#hagravens

[elderscrollsconfessions]

Confession: One of the first missions i did was helping Melka escape and i had a lot of fun so now i refuse to kill hagravens. They are weird and i like them and they are basically weird looking humans, i wish we could be friends and teach eachother magic tricks

[archangelsunited]

@orfeoarte drew and painted some hagraven OC’s for me, that I had trouble forming a picture of in my head. They do fabulous work and I was delighted every step of the way.

These are two, unintroduced Hagravens- Candy and Bonk- who run the sacrifces in the Karthspire Camp. Candy is the seventh attempt at keeping the Nords at bay in twenty years, Bonk came along for the ride.

They are going to be introduced in the next few chapters of To Whom Shall I Complain in the Measure for Measure series.

[dai-forsworn]

Fleshing out my Forsworn OC’s lore a bit more, Witcher style. Aka, how to make a Witcher in Skyrim.

He was going to be turned into a briarheart. The hagravens have trials in place to select the strongest.

Him and 29 other young boys are pretty much put through the trial of the grasses, starting when they’re eight, and ending when they’re eighteen.

The first trial was a game of numbers to whittle them down and test their survival instincts and ability to think on their toes. 30 eight year old boys left on the moors of the reach at night. Some ripped apart by monsters and wild animals. Some fell over the cliffs. Only 12 survived.

The second trial was to test constitution. A trial by magic, to see how much their bodies could withstand. He watched his friends die from overconsumption of poisons and potions, or be burnt by hagraven magic from the inside out. If that wasn’t enough, they were then given swords, aged 16 now, and locked in the dungeon with limited food.

Only three survived, given new names, selected to become Briarhearts. One died on the table before his heart could be replaced. One became a monster. One escaped.

Dagduach keeps the briar heart that was meant for him as a reminder on an amulet, along with the feathers he plucked from the Hagravens after killing them. He also keeps his birth name, Dagduach, but remembers the name the Hagravens gave him whenever he needs an alias: Katturix.

He has the magic yellow eyes, and a streak of white in his otherwise red hair. He also still has the scar on his chest from where the Hagravens started carving into him 💀 (also the song I’ve included is what I imagine the Briarheart ritual sounds like, with his new given name being chanted as the Hagravens sharpen their knives)

Oho also the main hagraven is his mother. The other one is his sister. They’re the first monsters he kills. A fitting closure, and start of his career.

Although, his mother was the real monster. His sister didn’t deserve to be pressured into becoming a hagraven - unfortunately, the only justice he could give her was a swift death after fighting Mama. He killed his mother in self defence, but also to avenge his little brother who was killed in the second trial.

The scars he sustained from his mother’s claws are scars he *will not* explain to anyone.

So the nasty rumours in villages about him usually pertain to the fact that he killed his entire family, ignoring why he did it in favour of branding him an outcast / murderer.

(Oh and here’s the full playlist)

[uuesp]

Did You Know? The only way to identify one hagraven from another is by looking at the numbers they wear on their backs. This is the only way to find out which witch is witch.

[sugarwyrm]

[reachfolk]

what's your theory why there are so many dead spriggans in hagraven dwellings?

i've got a couple theories!! my actually serious theory with proper evidence and Formal Citations is that it's a functional thing that allows them to access magics that would otherwise be inaccessible to them. my own little hc based purely on vibes is that there is, at least in some cases, a bit of religious significance.

TL;DR: from what i understand, spriggans are embodiments of nature "magic" that hagravens are inherently detached from, so they harvest spriggan parts to access that. also, they might be used as offerings to hircine.

there isn't much that's really known about spriggans, but we do know:

they're associated with the goddess kynareth (and, i'm assuming, different cultural iterations of her). there's lots of evidence for this, so i won't rehash it all, but i will say that while reading up for this post, i ended up coming up with this theory that they originate from the eldergleam, which is of course sacred to kynareth worshippers.

their taproot is a source of strong nature "magic." i put it in quotations bc they technically don't manipulate the world through magic the way mortals do. one synod researcher, lydette viliane, compares wispmothers, ice wraiths, and spriggans. her work is cited in the book, the wispmother by mathias etienne: "by noting several similarities to spriggans and ice wraiths, she contends that the wispmothers are essentially elemental personifications of snow or mist, innately wielding the power of their element, instead of manipulating it through conventional sorcery." there's also some texts connecting them to the earth bones, but i only read a very very small mention of it.

alternatively, we don't know much about hagravens, but some of what we know:

some interpretations of them is that they were once human (usually breton) witches that have been "twisted into perversions of nature," sacrificing their humanity to access stronger dark magic. tbh i love hags, so i side-eye the phrasing, but the point stands that they are in a way disconnected from nature/kynareth's influence and thus are natural enemies of the spriggans.

they are associated with lord hircine, which isn't surprising considering the fact that they're half-human half-creature.

the ritual to become a hagraven is done to grant the witch a stronger grasp over magic, which you can possibly interpret as giving her a stronger connection to aetherius, the source of magicka. but spriggan "magic" isn't really drawing on that at all; it's something that exists outside of it. maybe it's got something to do with the earth bones? i'm not too well-read on that topic, but the point is, they're different from the magic that hagravens use.

what spriggans have is something that's completely untouchable for the hagravens, so maybe the only way they can access it is to hunt spriggans and collect their taproot. that's my best guess. so the question remains: what exactly are they even trying to do?

that much i really can't give a solid answer to. we do know that spriggans are protectors of nature, often found in areas where alchemists are harvesting ingredients. it's hard to tell if they're just naturally drawn to ingredients, or if their presence itself is what encourages their groves to grow so many useful ingredients. so it's kind of a chicken or the egg situation, but i lean towards the idea that the spriggans themselves encourage the growth of these plants.

one possibility is that hagravens might use the spriggan parts for their alchemical work; hanging taproots around their dens encourages the growth of plants, mushrooms, etc that are really valuable. there's probably tons of other reasons, but that's the only thing i can think of off the top of my head given how little we know about what spriggans actually do.

i also mentioned a personal hc about religion, and it's tied to hircine. not to get too into my ecology tangents, but i feel like hircine and kynareth both sort of represent different aspects of nature. kynareth largely centers on flourishing life and the "brighter" side of it all, while hircine centers on predation and dominance which is the "darker" side of it. you can't have one without the other; if one is missing then everything is thrown into disarray.

despite the polarity and bitter animosity between spriggans and hagravens, these two gods they revere are both two sides of the same coin. there's a kind of duality there that i think is very symbolic and makes spriggans a really good offering to place at a shrine to hircine. life giving way to death, strengthening the hunter and fueling the natural cycle, what have you. they're also just tough as shit opponents, and i think it very much has the same energy as hanging skulls, pelts, and other things scavenged from things you hunted. it all pleases hircine greatly.

[defectivegembrain]

To all hagravens this witch's festival:

Your powers are strong

Your talons are sharp

Your feathers are magnificent

You deserve the freshest eyeballs to eat 💓

[grave-stalking-knight]

So I’ve noticed that the hagraven lairs where the weird bird ladies reside usually have havraven feathers strewn out all across the floor.

This has led me to believe that hagravens shed, probably quite often as it’s not cleaned up.

Just take a minute to think about the poor forsworn newbie who has to help their scary matriarch comb excess feathers off her body every week, being extra careful to be gentle out of fear of getting a fireball straight to the face.