Over the centuries, the world of witches and wizardry has been slowly eroded by the various faiths of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Witches were burned at the stake, fed to lions, heads chopped off, and melted down by water. They were always presented as "evil" against the Abrahamic religions. They were nearly wiped out in America when they fled persecution in Europe in the 17th century, but one coven has managed to survive and hang on.
Witches and their wizard mates have long memories. They will never forget the long history of persecution against their people. It is now the 21st century, and the last surviving small group has made their home in Blairtown, Wyoming near the small city of Rock Springs along Interstate 80. It was formally established in the year 1980 with 20 founding members. 10 witches, and 10 wizards.
This coven has drawn up a series of laws which governs their claimed territory, and anyone who wanders into their territory are subject to their laws. The laws they drew up are similar in nature to Islam's Sharia laws. Strict. Religious-based. And the punishments for violating their laws can be harsh.
In the year 1950, the few surviving magic-users of the dark arts that were scattered across the United States found one another through meditation and dark prayers. They decided to meet up in a small town in the Midwest, and begin the process of building up their kind again. They chose Blairtown, as it was close to a small city, while being out in the middle of nowhere.
The importance of a small city of 20,000, was to use it as their capital in future generations. As a base to grow their power around. But before they could get to that point, they needed to establish themselves first. So they drew up a set of simple rules for the first ten years of their small community
The first and most important rule, was preservation. There were only 20 members in total, which happened to be split evenly between male and female.
Rule 1: They would each join together as couples for mating purposes in dark marriage ceremonies.
(A) Each of the 10 couple were expected to bear children. No less than 4 children each.
(B) They were expected to have at minimum, 2 boys and 2 girls per couple. This was to ensure a rapid, yet stable growth of their population, which would double with each generation.
(C) If the first child was a male, the second was to be a female. The third to be male. And the last to be female. Vice-verse if the first born was female.
(D) In case of twins, which was ultimately desirable as twins tend to be more powerful, they were expected to produce an even number of opposing younger siblings. So if two boys, they were to have two girls later on. If a boy and a girl, then they would have a bit and girl for their next two children.
There was a big flaw with this plan: chance.
They needed to use transgender transformation spells on their own babies to ensure this continued proper growth of numbers
Another problem:
Their powers were weak, as their population was small and their traditions nearly destroyed. Almost all magic in the world has been drained. In order to use transgender powers on a baby born to a witch-wizatd couple, they needed to build up their magic again. It is no small feat to use transformational magic on a magic-user's offspring. It was easy to use TF powers on regular human souls.
This group needed to build their powers back up again. In order to do so, they needed to create magical trinkets first. Trinkets required human souls.
A "trinket" can be anything:
Jewelry. Clothing. Statues. You name it.
Creating inanimate trinkets would build their magic-using powers through practicing and reestablishing their old traditions. Eventually, they would be able to start transforming human souls into living things. First plants, then animals. Once they have enough power to transform humans into animals, each individual can finally claim a familiar. A married witch and wizard armed with trinkets and a familiar each is finally practiced enough start properly breeding, according to Rule 1 and all of its subsections.
The act of marriage is the first step. It binds the female and male's souls to eachother, creating enough power to influence the world around them in the simplest ways possible. The act of creating human-bound trinkets furthers their power. And finally, the act of creating two familiars, one each for husband and wife, puts them at the height of their powers. Combined, they can begin to cast transgender spells on their own children if need be in order to remain compliant with the building up of their population at a steady rate.
Their population should double every 20 years. As stated above, the community was established in 1950 with 20 members. Their first ten years was spent trying to build their powers before they began breeding. It took that long for a number of reasons:
First, their initial powers were weak. As stated before, they were nearly wiped out along with the magic in this world. So they had to use entire human souls to create small objects. A ring here. A staff there. A small frog statue by a pond that still contains the living conscious soul of a young 13 year old boy that used to be a vagabond, endlessly staring at itself for nearly 70 years, trapped and unable to budge even an inch. The most complicated Ina imate form, was a human statue of an 8 year old boy peeing in that pond.
Second, they couldnt steal too many souls, as missing people tend to spark interest in investigation by the human authorities. The coven was weak, and needed to bide it's time.
By the mid-1950s, they had enough strength to begin casting humans into living things. Simple living things. First, fungi. There are a couple of former humans who have long-since been squashed underfoot as mushrooms. Then became more advanced. A young woman was turned into the Coven's meeting tree by their pond, which advanced their powers sufficiently enough to begin casting humans as animals.
The first two were turned into a worm, and a slug successively. They were a hippie couple making their way out west along the interstate when they decided to stop and break one of the Coven's laws.
From there, they made the pond into a koi pond. The descendants of former humans are still swimming around inside that pond.
Because of the concentration of transformed humans around that pond, the coven finally had enough of a base of power to begin concentrating on proper reproduction.
By 1960, there were several cats and dogs running around. Then came a couple of farm animals. Finally, the babies were ready to begin to be born. A few had to be transgendered. By 1980, the coven had a total of 40 children. The first generation were ready to begin to reproduce. The population was now up to 60.
In the 2000s, another 80 were born, for a total population of 140. And now by the 2020s, the total population was up to 200. The original generation had all but passed away. The community was now focused on age longevity. They had to slow down on capturing human souls, as the authorities had a number of cold cases and already had attracted some attention their way.
The coven was powerful enough to grow their population rapidly. But not powerful enough to fight a war against the overwhelming numbers of humans. The final step, was wisdom.
With age, comes wisdom. Their lifespans had shrunk to that close to humans. Now they needed to extend their lifespans out, so they could gain wisdom through aging, even as they continue to grow their population. The plan was to eventually annex the entire town of Rock Springs, and learn to transform themselves into the townspeople in order to cover their tracks of kidnappings and punishments through transformational magic.
The 2020s would be a time of rapid growth. Finding the minutest of violations by the human townspeople and punishing them by turning them into various objects and animals. The coven would also work on their longevity spells on human souls in order to extend their punishment out to eternity.
Eventually, they could claim the entire county as their territory. Then the entire state. Then the country. Eventually, they would conquer the world and keep humans as breeding slaves to be transformed at will. But that isn't for another couple of decades. Possibly even next century.
Right now, it is the year 2020 and the town of Rock Springs, Wyoming has been infiltrated. A couple of city blocks have already been claimed. Anyone who wanders onto one of their blocks or into Blairtown, is subject to the Coven's sharia-like laws, whether they know it or not. Such laws as wearing the wrong styles and colors of clothes. Listening to the wrong music. Wearing the wrong hairstyles. Eating the wrong foods. Or saying the wrong things.
(Author's Note: You can do anything you want from here. You can go back and write a story of a person being turned into a ring in 1960. Or write about the kid that's been turned into a little frog statue. Whatever your heart desires.)