Demdike

Demdike is a Mastigos who is the joint head of the Guardians of the Veil in the Consilium by the Bay. She is the leader of the Pendle Witches, and is a member of their signature Legacy, the Sodality of the Tor. She was the last Mastigos Councillor of the Consilium by the Bay, and took no new position in The Consilium of the Stone Circle. She lives at, and has moulded to her intent, Casa Demdike (not actual name).

History
Demdike was born in 1956, and her rebellion as a teenager was to retreat from the oncoming city life and into the traditions of the country.

She Awakened at the age of seventeen, and joined in the local coven - which makes it sound so very civilised, so very mundane, and so it was; many of the girls in the village spent time in the coven, and none particularly saw any conflict between this and attending church services every Sunday. Well - most Sundays.

As one of the Awakened she was marked down for the Sodality of the Tor early on, and was one of the hangers-on the Pendle Witches do not list for a time. There was some dispute, however, about what Order she might join, and the Guardians were not part of the list, but as she told her Cabal leader, "I felt that if I went elsewhere, I would be shirking my duty."

It would be some time before she accepted the invitation to the Sodality of the Tor, and by that stage she was married. By the time she achieved her second Attainment, she was pregnant with Jenny Cooper.

Demdike progressed strongly as a Mastigos and rapidly gained attention in the Guardians of the Veil. In the late 1990s this translated into cross-consilium reputation as she leant her mastery of Mind to a Lictor's investigation by Haderach, erasing the memory of events from a particular criminal.

With this in her achievements, it was clear that, when she and Gwyllion became joint heads of the Guardians in their home Consilium, one of them would be clearly the one actually in charge.

In the mid-2000s her daughter Jenny, having learned her mother and some of her friends were possessed of magical powers, attempted to Awaken herself, having heard grisly stories of Awakening stress from Obrimos and Moros colleagues. Demdike was forced to concede a favour to the relatively new arrival Matholwch to keep Jenny alive. This would not be her daughter's last attempt.

In 2008, she gained what to her has been the ultimate honour. Already Mastigos Councillor, she succeeded Yvaine as leader of the Pendle Witches.

Demdike has developed a reputation among the Guardians as a woman who, while strong of purpose and a ruthless enforcer of magical law, will take in candidates of any backgrounds, with any troubles, and do her best to ensure they mature into finer mages. It's for this reason that mages from as far afield as the Consilium of the Central Line find themselves serving in the Consilium by the Bay, including Pauli.