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Of Witches and Wizards in Victorian England.

MsBloom

Moonchild
Joined
Jul 24, 2020
Location
Northern Europe
This world was built in association with @DarkDreamer9110.
It is a very inclusive world where no species, gender, identity or orientation is denied.

Pomeroy's Academy for Exceptional Youth (since 1193)
Pomeroy's Academy for Exceptional Youth was founded in 1193 by Cath'rinne Pomeroy as a school where young girls could learn and hone their natural magical skills. When in 1216 (at the notable age of 87 Cath'rinne drew her last breath her oldest son Jeustin Pomeroy took over as headmaster for the school, which now also allowed boys to study there, and it has ever since been handed down to the oldest child of the headmistress/headmaster. In the beginning there were only a handful of students learning their art at the Academy but during the latter half of the 17th century youth from all over England came to the school to study magic. They even came from Wales, Normandy, Bretagne, Ireland, Scotland and the school grew, as did its power.

In 1702, the year of her crowning, Queen Anne Stuart visited the Academy and gave it royal privileges on the condition they not be spoken of lightly or to anyone other than herself and her successors. These privileges included, among a substantial financial grant to keep the academy running, the academy to have one representative the royal advisers. Through these privileges Pomeroy's Academy for Exceptional Youth became the best kept secret of the English (and later British) state.

The Academy has three house:
House FitzGerald (After Gerald FitzGerald 8th Earl of Kildare, 1457–1513)
House Eye (After Margery Jourdemayne "The Witch of Eye" before 1415 – 27 October 1441)
House Shipton (After Ursula Southeil "Mother Shipton"

The story as such is not yet set other than it being based around a personal vendetta against the Pomeroy family, one that go as far back as to the Norman Invasion, a grudge that began at the battle of Hastings in 1066 between Cath'rinne's great grandmother and Mathilda Downing one of the defending Anglo-Saxon Wizards.

There is also framework for an opener in which Philomena and Angharad are leading a group of students on an excursion of the heath looking, as part of their education, for mythical creatures living there. As they make their way across the heath Philomena suddenly stop them and ask them to listen. She then says something like: "That's the Banshee weeping, someone is going to die tonight."
Shortly after they hear The Black Chuck baying in the distance.

When they get back, or the next morning, news arrive of someone affiliated with the academy having been found torn to pieces as if by a wolf. (Kendra Downing's first strike against the academy in the story.)

Characters already in progress.

Aurora "Rory" Fletcher.
19, AFAB, Pansexual, Non-Binary (possibly unhatched Trans-male).
Major: Conjuration. (but also has an inclination for the darker arts such as Necromancy)
House: Eye (One of two prefects)
Player: MsBloom

Galatea (nee Goliath) Petrichor
Species: Gargoyle
Age: 17
House:
Galatea has transitioned socially but not yet physically. (She first needs to be an adult.)
Player: DarkDreamer9110

Staff:
Athena Pomeroy, Headmistress. (Played jointly by MsBloom/DarkDreamer9110)
Philomena Pomeroy (Daughter of Athena, teacher of history, lore and herbology) (Played by MsBloom)
Angharad Captain of the Gargoyle guard, groundskeeper. (Played by DarlDreamer9110)

Saoirse Gallagher, 30. (Pansexual, CIS,)
Subject: Conjuration
House: Eye (Formerly prefect, now head)
In a relationships with Ciaran Buckley
Player: MsBloom.

Name: Ciaran Buckley (Buckley being Irish for "bleak hill")
Species: Dullahan
Subject: Potions
Age: Appears to be around 30, claims to be far older.
House: FitzGerald (former prefect, now head)
In a relationship with Saoirse Gallagher.

Faceclaim suggestions for professors/staff:
One Two.

Students:
Rowan Devereaux 18. (Straight, CIS.)
Major: Runes/Abjuration.
House: FitzGerald
Antagonist to Rory and Galatea. (Open to be adopted by another player. Please discuss it with us first though.)

Jean/ne Du Lac 16. (Gay, Trans-male, socially transitioned)
Major: Potions and Herbology.
House: Eye.
Considering that the first Gender Affirming Surgery was performed in 1931, I was thinking there might be some magical way of achieving the same result, a potion perhaps that require certain very rare ingredients, some that may not even have been heard of in centuries.
Player: MsBloom

Edmund Blackwood. 17. Bi cis crossdresser.
House: Shipton
Player: DarkDreamer9110

Faceclaim suggestions for students:
One Two Three Four Five Six

Houses:
House FitzGerald (After Gerald FitzGerald 8th Earl of Kildare, 1457–1513)
House Eye (After Margery Jourdemayne "The Witch of Eye" before 1415 – 27 October 1441)
House Shipton (After Ursula Southeil "Mother Shipton")

Villain:
Kendra Downing.
Actual age unknown but appears to be in her mid to late 20s. (Open to be adopted by another player. Please discuss it with us first though.)

Non-Humans:
The gargoyles have three primary forms. Their human form, their flesh-and-blood gargoyle form, and a living stone gargoyle form.

Gargoyles lay geode eggs, each one typically similar in shape to and slightly smaller than an American football (more like a large orange or a grapefruit), which must be incubated in mineral-rich hot springs.

Also, if a gargoyle is unsatisfied with their current form, the can form a geode-chrysalis-egg-thing and melt like butterflies inside it and then reform themselves however they like. Up to and including physical sex characteristics. And then they hatch

That is correct. Trans gargoyles hatch from actual eggs. Which are all rainbow geodes.

They also have no concept of monogamy. Or at least no institutionalised systemic concept of it. Some might pair bond, others are polycules that have upwards of 10-20 members.

And they're polytheistic and their big creator deity is a non binary they-ity who is called The Carver Of Stone And Flesh.

Gargoyles also have particular talents with stuff like earth-based magic, rock manipulation, etc.

Dartmoor is home to a gargoyle formation of, say, similar size to the school's population. And that basically the formation made a deal with Cath'rinne Pomeroy wherein it's basically a cultural exchange and mutual defense pact. Some gargoyles are employed as a security force at the school, some younger gargoyles attend it, etc.
The banshee (also known as a bean sidhe, or ban sith) is a female spirit, which warns of impending death. In Irish legend, popular belief held that specific families had their own banshee and that banshees fell into one of two camps.

Some banshees were old hags, who would scream around a house to gleefully announce a family member's imminent death. Other banshees were beautiful young women who would weep for her family's impending sorrow. Either way, her eyes are said to be red from wailing so much, and she either wears white or black. To see her is a mark of great misfortune.
The Black Shuck is a giant, spectral dog, whose appearance is usually seen as an omen of death. Despite being an omen of death, occasionally Black Dogs will act as guardians for travellers walking alone at night—usually women. A local legend from Cronwall might have inspired the Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Known by different names across the United Kingdom and Ireland, the puca is a mischievous shapeshifter. While a benevolent being, the puca does enjoy terrifying and confounding humans, merely for pleasure. It can change between both human and animal forms, though folklore suggests it prefers animal shapes. In human form, they can be identified by certain animal features—such as a tail or ears. The puca is particularly fond of appearing to humans as a beautiful dark stallion, however, if a person tries to ride the puca stallion it will find itself being taken for a wild ride, though the puca causes no harm to its victim.

Traditionally associated with autumn and the end of harvest, 1 November is the puca's day, a day when farmers leave out shares of the harvest for the puca to consume. As with many other creatures on this list, the exact nature of the puca differs from region to region—in some areas it is merely a trickster, in other areas, it is more malevolent, and in others, it is a kind being who aids and protects humans in trouble. The puca almost certainly served as inspiration for Puck in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
These minor goddesses lived in and with the trees of the forest. The original dryad was a nymph of the oak tree. The word Drys itself signifies oak in Greek. However, as time went on the term dryad came to mean any kind of tree-dwelling nymph.

Dryads would often take the form of young and beautiful women and most of them lived immortal lives. Unlike many other nymphs and fairies in folklore over the world, dryads were not mischievous but rather shy and unassuming.
A Lantern Man is the atmospheric ghost light, of malevolent spirits trying to draw victims to their death in the reed beds, were drawn to the sound of whistling and could be evaded by lying face down on the ground with your mouth in the mud.

If interested please contact either @MsBloom or @DarkDreamer9110 with a basic character concept. Once we have enough interest we will make a character thread and an OoC thread for plotting.
 
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I am interested. I plan to bring a father/son pair of escaped slaves from the American colonies. Father is a blacksmith specializing in magical crafting, son is still formulating in my mind.
 
I have two:

Malvalus Richt: He is the dark arts/ necromancy teacher at the school. Born in 1170, he was the mortal enemy of the school's founders. Defeated in battle, he was cursed to forever serve the Pomeroy family and defend the school. Over the centuries, he has mellowed, and now treats the students with an arrogant disdain, rather than outright hatred. He has not aged since, but his skin is gray and hair bone white. He can see and speak with ghosts and spirit

Collin McConnell: Irish student from an ancient magic, but destitute, family. As such, he grew up with the non-magic children in his village, rather than with his peers, knowing little of the world he was part of. He knows more about the magic of growing a healthy potato crop than charms and curses. Considered a backward rustic by his peers.
 
Malvalus Richt
Defeated in battle, he was cursed to forever serve the Pomeroy family and defend the school.

Do you have a specific battle in mind? I tried to find some historical reference in the history of England but couldn't find anything.

While it may be a mostly fantasy setting both myself and my co-creator of this world feel that it should still relate to the real world an real history. Hence the reference to the feud between the Pomeroy family and the Downing family originating at the battle of Hastings in 1066. There was a civil war in England called The Anarchy 1138 - 1153. I can see the Pomeroy family having stood on the side of Empress Matilda while Malvalus (for personal reasons) stood against them more than he stood with King Stephen.

The story as such is not yet set other than it being based around a personal vendetta against the Pomeroy family, one that go as far back as to the Norman Invasion, a grudge that began at the battle of Hastings in 1066 between Cath'rinne's great grandmother and Mathilda Downing one of the defending Anglo-Saxon Wizards.

As you can see here there is already a vendetta and feud against the Pomeroy family but I do have an idea that could work for your character to also have had a personal grudge, not against the Pomeroy family per se perhaps but against Cath'rinne. Perhaps in his youth he courted her and she refused him, perhaps in public which he found to be humiliating and thus swore to destroy her and her family, perhaps at some point he even force himself on her thus producing her first born. (Just a suggestion.)

Then after the siege of Oxford he may perhaps have marched with an army of his own (of witches and wizards) against The Pomeroy army, was defeated and subsequently cursed to live and defend the Pomeroy family and estate, as long as there was a living heir to Cath'rinne Pomeroy, residing within it.

(Again. These are just suggestions and perhaps you have already a different backstory and reason for his enmity against the Pomeroy family in mind)

Collin McConnell

I do like the idea of an ancient magical family and I cannot help but to think Wild Magic when I read it. I can also not help but feel there is a strong resemblance with a certain Mr Potter about him.

Which leads me to feel I have to make sure that you realise that (despite the magic school and all that) this is not in any way related to Harry Potters wizarding world. In fact the whole idea actually began as a reaction against it after the anti-trans comments by JK Rowling. (That might be why there are so many non-cis characters lying in the pipes to be part of the story.)

None of the above questions, comments or suggestions are in any way meant to be offensive or off-putting.
We ( myself and @DarkDreamer9110 ) just want to make sure that the players involved are of an accepting and open frame of mind about these things.
 
@Kilted Pervert I must add that I do like the idea of an unwilling but cursed protector of the family, the estate and thus the school. I can even see him trying his very best to aid Kendra Downing in her feud against them but is unable to because of the curse.
 
@MsBloom In regard to the Irish student idea, I wasn't thinking HP so much as a descendant of Druids and whatnot, something inherently Irish in nature. But, as far as characters go, it sounds like Malvanus is the winner. And in regard to his feud with the Pomeroy family, I was thinking more personal than political. They had, or he believed they had, some magical power or artifact that he thought he could use to enhance his own dark powers. Or perhaps he wanted to gain control of the school to be a power base for his own purposes? If he had allied himself with the Downings, it was for his own ends, not theirs. The important part is that he lost, and the curse that Catherine put on him bound his will and body in service to the school and her family, so much so that he cannot even leave the school grounds without being on an errand for the Headmistress.
 
I wasn't thinking HP so much as a descendant of Druids and whatnot

That was obvious ass well, hence my reference to Wild Magic. It was just the whole having grown up without his peers and all that stuff that made me think HP.

Or perhaps he wanted to gain control of the school to be a power base for his own purposes?

You wanted him born in 1170 so that would fit well. The school was founded in 1193 which would make him 23 at the time so maybe the battle and the curse happened a few years later, like maybe when he was about 30. That would mean it would have had to be a private battle between just him (The Downings) and The Pomeroy family's army.


it sounds like Malvanus is the winner
there is no reason you couldn't have both characters.

Agreed. A bit of Wild Magic is always fun but I get it.

You folks have an established idea and likely a bit of a subculture to go with it.

We do but there is no reason you cannot help add to it. I mean just adding Malvanus adds to the Pomeroy family history in itself.



Currently we don't have a character thread but feel free to post a basic character profile here.
 
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