| Daywalker | |
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| General Information | |
| Designations |
Daywalker |
| Description |
Witches serving to protect mankind from dark forces. |
| Appearances | |
| Seasons | |
| First Appearance | |
| Last Appearance | |
Daywalkers (commonly called witches) are the counterparts of nightcomers and are featured in Season 2 of Penny Dreadful.
Summary
Daywalkers are women who are knowledgeable in the occult. Although Joan Clayton implies that most daywalkers are common wood witches with knowledge of herbs and potions, she herself is proof that daywalkers can gain tremendous supernatural powers beyond brewing potions and preparing poultices. The more powerful daywalkers become, however, the more they must walk the line between good and evil, and must take care not to be seduced by darker powers.
Many daywalkers thus know how to speak the Verbis Diablo, but avoid using it unless there is no other choice. Those daywalkers who descend into the darkness, usually through pacts with the Devil, become nightcomers.[1]
Named Daywalkers
Powers and Abilities
- Apotropaic magic: The practice of creating mystic wards to block evil. The Cut-Wife's primary ward to protect her home is a symbol of her personal totem painted on stone in her own blood. Such a ward was able to hold back Nightcomers as powerful as Evelyn Poole from entering the threshold, though it appears to require time and/or practice to cast one properly as her daughter, Hecate, was able to enter Grandage Place despite Vanessa's wards.
- Herbalism: The knowledge and skill in applying the magical properties of various herbs to the human body.
- Divination: The act of divining future, past, and present events based off of extrasensory perception. As said by Joan Clayton, one can either learn this ability like she did or be born with it like Vanessa Ives.
- Cartomancy: The practice of divination through the use of tarot cards.
- Clairvoyance: The practice of divination through the perception of emotions, objects, people, or physical phenomena.
- Intuition: The practice of divination through the use of instinctive knowledge.
- Mediumship: The practice of divination through the communication of spirits.
- Psychometry: The practice of divination through contact with or proximity to a certain object or person.
- Tassomancy: The practice of divination based off the positions and symbols of tea leaves.
- Mediumship: The ability to channel spirits and supernatural beings. A number of powerful spirits have used Vanessa as a medium, including spirits claiming to be the ancient Egyptian goddess Amunet and the Christian Devil.
- Verbis Diablo: Knowledge of the Devil's tongue, which allows daywalkers to commit acts of great power, such as banishing nightcomers and even overcoming the fallen angel himself.
- Longevity: Daywalkers can live significantly longer than humans, as evidenced by Joan Clayton, who was well over two hundred years old by the time she was killed.
Behind the scenes
- The concept of daywalkers originates in the idea of the white witch, a benign type of witch who spent most of her time as a folk healer.
- The term "daywalker" is usually used in fantasy fiction to describe a type of vampire rather than a type of witch.