------------- The Coven of the Menea

As the full moon wanes and the new moon comes, the forces that affect nature change. That can be seen literally and figuratively in many things. Now that the full moon has set on the Coven of Fenris, the Coven of the Menea comes into ascendance with the waxing crescent.

Born as the first coven, given mighty powers and focused desires by their Goddess, Hecate, they were named after the moons, the old names of the moons,… Menea and Medea. When the great Witch Mother, Mantari, was defeated and cast from the parapets of Castle Dragomyr into the chasm below, her life energy fed into a powerful Death Curse that bedeviled the kingdom of Carellon for a century to come. The small moon, Menea, which her coven worshipped as the messenger of Hecate, was renamed in her honor,… or rather, dishonor.

The Coven of the Menea was involved in many things in ages past. They sponsored the rise of the Hellspawn, Keido. They were responsible for creating the items that were used by the Gods to create the Unholy Trinity, the Deathstalker Triset; the Sword of Ares, called Carnage, the Ring of Orcus, called Death, and the Amulet of Hades, called Gloom. They tricked Keido and brought about his downfall. They destroyed the royal bloodline of the Guardsbane family. They introduced various UnderDark drugs to the kingdom of Carellon and thus lessened the kingdom’s resolve to seek out and hunt them down. And they fed the secrets of Witchcraft to others, before any of the other covens had been forged.

Perhaps there was something in their early dealings that tainted their magic. Perhaps it was in Mantari’s death curse that the taint was planted. Perhaps it had been the will of the Gods all along that no mortal should possess such power and be beholding to no God for its use. But Witchcraft carries with it a terrible curse, the curse of corruption. As though they were practitioners of Corrupt magic, without its benefits, they bring corruption wherever they go. Milk sours overnight, meat rots, vermin infest everything, animals lather in their stalls. All this, yet the witch herself remains strangely untouched by her own corruption. To avoid this effect, a Witch must stay within Purified ground and the prayers to maintain that protection renewed daily. Otherwise, it is easy to tell that a witch is amongst the people, but finding who she is, is another matter entirely. And though some covens have become goodly and righteous, the taint remains. There’s no easy way to tell the good witches from the bad ones, and thus witchcraft remains outlawed in a world where wizards and sorcerers are common citizens and mundane magic is everywhere.

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