The Sisters of the Shattered Mother, called the Sisters, the coven and the Sisterhood, are a coven of witches at the Sisters' farm near Silverthorn, in the Silver Vale.12 Hecate heads them, and they raised Hazel.1 They are the only people in Argentum anyone would call witches, and they do not wear big pointed hats.3

Organization

Hecate heads the coven, and Hazel calls her Headmistress.1 A student becomes a sister by graduating. Hecate told Hazel that what stood between her and graduating was not magic, or knowledge of the moon or the world, but her ability to make bonds with others and depend on them.4 Sisters who have finished their training treat Hecate with reverence, and Hazel had seen her show them a familiarity she had never shown Hazel.14 The Sisters trust one another, Hazel says, but keep the ties between them professional rather than familial.5

Members

Beliefs

The coven worships the moon, and invokes the Shattered Mother in its blessings.67 It prays with moonstones, in a way like the prayer stones of the dwarves.8 Hecate teaches that before the Starfall the moon had phases, and that something about the impact gave it a permanent luminance. The teaching is the coven’s, and not widely held.3

The coven teaches that nothing comes from nothing, that everything has a price, and that balance means seeing prices paid whether or not they were stated.4 It pays its debts so that balance remains.4

Activities

The Sisters maintain wards against the Sorrow over the country around the farm, worked from the Standing Stone three miles north-east through the forest.1 A stay at the farm is offered on the condition that the guest helps with the work.1

Magic for communing with the dead is not unknown to the coven.2 Hazel draws on the magic of nature and the moon.2 Hecate mentioned changelings in passing while teaching her, but never said where they come from or what their nature is.2

History

Session 6

The party brought Anthusa Toguri to the farm on 27 Coldrise, 1714 PSF, Calypso having sent word ahead.1 That night the Sisters worked a warding ritual at the Standing Stone. When something in the woods interrupted it, the party went into the forest after it.1

Session 7

With the Sorrowsworn destroyed, the Sisters completed the ward.4 Hecate paid each of the party for their part, wiped clean any debt Anthusa or Iva owed the coven, and put Anthusa under its full protection.4

Session 8

Hecate sent Hazel off on 28 Coldrise, 1714 PSF, with “may the Shattered Mother watch over you”.6 The coven’s wards now protected Silverthorn, though its people did not know it.6

Session 12

Hazel left a prayer stone in a dwarven shrine beneath Argentum on the Vigil of Remembrance, 1714 PSF, with a simple prayer of the Sisterhood: “May the Mother watch over the souls of those who walk these halls.”8

Session 17

The most Hazel had heard of devils was a jab from Circe at one of her sisters: if she was so bad at turning into animals, maybe she could make a deal with a devil.9

Session 18

On 8 Nightdeep, 1714 PSF, Hazel felt the magic in Rhysaene’s chest, and found it unfamiliar to her as a witch of the Sisters of the Shattered Mother: hot, messy and dark in a way, and not a kind she had ever dealt in.2 That night she told Iva what little the coven had taught her of changelings, and suggested Circe, though she doubted a conversation with her would bear much fruit.2

Relationships

When the party brought Anthusa to the farm, Hazel told Iva and Temerity to keep quiet about the Order of the Lantern, since the Sisters might refuse Anthusa a place if they knew.1 People in Silverthorn give the farm a wide berth unless they have a reason to be there.1

References

Footnotes

  1. Session 6 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12 ↩13 ↩14

  2. Session 18 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  3. Session 13 ↩ ↩2

  4. Session 7 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  5. Session 9 ↩

  6. Session 8 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  7. Session 11 ↩

  8. Session 12 ↩ ↩2

  9. Session 17 ↩