Realistic or Modern . kuebiko . a history .

[irusu]

kuebiko reboot

I put a s p e l l

on you

b e c a u s e

you're mine.

↢ . . .THE C U R S E. . . ↣

. ⋉ . ⋈ . ⋊ .​

“down by the river where there was no gold,
a pact was made by the old.
the devils stay in hell’s gate,
confined by the knowledge of one sealed fate:
any witch that leaves this town
will find their magic tied down
to the soils of the same place they left.
heed our words:
there will be a reckoning for this theft.”​

in 1848, when the gold rush was prominent and lead pioneers just about everywhere they shouldn’t have been, one coven found refuge by a river untainted by the riches so sought after. they wanted peace, a sanctuary, and naturally it could only be obtained by detouring from the greed of man. helena, the coven’s leader at the time, bordered off what would soon become the town of caister through blood. each ancestor drained a part of them across the river’s line to protect what they’d found. it was a spell to protect them though, not be their curse.

the idea was to keep all magic inside caister so outsiders couldn’t be affected by the craft, or the trail of bodies left by other species' pure survival, but it ended in their inability to leave the border without leaving all their magic behind. they were stuck in their own town, their own home, like caged birds and sitting ducks. when new settlers came around and planted their feet in caister’s soil alongside the coven, it was the beginning of the end. them with their holy books and premeditated sermons, and the coven with a betrayal of themselves and abilities they’d never have the chance to show openly like they once did. the first trial was of their leader, and some say you can still hear her calling out by the old willow tree under which she was hung. they haven’t stopped since, they’re just a little quieter about it.

the coven’s made a pact since then. when one of their own goes missing, you speak no word of it. don’t even bat an eye. they’re already gone. when you’re the one taken, don’t speak a word on your deathbed. don’t look to the forest in which your brothers and sisters hide, and don’t plead names. the coven is one until the trials.

 

[irusu]

kuebiko reboot

You think I don't see

who you

really a r e ?

↢ . . .THE E L D E R S. . . ↣

. ⋉ . ⋈ . ⋊ .​

father dawson - “the evil” - the oldest man in caister - and it’s no surprise he’s as white as the cotton he likely grew in the worn fields behind his overexaggerated plantation home. he’s rather well-off on a father’s salary, which is why many believe he’s smuggled money from the church for his own uses since he was a young altar boy in what seems like decades ago. the dawson name is one feared for two reasons: their ties to the church, and their name on the founding document that enacted caister's secret witch trials to take place for too many oppressing years. when another witch goes missing, he’ll be the first to talk of the “tragedy” of the missing folk before following suit to regular prayer every mandatory sunday mass.

mr. wilms - “see no evil” - poor man’s partially blind, but lord forbid that stop him from pointing fingers like anyone else. he’s been a teacher to caister’s elementary school since before your parents were youngsters themselves. everyone was practically raised by his form of writing, but we were all unaware he taught us underlying gospel. we were so caught up in the story of how his left eye went black that we never knew the influence his words had. we became more gullible to the idea of the devil leading witchcraft because of him, and now the whole town will believe anything. he’s a lonely man, blind in more ways than one really, but he’s goddamn smug about it all. getting confronted or cornered by him leads to riddles that have the worst way of making you say something you weren’t supposed to. beware the old english teacher.

mrs. albright - “hear no evil” - the only woman on the elders council and even she likes to watch a witch burn. some say she was madly in love with one once upon a time, only to be the reason they died. that was, by rumor only, the night she became a council member for her “courage” and “strength” to get out from under the witch’s spell. the coven knows the truth. they say she’s a little hard of hearing, but really it’s when there’s screams that she sucumbs to a mile-long stare - as if someone muted the sounds of the world entirely. she can see right through a person’s lies and has no time for your poor excuses when you're convicted. the diamonds around her neck are just a prettier noose in due time.

sheriff perryman - “speak no evil” - relatively the youngest of the council but only because he’s a spry seventy-one. being the sheriff of the town only gives favor to how deep the secret trials run when even the cops are corrupt. he’s infamously known for his stutter and the stomach that’s had too many beers in the old pub on too many nights in which people go missing. he won’t take a missing persons report to save a life and says they’re a waste of time because “every youngster wants to leave caister.” except everyone and their grandmother disappears if magic roots run deep. funny how even his officers who seem any bit suspicious of the department’s irresponsibility with civil duty are gone, too.

 

[irusu]

kuebiko reboot

My darling,

it is a different

kind o f danger

in the daylight.

↢ . . .THE C O V E N. . . ↣

. ⋉ . ⋈ . ⋊ .​

animus - witches with animation abilities. art they drew themselves or come across are said to “come to life” and “escape the canvas” after a flash goes over their eyes. they’re usually seen doodling on napkins in the diner, or longingly looking at paintings as though they’re inside the scene too. their animative magic does not extend past two-dimensional states and therefore reanimation is out of the question. moreover, an animus witch's depictions are known to predict some type of event, whether it be future, current, or past.

turifer - incense-based witches. they say they can see things through the smoke, travel with the fumes, and become the smoke themselves in extreme cases. the latter can be incredibly exhausting and therefore it is not usually seen or used. always seem to smell good, like sage or mint, and often say it’s a thanks to homemade candles. they aren't entirely wrong.

augeris - witches whose magic define them as natural seers. by this, ones with these abilities can see through the eyes of the natural world and control them, excluding all mankind. birds, cats, squirrels, snakes, bugs, etc. some disguise themselves as farmers because they have good relations with creatures of the earth.

delatus - healers to many, but dangerous to bystanders. their ancestors are what perpetuated the voodoo doll tradition, as their magic comes to them as easily as playing with a toy -- except their toys are very much human. while they can mend broken bones or heal things internal, every wound they aid must be given to another; like a life for a life. convenient that caister has a lot of house call doctors, isn't it?

siphon - witches who weren’t born with innate magic like the others. instead, they have a power deep-set and usually unpredictable. why have your own magic when you can possess that of others? any supernatural source can fuel their abilities -- another witch’s magic, church grounds, cemeteries, soil in which unnatural blood was spilled, etc. -- but their possession of these energies is time limited and tiring. these witches are the most easily hidden in the coven for they’re more human than all of them.

 

[irusu]

kuebiko reboot

Hold my hand,

ooh, baby, it's a

long way

d o w n.

↢ . . .C A I S T E R. . . ↣

. ⋉ . ⋈ . ⋊ .​

now entering caister
population: 204 and depleting...​

hidden away by thick woods yet bordered by a river to the right, the town is anything but large and inherently welcoming. the houses are old and creak-riddled, for they've seen many a new layer of paint and about a dozen forms of repair. that can be said about the whole town though: old. the lifestyle hasn't changed since the 40's,
and while women have a lot more say than back then, attributes such as clothing, technology, and transportation are all the same as they were. the elders say it's safer. main street is the only thing close to regular town life as caister can get. a small family-run bank, one grocery store and an alternate convenience store on opposite corners, a library, three choice diners and four restaurants, a hardware store, the police station, the urgent care facility, and a small movie theater create the outside of the town square, where at least one of the elders frequent on their soapbox when town meetings occur.

the local school goes from kindergarten to high school, all in the same fairly-sized building. that's just past main street's square, and the bell echoes just fine. everyone who's anyone and even those in between know that the church is atop the only hill in caister. just beyond that hill resides the cemetery like the number of headstones shouldn't be seen. and there's a radio station, surprisingly, that's right at a forest edge because it was the only place they received signal. the elders have been wanting that damn thing shut down since its establishment, since it's the only part of the community that updates who's missing now. everywhere outside of the square and inside the border is filled with scattered homes until you reach the lower east side; that's where the farmland is. anything you eat in caister is homegrown.

the curfew is 8PM and you don't dare question it. most kids were told ghost stories that if they went out past then they'd be hung like the rumored witches on the same gallows in the square, still looming in the corner of everyone's eye. it was morbid to say, but it kept everyone inside. everyone except the witches whose home was always the forest in the dead of the night.