Spoilers: Character background and the premise of her witchcraft campaign.
The witch behind the warning
Kislevite stories use Mother Ostankya to frighten disobedient children. The witch in those warnings is real: a guardian whose power comes from the woods, wetlands and open lands of Kislev. Her wrath falls on those who threaten that land.
Her protection has little of the ceremony associated with a royal court. She brings the menace of a folk tale into Kislev's defence, helping its warriors while confronting enemies with the same powers that make her feared at home.
A cauldron and a different magical tradition
Ostankya's cauldron is part of her battlefield identity. It launches spirits at distant enemies and becomes a crawling melee weapon when fighting closes around it. The Lore of the Hag gives her and the Hag Witches a magical tradition distinct from the Ice Court's Ice and Tempest.
The Daughters of the Forest carry that identity into the campaign. Their witchcraft gathers ingredients and Spirit Essence for Incantations and Hexes; the search for the Malediction of Ruin supplies the campaign's central magical ambition.
A guardian beyond the court
Katarin's royal authority, Kostaltyn's religious leadership and Ostankya's guardianship offer different faces of Kislev. The forest witch protects the Motherland through her own power. Her identity belongs to the land she defends, even when an Immortal Empires campaign begins far from it.
Boris Ursus leads the Ursun Revivalists and Kostaltyn the Great Orthodoxy. Both are Warhammer III base-game campaigns on SEGA’s June 2026 ownership table. Ostankya’s Daughters of the Forest come with Shadows of Change. Her cauldron, the Lore of the Hag, and the Witch’s Hut are not Ice Court magic and not a Patriarch’s hymns. Patch 6.1 added an early dilemma that can return her from Naggaroth to Plesk in Kislev’s Eastern Oblast. That choice is hers. It does not relocate Katarin, Kostaltyn or Boris.
Mother Ostankya: gameplay and availability · More character stories
Sources
- Mother Ostankya – Shadows of Change — Creative Assembly / SEGA — store.steampowered.com
- Patch 4.2.0 — Creative Assembly — community.creative-assembly.com
- Patch Notes 6.1 — Creative Assembly — community.creative-assembly.com