Sharing some information about the Maw, since I believe I’ve been the information hub on this issue.
This last year, we’ve been attacked by various instantiations of mawling (minor and regular). My research showed that there was a third level of mawling (major, unsurprisingly), in addition to The Maw itself. Minor maws are weak, and immune to physical damage. Medium maws are medium. Major maws are between yellow and green vigamor in strength, are very difficult (maybe impossible?) to hurt with magic, and are as of yet unseen in Oak Harbor.
If we had done nothing, my understanding is that the Maw would have attacked the town at our next gathering. However, I believe Oak Harbor’s, uh, tasty people have now been adequately hidden, via ritual, and the Maw’s attention should be diverted for the time being. Apprentice and jack-of-all-trades Scott Barston was crucial to this effort. If you see him, maybe buy him a drink.
I am not entirely sure what’s going on with the plans to go to the Bulwark and attack the Maw at its source. I doubt that’s necessary at this point, but if others know otherwise, or just want to go fight it, by all means.
Any questions, please feel free to find me in person.
Oh, nice. I was a little surprised I hadn’t heard of one visiting. Did anyone determine if it was simply immune to magic, or if it called reduce or resist? Nice capitalization, by the way.
Unfortunately, not. It followed our one at the time unritualed friend around until they reposed, then gave up. No one was ever in combat with it. I followed and heard the whole “initializing” bit, and they had all three types.
I apologize for potentially derailing what is an informational bulletin about the Maw, but I have to object to the phrasing used here. I understand a lot of the current void taint in town was acquired under duress, and as a means to save the town (and bear no ill will towards those motives), but I would like to underscore that practice Void responsibly is to not practice it at all. I do not think that we, as a town, should be condoning the use or practice of Voidic magic.
If we must, I would like to publicly petition the Town Council to institute a civil stricture requiring practitioners to leave measures of blood with the constable every gathering such that if the need arises, a weapon to destroy them may be made.
To be clear, I do not oppose rehabilitation or reversal of void taint, nor do I recommend immediately killing everyone with it, but if we are going to make public pronouncements about void practice, I ask we evaluate carefully the consequences and risk mitigation strategies.
Thank you for bringing this up. I was otherwise going to ask what, exactly, people think constitutes responsible Voidic practice. Misconceptions on that point seem apt to be extremely dangerous.
Obviously attempted humor. Don’t practice Voidmancy at all. That is how you get mawlings.*
.* This is also humor. The real danger is the entropic decay of reality itself at the mercy of an unfeeling, uncaring, insatiable Hunger, not any isolated Vigorous instantiations.
You asked about responsible voidic practice. So this is largely theory, but all arts are associated with a realm, even those whose practitioners tend not to think of as such. For example, soldier and swashbuckler are both tied to vigor. But this leads to the question of what arts are tied to void? And the most commonly proposed answer is spy and scout. How do you think subterfuge’s blocking of scrying magics works? The answer is a very light tie to void. And practitioners who go deep in to that art can find skills that can result in a purple light.
Among the less commonly known paths is the venom acclimation path. At the start of the path you stop dying from poison but instead wake up. At the end of the path you end up with a purple light or equivalent. I’d argue that just taking that first step on that path, and not progressing further, is a responsible practice of void magic. And the Mawings would seem to agree as they left those alone who’d only taken that first step.
There are other practices that I believe are similar responsible practices of void, but out of respect for their practitioners and because those practices are not a problem, I am leaving any curiosity around them as an academic exercise for the reader.