Ostankya

Ostankya is the great hag of Kislev, the living embodiment of its oldest and darkest folk-magic: the crone of a thousand hearth-tales made terribly real. Where the ice-witches of the Tzarina's court are creatures of the frozen land, Ostankya is a creature of the wild woods and untamed steppe, mistress of a hedge-sorcery older than the Tzardom itself, woven from bone and blood, herb and hex, and the harsh bargains struck with the elder spirits of the wilderness. She dwells apart from the towns, in the deep places the folk fear to go, and the common people leave offerings at the forest's edge to keep her favour and ward off her wrath.

She answers to no Tzarina and bends to no court, yet when the doom of the north descends upon Kislev she takes the field in the realm's defence, for the land is hers as much as anyone's. She calls the beasts and birds of the wild to her side, curses the enemies of Kislev with rot and ruin, and works magics the ordered wizards of the south would name black witchcraft and burn her for. To her people she is neither wholly good nor evil but something older than both: the wild heart of Kislev given a crone's face, keeping the old ways alive while queens and Tzars come and go.