The Witchkings were a race of human sorcerers who lived in Selenoth centuries before the modern day. They are widely known throughout Selenoth for the cruelty they showed to their enemies and their devotion to the dark arts. They came to power around the turn of the sixth century ASH and were defeated around the middle of that century. During their heyday, their empire dominated the northern part of Selenoth.
History[]
The earliest records of the Witchkings tell of a heretical death cult in the Margravate of Thauron. Twelve years later, Thule Ahnenvater killed the Margrave of Thauron and crowned himself king. Seven years after that, the Witchkings began to extend their power across Wagria.
Eventually, they began to make war upon the elven kingdoms. These wars, which lasted for about forty years, resulted in the destruction of two of the four elven kingdoms that existed at the time. The threat that the Witchkings posed to the elves was so great that the High King of Elebrion went before the magisters of the Collegium Occludum and asked for their help in fighting the Witchkings, an event that was unprecedented in the Collegium's three thousand year history. The Collegium agreed, on the condition that the High King followed its command for the duration of the war. Three years after the Collegium began to assist the elves, the Witchkings were defeated. The last Witchking widely known to exist in Selenoth, Ar Mauragh, was captured, interrogated and killed by the Collegium.
Mastery of the Magical Arts[]
Although the Witchkings relied on non-sorcerous servants for conventional warfare, their main strength was in their mastery of the magical arts. This unusual level of mastery is attributed to the methods in which they bound demons to themselves.
Demonic Binding[]
Before the Witchkings came to power, they discovered a way to bind demonic spirits to their own physical bodies. This allowed the demon that was bound to the body to interact with the physical world while allowing the body to draw on the powers of the demon which it was bound to. While the spell itself can vary in stability, the methods which the Witchkings used were stable enough that they were able to pass the binding on to their descendants, effectively shattering the demon's spirit in the process and giving their descendants greater control over the power they inherited. This allowed the Witchkings to achieve a level of mastery of the magical arts that is usually only seen in the most powerful elvish mages in a fraction of the time that the elves need to master such arts.
The demonic binding also served as a weak point for the Witchkings. When the Collegium entered the war against them, their primary strategy was to sever the connections that the Witchkings had to their demons, thereby denying them the main source of their power. This is what allowed them to defeat the Witchkings in a relatively quick manner.
Role in Creating the Ulfin[]
Although there are no known documents detailing the creation of the ulfin, it is widely believed that the Witchkings may have had some sort of role in it. This is supported by the fact that the ulfin originate in the Wolf Isles, which were once ruled by the Witchkings, and also by the recent discovery that the magic used to create the ulfin is similar, if not identical, to the magic used to create the Witchkings.