Hexnames Become the Identity Check

The Castro problem made paperwork dangerous. Witchborn powers were registered by the Centrum and Lawful systems, which meant official records could tell someone what a person could do. Under normal circumstances, that might have been useful. Under shapeshifter infiltration, it became a liability. If Castro's people had reached those systems, then powers, names, and institutional records could all become tools for impersonation. Hexnames were different. They were chosen personally. They were not part of the registry. A person's hexname lived closer to identity than bureaucracy, which made it harder for a shapeshifter to fake if all they had stolen was official data. That changed the group's security logic. A power could be known. A legal name could be copied. A face could be worn. But a hexname, asked at the right moment, might still cut through the disguise. Vic's hexname was Madcap. That detail became more than flavor. In a Queefdom already worried about Castro shapeshifters inside Lawful and Centrum structures, hexnames became one of the few checks that belonged to the people rather than the system.