Hagswoods and the Covens

The Hagswoods and the Covens

The Hagswoods are numerous small forests in the Skalovian Oblast of the URES. They are inhabited by a mixture of dragonkin and humanoid kinds who form into groups known as the Hagswood Covens. The Covens are made up of witches, male and female, who practice an ancient art of rote and ritualistic medicine and healing in contrast to the scientifically and experimentally educated physicians, magical and non-magical, of most of the world. While often demonized as evil crones that prey upon innocent kinds, the Hagswoods hags makeup communities that are part apothecary, part magical physician, and are often helpful to the outside world. Their religion is a sort of mixture of spiritual animalism and ancestor worship. They believe in the essence of souls in all living things on the earth and they believe in the constant trade of souls between different beings. Human dead gives life and trades their essence to trees. Trees trade their essence to humans to make tools and give live-giving or deadly flame. The tools carry their original essence and the flame turns wood to ash which then can give essence to other things through fertilization. Thus life is an interlocked series of trades.

The Hagswood Covens and the URES

The Hagswoods covens are a protected and special-designation group in the URES. Once driven out from Skalovia by the scale princes for giving haven to runaway slave thralls, the diaspora that spread across Velasia was allowed and encouraged to return by the first Apparat. The covens would be allowed back to their homes and would have help in reparing the enchanted forests their ancestors kept for thousands of years. They would not be added to the pool of conscription that almost every URES citizen is a part of. Nor would they have to spend the minimum 2-10 years (depending on if war or conflict was active) in military service as all other URES citizens have to, including the other special-designation group the Djiinari. Furthermore, they would not have to register with the Institute of Magicks that requires all magic using inhabitants of the URES to report to a handler regularly, including visitors. However, in exchange for returning to their homes and their special privileges, they would form a very necessary part of the Republican military, the Hag Corps

The Hag Corps

The Hag Corps was the Apparat's answer to the mass exodus of clerics from Skalovia at the end of the Skalovian revolution. Left without healers or those that could bless crops, it was quickly decided to have a new source of magic that would fill the space that clerics left. Thus, the Hag Corps were formed. The Hag Corps consists of Hagswood witches that work parallel with the Insitute of Magicks as a mixture of magical military medic for the Republican army along with acting as a utility mage. In this way, the URES was able to lower wartime casualties, gain a resource of herbalists to make necessary medicines for the Skalovian population, and not lose an edge against other nations that had clerics fight with them. They also tend to not chafe against the Institute as while both often fill utilitarian roles, the Institute tends to focus on make warcasters, magical investigators, and more bulk labor magicians like those that helped to construct the buildings of Zurikau before the construction of cranes, lifts, and the like.

Baba Neyaga

Baba Neyaga was once a Hagswood witch. She is anathema to the covens now and is what many superstitious think witches are. Baby murdering, curse planting, and evil cauldron brew stirring crones that delight in suffering and sin. Those worshippers of Baba Neyaga are punished severely by the covens as they threaten not only the safety of the indiviudal members of the woods but also weaken the ability of the witches to look useful to the Apparat. Baba Neyaga does often get followers from witches looking for underhanded edges, but also has a wider range she works from.