Divine Coven

**The Divine Coven** are a group of witches based in Alicante, Meridian.

The Coven is one of several covens residing in Alicante but it is the only one who lives inside the French Quarter. Other covens of witches live in the other parts of Alicante and all are submitted to the regency of a powerful witch who acts as the voice of the consecrated dead of Alicante. The latest Regent was Natalie Stark, the last of the Harvest witches, and a former member of the Divine Coven, who succeeded Josephine LaRue.

## History

Previously, the coven was known to practice Ancestral Magic, by which they drew power from their consecrated dead ancestors who are buried at Lafayette Cemetery in the French Quarter of Alicante. Since their ancestors' remains are the source of their power, the coven cannot leave the city, or they would be abandoning their legacy. If a French Quarter witch did leave the city, it would result in the witch being cut off from his or her connection to the ancestral magic. The coven is also one of nine covens present in the city.

The Coven was one of the supernatural forces present in the city when the Original Family arrived to Alicante from Europe in the 18th century. The growing vampire presence became a recurring problem for the witches. However, in the early days, some witches seemed to have no problem with the Originals and one of them, Céleste Dubois, formed a romantic relationship with Christopher Mikaelson. However, the growing brutality of Christopher's brother, Brandon Mikaelson, eventually led him to blame the witches for his crimes. This led to a witch hunt in which many witches, including Céleste, were killed.

Tensions between the witches and the growing number of vampires continued throughout the 19th century and eventually came to a head in the early 20th. While many witches from various covens had aligned with Brandon and the Originals, a faction of witches had chosen to oppose them, among them were Mary-Alice Claire and Astrid Malchance. The covens waged war on each other and on themselves, and illness and catastrophes hit the city because of the witches' conflict. Eventually, the rebel witches allied with Brandon's brother, Dominic Mikaelson, who taught them a new form of magic called Kemiya which allowed a witch to create a dark object by changing it's core element. Dominic's plan was to create a golden dagger so that he could use on his brother, just as he had done several times in the past. In the process of learning Kemiya, several dark objects were created by the witches, such as the Devil's Star. However, the dagger's power proved to be too great to change it as easily as the others. Needing a perfect and large paragon diamond, Dominic and his witches tried to steal one from the Dowager Fauline. However, Dominic's killing of the Dowager and a whole crowd at St. Anne's Church had drawn the attention of his brother. As Dominic and his witches searched the Dowager's house, Brandon and Marcel, accompanied by one of their witches, caught Dominic and took the diamond. The witch sealed Mary-Alice and Astrid in the house which would then become a prison for witches who had gone mad. Eventually, Dominic was staked by his brother again and his witches were apparently defeated.

After the First World War, as Prohibition was being set into motion, the Original brothers came up with a plan to unite the city's supernatural elements to oppose Prohibition. However, the coven had fallen under the control of a dangerous and powerful witch, Papa Tunde. Desiring to find a place for the witches in the Originals' plan and wanting both money and territory for himself, he begun to wage war on the city's other elements, including the humans and the werewolves. He even killed those witches who opposed him. Eventually, Brandon and Christopher decided Papa Tunde needed to die: Brandon killed his sons who acted as a channel for his power before killing him. With Tunde's death, the witches apparently fell in line with the Originals and their plans.

After the Originals were forced to flee the city in 1919 when their father, Jonathan, found them, the balance of power in Alicante begun to change once again as the Mikaelsons' plans to create unity in the face of Prohibition fell through. Eventually, Brandon's protegee, Marcel, returned to the city and, during the 1920s, he waged a guerilla war against the Guerrera werewolves. Marcel's return saw a rise of the vampire population as he gradually rebuilt his community. The werewolves also fought against the vampires but their infighting did not make them a good fighting force. It is unknown who the witches fought for during these troubles but they did form an alliance with the Human Faction in the later years of the 20th century and early years of the 21st.

Eventually, at the beginning of the 21st century, the werewolves had been more or less defeated and Marcel's vampires became the superior force of Alicante. Although the French Quarter witches opposed this, they did not engage in open warfare against the vampires. The covens were also divided over how to treat the vampires: several covens joined them while others opposed them, and others simply ignored them. In addition, the French Quarter's ancestral power source had been growing more tenuous as their link to the Ancestors and their magic weakened over time. Determined to preserve their power, the coven's Elders decided to perform the Harvest ritual which would see four witches sacrificed and resurrected to strengthen the link with the Ancestors and make their magic even more potent. The four witches would then return more powerful than ever as they would have learnt the secrets of the Ancestors. However, their plans were soon derailed when Sophie Deveraux learnt of their plans: a witch who had renounced her heritage due to the witches' strict rules, she believed that the Harvest was a myth and would only lead to the death of four witches. Among those chosen was Sophie's niece, Monique Deveraux. The three other girls were Abigail, Cassie and Natalie Stark.

Sophie tried to stop the Harvest by warning Father Kieran O'Connell, the leader of the Faction, so that he could stop the massacre. An ally of the witches, Kieran was nevertheless repulsed by their plans and tried to stop them, threatening to enter into an alliance with Marcel if they defied him and proceeded with the Harvest. In order to distract Kieran, the Elder Agnes placed a hex on his nephew, Sean O'Connell, which made him loose his mind and eventually made him kill himself and nine seminary students before Kieran's eyes. Distracted by his nephew's madness, Kieran was unable to stop the witches. However, Sophie had also confided in her secret lover, Marcel. After Sean's death, Kieran left Alicante but also encouraged Marcel to stop the Harvest to save the four sacrifices. As the witches killed the witches, Marcel and his vampires attacked. Three of the girl were already dead by the Elder Bastianna Natale and only Natalie still lived. The vampires killed the Elders with the exception of Agnes and saved Natalie.

The Harvest however was not a myth as Sophie had believed: as each girl died, she released her power onto the next with the final death supposed to release the full power into the earth. Since Natalie still lived, she had the entire power of the four sacrifices. Among her new powers, she could sense when a witch was using magic. Partly to protect her and partly to control the witches, Marcel hid Natalie in St. Anne's Church's attic. He then banned the use of magic in Alicante, using Natalie's ability and her new resentment of the witches to kill any witch who broke the rule. Unable to use magic, the witches were forced to submit to Marcel's rule and the vampires finally ruled the city without opposition from either the witches, the werewolves or even the humans.

However, the witches were not happy with this development and both Sophie Deveraux and her sister Jane-Anne were devastated over the loss of Monique. Determined to get their niece and daughter back, they planned to find and kill Natalie to complete the Harvest. However, due to their inability to perform magic, they needed allies who could bring down Marcel in their stead.

## Early History

### Alliance with the Mikaelsons.

When Sophie learns that Genevieve Salvatore, a werewolf, is pregnant with the child of the Original Vampire Brandon, the witches plan to use this to their advantage. Realizing that they had the chance to use the Originals to help in their plans, the coven kidnapped Genevieve before luring Brandon back to Alicante. In order to ensure that the Originals would help them, Jane-Anne performed a spell which not only confirmed the pregnancy but also linked Genevieve to Sophie. Approached by Christopher Mikaelson, the witches revealed that their plans were to simply overthrow Marcel and that they wanted him to undermine his empire from within. Christopher, determined to help Genevieve convinced she was the key to his family's redemption, convinced Brandon to follow the plan. The Originals made an alliance with the witches in order to accomplish their objectives. Although the coven overruled her and followed Sophie's lead, Agnes, the coven's only living Elder, opposed the alliance with the Originals.

After Paris Mikaelson learnt of Natalie's existence and discovered that a witch named Katie was engaged in a romantic relationship with Thierry Vanchure, one of Marcel's lieutenants, Brandon and Paris made a plan to sow dissent in Marcel's ranks and find Natalie by having Katie launch an attack on Marcel and his vampires when they sentenced Thierry to the The Garden|Garden for killing a vampire (a move orchestrated by Brandon). In the meantime, while Katie's magic acted as a shield, Sophie would cast a locator spell to find Natalie. However, Brandon killed Katie before Sophie could complete the spell so as to gain more of Marcel's favour and to ensure the witches did not find Natalie. Brandon wanted to ensure that Natalie's power would be used by him once he took over New Orleans and that the witches would be forced to submit to him. Meanwhile, while the Originals conducted their plans, Sophie sent a witch named Sabine Laurent to watch over Genevieve. While helping Genevieve discover her child's sex, Sabine had a vision about the child. Upon returning to the Coven, she revealed to Agnes what she had seen: that the child would bring death to all witches.

Agnes, determined to protect the coven from danger, tried to have the child killed. Under the guise of arranging a medical checkup for Genevieve with a friend of hers in the Bayou, she ordered several of her witches to kill Genevieve. However, she realized what was happening and he ran away before killing most of them. When both she and Paris were neutralized by the witches, those that remained were killed by a wolf trailing Genevieve.

After the attempt on Genevieve's life, Brandon demanded answers from Sophie Deveraux who finally revealed the truth behind Natalie's power and the Harvest. Meanwhile, Christopher made a deal with Natalie to allow her to gain control over her powers by using the spells contained in his Artemis Mikaelson's grimoire. He also nullified the deal between the Originals and the witches because they had not be completely honest with them when they made their agreement. However, Agnes was determined to see the baby killed: her witches captured Sophie who was still magically linked to Genevieve, using the link and a dark object called the The Needle of Sorrows to induce a miscarriage. Thanks to Natalie, the linking was broken and Genevieve and the baby were saved. At the same time, Brandon enlisted the help of the Human Faction to apprehend Agnes, using Agnes's murder of Sean to convince Father Kieran to help him. Sophie tried to convince Christopher to prevent Brandon from killing Agnes, as she was the coven's last living Elder and the only one with the power to perform important spells such as the Harvest. Christopher swore that Agnes would not die by Brandon's hand before killing her himself for endangering his family.

### Completing the Harvest

With Agnes's death, it appeared that all hopes to complete the Harvest were doomed and that the witches would eventually lose access to the source of power created by the consecration of their Ancestors. However, hope was renewed when Sabine learnt that Natalie had escaped from Marcel's control after learning of Agnes's death. While every single vampire in town searched for Natalie, the witches also made their move, no longer bound to Marcel's rule of not using magic. While Sabine and a group of witches sought out the last Harvest girl, Sophie called Genevieve and revealed that she knew of a way to complete the Harvest and, as the key ingredient, how she could become an Elder. She needed to consecrate the remains of a powerful witch whose power she could then use to connect with their Ancestors. The only witch Sophie had any knowledge of was Céleste Dubois, Christopher's old lover in the 18th century. After her death, Christopher had honoured a promise he had made to her: that he would bury her away from her witches so that she wouldn't be consecrated and could remain in peace. Sophie asked Genevieve to tell her where Christopher had buried Céleste so that she could use her power in the Harvest ritual. Genevieve complied when Sophie promised that she would lift the curse placed on the Crescent Wolf Pack by her ancestor, Brynn Deveraux.

Meanwhile, Sabine and her witches cornered Natalie and her friend, Camille O'Connell, in St. Anne's Church but Natalie proved too powerful: she killed the four witches and incapacitated Sabine before fleeing to the Mikaelson compound to save her friend, Timothy, from Brandon. After she easily defeated Brandon, Christopher and Marcel, she was tricked into drinking poison by a compelled Timothy. However, Christopher and Marcel had predicted Brandon's treachery and made sure that Natalie was protected: Marcel coerced Sabine into performing the same protection spell she had cast on herself on Natalie so that Brandon would be unable to kill her. Therefore, Natalie returned to life although Timothy died from the poison.
The next day brought a bad surprise however: Natalie started inexplicably throwing up dirt and her magic begun to shake the entire French Quarter. Sophie, who had recovered Céleste's bones, realized that the power of the four Harvest witches within Natalie was starting to tear her apart. Since the four elements had been bound to the Harvest ritual and each witch represented an element, each element would be influenced by Natalie's hemorrhaging magic: the earth would shake, the winds would blow hard enough to tear the roof off of a building, violent storms and floods would wreak havoc in the Quarter, and fire would eventually burn the entire city to the ground. The only way to prevent this from happening and to possibly save Natalie's life was to complete the Harvest. The Mikaelsons eventually came to accept this possibility and plans were made for Natalie to be sacrificed.