I recently talked a bit about going home and not finding Jacksonville, or even Jackson, I remember. I was standing out in front of what we called "the old High School," the Newton-Bateman building where people in my town went to school up until about 1983. I never went there. We had the "new" High School out north of town. That structure survives in Jackson with the old, haunted High School and the new school.
I also wrote a bit about Charmed. The one thing the new Charmed series established was that the "Power of Three" was repeated over and over in the Warren Witch Family line. That included the witches Macy, Mel, and Maggie, as well as Prue, Piper, Phoebe, and later Paige. History repeats itself. Another structure I grabbed for Jackson.
So excuse me if this post feels a little schizophrenic. It was really two posts that never really gelled on their own, and I figured out they needed each other. So, let me start with the original post, and for that, we need to talk about Iggwilv.
Iggwilv, Tasha, and Jackson
It is no surprise that I adore Iggwilv, Tasha, Hura, Zyblina, or whatever she is calling herself this week. I have known for a while now that she was going to make an appearance in Jackson in some role. Not Iggwilv from Greyhawk, but my "Shard" of her, reflected in Jackson's mirror. BUT I wanted her to be important, but not so important that she would overshadow my playtest characters (and thus your characters). So I have been sitting on a few ideas for a bit, and none of them felt right to me. In fact, my first idea came up around my birthday, but it also didn't gel the way I liked. It DID, however, give me the tragic coven of witches that protected Jackson before Larina and her friends.
So instead, Lena, Alyssa, and Keeley were born. And...Lena and Keeley died trying to protect Jackson, and Alyssa lost her mind.
But they were not the first coven of witches, nor were they the last. I mean I knew this, but I did not have names for them yet.
Though maybe I did.
I am working on something else right now: my next Witches of Appendix N post and reading some L. Sprague de Camp, and thinking about what sorts of witches actually came from these books. I am not ready to present my thesis on that just yet, but it got me thinking about Iggwilv again and how she was never supposed to be a main or face character. Maybe my Iggwilv shard in Jackson is the same way. She is there, but working in the shadows. Not evil, per se, but certainly amoral.
Then it hit me. Lena and Keeley are dead because it was Iggwilv who sent them to their deaths.
My "Iggwilv shard" is Natasha Wilcox. Professor of Classics at MacAlister College and one of the few people who intellectually challenges Larina. She is one of those nightmare professors who knows everything about her subject and dares you to bullshit your way through it. She is intelligent, shrewd, driven, and knows exactly what she wants. She is also a witch.
Back in 1983, she was the "adult in the room" when Lena, Alyssa, and Keeley were in school. She was a professor at Mac, but came to the High School to teach Latin. Alyssa was her star pupil. Equally as brilliant in both academics and magic. Natasha saw a little of herself in Alyssa and sought to train her to become even better. But that training wasn't enough. Alyssa learned she was brilliant but never learned to fear the things Jackson bred.
Natasha Wilcox caused Lena and Keeley's deaths because she had not taught Alyssa the limits of her powers. Her hubris and three lives were destroyed.
I figured out then that Kiera "Keri" Moreau told Natasha that if she ever set foot in Jackson Public High again, she would kill her. A bit of a strong reaction? Maybe, but it tracks with two things. Who these characters are/were in my AD&D games AND what they were before in Jackson.
Natasha Wilcox, Kiera Moreau, and Sylvia Velasco were members of the coven that protected Jackson in the 1950s.
Cherry Pink (and Apple Blossom White)
In the mid-1950s, Jackson Public High School had three girls who were the best of friends. Mundane circumstances threw them together, but it was their magic that united them. Natasha Wilcox's family had survived World War II and had come to America fleeing Nazi oppression when Natasha was only a baby. Likewise, Sylvia's family had fled Spain and had come to Jackson via Mexico. Kiera Moreau was the half-nymph daughter of a sea god, but her human guise was that of the daughter of a wealthy family who had made millions in import and export deals (easy to do when you can control the seas); sadly, even in enlightened Jackson, with its abolitionist history and place on the Underground Railroad, her skin color was an issue with many other residents. All three girls were social outcasts within the very tight, insular cliques of Jackson Public High School. So they formed their own group.
They had no idea they were part of a legacy that stretched backward and forward in time.
No one knew they were magical. Natasha and Sylvia, with their magic, and Kiera, with her psychic abilities and half-sea nymph powers, protected their school and home. But more than that, they were friends. Kiera bought Sylvia that pink cardigan sweater, and Natasha said it looked great on her.
They fought monsters. Had boyfriends. Though Natasha was always too serious about her work for any romance, Sylvia still managed to have boyfriends and girlfriends in 1955. They all went to MacAlister together. They thought they would be doing this when they were old and gray.
And then things began to fall apart. Natasha was studying magic for magic's sake and no longer stopping the monsters. Kiera fought the monsters, but could not do it on her own. Sylvia began selling off little bits of her soul for more and more power until her hair had gone completely white from Soul Burn. They only grew further and further apart.
Then in 1979, teachers Kiera and Natasha saw Alyssa, Lena, and Keeley coming up through the school and recognized them right away. "They are us." And they began to disagree right away on how to deal with these new students. Natasha sees witches. Kiera sees young women. Sylvia sees an omen. Their disagreements were at first minor, but gained in intensity as the years went on. Kiera thought Natasha was being too cavalier with their lives. Natasha thought Kiera was being too soft. Sylvia wanted to know what magics these new girls knew.
Then, in 1983, Lena and Keeley were killed. Alyssa had been committed to the state hospital.
Natasha didn't see herself as responsible. She taught Alyssa everything she believed Alyssa needed to know. Alyssa was exceptionally gifted, perhaps the most talented student Natasha had ever encountered. But Alyssa overestimated her abilities, failed to account for some variable, and the spell or ritual went catastrophically wrong.
For Natasha, this was a problem of magical theory and practice. Something went wrong. She needs to understand what happened so she can prevent it from happening again.
For Kiera, two girls are dead, and a third has lost her mind.
To Kiera, this is a tragedy. To Natasha, it is a puzzle. Neither recognizes the girl they used to call "sister."
"If you set foot in this school again, I will kill you," Kiera told Natasha. Her heart was broken, but the threat was real, and Natasha knew Kiera could carry it out.
There is another important distinction here. Natasha, Kiera, and Sylvia went to the Old School. So did Lena, Alyssa, and Keeley nearly thirty years later. Larina, Stephanie, and Faye attend the New School, north of town. They never walked those same halls or sat in those same classrooms. Their connection to those earlier witches isn't the building itself, but the photographs they left behind. Three girls smiling at the camera, unaware of what awaited them. Larina looks at those pictures and recognizes something that has nothing to do with the school they attended. There is no magical presence of either coven in 1986. That building sits near the heart of the town, with its haunted halls and broken bell.
It is less about the buildings they attended and more about the roles these young women found themselves playing.
And the yearbook photographs are the only evidence of something the monsters haven't managed to destroy: the memory of ordinary happiness.
"They were all happy. Like us. And then they weren't."
What does this mean to the current generation?
This gets me back to Jacksonville.
I was driving around taking some pictures of buildings. I wanted to drive out to the "new" High School (now 40+ years old) and take some pictures. I saw a group of kids walking downtown, laughing and generally just being kids. I mused, "Maybe they are the new witches?" I was not far from where the bookstore I based Paula's on used to be. I thought about Larina riding her bike every Saturday in 1985-86 to head to the Square for Paula's. For an odd moment, the past, present, and future of Jacksonville and Jackson all overlapped. I thought about Larina, Stephanie, and Faye. I thought about Lena, Alyssa, and Keeley before them, and all the witches who had come before them and those who would come after.
This all hit in a few minutes. I was amused by these kids. Then, in typical 50+-year-old fashion, I thought, "They better get out of the road; that's not safe."
In Jackson, one of the themes is "this has all happened before." The monsters keep coming to the Bad Land. There are protectors, there are fighters, and there are those who have the power and still do nothing about it.
Larina (in my games) sees the yearbook photos of Lena, Alyssa, and Keeley and thinks, "That was us." She looks at the picture of Natasha, Kiera, and Sylvia and wonders what happened to cause these girls to grow into women who can barely stand to be around each other now.
That's what I want to happen in your games. That connection your characters have to the setting's past. Your witches can look at these girls and think, "They were like us." Fighters like Val, Andy, and Ami, or protectors like Rowan, Candy, and Denise. They all have a role to play. Not just as my NPCs but as your NPCs.
There is no occult registry. No one knows who the past witches and protectors were unless they told someone. There may have been years without one. Lena and Keeley died in May of 1983. Larina didn't arrive in Jackson until July of 1985. That is two years when no one was watching the gate. No wonder the place is a mess. Even Kiera and Valerie, who were still in Jackson, did little.
I have no real intention of filling up the in-between years with witches, fighters, and protectors. Not here, and certainly not in any published version of Jackson. Those years belong to you. The game masters and players of Jackson. I mean, I might have an idea or two, but nothing solid beyond maybe thinking that the 1990s could use someone.
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| I saw (them) in black and white; there ain't no color in memories. |
Somewhere in Jackson right now, there might be another group of kids walking downtown, laughing with their friends, completely unaware of the dangers around them. Maybe they are the next witches. Maybe they are the next fighters or protectors. Maybe they are just kids enjoying an afternoon together. I like to think that Natasha, Kiera, and Sylvia were once just like them. So were Lena, Alyssa, and Keeley. So were Larina, Stephanie, and Faye.
Jackson has a long history, and not all of it has been written yet. Some of those adventures are mine. The rest of them are yours.
Or they will be.
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