The World of the Wisps

Long, long ago, when the world was still flat, and the magic of its making still saturated every

rock, and leaf, and pool, the Little People lived in peace under the stars.

Well, mostly in peace, for the Little People were of many races and shapes and sizes and colours, and misunderstandings could not be entirely avoided.

Everyone knows of pixies, and fairies, and elves, and leprechauns, and all manner of others that the oldest stories tell of. But there were also the Wisps. Of these little is told, and what is told is no more than half guess, half imagination. They were never very numerous, and kept to themselves in the bogs and marshes that they loved. Being small and errr… wispy, and secretive by nature, they were able to slip unseen through the reeds, and even the slimmest tree trunk was enough for them to hide behind. Sometimes the light of their marsh lamps would be seen far out in the marshes in the dark of the night as they went out to collect the marsh gas that bubbled up. Coming from deep under ground the gas brought with it some of the World’s Magic left over from the world’s making. Although the Wisps are not actually nocturnal, the starlight and the moonlight have ever been their friend.

Having no magic themselves they learned to craft intricate charms with which they could harness the World’s Magic to do just about anything - as long as they had the right charm for the job. Each charm was tuned to a different magic, and was made so that it could only be worked by the thoughts or Will of a Wisp. A thriving trade grew up amongst the Wisps, with charms being swapped and sold and bartered, but never stolen. Stealing was something unknown to the Wisps. They just didn’t do it; after all there were such things as Truth Charms, and there were also other charms that could do some pretty nasty things if the Wisp Council decided that retribution was in order.

An average Wisp would collect a sizeable collection of charms over the years. Having so many charms was clumsy and inconvenient, so the Wisps made them into necklaces, which they wore whenever they went out into the world, thus ensuring that they would always have the right charm to hand whenever needed.

 

Then Man appeared in the World and things were never quite the same again. Most of the Little People fled before the Big Folk, going to new realms beyond the World’s Edge where Man could never come. But the Wisps just burrowed deeper, walked quieter, and used their charms to hide themselves from the World of Man, a world that they feared, and could never quite understand.

As the ages passed, the Wisps diminished, abandoning most of the Wisptowns where they had once lived, until now only a few remain. At the same time, the World’s Magic has gradually been used up until today it can hardly be felt at all. The Charm-makers harvested what magic they could, but more and more became dependent upon the World’s Magic that was being brought up with the marsh gas. The marsh lamps that collected it became vital to Wisp society, even though whenever they went out into the marshes to collect it, the light of the lamps would attract the attention of the Big Folk.

 The Charm-makers have refined their skills to use what magic is left more and more efficiently, but their Charms do not have the power of their ancient predecessors. However there are still Charms from the First Ages hidden away, treasured and hoarded by those who have claimed them, or lost in the depths of empty Wisptowns, and locked into them is some of the Old Magic. These are Charms of Power.