Astronomical events, weather, the change of seasons: all of these are vitally important parts of our environment. Our reliance on them to mark time and facilitate agriculture formed the basis for early society. They’re so important we tied our religious traditions to them, celebrations and rites tied to the ebb and flow of the earth.
But those events are finite. You get 2 equinoxes and 2 solstices a year and that’s it, if there’s a ritual that can only be performed in spring and you miss your window that’s 9 months minimum until you can try again (unless you’re willing to travel to the opposite hemisphere of the earth at least). Astrid - the heir to a lineage of ritualists spanning back centuries but ruined by the 20th century - thinks she’s discovered a way around that limitation. If the weather can be changed by human hands, then why not its symbolism and magickal influence.
The crux of this belief is a potent charging ritual - “Loki’s Teeth” - which allows her to reap a bevy of significant charges through the summer months. Except with this new belief came experimentation and with experimentation the realization that her window for using the ritual is expanding. Whether this is down to changing weather or a measure of her own arcane puissance is immaterial, she’s certain she knows the score.
So she wants to accelerate anthropic climate change while everyone else is either trying to thwart it or claim it isn’t real because they’re doing too well off the back of related industries (or would like to be). She fully believes in a coming collapse and wants it more than anything, with her powers she thinks she can rule her dream of a barren wasteland as a post-apocalyptic sorceror-queen. It’s a narrative with a terrible magnetism to it and because of that her woodland compound is staffed by a cadre of cultists and their families. They have faith in Astrid and believe they in turn will inherit power and authority by proximity.
Given humanities’ general laziness it seems like Astrid’s goals will be fulfilled if she just kicks back and takes a nap. For this reason the cult does not aim to promote climate change as a cause, instead they engage in action against anyone trying to stop it. Three people are dead because of this, twice as many have had their lives ruined and every year her hold over them grows stronger as her magick becomes more and more powerful.
STATS
Personality: Astrid is like a smug version of an apocalyptic street corner preacher because she’s being proved right. She knows she can’t meaningfully effect change on her own, but being on the “winning” side she just has to keep people who can at bay.
Rage: People who manipulate false narratives for personal gain (it’s okay when she does it).
Noble: Action before words, Astrid prizes doers over talkers.
Fear: Astrid fell down a well as a kid and wasn’t found for hours. Being trapped in a small, dark pit is her greatest fear (Helplessness).
Obsession: Destroy the world, become queen of the wreckage.
Wound Threshold: 50.
Apocalyptic Cult Leader 50%* (Substitutes for Lie, Substitutes for Status, Coerces Self.)
Survivalist 45% (Substitutes for Fitness, Provides Firearm Attacks, Protects Helplessness.)
Witch 60% (Substitutes for Secrecy, Cast Rituals, Use Gutter Magick.)
Shock Gauges
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