Wandfast

**Wandfasting** is a magical bond between a Gardnerian male and female that is for life. It is the equivalent of getting married.

## Description

Tradition dictates that women are wandfasted at seventeen. However, wandfasting has been happening at increasingly younger ages for women. It is now not uncommon for a Gardnerian woman to be fasted at thirteen. It's also become common for most Gardnerians to not even meet before the fasting ceremony. Instead, their parents make all the arrangements. When someone has been wandfasted, they have black swirls that cover their hands and extend to their wrist. The design is unique to each couple and is influenced by their Mage affinity lines. If a woman breaks her wandfasting, her hands and arms become covered in painful, deep, bloody, lash marks. This is called *"fast-breaking."* Instead of referring to their partner as husband or wife, they refer to their partner as their *"fastmate.*"

The Gardnerians believe that wandfasting is meant to keep them "pure and chaste." They claim it keeps young people on the path of virtue and is also viewed as "one of the many things that sets them apart from the heretic races." Only women who are virgins can be wandfasted. While a woman's fasting is for life, even if her fastemate dies, a Mage Priest can lift a man's fasting if his fastmate dies. It's written right into the binding spell.

### Binding

The first stage of wandfasting is the binding ceremony. It is conducted by a Priest Mage. The binding ceremony is similar to an engagement ceremony. The couple clasps their hands over each other's, and the priest recites the spell over their hands. This results in the wandfasting lines to sppear on the couple's hands. They are now bound for life. There is no known way to remove or break a wandfasting.

### Sealing

The second stage of wandfasting is the sealing ceremony. This ceremony is similar to a wedding. It seals the fasting. The wandfasting lines darken when the couple is sealed. After the couple consummates the sealing, the lines spread up their wrists as a mark of their union. A couple can have an informal Sealing ceremony, or they can have a formal one.

#### Sealing Ceremony

A formal Sealing ceremony involves a priest say the Sealing spell over the couple's clasped hands before they consummate the fasting. The couple wears special Sealing clothing. These outfits are forest green, the deviation from the usual Gardnerian black allowed only for Sealing ceremonies because the color is meant to highlight and enhance the color of Mage skin. The woman enters the ceremony by walking through a human tunnel with each person holding a pine branch. It symbolizes "the dark times when Mages were cast into the shadows of the Heathen Wilds." The male always ends the Sealing ceremony by killing a tree. The higher the status of the family, the rarer the stree. The ashes of the tree are used the next morning in the Blessing of Dominion.

#### Sealing Reception

The reception begins with the couple having their first Sealing dance. It's tradition that they dance to a sonng called "Deep Forest." It's also tradition to drink the Sealing drink, which is a tree cordial made from elderflowers, sassafras leaves, and birch syrup. As the couple sits at the receiving table, guests line up to offer congratulations.

#### Sealing Breakfast

The morning after the Sealing ceremony there is the Sealing breakfast in which the couple's consummated fastlines are blessed by the priest. Their fastlines now travel up their wrists and arms. If the color of the Sealing ceremony the night before is forest green, the color of the Sealing breakfast is red. It symbolizes the woman's "deflowering." Tradition dictates the man raise the couple's combined hands in the air at the start of the breakfast.

#### The Blessing of Dominion

After the breaksfast is the Blessing of Dominion. The couple "enters the wilds alone and scatters the ashes of a destoryed tree to symbolize the Magedom's dominion over Erthia." It's implied that the couple may have sex again afterwards as Elloren notes that "the time spent in the woods is open-ended." The couple will scatter the ashes of the tree from the Sealing ceremony over the largest tree they can find to symbolize Gardnerians dominion over Erthia.

## History

Styvius Gardner set down in *The Blessed Mages* the commandment that Gardnerian women are to wandfast to Gardnerian men at an early age to keep their magic affinity lines pure and their Mage blood untainted. Styvius created the highly protected spells that are still used for the Gardnerian sacrament of wandfasting. Women who broke their wandfasting commitment with non-Gardnerians were to be struck down as brutally as possible, along with their non-Gardnerian lovers. The man's family was also killed, as a lesson to all. A Banishment ceremony was required to exorcise the Evil out of the woman from her family.

## Trivia

* A person's in-laws are called their "fast-family."
* It's tradition for people to say "Sanguin'in" to the couple. This word means "bloody the sheets" in the Ancient Tongue.

## References

1. ↑ *The Black Witch*: page 48
2. ↑ *The Shadow Wand*: page 374
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 *The Shadow Wand*: page 314
4. ↑ *The Rebel Mages*: page 287