Witchcraft Wednesdays: It Takes Three to Make A Thing Go Right

 With all apologies to MC Rod Base and DJ EZ Rock (nobody rocked harder dressed like a pack of Newports, RIP), there is a reason you see covens of witches vs solitaries. 

I have said it here before, but witches are social. They see patterns in social dynamics and in social constructs. A cleric might ask why someone read a book on demonology. A wizard might ask why they read this particular book on demons. A witch will notice why the book is grouped with local maps and notes on when the graveyard was first used. They seek out the connections between people and each other; the living and the dead, people and the divine, and people and the arcane. 

And there is a reason that NIGHT SHIFT is called "Veterans of the Supernatural Wars."

People who fight the darkness rarely get to retire, and when they do, it is only to pass the fight down to the next generation. 

Today I want to talk a bit about Stephanie, Faye, and Larina in Jackson, or not really them specifically, what and who they are in the game. For me, they are the stand-ins for the PCs as I playtest and write. If and/or when I am able to move this from my computer and game table to yours, they might not even be there; your characters will. They will have their own organization and social dynamic, and they will have one, but more importantly, they will have a history. Not a backstory per se, but a history, things that went on before them. The people who fought this battle before they did. Some won. Most lost.

Let's look into how this plays out in my game.

So, before these witches walked the halls of Jackson,

Stephanie, Faye, and Larina (1986)

These witches did.

Lena, Alyssa, and Keely (1983)

Selene "Lena" Marquette, Alyssa Argent, and Keely "Q" Ellison were Jackson's witch protectors in the time before Larina got here and before Faye started paying attention. Lena was smart, popular, and already one foot out the door to study at MacAlister the summer of 83. Keely was popular, had a smile for everyone, and was on the cheerleading, dance, gymnastics teams, and the choir. Everyone loved her. Not liked, loved. And Alyssa. She wasn't the smartest girl in the room. She was the smartest person in the whole damn town. Brilliant, chaotic, she read theoretical physics for fun, translated languages in her spare time, and had a full-ride scholarship to pretty much every Ivy League school. 

And their story is tragic. I normally don't like to make characters fail, but sometimes they do, and that is the horror. In Jackson, horror is everywhere.

One night, when dealing with a monster, Lena and Keely never made it back. Alyssa did, but her mind was no longer intact. The official story is that Lena and Keely were coming back from school late at night and someone grabbed them. Upon hearing the story, Alyssa broke down. But the town's people knew something was not right. Lena and Keely were friends, but there was no reason for them both to be leaving the school that late at night and together. Alyssa had a nervous breakdown, which surprised no one, but it had been a long time coming, and whether it really had anything to do with the official events is anyone's guess.  Alyssa spent the next year at the Illinois State Mental Hospital in town. She didn't even get to go to the funeral of the two girls she called "sisters."

Last page of the Jackson PHS 1983 yearbook

One of the features I have with Jackson is that it is based on my real-life high school. One of those real Jacksonville things was that every year in high school, one or more students would die. Gruesome, right. Yeah, now imagine it is a small school of just over 1,500 students total. We used to say the school was cursed. I have no idea if it is still happening.

You can begin to see why I have so much material for this project.

It's not just that Lena and Q died. It's not even that they died because of Jackson's supernatural elements, or that it left the once-brilliant Alyssa a shell of her former self.

It's when Stephanie, Faye, and Larina (or YOUR characters) are walking the halls, the adults say things like "Oh, Larina, she is just like Alyssa," and then they go quiet. Or even "Stephanie Vale lights up a room, just like Keely used to."  But the worst part is the adults who never say anything at all. They watch the girls walk by laughing conspiratorially, and inside, they are thinking, "No. Please. Not again."

The fight in Jackson is old. It has been going on for a long time. And I want to impress upon the characters and the players that they are not the first here, they won't be the last. These are the Veterans of the Supernatural Wars. Kids that are not even old enough to drink (legally) or, in some cases, vote.

But Lena, Alyssa, and Q hold another lesson too.

You can't do this alone.

I am not sure of the details yet, but I do know this: they failed and died because they were not working together. Look. I don't want to blame them for their deaths. It was a horrible thing, and honestly? I have only had them for a couple of days, and I feel terrible. But they died because, as witches, they were not working together.

I love Stephanie, Faye, and Larina. I do. I want them to live happily ever after in the Jackson Game world for as long as I can. But I also know how I typically play these characters, and honestly, I am a little surprised that Jackson-Larina has not met the same fate as other Larinas on other worlds. 

In the past I have described Larina as "the girl who sets herself on fire to light the way for others," and yes, she has died. Many times on many worlds. I have a binder filled with her character sheets. But here in Jackson, her lesson (and the PC's lesson) is, you can't and should not do this alone. My own rule also says I can't raise her from the dead. Sorry, witches can't raise the dead, and this is an absolute rule in my games. So, Larina, as my iconic witch, cannot break that rule.

For witches and any character, these connections are important. I have not implemented coven casting rules in NIGHT SHIFT outside of the Arcane Bond power, but I really should. 

Coven casting is not just "three witches get together, and the spell gets bigger." That is wizard-thinking. That is math. Witches can do math, but that is not where the magic lives. 

The coven is the circuit for a witch. There is one to name the thing, one to hold the line, and another to mind the human toll. Put in different witches, and you have a different spell. Stephanie, Faye, and Larina are not some interchangeable cogs in a machine. Stephanie will be on to the lies people tell and the social fallout. Faye has her finger on the room’s emotional pulse. Larina spots the occult design. Put them together, and they can pull off things no one of them should be able to do by herself.

More to the point, they can survive it. Or at least they have a better chance.

I want to make that a rule in Jackson. Coven magic can give you an edge on a roll, but it should be more about sharing the danger, the cost, the insight. Let one witch absorb the psychic backlash while another steadies the ritual or makes sure the door does not shut. Or let one put her foot down and say "No, we’re done," and have it count for something in the mechanics. 

Lena, Alyssa, and Q lost that. Or perhaps they never really had it to begin with. I don't know, and niether will the players or characters.

Alyssa had power. Terrible power that made everyone stop and look. She was capable of more than Larina ever could be. But there is a difference between brilliance and wisdom, between power and the connection of a coven. On her own, a witch is a weapon, a flame, or a ghost story to be told in hushed tones in the hallways. A coven puts the humanity back in her. A coven gives that power a focus and meaning.

Jackson is full of monsters, of course. Haunted colleges, the bad land, old tragedies, and the odd book in the library where the Veil is thin. But it is also about the girl in the hallway beside you. The one who knows your real name and your worst ideas, and when you are lying or afraid. The one who will take your hand and tell you, "No, you are not alone."

That is witchcraft. I love my circles, candles, and athamés as much as the next person (ok, maybe more so than the next person), but this is more than spells or familiars. It is true connection made dangerous. Friendship with teeth. Love in a circle aimed at the dark.

I want Jackson to remember that. Lena, Alyssa, and Q are a reminder that the fight was here before your characters got to it. Stephanie, Faye, and Larina show us you don’t get to just assume you will make it. Your characters ought to feel the weight of all those names when they walk these halls.

The defeated and dead aren’t there to put a damper on the game. They are there to remind the living how to stand together.