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The Eclipse Witches, or the Eclipse Covenant, is an alliance of Mages who practice Dark Magic and are generally seen as unethical practitioners of Magic across the world. This lore is extended from Aldurism as a Religion, and builds on some concepts of Magic Theory. Eclipse Witches are generally feared or hated across the world, the typical depiction of the evil scheming Mage, the target of most purist fantasies of Mage tyranny, and equally as enigmatic as the Slizzar from Sassrakkand. In all, the Eclipse Witches are a secretive society furthering the goals of their own members and their master, the God Catheron. Note, playing a Eclipse Witch is generally not recommended, as this requires a level of political scheming that most players are just not able to do convincingly in Roleplay. This page mostly exists to provide texture to Kathar characters who come from the Dread Empire.
Origins
The origins of the Eclipse Witches are unclear due to their nature to be secretive and Catheron's general reluctance to communicate with those he deems unworthy of his attention and power. Catheron and the Eclipse Witches embody that quality that is always feared the most in Mages, that the power of Magic itself becomes a means to an end and a lure to greater power, thus corrupting the user. The Eclipse Witches have in essence given themselves fully to the idea that no amount of Magic is ever enough, and they should always seek greater power. The Eclipse Witches have had some relation to the founding of the Kathar. It is said that when Catheron ascended to Godhood when the Luminarchs assailed Elderlaw, the Eclipse Witches continued his work in the mortal world. While they cannot take responsibility for all cultural notions and traditions of the Kathar Empire (which were in turn created by the Shadow Cult),
The False Law
the Eclipse Witches continue to act like a government within the government of the Kathar Empire. While the Kathar Empire has an Empress and nobility and clergy, real power in the halls of politics is often held by the Eclipse Witches. The Eclipse Witches often send the wrong signal to the world externally. Everyone believes the Kathar Empire is a dark place with child sacrifice, cannibalism, and blood feasts, but this is purely what the Eclipse Witches want the Kathar to be seen as. To them, the Kathar being hated and isolated creates a sheltered mentality that makes them easier to manipulate. Some scholars even propose that the Kathar Empire at large has no real concept of the outside world and that their perception of it is entirely controlled by the Eclipse Witches. The reality on the ground is that many Kathar have varied personalities, and many of them even have kind-hearted natures that are otherwise used into hatred of an intolerant world. This is why so many Kathar arrive in Regalia as refugees from such a hostile place, as the Eclipse Witches make the Kathar Empire a nearly intolerant place to live for those who are intolerant of living a false life.
The Ultor Incident
An often unspoken matter that involved the Eclipse Witches was the Ultor incident in the Regalian Empire. Due to the Eclipse Witches inherent stated goal to establish secret Magic cabals across foreign nations to influence politics in the direction of secretive Magical control, it was a natural conclusion to infiltrate the Unionist priesthood with Eclipse Witches, so as to control the words of the divine Emperors. Indeed, for nearly 200 years, the Unionist clergy was deeply infiltrated by Eclipse Witches at the top, Ailor who had secretly converted to Aldurism and joined the Eclipse Witches Covenant in service to Catheron's fanaticism. For many decades, these witches influenced Unionist dogma to lose much of its unifying and approachable appeal, making the Religion inherently intolerant of other faiths and outsiders, so much so that Unionists to this day have a somewhat blackened reputation as a Religion that instructs much evil (often also perpetuated by fringe purist views).
By making the population hateful of the outside, and othering the unknown, the Eclipse Witches turned attention away from scrutiny on them, to pointless conflicts on the outside, thus allowing further and further infiltration all the way to the top, the last Supreme Reverent Wolffram Ultor. Ultor was an exceptionally cruel man who commanded the deaths of many nonbelievers and outsiders alike, always veiled in honeyed words of pious duty and intention but with social isolation in mind. The Eclipse Witches always thrive more when the population feels isolated, disconnected, and alienated by all around them, playing on the natural paranoia and distrust of the living.
The Ultor incident was revealed by a lowly nun called Beatrix Lievevrouwe van Bergenzandt, who accidentally uncovered vast communication between Wolffram Ultor, the Eclipse Witch High Celates, and the Eclipse Witches in the Dread Empire. In her attempt to reveal this conspiracy, a wild chase across the Empire occurred as she tried to reach the capital, waylayed by Eclipse Witches all along her route but desperately protected by a unique and rare unification of Knightly cohesion, 3 Viridians, 2 Aelrrigans, 4 Bloodcast Knights, and 6 Lothar Knights who all fought for the moral purification of the faith. Beatrix and her Knight protectors all failed to reach the capital, being killed somewhere on the road between Regalia and Oxenfurd where a ship was waiting to ship them to Regalia. It was Beatrix however who had anticipated their failure, and entrusted all paperwork to a simple Anglian milkmaid, who had already reached Regalia by this point and revealed the whole conspiracy. The Eclipse Witches implicated all fled Regalia and presumably to this day, continue to reside in the Kathar Empire in waiting for their re-enstatement in Regalia.
Nuance
Eclipse Witches at face value have little nuance, due to their habit of routinely violating the free will of the people, plotting to overthrow governments, and engaging in acts that at best corrupt the world, and at worst case horrible magical calamities. There are however some indicators and evidence to support the notion that the Eclipse Witches and Catheron by extension act towards some greater good, or some penultimate goal, that most other Gods or forces across Aloria are just too shortsighted to consider. The Eclipse Witches expressly forbid interacting with Demons for a whole host of reasons, but this is largely an eccentric and curious anomaly especially given their approximation in the Kathar Empire which is rife with Demons. Scholars have speculated that the Eclipse Witches are preparing the world for an even greater paranormal struggle than it has faced in the past, but they must equally admit that they cannot be sure that this rhetoric in itself isn't Eclipse Witch propaganda and that they are just cold and evil through and through all along.