Zen Seaforest

tongue point II, green rope algae

Others are actually young witch babies.

Since witches have no womb and are a byproduct of wild magic, whenever a witch wishes for a child they might one day find a young animal lingering around the house, much like receiving a familiar. An easy way to tell the difference between a youngling and a familiar, however, is that once bonded a familiar will soon begin speaking thereafter. Younglings will not develop speech until much later in their development.

The 2 year mark is when familiar and youngling dimorphism begins. While familiars will simply grow into an adult animal, younglings will enter into a “troll” stage, in which they will develop traits that separate them from ordinary creatures but do not yet resemble a human. It is towards the end of this stage that they will begin saying words, and simple sentences. Minor jinx magic is to be expected.

The “troll” stage will last for ~5 years, and the next stage can happen anytime within the next 3-6 following years. They will encounter a sudden “growth spurt,” where they will suddenly come into distinctly human shapes, while still retaining vestigial traits from their troll years. This transformation can happen overnight, or take over a year to complete. They can begin practicing simple spell magic at this point.

While some claim that the animal a youngling starts off as influences how they look as an adult, that’s largely been debunked. Witch children actually tend to generally resemble their parent(s).

Because names are of great importance to witches, some traditional households will follow the custom of waiting for the youngling to arrive at speaking age to let them choose their own name. Until then, often they refer to the child as their animal: Kitty, Crow, Frog etc.

Big Sur

Raja, being beautiful and powerful, growing fat on nori and all the meaty foods he steals.