As he was taught by trees and they gained their knowledge in a way understood only by trees, Wilder started recording his knowledge in his teens. His book has includes instructions on Greencraft and has become something of a living tome. The cover is green wood and durable as metal. The pages are tear-resistant. The book has thousands of pages, though looking at its size one wouldn't think so. Anyone who isn't supposed to be reading the tome will only read nonsensical runes of unknown origin.
Loyal
Wilder is loyal to an absolute fault. Once he's assessed someone as worthy, that assessment is very hard to break and he will do almost anything he can to support and stand by the worthy.
Power of Three
Witches are well known for the "Power of Three." That is, they are especially adept at combining their individual strengths in order to cast much more powerful, impactful magics. Some of the most powerful spells a witch can cast require a circle of others to cast, and a circle is usually formed out of triads of witches, each wielding the Power of Three. Power of Three spells can be done by any three witches, but they have to have the same focus on their goal and ideally be on the same page. Witches who are at odds with each other may even have the spell fail or go wrong. For even greater effect, various groups of three can assemble into larger circles of nine or twelve, and a circle of thirteen is particularly potent.
WEAKNESSES
Devoted
Once Wilder has deemed someone worthy of his loyalty, he will completely devote himself to the bond. He is maybe a little too sacrificial of himself for those he's accepted, willing to do almost anything for them despite his otherwise grounded and reasonable temperament.
Herbivorous
Due to the nature of his faerie ancestors, Wilder can't digest anything that is not derived from plant matter.
Iron
Like many of Faerie nature, Wilder can be bound by iron (and iron alloys, including steel). Wilder is unable to use magic or Faerie powers to remove bindings made of such materials. Iron and its alloys don't hurt him, but he is unable to use his body for magic where such bindings are applied. He can't make somatic commands for magic if his wrists are bound, he can't dance if his ankles are bound, binding his neck pretty much puts him under the command of the one who applied the binding.
Natural
Wilder's magical style is ancient and is not particularly compatible with even basic technologies. The more moving parts or advanced engineering a piece of technology has, the less likely magic related to that technology is not within Wilder's purview and his ability to cast such magic would be difficult. (A forge and bellows or a carriage is fine. A mechanical lock or compound bow is iffy. Guns, computers, and electronics are right out.)
Seasonal
Wilder is a Faerie of seasonal nature, as befits one born of the forest's blood. He tends to be more hedonistic in the spring, finding it difficult to resist seeking pleasure and new experiences. He tends toward playfulness in the summer, actively seeking fun and finding an attraction toward physical activity. In the fall he tends toward a studious and ambitious nature, pushing forward with whatever tasks he has set for himself. In the end, though, he fall to lethargy in the winter, even the most simple tasks taking great effort to push through.
