The Great Covens: Power Structures of The Hollow Heart
Welcome back to the worldbuilding series for The Hollow Heart. We’ve explored magic, species, and oppression. Today, we’re diving into the political and economic heart of witch society, the covens that control power, wealth, and destiny.
What Is a Coven?
In the world of The Hollow Heart, covens are the primary social and economic unit for witches. They’re part family, part corporation, part guild, and part political faction all rolled into one. A witch without a coven is vulnerable, politically powerless, and economically disadvantaged.
Think of covens as the fundamental building blocks of witch civilization, where you learn your craft, earn your living, find your community, and exercise what power you can claim.
There are two main types:
Elemental Covens: Traditional organizations built around a single element. These are the old-blood aristocracy of witch society, centers of deep knowledge, ancient traditions, and concentrated power. They’re respected, feared, and often dangerously insular.
Mixed Covens: Modern, entrepreneurial organizations that bring together witches from different elements to pursue complex projects or run businesses. They’re seen as pragmatic and innovative by some, as lacking in tradition and purity by others.
And then there’s a third category: The Unaffiliated, almost exclusively the Hollowed, who are barred from joining covens and exist as a permanent underclass outside the entire system.
The Conclave: The Four Who Rule
At the apex of witch society sits The Conclave, the supreme ruling council composed of one Arch-Mage from each of the four elements. This ensures no single element can dominate, creating a careful balance of power that has held for generations.
Let me introduce you to the most powerful witches in the realm:
1. The Gilded Petal Coven (Earth)
Leader: Orin Stonehand (Arch-Mage)
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Motto: “From stone, we build empires”
The Gilded Petal is old money, old power, and old traditions. They control vast agricultural lands in the Gilded Plain and hold mineral rights throughout the realm. When people need blessed seeds for their farms, enchanted metals for their forges, or structurally-perfect stone for their buildings, they come to the Gilded Petal—and they pay handsomely.
What They Do: Agriculture, mining, construction, and Earth magic mastery. They’re the foundation, literally and figuratively, of the entire economy.
Their Philosophy: Stability and profit above all. The Gilded Petal views the peace with werewolves as good business. War is expensive and disruptive. Peace is profitable.
Political Position: Traditionalist and pragmatic. They maintain the oldest and strongest Protective Pact with the Ironwood Pack. They resist change not out of malice, but because change threatens their comfortable position at the top.
Their Shadow: They’re the largest employers of Hollowed labor. The agricultural empire that feeds the realm runs on the backs of servants with no rights, no voice, and no choice.
2. The Scribes of the Zephyr (Air)
Leader: Elara Vancross (Arch-Mage)
Alignment: Neutral Good
Motto: “Knowledge rides the wind”
If the Gilded Petal controls material wealth, the Scribes control something potentially more valuable: information. They operate the messenger networks that keep the realm connected. They train the scouts and spies. They mediate disputes and facilitate communication between hostile parties.
What They Do: Communication services, intelligence gathering, diplomacy, and weather work. Need to send a message across the realm? They’ll carry your whisper on the wind. Need to know what your rival is planning? They might know someone who knows.
Their Philosophy: Knowledge is sacred. Peace requires understanding. The Scribes see themselves as the glue holding civilization together, the neutral voice of reason in a world prone to passionate extremes.
Political Position: The great mediators of the Conclave. Elara is respected for her fairness and her willingness to find middle ground.
Their Complexity: Information is power, and power corrupts. Some Scribes use their access to knowledge for personal gain. They know everyone’s secrets, including yours.
3. The Emberheart Forge (Fire)
Leader: Theron Ignis (Arch-Mage)
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Motto: “Through fire, transformation”
The Emberheart Forge is passion incarnate, brilliant, volatile, proud, and dangerous. Their forges in the Emberpeak Range produce the finest magical weapons, enchanted items, and glasswork in the realm. They’re master craftsmen, driven artists, and deeply resentful of anyone who tries to constrain them.
What They Do: Weapons smithing, glassblowing, alchemy, and light provision. They create ever-burning lanterns for cities, forge enchanted swords for Guardians, and craft delicate glass artifacts that sell for fortunes.
Their Philosophy: Excellence through intensity. Fire witches believe in transformation, purification, and the superiority of their craft. They see themselves as the pinnacle of magical achievement and resent being told what to do by Earth witches counting coins or Air witches preaching diplomacy.
Political Position: Volatile. The Emberheart Forge views the Accord as a necessary cage that restrains witch potential. They’re one provocation away from causing a diplomatic incident, and they know it. Their pride makes them dangerous.
Their Leadership: Arch-Mage Theron Ignis is brilliant, cruel, and deeply wounded by a past humiliation that shaped his worldview. He rules the Forge with an iron fist and treats his Hollowed servants with particular brutality.
4. The Silver Tides Coven (Water)
Leader: Mara Undine (Arch-Mage)
Alignment: Neutral Good
Motto: “As water flows, so too does mercy”
The Silver Tides are the healers and mediators of witch society. They run the hospitals, train the medical practitioners, and provide healing services to anyone who can afford them. They’re compassionate, diplomatic, and politically shrewd, using their control over healing as both carrot and stick in negotiations.
What They Do: Medicine, healing, water purification, ice provision, and food preservation. When you’re sick, you go to a Silver Tides healer. When you need ice for your fishmonger business, you contract with them. When you need someone to mediate a delicate situation, you call on their diplomatic expertise.
Their Philosophy: Healing is sacred, but not free. The Silver Tides believe in compassion tempered with pragmatism. They’ll heal anyone, if they can pay or if denying healing would cause political problems.
Political Position: The moral conscience of the Conclave, or at least they style themselves as such. Mara Undine is respected for her fairness and her genuine belief in making the world better.
Their Alliance: They maintain the strongest relationships with werewolf packs, particularly the Frostmane Pack. Their Protective Pact is built on genuine respect, proving that cooperation is possible.
Beyond the Conclave: Other Powers That Shape the World
The four Arch-Mages may sit at the top, but they’re not the only covens with influence:
5. The Verdant Shield (Earth)
Leader: Silas Greenward (High Warden)
Specialty: Military-style defensive magic and territorial defense
Think of them as the warrior-monks of Earth magic. The Verdant Shield operates more like a military order than a traditional coven. They protect borders, sacred sites, and natural wonders. They’re isolated, principled, and less interested in politics than in their sacred duty.
They train Earth witches in both agricultural magic and defensive combat techniques. When someone needs specialized security for a dangerous location, the Verdant Shield provides it, for a price.
6. The Stormcaller Collective (Air)
Leader: Kaelen, Voice of the Storm
Specialty: Weather magic and atmospheric studies
The hermits of the high peaks. The Stormcaller Collective is a loose association of Air witches who’ve rejected lowland politics entirely. They study weather patterns, prevent catastrophic storms, and maintain long-distance communication networks. They’ll trade their services for rare materials but otherwise want nothing to do with anyone.
They represent the philosophical branch of Air magic, less interested in spying and politics, more interested in understanding the fundamental nature of atmosphere and pressure.
7. The Ashen Blade (Fire)
Leader: Moriana, the Pyre Lord
Specialty: Supremacist ideology and forbidden magic
Alignment: Lawful Evil
And here we arrive at the dark edge of witch society.
The Ashen Blade is a coven of Fire witches who believe in absolute magical supremacy and witch dominion over all other beings. They practice Blighted Magic openly within their territory. They believe the peace was a mistake, that the Blood War should have been won, and that werewolves should be subjugated rather than allied with.
Publicly denounced by the Conclave but tacitly tolerated as a “fringe element,” the Ashen Blade represents everything wrong with unchecked supremacist ideology. They’re hunting the Hollowed for reasons that won’t be revealed here, but trust me, it’s horrifying.
They’re led by Moriana, a brilliant and deeply damaged woman trying to vindicate her father’s legacy through methods that would horrify him. She’s a tragic villain, understandable in her pain, inexcusable in her actions.
8. The Covenant of the Root (Mixed: Earth/Water)
Leader: Elowen, Grove Mother
Specialty: Herbalism, ecology, and cooperation
Alignment: Neutral Good
A beacon of hope in a stratified society. The Covenant of the Root is a mixed coven formed through a Trust-Bond between its Earth and Water witch founders. They operate communal farms, healing gardens, and teaching centers. They prove that cooperation between elements, and potentially between species, is possible.
They’re idealists, but not naive ones. They trade extensively with both witch and werewolf communities. They train healers in herbal medicine. They represent what society could be if it valued cooperation over hierarchy.
9. The Guild of Quills and Quartz (Mixed: Air/Earth)
Leader: Master Fenwick, Guild Master
Specialty: Enchanted items, architecture, and… other services
Alignment: Lawful Neutral (officially)
On the surface, a respectable entrepreneurial guild specializing in magical infrastructure and enchanted goods. They design buildings, craft permanent magical items, and facilitate trade.
Behind closed doors? They’re sophisticated grey-market facilitators who run the illegal Hollowed trafficking network. They move “regulated assets” through “temporary loans” and “disciplinary transfers.” They forge documents. They launder money. They represent the systemic rot beneath society’s polished surface.
The Guild of Quills and Quartz is proof that respectability and evil aren’t mutually exclusive. They’re the people who make oppression efficient.
10. The Order of the Last Light (Mixed: All Elements)
Leader: The Nameless Sage, Keeper
Specialty: Preserving forbidden knowledge
Alignment: True Neutral
The most secretive organization in the realm. The Order of the Last Light believes knowledge is sacred and suppression is heresy. They maintain hidden libraries containing banned research, forbidden texts, and dangerous truths, including the complete journals of researchers whose work was “disappeared” by the Conclave.
They don’t use the knowledge. They don’t weaponize it. They simply preserve it for future generations, believing that truth will eventually be necessary even if the present finds it inconvenient.
They’re the archivists of uncomfortable reality. And they’re watching everything.
Ziggy Silver 
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