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IT'S DAY 3 OF WITCH WEEK! We've got five witches in the Coven of Elders, which means artwork of each witch per day for the rest of this week!
Today belongs to Hakea, Witch of the Woodland Green.
At their center is a woman bowed with age. She moves a gown of moss and bark surrounding her. This woman is ancient. An older Black woman with hair bedecked by moss and vine, a wide-brimmed hat. Her venerable eyes look forward with a pulse of green light that casts the entire world—wherever she looks, becomes verdant.
Stay tuned for tomorrow's witch!
The Coven of Elders was lovingly brought to life by artist Jack Jones. You can find him here:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jackjonesart/
Twitter/X: https://x.com/Jack_jones1996
Don’t worry. She would only kill you if she genuinely thought it was the right thing to do…
brennan lee mulligan, lou wilson, aabria iyengar and erika ishii are all making a new ttrpg podcast together??????????????
The question with The Wizard, The Witch and the Wild One was always going to be "which worldbuilding detail will I find to fixate on", not "will I find something to fixate on", and the results are in:
it's the naming conventions
In Suvi's corner of the story so far we've had Soft, Stone, Steel, Archmage Silence, and Silver ... and Suvirin.
It's a clear convention but has not yet been lampshaded by any of the cast, which is of course delicious.
Is it an Empire convention, a Citadel one, a wizardly one? I'm guessing Citadel/wizard, since people like Roselyn and Grandmother Wren are presumably Empire citizens but don't follow the convention.
But is it something adopted later in life? Because Suvi follows the initial S but otherwise breaks the convention of the name being a dictionary word. Will she be expected to pick – or be bestowed with – a dictionary S-word when she's no longer an apprentice, is that it?
And if so ... what will it be? Sand? (sort of combines Soft + Stone)
OR did Soft and Stone break convention when they named their daughter?
Spoilers and meta for The Wizard, the Witch and the Wild One ep12, Prisoner's Dilemma
There are two obvious ways to create drama from the starting point of a mentor character saying "just wait a little longer, I'm coming to fix everything":
The main characters refuse to wait and pop off without the mentor – they have to solve the problem without the mentor's help, and the mentor will be mad when they arrive! DRAMA!
The main characters dutifully wait, but the mentor never arrives – waylaid or even killed en route. The main characters have to face something that took out the mentor! DRAMA!
Which is not to say those are the only possible outcomes, but is to say that, as soon as Steel started reassuring the gang that she'd handle everything – free Naram, punish Morrow, help Ame with the curse, train Eursulon in the sword, especially help Eursulon with the sword – I got a lil jolt of The Fear. (one fear) There's no way they get the deus ex machina easy win on all those points, I thought. Something has to happen to Steel instead.
Which is also to say that Steel isn't allowed to be mad at Eursulon for popping off, because from a metanarrative standpoint he might have saved her life by doing that.
The adventures of the Wizard Sorrow & Boshi (working title): a WBN Umora OC comics collab with @yeehawpim!!!!!
Pim did the story + layout and then let me run wild (and pop in at odd hours with questions about Boshi's design) See Pim's mad composition genius + OC lore over here Sorrow lore here & here
👀 more to come perhaps 👀
Every time it was Suvi's turn to do something my brain was just full of a constant (3 hit points. She has 3 hit points)
AABRIA. AABRIA WHAT DOES THIS MEEEEEEAN
However good you think Lou Wilson is, he’s better.
Y’all are going to LOVE episode 27!
See you tomorrow!
Aabria Iyengar participating in tumblr discourse about her own character is absolutely top tier. Balance is being maintained. The world is coming full circle.
The five genders:
-eepy bitch
-mean blanket
-tits out
-lonely
-Ghibli movie
You are a witch who personifies the very idea of coldness and solitude. Your sister, who personified harmony and community and you secretly hated bc she talked too much, passes away and her successor is a young naive witch who somehow talks even more. Being a master of manipulation, you conspire with your other sisters to get rid of her. Said sisters are 1) an old lady who somehow insults everyone to their faces in a way that you can’t retaliate against and postpones the murder plot because she’s eepy, 2) a goth so committed to being a bitch twenty four seven that it affects her ability to effectively carry out said murder, and 3) a titty AND crotch-out hippie who is down for the murder but also sees it as her magical right to eat anyone who walks faster than a light jog. Every day Indri Witch of the Wind and Stars wakes up
Okay okay okay here we go
Indri as The Lonely. The steward of the solitary self both personally and magically.
Mirara as The Dark, with heavy influence from The Stranger. She is the moon, and the shadow, and the darkness, and is so magically powerful that she's become *wrong,* at least by human standards.
Hecaea as The Buried or The Corruption. Girl has a lot of moss and animal stuff going on okay-
Ame following in Grandma Wren's steps as The Web. Rather than demonstrating immense individual power, though she certainly had it, she tends to her dominion through connection. Her strengths lay not only within herself, but in the network of control and allyship she cultivated over decades. There are so many complex pieces in the puzzle of Grandma Wren, each tended to with intense care, and Ame is inheriting the power that comes with that.
Eursalon as The Stranger. Whether he's a victim or an avatar, I genuinely don't know— either way, he's surrounded by people unlike him, taking on an appearance that doesn't match his actual body in order to blend in in a place he doesn't belong.
Steel as The Slaughter. War for the sake of war, death for the furtherance of the Citadel's political power. Possibly bordering The Web, considering the mind control and manipulation.
grimore as the hunt and suvi as the eye obviously but what do we reckon the rest are? the stranger indri? oooh! or maybe even the web indri! are we feeling the dark or the end for mirara?
Okay but it's so interesting either way-
If it IS a namecloak, that means she chose to qualify her relationship with magic and the world as one of hope. She's named for the new day, the herald of a bright dawn to end the darkness. She is the song that brings forth the light, that wakes people from their slumber and makes the world alive.
If it's NOT a namecloak??? Then by golly that's a naming convention we Have Not Seen Anywhere In Umora Yet. I strongly doubt "Wrensong" is a surname in the traditional (Western, at least) sense, because her full name is a sentence. She is morning wren song. And I, for one, want to know more about where she came from or at the very least who named her, if not herself.
The fact that Morning Wrensong's first name is just a noun is NOT a coincidence. It is clearly some kind of namecloak. Brennan I am NOT deceived I have SEEN THROUGH YOUR SCHEME
Maybe he's not a Great Spirit? Sure, he's powerful and quite dangerous, but have we ever gotten confirmation that he's Great with a capital G?
Conspiracy board time
So, okay, the sapphire necklace protects Suvi from the sight of Great Spirits. In Ep10 Of the Reaching Green, Orima doesn't see her at all, doesn't acknowledge her even existing. She speaks of "one who was dragged here" and "one she dragged here" and does not speak of a third. She treats only with Eursulon and Ame.
Then, when Eursulon speaks with the Stranger/Man in Black/King of Night, he says that when he arrived at the cottage, a wizard had already gotten there. Does that potentially mean that there was another wizard at the cottage at the time of Grandmother Wren's death? Or is he so great a spirit that he can see what Orima of the Reaching Green could not? Or was it just a slip of the tongue among the dozens of hours of recording on Brennan's part?
MISTER SOOOOOOOUP
MISTER SOOOOOOOOOUP
MISTER SOOOOOOOOOOUP
IT'S THE FINAL DAY OF WITCH WEEK! We've got five witches in the Coven of Elders, which means artwork of each witch per day for the rest of this week!
Today belongs to Ame, Witch of the World's Heart.
I will find these tools that I need. I will find my friends. They'll come with me. I have so little time, and so much to do, but I will get it done. That's what a witch does. There is nothing that cannot be fixed by hard work and care. And I am filled with the aptitude, the experience, and the knowledge, and heart, for both.
Thank you so much for joining us on Witch Week!
The Coven of Elders was lovingly brought to life by artist Jack Jones. You can find him here:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jackjonesart/
Twitter/X: https://x.com/Jack_jones1996
EXACTLY
I also think a lot of it has to do with Ame finally fitting in as a member of the Coven.
The first time we see the council at work, Ame is exhausted and scared, and every single other member has this sort of looming presence about them. As much as Ame is a part of the group, she's also an outsider in so many ways. The entire episode holds this tension that fully immerses the audience in Ame's fumbling discomfort and the grandeur of these very powerful witches.
In The Vote, we're in the same situation, but now the roles are reversed. Brennan says, before the meeting even starts, that Ame has won. She has information, she has an ally in Hakea, the most revered witch on the council, and she's wielding this power with Grandma Wren's beautiful, fine-pointed trickery. Her kindnesses, her respect, aren't out of fear anymore. They are in and of themselves an extension of her domain; a reminder to Indri that the Witch of the World's Heart is as powerful as ever.
That position of power— and the dissolution of fear— allows Ame to get a clearer perspective on her Sisters. Because of course Mirara was the youngest. She lets herself be chastised by Indri. She's quick to act before she thinks. Like Ame, she doesn't participate in a majority of the showboating and displays of power the oldest three do. Like Ame, her retinue is slim, and she comes to Indri's palace alone.
Brennan Lee Mulligan is such an incredible storyteller. Those dynamics, those conflicts and nuances, they've always been there. The only thing that's changed is where Ame is sitting to watch, and that's so beautifully illustrated
i really like what this episode did for mirara. for all her alienness and foreboding, there's still a person behind that mask. she's a woman like any other, her feelings can be hurt and she can be tricked. no one is infallible.
The identify spell (cast without the reflexive indicative.)
See I'm so torn between the Wizard String, the Wizard Sleep, and the Wizard Speak
Also for the record I've considered witch stations as well and would absolutely be the Witch of the Winding Path (or of the Wandering Mind)
it is soup weather, so off to buy soup ingredients and catching up on wbn firesides while i walk.
what i’m saying is that i’m thinking about my name cloak, and i’m going with the wizard sage…. committed to the academic life, love to cook (too many plants)
This is how I know I talk about Worlds Beyond Number way too much
From @emp-t-man, who has never listened to this podcast even once
aabria no-context arc 3 commentary via forehead post-it notes [x]