Each film deals with one of the titular "Mothers", a triumvirate of ancient witches who are determined to rule the world,[1] using their powerful magic to manipulate its events on a global scale, killing anyone who discover their whereabouts.

[citation needed] The story of the Three Mothers opens at the beginning of the 11th century, when the origin of witchcraft is depicted as three sisters on the coast of the black sea.

In the late 19th century the women commissioned E. Varelli, an Italian architect based in London, to design and construct three stately buildings.

[3] According to Varelli's memoirs, entitled The Three Mothers by an anonymous colleague, the architect learned too late of the women's evil nature.

As the original Freiburg building "Haus zum Walfisch" the Akademie bears a plaque stating that Desiderius Erasmus once lived there.

A young American, Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper), discovers the hidden chambers beneath the school after several pupils are killed by Markos' proxies.

The aged witch attempts to use her magic to kill the girl, but her powers — including those of invisibility, illusion casting, and telekinesis — prove insufficient due to her feeble state.

In The Mother of Tears, it is revealed that before the events of Suspiria, Elisa Mandy (Daria Nicolodi), a white witch, sought to challenge Markos' evil might.

[5] Markos is depicted as an ancient, disfigured, centuries-old crone maintaining control over the coven and seeking to acquire a new, younger body as her current one is riddled in leprous sores, tumorous growths and immobile infants' limbs growing out of her own.

In this version, it is revealed in the climax that Markos is a fraud and Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson) is the real Mater Suspiriorum.

Tenebrarum's bloodlust would ultimately be her own undoing, as one of her victims, a maid, was inadvertently responsible for the house catching fire in the midst of her death throes.

49 Via Dei Bagni - the Abertny Foundation's Biblioteca Filosofica - when Sara (Eleonora Giorgi) notices a strange sweet smell in the air.

[7] After the deaths of her sisters, the witch has been hibernating, and is awakened when Sarah Mandy (Asia Argento) opens the urn in which her most powerful relic, a red tunic, is stored.

She is defeated when Sarah Mandy discovers her subterranean lair and rips and burns her tunic, causing the Palazzo to collapse.