Gentry/The Mother Who Feeds

The Mother Who Feeds

Always female, The Mother is a member of the local Gentry, played by Annapurna.

Description

What is a mother?

moth·er
/ˈməT͟Hər/
noun
noun: mother; plural noun: mothers

1. a woman in relation to a child or children to whom she has given birth.

• a female animal in relation to its offspring.

• archaic

  (especially as a form of address) an elderly woman.

• (especially as a title or form of address) the head of a female religious community.

• denoting an institution or organization from which more recently founded institutions of the same type derive.

  modifier noun: mother

 "the mother church"

verb
verb: mother; 3rd person present: mothers; past tense: mothered; past participle: mothered; gerund or present participle: mothering; noun: mothering

1. bring up (a child) with care and affection.

 "the art of mothering"

• look after kindly and protectively, sometimes excessively so.

2. dated

  give birth to.

The Mother Who Feeds is all of these. She loves all of her children, and loves to feed them...and feed on them.

Physically, no matter how tall a changeling is, The Mother is always just tall enough to make them feel like a child tugging at apron strings, with a warm and kindly face. Her exact appearance differs, tailoring itself to what is most motherly to her 'children'. Race, age, weight, even her clothing differs in detail between tellings, though it is always practical. She proudly wears the creations her 'children' make for her.

Gender roles, to her, are a step back in time. Men work the fields and herds, women the gardens and the house.

Realm

Those who escape often have nightmarish wisps of memory, toiling endlessly in the fields and barns of an enormous farming homestead. Old-fashioned, the machinery is made and tended by hand, if a naughty child doesn't become it.

The farmhouse never runs out of rooms, but mysteriously never has quite enough for children to have their own space; they always need to share, the better to enjoy their good behavior or punish them for disobedience.

Methodology

The Mother's methodology is quite simple: she knows best. She guides you, instructs you, and shapes you to suit her opinions of what you have earned with your behavior.

Too lazy? Be a plant in the vegetable garden. Then you never need to move again. Just don't mind having bits and pieces of you torn away for salads.

Too gluttonous? Be a pig in the sty. Just be careful not to eat TOO much, or you know where the breakfast bacon will be coming from.

Too violent? If you like beating others, you may find yourself shaped into a hammer. The nail's hit once, the hammer a thousand times.

Of course, if you were once a very good child, perhaps she might make you a lovely rose, binding your limbs to a trellis outside her bedroom window, or perhaps a floppy, kenneled dog, fed scraps when you are fed at all, or she may groom you to join her hunting Hounds, loyalists who retrieve and fetch new lostlings for her to adopt.

What does this do to the changelings in her care? For one thing, they are all cannibals. You eat what you are given. What do you do when you know that 'what you are given' was once a part of somebody you knew?

If you make a mistake, do you accept the blame (and punishment) or do you use a scapegoat? There are so very many punishments for naughty children. Do you enjoy the power you can gain over others, manipulating Mother?

Suggested Themes for Escapees

On the homestead, you were a good child, a naughty child, or something not worth human notice. Pets, tools, food.

Your actions determined just what you became, and what the mother punished or rewarded you with being.

• Many Beast kiths suitable for farm or household life occur. These tend to go to Mother's naughty girls and boys.
• Darklings are less prevalent, though Mirrorskins, Lurkers and Whisperwisps can all find places in The Mother's home. These tend to go to those who adapt to life there, who are willing to betray their 'siblings' to get ahead. Razorhands, too, should the character be chosen to belong to Mother's Hounds.
• Elemental kiths, too, are prevalent, household themed. Are you a Fireheart pressed between glass and crushed beneath a teakettle to keep it warm? What type of vegetable or orchard tree did YOU become? Again, naughty girls and boys tend to get these.
• Of Fairests, Romancer and Playmate are common, with Flowerings and other more practical varieties most likely to be granted to The Mother's favourites.
• Ogres are extremely unlikely.
• Wizened, in many forms, are very popular. Artists and Inventors fill The Mother's home with hand made gifts, Drudges do the work of the house, etc.