Witchcraft and Foul Magicks
Joseph Addison, The Spectator, No. 11 wrote:When I consider the Question, Whether there are such Persons in the World as those we call Witches, my Mind is divided between the two opposite Opinions; or rather (to speak my Thoughts freely) I believe in general that there is, and has been such a thing as Witchcraft; but at the same time can give no Credit to any Particular Instance of it.
I suppose the first thing I should answer is, do I believe Witchcraft is in the game in its current form. It's disappointing to the hopefuls but, I've performed a lot of experiments using nearly every mechanic I have available to me (The cauldrons, they do nothing!) and I've still come up with no results, not even a subtle hint drawing me deeper. For that reason, the systems might actually be present in the game, but the method for attaining them is unavailable to players as of yet, though I hold out vague hope that I'm mistaken.
Moving on, there are a number of different potential methods that I thought might lead me to the dark secrets we call Witchcraft, they are as follows:
Extraordinarily Rare Items Perhaps not rare in difficulty to find, but also in difficulty to get there, such as hiding them in stumps on the borders of the world, a very popular rumor for some time.
Special Crafting/Variants One of the possibilities for a lot of secrecy lays in the odd, usually inspirational variants we get from ordinary crafts. Perhaps a substitution of these variations might yield much more than mundane results.
Hidden in Plain Sight By far my favorite of the possibilities, it's the idea that I kept coming back to as a wonderful way to go about the system. I sort of hope that it might be implemented in some way shape or form.
With those three approaches, I tried to tackle the problem in a number of different ways, which leads me to the Fun part:
The Experiments
The first, and by far most direct approach was to stuff the "Witchcraft Books" that we heard about in one of the videos in the deepest parts of the Dark, ensuring that only the insane or dedicated might ever find them. I happen to be both. My first act in this world was to establish a base camp and immediately begin preparing for a trek into the Darkness, which as you've probably probably noticed based on my last major post, I'm infatuated with. I explored the Dark for quite some time, before stumbling upon an interesting biome that Jorb would announce was called "Fen". I built a small base and started searching. Literally, every tree stump, every log. I slowly expanded how far into the Dark that I could reach, but after nearly a week of constant searching, I was rolling in rare items and collectible resources, but absolutely no witch book. I've returned to it a few times, but I've mostly given up on that avenue.
The second approach dawned on me when I was trying to extend my collection of rare and valuable things. I've created a vault for which to store at least one of any rare trinket I can get my hands on. In that process, I remembered how nothing really mentioned that substituting a Singing Log gave you a Wicked Wicker Man, and how substituting a March Hare Hide gave you a Bunny Darko, so perhaps witchcraft, or witchcraft related items, were the same! Immediately I began crafting mundane objects with all sorts of rarities. Buckets out of coffin planks, stuffed rabbits out of march hare hides. It's still an interesting possibility but, so far every possible combination I could find has done nothing notable. Another approach involving that was Bible Desecration. Bibles are the only known book so far, so perhaps burning, boiling, tossing it into a stump, something would cause it to metamorphose into a Book of the Devil. Thusfar, nothing however.
Finally, we come to my most interesting of possibilities. I actually re-watched the video on Witchcraft several times, looking for any kind of subtle hint or clue. The obvious thing to do is to compare what is the same, and what is different. Recreating the circumstances that let them perform witchcraft would be the best chance of discovering it myself. Then something peculiar dawned on me.
Their clothes were the same, houses were the same, nearly everything was unchanged... Except for that funny hat.
Pure Speculation
It sounds ridiculously minor, I know, but how do you hide something from the world's greatest detective? You hide it right under his nose.
Perhaps, all of the items, systems and possibly even the book itself ARE in fact incorporated into the game as we speak. But to the average pilgrim, there is no magical nature to anything. Certain objects, however, might grant a certain sort of... Clarity. Wearing a witch hat is a great way to point out that "Hey, this person is a witch", making having one on your person, much less wearing one, quite dangerous from a purely gameplay perspective. But being forced to wear such an identifiable garb to even see this whole hidden world? Now wouldn't that be interesting?~
Don the clothes of a witch and start making discoveries, what you saw as mundane snake meat might now be a Filet of a Funny Snake, what was previously an Empty log now contains a Book emanating with dark magicks, a recipe that gave you only mundane objects might suddenly be twisted into darker, more magical version of itself, the possibilities are almost endless, all previous theories are back on the table, and at the same time they would remain hidden from all who were not part of the initiated few
![¦]](./images/smilies/troll.gif "Trollface")
.The only problem with that is... I've found no such object.
It's really disappointing but for all my speculation, long winded rants and breaks from work spent pondering this, I still have nothing yet to show for it.
But that's where you come in.
Let's let this thread be a place for all contemplation, speculation, and further conjecture about one of the most secretive and fascinating aspects of the Salem world, though I do ask one favor.
If you do happen to find out exactly how to unlock or perform witchcraft.. Let's not spoil the fun for everyone, shall we?
It's been so much fun sitting and wondering, speculating and experimenting. None of that is feasible unless there are still Mysteries in the world. I encourage hints, I encourage cryptic hints or clues, or if you think something is sensitive information, go ahead and PM it to me (No really, I would adore you for that). But until that time, we're left as wanderers in a dark and violent new world, ever curious about what else is out there, and who, or what, else might be living in the dark.
