Practitioners of the Craft

A practitioner of the Craft of magick is anyone who can use magick in any effective manner to achieve some effect. All witches and wizards are practitioners. Some morphs take up the Craft as well, as do some vampires...with varying amounts of success. There are two general schools of the Craft: the witch tradition, placing an emphasis on group workings that seek to entice magick to do their will, and the wizard tradition, placing an emphasis on individual study and skill that is more straight-forward and demanding. For the most part, only born-witches attempt to follow the wizard tradition, because it is more difficult to accomplish magick alone than in a group. There are the occasional individuals who do attempt it; they are always alpha-wizards (see below).

All humans have what is known as a normal connection to magick, which allows the person to begin learning the Craft. Practice increases the person’s skill level. Some humans, called born-witches, have a direct connection to magick, making the power more accessible and easier to manipulate. A born-witch who chooses to never hone his or her talent would be indistinguishable from an unmagickal human, though the magickal potential remains in the genome.

The primary difference between a witch and a wizard is a matter of dedication and single-mindedness. A wizard spends a lot of time practicing the Craft, studying tomes, scrolls, and mystic writings, and generally developing his or her skills, concentration, and focus. A wizard is someone, most often a born-witch, who has dedicated his or her life to the study of magick and the honing of the Craft.

Types of Practitioners

Witch
These are practitioners of the traditional school using their magick connection (whether normal or direct) to accomplish their tasks. They tend to be less studious, or perhaps more busy or more responsible with respect to the mundane world, than those practitioners following the wizard tradition. A witch who is also a born-witch can generally attempt more powerful and more complex spells, and have them work.
Craftsman
A craftsman is always a non-born-witch with a normal connection to magick. These practitioners gain their power through continuous study and effort, and are looked upon with envy and respect. Because he lacks the direct connection to magick of a born-witch, a craftsman is generally less powerful than a full-fledged wizard or witch, but his magick is reliable and usually strong enough. A craftsman can come from either the witch tradition or the wizard tradition. They can be compared to the followers of a martial art, honing their skills with constant practice and often leading very Spartan and ascetic lives.
Alpha-Wizard
These are the classical spell-casting wizards. As born-witches, they have a strong connection to magick and so have dedicated their lives to the study of craft. The occasional rare non-born-witch may feel a strong affinity for the wizard tradition of magick and decide to follow this path. An Alpha-Wizard may be an Ancient.
Elemental-Wizard
This is a wizard born with the ability to control or derive power from one of the Elements. They have the direct connection of a born-witch, but their connection to magick is slightly skewed through an Element. This makes them stronger in their specialties in the long run. Some wizards never master their Element. Since a direct connection to magick is required to attach the practitioner to his or her element, a non-born-witch is never an elemental-wizard.

The four main Elements (Water, Earth, Fire, Air) are the most common, but there are many sub-groups of elemental wizards. Chaos Wizards, Stone Wizards, Frost Wizards, Rain Wizards are just some examples. (You don’t want to be around Gas Wizards after dinner.)

An Elemental-Wizard may be an Ancient.

Practitioners may gather in groups, organisations, covens, or orders. In particular, there was an order of Dark Practitioners. Craftsman Witch Ruth Chattan leads a coven in Haven, NC, which met on the occasion of trying to control Chelsea’s transformations.

Magickal Stages of Practitioners

A practitioners’s power depends on his or her dedication to the Craft. This is especially true for non-born-witches, who lack the head-start of a direct connection to magick. The following list specifies the levels that a practitioner can go through. Not all practitioners will attain the highest levels, due to a combination of factors including skill and dedication. Some of the levels can only be attained by born-witches.

  1. A Naive Witch can be a born-witch or a non-born-witch. Either way, they are just starting out in the Craft. They have little power in themselves, and their control improves only gradually.
  2. A Naive Wizard is usually a born-witch, though a masochistic non-born-witch may choose to follow the wizard tradition. A non-born-witch remains a naive wizard until and unless he or she makes it to craftsman, while a born-witch will usually attain the level of noble wizard. They are young wizards just starting out on their path of dedication. Most of their spells simply don’t work.
  3. A Common Witch can be a born-witch or non-born-witch. They have mature spell-casting abilities. To lead a coven spell, the witch should be at least at this level.
  4. A Specialist Witch can be a born-witch or non-born-witch, but is generally a non-born-witch. They have the control and confidence of a common witch, but have chosen to concentrate on a particular facet of the Craft. One example of a specialist is the Kitchen Witch, who specialises in potions and herbal medicine.
  5. A Craftsman is always a non-born-witch who has reached the pinnacle of magickal ability. Basically, a non-born-witch cannot become any more powerful in the Craft. Practitioners from both the witch tradition and wizard tradition can make it to this level.
  6. A Noble Witch is always a born-witch. They perform magick at some cost of personal energy, but their magick is reliable in a way that a non-born-witch’s cannot be. This is the highest level of power for someone in the witch tradition.
  7. A Noble Wizard is always a born-witch. Most wizards have the skill to become noble Wizards. They can perform magick at the cost of some personal energy. The more powerful the spell, the greater the energy drain.
  8. A Grand Wizard is always a born-witch and is usually also an Ancient. He is not nearly as powerful as Prime Wizard (see next), but he is much more powerful than the other types. He expends very little personal energy when casting spells. This level of ability is usually not found among non-Ancients.
  9. A Prime Wizard is always a born-witch and always an Ancient. He is the most powerful type of all wizards. He expends no personal energy at all when casting even complex spells. Such people are rare and only found amoung the ranks of the Ancients.

A practitioners chooses to follow either the witch tradition or the wizard tradition. In either case, he starts as a Naive Witch or Wizard.

Anyone, born-witch or not, who follows the witch tradition advances to Common Witch, and can then specialise (for example, becoming a Kitchen Witch). A witch chooses to specialise because of interest or inclination. This is different from an elemental-wizard’s preordained affinity for a particular element. A specialist witch (especially a non-born-witch) has simply chosen that element.

With appropriate effort, a born-witch following the witch tradition would eventually reach Noble Witch, functionally equivalent to a Noble Wizard or Wizard-Morph.

A non-born-witch who follows the witch tradition becomes a Craftsman instead of a Noble Witch. This is again similar to Noble Wizard, but as previously noted, since Craftsmen lack a direct connection to magick, they are generally not as powerful as a Noble Wizard or Witch.

A born-witch following the wizard tradition starts out slow (as a naive wizard), but eventually progresses to Noble Wizard stage. Reaching the higher stages is pretty dependent on how powerful the wizard’s connection to magick is and whether or not he is an Ancient.

A non-born-witch following the wizard tradition stays a Naive Wizard until and unless he has studied and disciplined himself enough to reach Craftsman level.

An example of the difference between born-witch and non-born-witch practitioners is that the born-witches can perform certain higher level spells that a non-born-witch witches cannot. The Resurrection spell is an example of such a spell.

How to Become a Practitioner

There are two ways to become a practitioner of the Craft.

Dedication
Ninety percent of all practitioners of the craft of magick in the CotC universe are non-born-witches, that is, they are normal human beings that for one reason or another have decided to follow a Pagan religious path throughout their life. They possess no more or no less magick within themselves than any other human...and that is the key.

All humans possess some ability of magick. Those who can work magick through spells, chants, or other means simply choose to believe in it, while the others scoff. While it is true that some witches are more powerful than others, it must be noted that their powers all arrive from the same magick. Does a witch possess greater magick because he or she has a greater belief in the magick itself? That’s partly true. The witch who can seemingly do miracles also has a great belief in herself, her friends, and her life, because this is where the magick comes from. It’s not just enough to believe that a certain spell will work, but one must also believe in the purpose of the spell and all that surrounds it.

Heredity
The remaining ten percent of practitioners are the born-witches. They are like the other ninety percent of the practitioners in the world in every aspect except one: they have a direct connection to magick. This usually means that it will take little effort for this practitioner to perform difficult spells. The tendency for magick and the strength of magickal ability are both affected by the genes. Sometimes these practitioners can evolve past the spell phase all together and simply think a task into being done. This, however, is a skill that must be learned through tireless dedication.

How to Kill a Practitioner

For the most part a practitioner is as vulnerable as any human. The practitioner may be able to establish spells and wards to protect him- or herself, but is of course susceptible to attack from those with stronger magick at their disposal.

Probably the safest way to try and take out a practitioner is to catch him or her by surprise before he or she can mount a coherent defence.

Other Notes

Practitioners will take in morphs who are separated from their clans or packs. This is from an ancient custom that demands that wizards mentor morphs in magick for their part in the Portal Wars.

In the Great War, Deus Lupus used wizards as weapons against rebellious morphs. Warring clans of morphs have often used wizards against their enemies, a practice that started during the Portal Wars.

A practitioner who is turned into a vampire will lose much of its focus on the Craft. Its attention is diverted from study to the Hunt. This will adversely affect how well its magickal abilities will continue to work.

A morph’s ability to transform is functionally equivalent to having the direct connection to magick of a born-witch. However, the morph must overcome the tendency for the magick to go into the transformation, rather than the desired spell.

Humans, born-witches, morphs, and vampires all generally study the Craft in the same way, with the same slow increase in ability. (Tepes-Vampires are always the exception, having inherent magick due to their sire.)

See also:

People

References



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All content copyright © 1999-2002 by Jamie Robertson unless otherwise noted.

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