POWERS: Tiffany is a Discworld Witch. This means a few things:
Witches are what stories need them to be, as the entirety of Discworld is dictated by narration, and it's need for continuity. Myth, lore and story all have very potent meaning in Discworld, and they are as alive and moving the world as much as anything.
What this means in effect is:
Tiffany exists in a dual-gendered magic system; men and women's magic are different in practice, though you do see overlap (only one female wizard, to date, and no male witches; wizards generally remain celibate, witches rarely do so.) Wizards are flashy, loud, experimental, rarely get what they're after, and congregate in schools and universities. Witches are singular (though they sometimes meet in covens, and often check up on each other to prevent 'cackling' or going 'to the dark') and tend to cottage in a village, or nearby one in a remote area. For Tiffany, she serves the lowlands near the Ramtops called the Chalk, where witches have been in bad states for some time due to the Baron's son going missing a few years before the start of the first Tiffany Aching book, "The Wee Free Men".
Witches tend to the reflect the land they are on and their communities needs. Tiffany's grandmother, Sarah Aching, was the last witch of the Chalk, though she was not formally acknowledged as a witch and didn't do much magic - most witches don't. She was a shepard; Miss Level asks, in A Hat Full of Sky how she managed things, and Tiffany explains that Sarah Aching often made people help themselves, as opposed to helping them directly. Miss Level says that means she was a great witch, for few witches can manage such a thing.
Tiffany is a powerful witch, especially for her age; she is 'the flint in the Chalk' - reflecting the hidden stone in the soft, fossil-bed of the Chalk that was under the turf that the sheep grazed on. She is small, sharp, and not just a little bit dangerous. Flint will hold an edge for years, long after steel has corroded. This may help to define what sort of witch Tiffany is: hard and sharp, just like the soft people of the Chalk around her need.
Magically speaking, however, Tiffany's 'specific' abilities include broom riding, shamble creation, possession of animal bodies by leaving her own body 'empty', and walking through worlds when she can find the right place. She also has what is called 'First Sight' and 'Second Thoughts'. She can also 'move' energy from point to point. All witches use Headology to some degree. There are other minor notes to her magical power, but the major points will be detailed here.
First Sight is defined as 'seeing what is really there instead of what one expects to be there'. Not only does this give Tiffany a fine eye for detail and a near detective like ability to notice wrongs, ferret out information and catch people in lies, it also includes the very magical end of penetration of illusion, seeing the possessed for what they are, detection of magical places and things.
Second Thoughts is that little switch that everybody wishes they had they keeps what you think from traveling through your head to your mouth without thought. NOTHING Tiffany says is without a bit of forethought unless it's a damn crisis or something is seriously wrong with her. Her Second Thoughts ask why she's thinking that and if it is really that important. She also has Third or Fourth thoughts that sometime crop up at very dangerous times to help her analyze angles of various situations, but if she gets into Fifths and Sixths, Tiffany's head get very noisy and she has to start quieting herself mentally -- it can put her off her game, but working her to this level requires dire circumstances... like staring down the Queen of Faerie and telling her that you don't want a sweet, you want your damn brother back, thank you very much.
(As an extrapolation, to telepaths this makes Tiffany very difficult to read, if one can't make out which is a thought from Tiffany, and what Tiffany's thoughts are concluding about her other thoughts and what thoughts get to go forward. How this will affect Dollhouse tech remains to be seen, and will be at staff discretion.)
An extension just developing for Tiffany -- of the First Sight and Second Thoughts is the ability to 'read the narration' -- or to hear the thoughts that people very much want to say, but don't. This makes her difficult to lie to as the truth is often screaming behind a lie, and she often picks up on subtle dynamics; a watchmen who doesn't want to deal with a certain thing or item, for example, will think 'loudly' about it. She's not a mind reader-- just happens to catch certain overflow from people's minds. She cannot, will not go digging about in someone's head for 'thoughts or dreams' or anything of the sort; she just catches the unspoken, the sublimated or the hidden, but the known.
Tiffany can also 'Borrow' -- she can leave her body and look around where she can't normally. This can get her into trouble as it leaves her body VACANT and it can be occupied by malevolent forces while she's 'out'. She will sense this, however -- what she won't always sense is physical thing. She'll feel a spiritual invasion, but she may not notice that she's been slapped for a moment. This skill has gotten her into trouble before, and so largely, she rarely uses it anymore -- and certainly no longer uses it simply for vanity of 'See Me', seeing herself without a mirror.
Tiffany can create 'Shambles'; these oracular objects are made with string, bits of odds and ends, and something living -- a mouse, egg, bug, Nac Mac Feegle. They can be made and preserved as 'warning devices' for magical intrusion (breaking, glowing, or otherwise alerting the witch) or simply help with scrying efforts on locations of hidden magics, disguised places, and things that are too far for First Sight to See.
Tiffany can fly on a broom. This is pretty straightforward. This often means warm pants under your dress, sturdy boots and not showing people your knickers.
Energy movement is another skill of Tiffany's -- she can do this with any 'energy', including living energies, like pain in the body, whicih is useful in midwifery or hospice care. The energy is invisible, and traverses through her without harming her; she can stick her hand in a fire and move the energy up her arm and through a pointer to make it glow red hot, or she can move pain from a dying man's body to give him ease as he dies; this type of energy must be moved from her body -- it can be 'held' without harming her but it will cause her duress if she's not allowed to release it, and in the case of pain or other 'metaphysical' items, is likely to destroy or damage any object it is moved into -- the dying baron's pain takes a guard's helmet and warps it in half. Energy always needs an outlet somewhere.
Lastly is Headology; Tiffany is a student of this magic that most witches possess -- it's sort of like an magically active psychology. It is said that Granny Weatherwax can guilt a sodden log into becoming a roaring fire simply by giving it a disapproving glance, but Tiffany is not so practiced. She tends to use this on people more then objects, but this is not entirely on it's own. Sometimes magic is not actually magic -- she may order "bucket, fill yourself" and it was truly a nearby friendly Feegle that did the command then 'magic' -- but the person watching doesn't need to know that.
There are other minor spells and abilities, but little wand waving or lightening summoning is done -- Tiffany's magic is less about what is done, but what isn't. It's what isn't seen that is important. This does not mean she's not capable of great, rending acts of power. It's simply that great, rending acts of power are ususally stupid, tip your hand, put other people in danger, or don't make any sense. While the Hiver controlled her, her magic was used to kill a woman by burning her to cinders, and poorly making a man into a frog (Not all of him fit inside; it was very messy). Tiffany is capable of these sorts of magics, but even in the face of great threats, rarely do witches wave their hand and draw down lightening from the sky. Tiffany has always solved her problems with her smarts, not her power.
For completely nonmagical abilities, Tiffany is a dairymaid, expert cheese maker, shepard, midwife for both woman and beast, herbalist, hospice worker, and old-time vet and something like a village doctor when need be. She is not trained in extensive combat, but often relies on Headology instead. If a witch or wisewoman does it in fiction, likely, Tiffany has that skill in her repertoire, with a bent toward the specifics of the British lowland country and their needs, with some time up the mountains later in her life.
Power Limitations: Tiffany's magic is fairly low-key -- she won't be walking anything to Death unless required by plot, for instance, or traversing worlds. She may find 'borrowing' more difficult as people are not even in their right minds and animals may be hard to come by (she doesn't like it much anyway). Lacking the backing of Feegles in the world (till as such time as we can get a mound approved and some Feegles NPC'd by staff if possible?) she also loses some of her 'fake' magic by having Feegles about to assist in faking-magic.
2/2
POWERS: Tiffany is a Discworld Witch. This means a few things:
Witches are what stories need them to be, as the entirety of Discworld is dictated by narration, and it's need for continuity. Myth, lore and story all have very potent meaning in Discworld, and they are as alive and moving the world as much as anything.
What this means in effect is:
Tiffany exists in a dual-gendered magic system; men and women's magic are different in practice, though you do see overlap (only one female wizard, to date, and no male witches; wizards generally remain celibate, witches rarely do so.) Wizards are flashy, loud, experimental, rarely get what they're after, and congregate in schools and universities. Witches are singular (though they sometimes meet in covens, and often check up on each other to prevent 'cackling' or going 'to the dark') and tend to cottage in a village, or nearby one in a remote area. For Tiffany, she serves the lowlands near the Ramtops called the Chalk, where witches have been in bad states for some time due to the Baron's son going missing a few years before the start of the first Tiffany Aching book, "The Wee Free Men".
Witches tend to the reflect the land they are on and their communities needs. Tiffany's grandmother, Sarah Aching, was the last witch of the Chalk, though she was not formally acknowledged as a witch and didn't do much magic - most witches don't. She was a shepard; Miss Level asks, in A Hat Full of Sky how she managed things, and Tiffany explains that Sarah Aching often made people help themselves, as opposed to helping them directly. Miss Level says that means she was a great witch, for few witches can manage such a thing.
Tiffany is a powerful witch, especially for her age; she is 'the flint in the Chalk' - reflecting the hidden stone in the soft, fossil-bed of the Chalk that was under the turf that the sheep grazed on. She is small, sharp, and not just a little bit dangerous. Flint will hold an edge for years, long after steel has corroded. This may help to define what sort of witch Tiffany is: hard and sharp, just like the soft people of the Chalk around her need.
Magically speaking, however, Tiffany's 'specific' abilities include broom riding, shamble creation, possession of animal bodies by leaving her own body 'empty', and walking through worlds when she can find the right place. She also has what is called 'First Sight' and 'Second Thoughts'. She can also 'move' energy from point to point. All witches use Headology to some degree. There are other minor notes to her magical power, but the major points will be detailed here.
(As an extrapolation, to telepaths this makes Tiffany very difficult to read, if one can't make out which is a thought from Tiffany, and what Tiffany's thoughts are concluding about her other thoughts and what thoughts get to go forward. How this will affect Dollhouse tech remains to be seen, and will be at staff discretion.)
There are other minor spells and abilities, but little wand waving or lightening summoning is done -- Tiffany's magic is less about what is done, but what isn't. It's what isn't seen that is important. This does not mean she's not capable of great, rending acts of power. It's simply that great, rending acts of power are ususally stupid, tip your hand, put other people in danger, or don't make any sense. While the Hiver controlled her, her magic was used to kill a woman by burning her to cinders, and poorly making a man into a frog (Not all of him fit inside; it was very messy). Tiffany is capable of these sorts of magics, but even in the face of great threats, rarely do witches wave their hand and draw down lightening from the sky. Tiffany has always solved her problems with her smarts, not her power.
For completely nonmagical abilities, Tiffany is a dairymaid, expert cheese maker, shepard, midwife for both woman and beast, herbalist, hospice worker, and old-time vet and something like a village doctor when need be. She is not trained in extensive combat, but often relies on Headology instead. If a witch or wisewoman does it in fiction, likely, Tiffany has that skill in her repertoire, with a bent toward the specifics of the British lowland country and their needs, with some time up the mountains later in her life.
RP SAMPLE: Past Play at Babylon Wood
ANYTHING ELSE?: I love you guys.