Baba Yaga Society

## The Baba Yaga Society

   *When shall we three meet again, in thunder, lightning or rain?*

* **Purpose:**The Baba Yaga Society is, at its heart, basically a mutual aid society. The Horned Ladies of the Baba Yaga are there to protect each other, help each other fulfill their goals and desires and assist each other in working their will on the world. Of course, the part that scares outsiders and leads to all the urban legends is the lengths they will go to in order to achieve that. Any. They will go to any lengths to achieve that. The Babas are for those who have rejected the limits put on them, legal, social and even moral. Do as THEY wilt is the whole of the law.
* **Headquarters:**Varies. They don't have a set meeting place. With the enemies they make, you wouldn't either. One thing in common is that it is always outdoors, as far into the wilds as possible. In extremis they might use one of the outlying parks, but only as an emergency measure. Trollwood  park is a favorite if they have to meet in town. There are also persistent rumors that they also have access to an obscure corner of the metaplanes  for their most sensitive rituals, a hut with chicken legs, tiny on the outside, but with room after sinister room on the inside, containing everything you ever dreamed you wanted and everything you ever feared your deserved. But then, witches are storytellers, and who knows the truth?
* **Membership:**The Baba Yaga society is exclusively open to Troll  women. And even then, the old crones are pretty picky. They must be 'old in spirit' if not always in years, they must have been wronged or frustrated in some major way. They must have demonstrated the right driven, ruthless streak. And even then they must commit a terrible deed to join, one specified by the senior witches and one that most applicants, if rumors be believed, do not commit. Once in, there is little hierarchy. Its a small coven and it doesn't need a lot of structure. The sisters call each other "Baba" as a term of respect and the three oldest and meanest of them use the pseudonyms "Baba Zlata" who keeps their funds, "Baba Korizma" who leads the rituals and "Baba Gvozdenzuba" who takes care of the 'punishments' they dole out.
* **Strictures:**Sorority, Secrecy, Obedience, Deed, Material Link (group), Belief (the Goddess Marena/Anog Ite), Limited Membership (Troll, female)
* **Resources:**Greater than they should be. The Babas maintain sizable 'rainy day' funds and have direct connections to the telesma  black market,     giving them considerable and powerful ingredients for their rituals. Various Babas have infiltrated academia, the Ascomanni  troll subculture, the fringes of the business  and poltical worlds and the underworld, which gives them a vast, if eclectic, array of resources to call on, bartering one kind of aid for another and making the whole stronger than its parts.
* **Alliances:**The Babas don't have allies. They gave that up when they joined the Baba Yaga society, they have tools, unwitting whenever possible. They keep their profile low for a reason. Whatever understanding the Baba Yaga society once had with the Crop Circle over their shared ritual spaces and wild places of power has recently evaporated and their rivalry with the Cirlce is now almost as bloody as the Baba's legendary grudge with the Circle's Sioux  counterparts in the Wild Rice Lodge. The only real contacts the Society has is the standing agreement with fellow troll outlaws in the Heathens, who, largely under the influence of their leader John Mist-calf, respect them as 'Volva' witches paying them the respect due and are occasionally blessed in return and also the 'understanding' of an unspecified nature they have with the mysterious outsiders and fellow local boogymen of the I-29ers.

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