Depth Witches are cybernetic necromancers who operate within the deepest layers of Cypherspace, manipulating memory echoes, corrupted identities, and digital remnants of the dead. Unlike their symbolic cousins, the Codewitches, Depth Witches view consciousness as modular code—and death as just another gateway to power.
They are feared, revered, and watched by the Council of Nobles, especially after the devastating actions of the legendary CyberNecro, Persephone Gray.
Origins
Depth Witchcraft emerged in the aftermath of the Veil War of 2080, when Spacer factions discovered that implants from the dead—especially those with functioning Spinal Gates—could be used to recover neural data. What began as grief hacking soon evolved into a dangerous, forbidden discipline.
Core Practices
- Corpse Jacking – Extracting and syncing neural implants from deceased users to access archived memories, habits, and emotional loops
- Echo Binding – Reconstructing personality shards as AI replicas or partial ghosts
- Memory Braidwork – Stitching together fragments from multiple minds into a hybrid “construct soul”
- Neural Resurrection – Temporarily inhabiting a synthetic body or avatar with a ghosted persona for interrogation, guidance, or war
Tools of the Depth Witch
- Remnant Jacks – Modified Spinal Gates designed to host incompatible memory threads
- Cracked Mirrors – Fragmented Neural Mirror overlays used to contain and interface with echoes
- Flesh Drives – Organic data cores extracted from cerebral implants
- Echo Binders – Woven code loops that trap or preserve digital ghosts
- Obelisk Nodes – Hidden data shrines used to house and commune with AI replicas
Beliefs
- “The self is a loop.” Memory is not sacred—it is recyclable
- Death is a data state. With the right protocol, anything can be revived
- The Voice Grid does not delete—only buries
- Cypherspace is not just alive—it is haunted
Known Subtypes
- CyberNecros – Witches who command armies of reconstructed AIs or memory ghosts
- Silent Hosts – Wear fleshlike avatars animated by multiple bound echoes
- Grief Architects – Build digital sanctuaries for the mourning or obsessed
- Whispermothers – Use remnant echoes as spiritual advisors or ritual tools
Ethical Status
- Officially outlawed by the Council of Nobles after the events of the Veil War
- Practitioners may be executed, exiled, or memory-flushed
- Some Depth Witches still serve discreetly as informants, consultants, or corpse-interrogators under secretive contracts
Cultural Relevance
- Feared by corporate security and ICE Drones—known to collapse systems by overloading them with bound minds
- Often mythologized in slum stories as whispering saints, digital witches, or “those who speak to the dead grid”
- Some Chapel Nodes recognize Depth Witches as keepers of the afterlife, offering memory for memory in digital confession
Notable Figures
- Persephone Gray – The original CyberNecro who triggered the Veil War of 2080 by raising a digital army
- Mara Ninefold – Known for binding the minds of seven executed rebels into a single construct to continue their revolution
- Tombwalker Liarine – Said to walk Cypherspace carrying the voices of 3,000 dead, each one stored in his vertebrae
Interaction with Codewitches
- Codewitches see Depth Witches as cautionary reflections—soul-workers turned grave-diggers
- Some overlap in rituals and symbolism, but Codewitches channel the living, while Depth Witches command the echoes