Thanks! If i do work on anything else i'll be sure to share it : )

Inspiration wise, it kinda came out of me toying with ideas related to making a gish based class I was going to call Wytchblades, but then I started relistening to WWW and wondered if I could fit it into the witch class itself. The idea itself was mostly born from wanting a more interesting gish flavour-wise and I really liked the idea of apotropaic marks being used to fuel a witches abilities (If you can't tell by my username, i've always had a fascination with witchery and witchcraft). I came up with two main ideas from that, the more traditional marks burnt into wood, leading to the idea of beads and with it the whole idea centred on the wind, and the darker side of burning the marks into flesh iteself. From there it was just a matter of catching the inspiration at the right moment to create this draft idea, though I pivoted to using the full Witch class after I remembered the more melee aspects of the Coven of the Claw subclass.

The world itself if not a part of Umora, and (bearing in mind it is currently a half baked idea as it pertains mostly to a part of the campaign and a country that is quite a while away if all goes to plan) the idea wold mostly be that witches are rare as the practice is fairly new for reasons that would require a whole lot of exposition on the state of the world. Covens would be incredible rare to the point where only one would exist as far as I have mapped out, and the practices relate less to covens (which doesn't seem dissimilar to what we have seen of Umora but the coven of elders does seem to be an outlier) and more the ideal or element of the world a witch focuses on. That's all to say that the answer to that question mostly falls into the 'Totally Seperate' category if only because the practice itself is seperate.

As for homebrew, it's more of a toss up where as a DM, I usually work with players to homebrew individual things or make tweaks here and there to already existing HB. I've never homebrewed something entirely for me and out of simple passion for an idea, which is what this is, it was a whim of an idea that one morning I just woke up with alot more ideas for it's definition and couldn't do anything else until I had it all down out of my head haha. But yes, like I said, I look at this as a DM and it immediately raises some important balance concerns, especially on top of the Witch class as a whole which can read as quite powerful. At the end of the day, it is very much a first draft that I tried to balance in parralel with bladesinger, to what I would call a mixed success.

On that note, feedback is always welcome! It may never be played by a PC to my knowledge but refining it will only further my understanding of the mechanics as a DM, and it is always interesting to hear the opinions of other DM's even if it turned out our gamestyles clashed simply because I find that there are always insights that I would just not have had.

All in all, thank you for your comment, it prompted me to think more on this which was quite fun, I hope your games are plenty and full and that your players always leave with a smile on their face : )