Announcement: [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/184980-the-coven-of-briarwood-community-college/ooc#post-5230745]the Roleplay[/url] is now live and still accepting applications!

[h1][b][color=B22222]Briarwood Community College[/color][/b][/h1]
[h3][i]September 2017[/i][/h3]

	Community College isn't usually full of thrills and danger. The student body is the typical unassuming mix of high school underachievers, working class kids with a dream, and older people going back to class after years in the workplace. BCC, like the ox it has for a mascot, is a hardworking but unassuming campus. Most of the 62 students who signed up for Sociology 171: Witchcraft & Superstition were expecting a marginally interesting humanities credit.

	This semester is not going to go as planned. As per the syllabus, the third day of class involved a discussion of Covens & Supremes. To demonstrate the power of superstition, the professor had the class read aloud an incantation which, supposedly, will awaken any latent Supreme.

	Then the lights all went out. A few students screamed or shouted, and one or two people ran for the doors. The lights switched back on a few moments later and the the professor calmed everyone down, explaining that it was nothing more than a demonstration illustrating the power of superstition and suggestion. Most people laughed, went to sleep that night, and forgot about it.

	Most people, but not all. A few people had very strange dreams that night, and every night since. The days are little better. In the two weeks since that class, there have been a lot of strange incidents around town: A student's car burst into flames and he was badly burned before he could escape, a wild deer walked into the food court at peak lunch time, and several exams have been cancelled by fire alarms which were manually triggered despite security cameras showing empty halls.

	But things are about to get even weirder. The awakening Witches' dreams are getting more vivid and more powerful, and they're starting to sense each others' presence. As the new Supreme comes into their power, Briarwood may get its first full-fledged Coven in decades... unless everything goes terribly wrong.

[hr]

[center]
Hopefully, if you've read this far, you're interested and down for things to go terribly wrong. Giving a bunch of unqualified kids supernatural abilities can really only end poorly, as a myriad of horror movies go to show. I'm looking for 2-4 other adult writers to build this small coven with and guide them through discovering the Supreme, learning to use magic, and dodging the increasingly suspicious authorities.

The only future event that's really set in stone is the Coven coming together to discover who the Supreme is. I don't have a specific idea for how this will happen, so I'm more than open to suggestions. After the Supreme rises, the action opens up. Does the sudden rise in unusual crime and unexplained incidents get law enforcement on our Coven's tail? Do a posse of witch hunters, or even a rival Coven, show up? Or does the Coven start to tear itself apart from the inside as the witches turn on each other? There's opportunity for plenty of story arcs, and I'd love for them to be consensus-driven.

So... yeah! If I can find at least 2 other interested people, we can refine this idea and move forward. I'm new around here and just getting back into RPing after a looooong absence, so please ask questions and put your ideas on the table! 
[/center]

[hider=worldbuilding stuff] 
[h2]Witches[/h2]
	About 1% of people have some latent witchcraft in them, but the vast majority will never awaken their powers. A witch's magic cannot awaken or function properly without a Supreme. Typically this only happens once they're in a Coven and have bonded, but in rarer cases (like this RP), it can also happen if they spend time in the presence of an ascending Supreme who has yet to learn how to focus their powers. All witches have access to all three types of magic, but it's rare for someone with powerful Gifts to also be a talented Spellcaster and vice versa.

[h2]Magic[/h2]
[list]
[*][b][u]Knacks:[/u][/b] Everyone with some latent witchy abilities has exactly one Knack - this is the only sign that someone has the potential to become a witch. Knacks are usually subtle, the sort of thing that could be mistaken for dumb luck, strange coincidences, or natural talent. A Knack can neither be gained nor lost, but is with a person from birth til death. [i]Ex. this person's dice roll 7s half the time, they have an unusually tight bond with exactly one animal (a familiar), they get a sense of impending doom before something bad happens to their loved ones, or they can throw things with near-perfect accuracy despite never practicing.[/i]
[*][b][u]Gifts:[/u][/b] Gifts are the true magic witches can perform on instinct, without needing to focus their power using a spell. Gifts will only work if the Witch has a magical connection to a Supreme; if cut off from their Coven, a Witch will lose all of their Gifts. Every Gift comes with a price, and the powerful Gifts tend to make their users very sick or weak afterwards. Every witch has at least one Gift. Reasonably powerful witches have two, and very powerful witches have three. Supremes typically manifest 5-7. [i]Ex. pyrokinesis, telekinesis, telepathy with 1 or 2 other people or certain animals, precognitive dreams.[/i]
[*][b][u]Spells:[/u][/b] Spellcraft is where the real power of witches comes to light. While Gifts usually only allow a Witch to use her magic to slightly shift reality in her general vicinity, Spells can be used to cause much greater changes that are less constrained by time and space. A curse might cause a rival's car to crash several hours or days from the time of casting, or abruptly shift the weather in the Bahamas. Spells require focus instead of instinct, have certain rituals and practices, and usually need 2 or more witches to cast correctly. Spells feed off of the magic of the environment around them, making powerful spells impossible without either the presence (not necessarily consent) of a Supreme or powerful magical source. Improperly cast spells may work differently than intended or even backfire against the Witch trying to cast them. [i]Ex. love charm to make the quarterback enamored with the cheerleader (if it backfires, could cause him to stalk her), curse to make a the roof leak onto a stack of exams (cast improperly may cause the roof to collapse), ward of protection against dark spirits.[/i]
[/list]

[h2]Supremes[/h2]
Supremes are a rare type of Witch that serve as a conduit to bring magic into the world. Though not necessarily more powerful than their fellows, magic comes more easily to them than to other Witches, best exemplified by their myriad of Gifts. Even the weakest Supremes still manifest at least five Gifts which they can use at will, and most will manifest additional abilities if their lives or their loved ones are threatened. Their spells almost always go through, though not with any more accuracy than a regular Witch. A fully mature Supreme can detect other potential Witches and choose whether or not to awaken the magic within them, but before a Supreme has come into their own their presence is enough. This makes it very difficult to tell which dawning Witch is the Supreme, since everyone in the Coven will be supercharged by the presence of an unrestrained Supreme's power.

[h2]Covens[/h2]
A Coven is a group of witches who share a magical bond which allows them to combine their power to cast spells cooperatively. Covens form around Supremes, who have a great deal of de facto power over them as a fully mature Supreme can control who can use them as a conduit. However, Supremes are not always the leaders of their Covens - especially before they mature enough to control their power output. Though there is no way to force a Witch to join a Coven, the magical connection they feel to their fellow Witches is typically irresistible, haunting their dreams until they find their people.

[/hider]