Is this price of magic severe enough to deter most women from becoming witches in my fantasy world?

Question

I am writing a fantasy series about witches. It's set in a high fantasy world. To get magic powers in this fantasy world, a girl has to voluntarily transform into a magical being.

The magic in this world has a huge variety of different possible applications, depending on the witch's personal strengths and training. Basic powers enable witches to fly, to get animal familiars, to heal other people by magic, to turn their enemies into animals, to cast fireballs and lightening bolts, limited mind control and much more besides. The harder spells do have an energy cost, so a witch must rest and get her energy back after doing something impressive by magic. Stronger magic include powers of prophecy, teleportation and necromancy.

I am trying to come up with a price for magic that is large enough that most women would never become witches but small enough so that that a heroine or anti-heroine might pay the price if driven to desperation. I have considered irreversible disfigurement as a cost, but I now think it is too small a price because it doesn't actually stop a witch from leading a normal life in this pre-industrial fantasy society. She could still become a traditional wife despite being disfigured. So I have been thinking about a price that combines severe disfigurement and becoming barren as well. I am thinking of disfigurement that includes her skin going green and her features being seriously distorted and also complete and incurable sterility. Does that penalty seem severe enough to guarantee that only a minority of women would even consider being a witch?

Answer 1

There's no set price. Everybody is different, and what would be a terrible sacrifice for me might be trivial for you. But the price can never be trivial. Finding what your price is is the first step in becoming a witch.

To pay your true price you must find something fundamental in your soul, and sever it. That loss is what breaks open the crack that magic flows through. Maybe it's your home, your youth, or your only child. Maybe it's something in your body - give up your hands, your voice, your looks. Maybe it's the ability to ever love and be loved. The point is, if it's something you're reasonably willing to part with, it won't work. It has to be a thing that cuts.

Most people refuse to even think about it - even the act of merciless self-appraisal that you need in order to discover your price is too harrowing for most. But desperate circumstances can burn the layers of comfortable self-deception away from people, until the choice look inescapable, which is why more witches are made in difficult times.

Answer 2

Desperate people do all kinds of desperate things. They join convents and give up on having children. They are cruel to other people and kill other people. Desperate people suffer and endure however they can.

But the desperate people want to still be themselves. That is what they are fighting for.

The witches lose their minds.

Losing your mind means giving up on being you. Witches babble and curse and cackle. They talk to things that no-one sees. Are those things real? They make mud pies and then eat them. They are compelled to rhyme. Is that the magic? They dance in the rain. They count every hole in the sieve because they must. They turn into animals, or maybe they act like the animal. They are scary to watch and even scarier to imagine being.

Then when your protagonist takes the plunge and becomes a witch, she gets to experience that. And you get to convey to your readers what her world has become.

Answer 3

No, your penalty will not realistically result in a small minority of women considering becoming a witch. It is however a common trope in science fiction and fantasy, and many writers put it in their stories thinking that this would be the realistic result.

The idea that magic conferring infertility will deter almost all women from magic is premised on the idea that almost all women innately want children. This isn't true, and remains not-true across a broad variety of real and extrapolated fictional cultural contexts.

Women have children for a broad variety of reasons, but two major ones are "innate desire" and "desire for social power in society." Most cultures across human history (at least most whose cultural history survived to the modern day) were/are patriarchial and expect women to bear children in order to access any significant degree of social power.

Introduce magic, and suddenly there's a different route to social power. (Similar to wealth in many real world societies, but even more effective.) If you can fly, heal the sick, and transform people into animals, you are both precious to your allies and very dangerous to your enemies. That gives you power, no need for children if you don't have any inherent desire to raise them. Many women will consider it, and a fair number will go through with it.

This is counterintuitive to many writers because, living in one such patriarchal society, the idea that women bear children as a matter of course is socially reinforced. "Infertility" sounds like a steep penalty for women, but for many women it would be a neutral side effect, or even a positive one.

Your question is yes/no, so I won't go too deep into alternative suggestions, but you might consider prices that make people think twice in the real world and extrapolate to similar prices you can create with the artistic license of magic.

Answer 4

"Lady Problems"

Since you are talking about witches and witches are women, it is thematic that the price has something to do with womanhood. For example:

• Infertility

• Extreme fertility (my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard)

• Extreme Libido (and they're like it's better than yours)

• Desire to eat children

• Requirement to eat Children

• Requirement to birth and then eat your own children.

• Requirement that your milkshake brings all the boys to the yard and then you mate with the boys and then eat them and then later birth their children and then gobble up the children too.

Any of these things damage your ability to be a traditional woman. So most women don't become witches. Only those that are outcasts or otherwise dissatisfied with their place in society as women will pay the price.

One subversion of normal tropes is that disfigurement is not a result of becoming a Witch. In fact becoming a Witch makes you more alluring to men. And most women too. Witches are like catnip to those guys. The disfigurement is done voluntarily to prevent all the boys coming to the yard and rubbing their genitals all over on your front window.

Infertility on its own might be a benefit to some women since they can have sex every day without getting pregnant. For example a prostitute or a woman who ascends the power ladder by forging sexual alliances. Though such a woman would necessarily live outside of "traditional" society. Perhaps this is a good storytelling device, to show her transition from normal women, to sexually active women, and all the way to hag living in a hut in the swamp.

Answer 5

Sacrificing and Innocent Human Life

Throughout human society, there have been handfuls of people who consider this an acceptable practice, but in most societies it's not only abhorred by individuals, but by society as a whole. Not only does becoming a witch itself come with a price that most people would not be willing to pay, but one would never able to enjoy thier power in the public eye, because being seen casting a spell is equivalent to publicly confessing to murder.

If you want to take it a step further and tie it more into the female experience, you could require her to sacrifice her own child. Now not only do you know a witch is a murderer, but it was filicide to boot.

So to become a witch means to become a thing hated and hunted by everyone around you. Only in very desperate times or through some very extreme cultish indoctrination would you see this choice being made with any regularity.

Answer 6

Q: "Basic powers enable witches to fly, to get animal familiars, to heal other people by magic, to turn their enemies into animals, to cast fireballs and lightening bolts, limited mind control and much more besides. The harder spells do have an energy cost, so a witch must rest and get her energy back"

Q: "I am thinking of disfigurement that includes her skin going green and her features being seriously distorted and also complete and incurable sterility. Does that penalty seem severe enough to guarantee that only a minority of women would even consider being a witch?"

Q: "Is this price of magic severe enough to deter most women"

You won't have to turn them green.. There's already an answer in your opening. Because your question is science-based, I'll avoid imposing artificial punishments (by whom?) and put your energy issue up front.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that "in all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state."

.. and magic often violates this law, or.. it seems to.. actually, your witch pays with her own well being,

Witches pay for the energy of magic, die of exhaustion

Your witches are impressive, and popular in society. They look glorious when they use their magic, they produce spectacular shows, they turn villains into animals.. they can heal people.. in her life time, the witch will meet lots of fans and grateful folks. People will listen, they prophetize. Thing is, witches cannot be thanked after their good deeds, because they are speechless of fatigue, right after any magic happens. The witch brings her magic ceremony.. it works.. people applaud.. and then, the witch will close her eyes and turn herself into hibernation. There isn't much of a private, or social life.

Brain fatigue

She will die young, for lack of energy. There is no way to eat enough to compensate, because the energy is of another world and drained from the brain. Even powerful witches are known to fall to the ground after doing magic. Some witches even end in a big poof and disappear, after doing something big, like a prophecy.

What's science based about all this ? It's all in the energy, which has to be preserved.. any magic would violate the law of thermodynamics, the witch has to compensate for that. And during life, it gets worse. To maintain their celebrity, witches will attempt to do wild things. The backlash will hit them.

Being a witch requires strength and a special mindset.

You need some intelligence, to learn to be a witch. But lots of intelligent women will be very reluctant, they can foresee the energy drain issue. A witch life is actually the life of a modern artist on drugs, dying early at 29.. of exhaustion. Nevertheless, there are women who want to heal people, women who want to be world famous and do wonders, or be prophets. They are very motivated, they will sacrifice themselves, to become a witch.

Answer 7

I think it could work if you wanted, but I would make it even more extreme.

Ideas:

1. The cost will not affect only the witch in question. Perhaps she has to sacrifice or kill a member of her family or a loved one. Not sure why you would need to, but this is just an idea. This would not only create conflict within the character, but it would also deter most people, ensuring that there is no going back.
2. In addition to the deterrents you mentioned, you could have the person, upon becoming a witch, lose all past memories, including the recollection of their family, friends, and even their own name! Such a harsh price would be sure to keep most people from becoming a witch.
3. This would be a situational consideration, one that might not be applicable. Perhaps witches are frowned upon by your world's culture and are even exiled from their homeland. Being banished from your home and cast out by your family would ensure that most people would not become a witch.
4. Once every full moon (or whenever you want it), the witch has to pay a cost--if they don't, they will die. You could be very imaginative with this one. Perhaps the witch has to perform a certain ritual that disfigures her more and more, or maybe it involves spells that slowly, over the course of years and years, make her lose her mind. This could work in a variety of circumstances. It also ensures that pressure is placed continuously against that character, making tension in the book. Will she be able to keep herself alive? Does she want to keep herself alive?

Answer 8

Once someone starts feeling the price of magic, it's failed to deter that someone from being a witch.

The thing about deterrence is that severity often isn't the core reason it'll work; what works, primarily, is the belief that they will suffer the deterrence.

So you'll need a few details:

1.) Being able to witness the price being paid by the witch in person.

2.) Having the witch in question verify that, no, there really is no way around it - they've tried to get around the price, and it didn't work. And so have others, multiple times, multiple ways.

Without 1.), until someone actually becomes a witch, they may not believe it's a price that actually comes into effect, and without 2.) - you're going to get people who recognize 1.), but think they can loophole their way around it (i.e. casting "Cure Severe disfigurement" or "Cure infertility" on themselves once getting cursed. Whether or not that would work in your setting isn't important - someone will try it to get around a deterrence.).

With that in mind, here are some considerations that may work:

1.) Becoming a witch forces you to become the target of cat-calling of anyone you explicitly do not enjoy the measures of cat-calling of.

Rather than necessarily wanting that behavior from themselves out of libido, you can make it that the people who are attracted to a witch to resort to cat-calling be the lowest of the lowest people - like the heaviest drunks, or the really annoying people in the village who just won't give up. How this works would just be magically binding of sorts, but would explain why your witches may decide to just leave villages and towns entirely, and seek isolation. If they do perform magical healing for others, they need to be reached out to, and they intentionally screen out who it is, and charge an appropriate fee to suffer the results of that.

Or alternatively, these people just cause a ruckus, or routinely draw bad luck and bad situations to the witch in question.

Though a lot of people might consider that circumstantial, and again, we have the issue of ways around it, since it does leave open ways to get away from that. If you're not fond of social bonds, this is probably just fine, and therefore not a deterrent.

2.) Becoming a witch leads to a summoning of a predator-like demonic force constantly chasing the witch whether they go, on the hunt of killing them, that's visible to others around them, but invulnerable, or perpetually respawning.

Going the Dahaka-like (Spoiler warning past the first 6 minutes for Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, but it gets the point across)-like [Beyond six minutes leads to spoilers for Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, but first 6 minutes should be perfectly fine to get the idea across] approach here will sort of require someone to have actually become a witch before, since in the series where the Dahaka appears, it only appears after someone has used the Sands of Time to significantly change time, but it'll set the idea that yeah - becoming a witch is not an ends to a means, it's a means to an end.

The reason for that? As soon as you become a witch, perhaps with some limitations, you're basically the mouse in a game of cat and mouse with a very dangerous being who's job is to set things right, by any means possible. It'll chase you through a city, a countryside, and may be temporarily held at bay so that you can actually use the magic you command. A lot of their magic will be used creating ways to escape, and hide, and it's not at all subtle. Anyone who helps harbor a witch temporarily learns exactly why they're cursed, and why they wouldn't want to be a witch, or anyone else, to undergo that curse.

The main caveat here is you'll need actual witches to exist to give people an understanding of why witch-hood is something they should avoid doing, unless they're willing to bear this deterrence - and that ways to circumvent these deterrents have been tried - and failed.

Answer 9

Cost of magic? If you have your magic coming from the casters life-force it could introduce a very interesting dynamic; many wouldn't trade the days / weeks / years a spell will take off your life for it, and it's not just a "you will die sooner", but it takes an immediate affect, a witch can be seen to visibly age whilst performing a higher order, complex spell.

Thus magic is not wielded without intent and thrown around with abandon, it is used in limited ways, when important, because the cost is dire.

I think this helps contain world building, as those with great power aren't just left to run wild, there must be limits for your antagonist otherwise why not just fireball / transmute in to a toad / teleport at the slightest inconvenience and similarly your protagonist doesn't want to be a mary sue who can just pull a spell out of their ass at a drop of a (witches) hat to overcome any obstacle.

Do you trek through treacherous territory for a week or lose two years in a teleport your entire party?

An interesting divide could be added for white hat and black hat witches, magic costs life essence, but, not necessarily your life essence, an evil witch would see no qualm in taking the life of others to be able to cast large spells (afterall, that's why they kidnap children, those with the most power to give) whereas white hats would only use their own (or lesser animals, if you're going to need an eye of newt, might as well use the whole lizard..), the evil witches are still constrained by access to the people / animals to draw from and there's a time to drain / perform the spell which would make it moot if you need to get out of dodge sharpish, again to prevent writing yourself in to a hole, but could open interesting dynmaics.

And again, the thought of taking others lives, if a little, would be enough to put many off, just think how many vegans and vegetarians you know..

Personally I would try and avoid anything with connotations on appearance (equating a womans value to her appearance) or fertility, as these are quite strong topics, especially now, so something outside the two would be more palatable to more readers imo.

Answer 10

A cost that affects womanhood is a good cost in a setting where women are expected to be traditional wives and mothers. Becoming a witch thus means social isolation and religious excommunication.

However, no amount of social punishment would outweigh the ability to cast lightning bolts and mind control people. With these powers, you basically rule your corner of the world, and social isolation or loss of motherhood are not meaningful costs for the kind of people who would aspire to learn how to set a town on fire with their mind.

Keeping with the medieval grimdark theme, a meaningful drawback would be eternal damnation. As in, hell is real, Satan owns your soul and you will be tortured for eternity. Only the truly selfless would sacrifice themselves in this way, while evil people wouldn't see it as worth the cost.

Alternatively, you could tone down the upsides. Healing and claivoyance are inherently social and good hearted powers, so social isolation is actually a real drawback that makes them not worth it in most cases. You can heal people, but they would rather die instead because they think you are consorting with demons. You can see the future, and know you will be burned at the stake but have no power to stop it. Without the ability to throw around fireballs and turn the world into a toybox for your amusement, becoming a witch would be bittersweet at best.

Answer 11

There is no actual big cost

except for a psychological delusion that you have to tell everyone that the price (that you cannot really describe) was definitely not worth it. This would deter a lot of people because ALL of those super powerful, influential and liked (because needed) people are saying that even with their insane gain in powers/status, it was still not worth it. And apparently the cost is so bad that they can't even properly talk about it. This way any prospective witch has to imagine what the cost is themselves, meaning that they will (very likely) come up with stuff that is costly/bad for them individually because they're the ones imagining something very bad.

This only requires that becoming a witch is a very intentional ritual that you can't go through with on accident, drunk etc. The dread of what the cost will be is the (main) deterrence.

Note that it doesn't have to be the only cost, this delusion can neatly stack with others, especially with obvious and graphic ones like disfigurement, scarring etc., stuff that other people see (and will draw their own conclusions about the "actual cost" from). So a scarred face might be the actual hardest cost but people will see that and (having heard only very vague remarks about the true cost being not worth it) will conclude that the scars are a mere (and not so bad) side effect of whatever the "actual" horror of becoming a with is.

I just noticed how this is a bit of a frame challenge: you sound like you don't necessarily need a cost, just a deterrent. Especially if your heroine becomes a with rather late-ish in the story this could be a nice twist of it all. Maybe have her go through several months of trying to prepare for whatever she thinks the cost will be, only to then realize that this preparation/training was useful/whatever in it's own right because she faced her own worst fears.

Answer 12

First off, as other people have mentioned, there's going to need to be prevalent cautionary tales (be it fairy tales or actually seeing witches) to spread awareness of the downsides. That said, here are a few ideas I have.

Death of the self

Yes, magic is magical, and it can do a lot of things. However, it's true what they say: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. While witches are very powerful, it gradually corrupts their very being, their self. Note that they don't go insane per se; just different. Over time, their personalities change; they become cold, aloof, uncaring. As a result, while they are able to accomplish whatever it is they wanted to do, they are no longer around to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

As Jesus put it (Mark 8:36):

What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

Death of the mind

As other answers have mentioned, another possibility is for witches to lose their minds. It comes to the same thing in the end; it's just a bit more obvious.

Death of death

Witches are immortal. They continue existing forever, even after they stop living.

People always speak about death as if it is a bad thing, wishing vainly for earthly immortality. However, while death is a curse for our sin, it is also somewhat of a blessing.

Yes, untimely death due to illness or injury is a tragedy. However, in my experience working at assisted livings, the opposite is generally true of natural death from old age. For all that death is unfortunate, living forever in this broken world would be worse. There's a reason that the trope Who Wants to Live Forever? exists. ^{(Warning: TVTropes.)}

Witches may have immortality, but it's a curse.

First off, the real reason why most people want immortality is to protect themselves from untimely death. In short, what people really want is invulnerability. Take the Harry Potter franchise, for example.

By all accounts, the character Voldemort is a brilliant man; while it would have been somewhat difficult, he was fully capable of either creating his own Philosopher's Stone or stealing the original. Instead, he irreparably mangled his soul creating Horcruxes (plural!), rendering himself insane in the process. Why? Because he didn't just want to be immortal, he wanted to be invulnerable.

Witches' immortality is not invulnerability. While their magic increases their defensive capabilities and allows them to recover from anything that doesn't kill them, witches can still be hurt and killed.

Second, while they live forever, everybody else is still mortal. Witches must deal with the fact that everyone they know and love will eventually die. Oceans rise, mountains fall. Cultures and languages change, gradually becoming unrecognizable. After but a brief moment of their interminable existences, they find themselves strangers in a strange land.

Answer 13

Something a lot more simple. Age. After all learning all the spells and the rules behind the magic would require a lot of time, if you cut short magically the learning time you can use a similar amount of time as the currency to pay back.

Answer 14

A certain very successful animé (Naruto) has a set of extreme powers that a character can obtain at a cost. I won't describe those powers, but the cost is following a certain process. For most people who are able to achieve it, the process is:

1. Kill your best friend
2. Rip their eyeballs out
3. Rip your own eyeballs out
4. Insert your dead best friend's eyeballs into your own eye sockets.

Only once you have transplanted eyes like that, you gain the powers of a god.

Imagine that a woman has to do that in order to become a witch. Being desperate is one thing, but being I-will-rip-both-our-eyes-and-transplant-yours-into-mine desperate is something rare.

If you want to be original, replace the organs involved. Maybe the heart, for example.

P.s.: before any fan comes here to say I'm wrong, I am aware that that's not the actual truth of the process. Yet this is how it is described at one point, and is how at least two characters achieved it.

Answer 15

Powerful magic can be offset by requiring the caster to bring their own energy, i.e. exhaustion that might lead to death. Or it might be offset by the weight of responsibility, because as you know great power begets great responsibility. But that's not quite your question. Your question is why would women willingly turn down such great power? And I'd like to challenge that:

Why should there be a price to pay?

Your problem, as I understand it, is that half of humanity suddenly becoming super powerful is a very different setting from what you're trying to achieve, where magic is much more confidential. And the cause of your problem is that your mechanic for achieving magic is self-determination. That's a dangerous mix.

Typically, in fantasy becoming a wizard is usually a function of how you're born. It's genetics or it's divine, or it's generally something that bears no explanation. Some people are magic, some aren't, and you can set the rate arbitrarily and don't have to justify it. The reader just accepts that is it what it is.

That points to two potential solutions:

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Pivot your mechanic.

Maybe it's conventional, but "you're magic because you happen to be born that way" works.

You could tweak that by adding an element of having to willingly listen to your inner magic in order to unlock your powers. Simply put, some people are magic, and some aren't, or they don't know they are, or they don't fundamentally believe they are.

Here's one example: Luke Skywalker having to willingly turn off the targeting computer and take a leap of faith. He is a great pilot because he's strong with the Force, but he can't materialise that power until he starts believing in it.

Here's another example: Neo having to willingly believe that there is more to the world than what he can perceive, and swallow that pill. The Thomas Anderson of the begining of the movie wouldn't be able to stop bullets because he doesn't believe that's possible.

It's taking that leap of faith that makes them powerful. It's not very original, but you know what they say about reinventing the wheel: don't.

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Pivot your setting.

Maybe most of the women of your world are just magic and quite powerfully so, and it's going to be a radically different world. That opens a lot of great themes, and also incredibly complex themes, of gender roles, gender power dynamics, and so forth. Easy stuff.

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But why though?

This is where I'll develop why it might be very undesirable to set such a price. And I want to be clear: this isn't an indictment on you, or anybody in particular.

I believe that witch mythology exists on a very slippery slope. Putting together power, beauty and fertility has the potential to devolve very easily into something incredibly sexist. Take a traditional witch representation: powerful, independent, knowledgeable, ugly, older, uses her sexuality, unmarried, hates children, some shade of evil. Now let's look at the reverse: good, motherly, married, chaste, young, beautiful, uneducated, dependent, weak. A society that produces that myth tells us what its vision of the ideal woman is.

What I'm trying to communicate here is that how you characterise your witches, how you frame them in your society, and how you frame that society in your story, it is going to reflect on you, the author. It is <current_year> after all, your story/setting doesn't exist in a vacuum.

With all that said, what you are looking to establish here is what is more important than power for womankind. And we're talking about the power to pursue their own aspirations, or to emanticipate themselves, or to burn society to the ground and rebuild it in their image. If you oppose that to "leading a normal life in this pre-industrial fantasy society", motherhood, or beauty, that's the slippery slope I mentioned earlier.

And to be perfectly honest, unless your pre-industrial society is a perfect equalitarian paradise, I can't think of a good reason to not just pay the price.

Answer 16

Clock is ticking.

You get magical powers allright. But after a certain amount of time, you turn into insert thing no one would want to be.

Maybe after a year or so, every witch will burn to cinders with no exception. You wanted powers? Sure! There you go! But you will certainly die in a horrifying way after a few years. Maybe months?

Make the time different for everyone. Some poor souls enjoy magic for a couple seconds. Some, maybe decades. The constant stress, the certain doom... People see witches addicted to drugs, try extreme things. The certain doom broke many minds. The promise of unimaginable pain and then certain death... Some witches were trapped in illusions and cried before dying. What they have seen? A witch begged to all the gods and all the holy things. She was a non-believer. What happened? Desperation? Horror? Did she see something that destroyed her entire belief? Promise of pain and torture is more effective than pain and torture. And if it is ambigious with all the description is ambigious, filled with scream and despair, your mind will build its own choice of hell. And maybe the magic is just following that idea? So maybe a sufficiently strong will can overcome it? Who knows? Certainly not the reader if you don't say anything.

There are stories of a price, yes. But maybe there isn't a price?

The price itself may not be too much. Sometimes it is the environment and the setting that scares people. Creates hesitation. The price may be an ambigious thing. Maybe the cruel magical god allowed soem witches to not pay any price at all. But stories like these make anyone hesitant. And, make the magic accessable. Like, quite easily. "Oh, the mighty power of arcane, right there. Take it if you want." says the priest. A witch is right next to him. Praying. Her knees are bleeding from sitting on solid stone for weeks.

Add the enviroment I described above, and your readers will debate on the price. "There should be a price! It must be a heavy thing!" Stories and beliefs with lack of sufficient education and wisdom can create decades of suffering. Who says the price needs to be more than to suffer through all the indoctrinated horror. When you never, never describe the price, readers curiosity will fill the gaps. Make sure no one truly knows anything solid about the price. Readers minds will draw a horror far worse than you can ever hope to write. Because, every person has their own fears. And this is magic. It can defy rules of nature sometimes.

Answer 17

Embarking on the journey to become a witch in this world requires a transformation that extracts both physical and psychological tolls from the aspiring witch. To begin her transformation, a woman must concoct a special potion, which carries heavy personal costs. The ingredients of this potion symbolize the witch's emotional sacrifice and willingness to surrender parts of her humanity: blood from her monthly cycle, the blood of a lamb she has tenderly put to sleep and slain, a lion's blood procured similarly, the most bitter, sour, and sweet fruits she has ever tasted, and a part of her own body that holds significant meaning to her. This ingredient reflects her deepest values and varies from one woman to another - it could be her hand, her eye, or any other part. The requirement is that the part surrendered should be the one she values most.

The preparation and consumption of the potion is a grueling process, steeped in psychological torment and physical suffering. After brewing the potion and distilling it to its final state, the aspirant must consume it. The potion, when ingested, triggers an onslaught of sensations - a woman must live through all the pains of those she has ever touched, as well as her own pain. This torment is not only physical but also psychological and spiritual. The agony lasts for several unbearable hours, unless she decides to relinquish her quest. The choice, once made, is irreversible. Regardless of the outcome, the part of her body she sacrificed for the potion is replaced with a grotesque, red and silver-ish substitute.

The toll of the transformation process extends to the realm of interpersonal relationships as well. Completing the ritual leads to a complete erasure of the witch's existence from the memories of everyone she has ever touched. If she withdraws from the transformation, only the individuals whose pains she has experienced will forget her. This is a potent penalty, as it signifies a profound social isolation and a disconnection from her previous life.

Unfortunately, the daunting trials of the transformation do not guarantee success. Half of those brave or desperate enough to undertake this journey fail. Though these women are often those who have already experienced significant hardship, the process's anguish often proves unbearable. Most fail within the first few agonizing minutes of the transformation, which can last hours or even a day.

Another, albeit rare, reason for failure stems from the potion's ritual itself. The ritual requires the woman's heart to be fully saturated with the pain of those she has touched. A woman might fail the transformation not because she cannot endure the torment, but because the pain she has accumulated from those around her isn't sufficient. This usually implies that she hasn't touched enough people, or those she has interacted with have not experienced enough pain to meet the ritual's demands.

In conclusion, the price for becoming a witch - the physical mutilation, psychological torment, and the erasure of one's existence from others' memories - is indeed steep. Only a minority of women would ever consider undertaking such a grueling transformation. The costs of losing one's identity, enduring immense physical and emotional pain, and risking failure and further loss make this a price that only the truly desperate and determined would willingly pay.

Answer 18

Depends on what your culture values. In a preindustrial society I would say infertile. All preindustrial society values children and the more the better and in prindustral society woman primary role is that of mother. This would cut her off from marriage as no one would marry someone they knew couldn't have children.

If not infertile then maybe she has to kill one of her children. Most women now days would be reluctant and I think more so in a preindustrial society but it might vary.

Alternative perhaps she has to break some serious religious or social taboo. Preindustrial societies were more collectivist then ours so breaking with social norms was a bigger deal.

Answer 19

A distinguishing mark and strong pressure to shun might be enough.

Any witch should be clearly identifiable as such, it could be that they have a certain "aura" that everyone can recognize or they "smell" like a witch no matter what else they might smell like.

Then have every use of magic come at a cost. Every life you save causes some random person to die. A familiar could be something like pet dying or a stillbirth depending on how impactful these familiars are. Flying could turn the winds against sailors at sea. Destructive magic against your foes could harm your friends.

You could also have these effects accumulate, so maybe when a witch that has done nothing but good with their magic dies, all of the bad effects happen at once and essentially undo any good they did in their life all at once, potentially causing more problems in doing so.