the story of the Witches
The Willowspur is the nexus of all realities in which there are wicked witches. It is here where they live, shop, raise families, and carry out their lives when they’re not out and about wicked witching. Like all magical realms, the Willowspur is a land of lakes and fields and forests dotted here and there with towns and villages and an occasional city. The Wild is home to a diverse host of flora and fauna, natural and otherwise, and governed by numerous spirits and faeries. The human places are home to farmers and craftsmen and merchants, and are governed by a King and Queen named Leopold and Fatima.
By all accounts, Leopold and Fatima are wise and benevolent rulers. They have two children between them, both fathered by Leopold: Murray, the elder, by Leopold’s late wife Gretchen, and Casper, the younger, by Fatima. Murray is obnoxious, selfish, and volatile. Casper is kind, generous, and noble. Murray mistreats everyone and despises Casper; Casper is gracious to all and feels sorry for Murray.
You, dear players, are the daughters of witches who’ve made their homes in the hills outside the town of Taro. You’ve been friends as long as anyone can remember and are now rebellious teenagers, high-spirited and thick as thieves. Outside of yourselves, your best friends are the animals in the Wild, an eccentric apothecary named Aoife, a scholarly hoarder named Oswald, and Fatima’s teenage son, Casper.
Over the years, Murray’s erratic behavior has caused a great deal of distress across the Willowspur. To rid themselves of his meddling, your mothers placed a curse on Murray that transformed him into a frog. Because of the powerful wards against curses afforded royals, it required all your mothers working together to enact the curse. Their uncooperative and distrustful natures, however, undermined their efforts and their curse proved unstable. To avoid its unraveling completely, your mothers have started gathering ingredients for a ritual that will stabilize their curse and make Murray’s condition permanent.
As it happens, Casper truly loves Murray, despite his half-brother’s unseemly and often despicable behavior. Casper wishes to see Murray restored and rehabilitated rather than doomed to live out his days as a frog. He visits you at your clubhouse and begs you to undo your mothers’ curse.
Despite your mothers’ best efforts to raise you in traditional wickedness, you’ve grown into caring, well-adjusted, and jaunty young women, as unlike your mothers as you are disappointments to them. You are moved by Casper’s heartfelt plea and promise to do your best to foil your mothers’ ritual, as pleased to vex your smug and overbearing mothers as you are to help your despondent friend. After Casper leaves, however, you quickly realize just how powerful your mothers are. You cannot hope to ruin their curse by yourselves.
Knowing you’ll find little if any support among the people of Taro, you turn to the spirits of the Wild. Four agree to help you. The spirits of the snake, dragonfly, cat, and fox grant their support in appreciation of the kindness you’ve shown their kin over the years. They’ve not forgotten the times you’ve thwarted hunters and disarmed their traps, provided food to the hungry in lean times, offered shelter in harsh weather, and listened attentively to their sagas and woes. The four spirits teach you how to concoct arcane elixirs to enhance your power and provide you with spells and potions to help you gather the ingredients necessary to make them.
Now, you are ready to begin. You have three months to grow strong enough to challenge your mothers and foil their ritual.