The Elder Sister

The Elder Sister
"Come to me"
Origin	Stone
Titles	The Witch in the Woods The Elder Sister The Nameless Hour Essie
Names	none
Aspects
Date of arrival	Before ape first walked upright
Owner(s)	Maltramac

The Elder Sister (The Witch in the Woods, The Nameless Hour) is the Eleventh Hour of the Fansus, created by Maltramac. She is the last remaining God-From-Stone, older than humans and their gods. Her aspect is Moth.

Appearance

They say it is unwise to depict The Elder Sister. They say she is fond of it, and takes such depictions for herself, along with the artist. As such, in works of occult art, the presence of the Wood-Witch is traditionally merely signified by a blank spot of black or white.

Principles

The Elder Sister is an Hour of yearning and craving, and of taking. The feeling that something is missing from your life, but you don't know what; taking what you desire by guile, by trickery or by force, simply because you want to have it; a cycle of fascination and disillusionment, fuelled by the constant motion towards something new and throwing away the old - in these things the Elder Sister resides. She likes pretty things, but she gets bored of them so easily. She is whimsical and quick to throw away what she has acquired or simply forget about it, but will stop at nothing to obtain what is not yet hers.

Fansus Location

The Elder Sister dwells in the Wood, in the Hidden Court, in the company of the Dead who are not human. Perhaps the last remnant of an older Mansus, from a time before humanity and its gods, perhaps just a crude effigy of it. The Hidden Court has no Doors, and many paths lead in while few lead out.

• Last night, I dreamt of the Court hidden in the Woods, far from the Mansus. The Dead that dwell there are old, always welcoming and full of wit and charm. They speak freely of the past, so long as one pays them in turn with a tale of the present. But they are not kind, and as their questions about the path I took to reach the Court grew more insistent, I took my leave, under the pretense of demonstrating it to them.
  I awoke with all that I had told the Dead gone from my mind, replaced with the knowledge they gave me.
  (A Forgotten Chronicle)
• Last night, I dreamt of the Hidden Court where the Elder Sister resides, who welcomes all visitors fondly. My dreams were filled with dance and laughter, song and merriment, as all nights in the Court are. In the morning, my mind and my hands were both stained with the experience. Perhaps I will dream of it again tomorrow.
  (Missing Hue)
• Last night, my dreams took me deep into the Woods, far from the Mansus-light. I reached the Court, the abode of the ancient Dead which we call our Cousins, and I joined them in a festival celebrating a night holy to the Elder Sister, who takes for herself all that she fancies.
  It was not until morning that I realized the Hour must have joined the celebration in person, for there is nothing she fancies more than depictions of herself and the visage of the one I danced with is gone from my mind.
  (An Attention)
• Last night, I must have dreamt of the Witch in the Woods and her Hidden Court. I cannot be certain, because my dreams have been taken from me. But it was long past noon when I woke up, and my sheets were cool to the touch, my body's heat barely beginning to warm them.
  (Dread)

Servants

• The Elder Sister does not have Names in the traditional sense. An attempt at ascension that would invoke her power will inevitably also bring her attention to the adept.
• The Forgotten - In rare cases, both the mind and the body will endure the encounter with the Witch. However, these entities remain trapped deep in the Woods surrounding the Mansus, unable to find their way back.
  Aspects: Moth 8, [a random aspect] 2
  Rite requirements: Lantern 6 to help them find their way, Moth 2 to convince the Woods to let them pass, Knock 2 to open the way.
• The Cousins - Not all Dead that wander the Woods are human. The spirits of those who once worshipped the Witch of the Woods remain at her Court, but they can be called into this world if they are properly enticed.
  Aspects: Edge 10, Moth 10
  Rite requirements: Moth 8 to call to them through the Woods, Forge 4 to stir up their hatred, Knock 2 to open the way. Special requirement: the Forge aspect must be sacrificed in the rite.

Items

• Missing Hue- Moth 4, Ingredient, Pigment. Its color is a drab, dull shade of gray. But in memories, it shines with unseen colors.
• Bone Knife- Edge 4, Tool. In a time before metals were mined and forged, blood was spilled using such blades. It is old and brittle, but the memory of its sharpness remains.

Influences

• An Uneasy Boredom - Familiar places, familiar faces. Oh, to get rid of them! Something fresh!
• A Restless Desire - It beckons, and we must follow.
• An Obsessive Craving - It is difficult to think about anything else, to even remember that other things exist.
• An Attention - It won't last long. [A fifteenth-order influence! This might be the personal attention of an Hour. Pray that it is not]

Relationships

• The Architeuthian:
• The Anaconda:
• Snake Tail with Appendages:
• The Engine of Cycles: The Elder Sister despises the Forge aspect, but the Engine makes her feel something of a gleeful spite. To witness one Forge-Hour devour another was a delight.
• The Peacock: The two have never met, and they should never be allowed to, but the Witch would happily unleash the Peacock upon the Fansus if she could.
• Old Tarnished:
• The Spark: A bitter rivalry, especially over the most talented, promising humans.
• The Cuckoo:
• The Silver Owl:
• The Watcher in the Window: After the Forge-Hours, the Watcher is the inhabitant of the Mansus that the Elder Sister wants dead the most. She sees it as an upstart attempting to usurp her, due to the overlap in their spheres.
• The Apple-of-the-Eye:
• SWOUP:
• The Archivist: Perhaps the closest that the Nameless Hour ever comes to cooperating with the Fansus Hours. The two treasure similar things but value different aspects of them, so occasionally the Archivist is able to distract the Witch with a memory that's novel but redundant, and steal a much more unique one that she has grown bored of.
• The Bright-Delver:
• The Harvester:
• [    ]:
• The Insidious: A delightful curiosity. The few scraps of it that couldn't escape her grasp are bottled up in the Court, on display as a curiosity.
• The Snow-Stained:
• The Fanged Bramble:
• The Aged Bones:
• The Mendicant Without: The Witch-of-the-Woods sees in the Mendicant the same intriguing qualities that give her a fondness for humans. She would love to invite it into her Court, and never allow it to leave. The Mendicant, though it fears it, has also started to see its hatred of the Mansus as a useful tool.
• The Anvil: The Witch had nothing but contempt for the Anvil.