{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/black-nerve/apocrypha/umbracog",
  "path": "/posts/black-nerve/apocrypha/umbracog",
  "publishedAt": "2022-11-02T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "What is an umbracog?\n\nPut simply, an umbracog molds enervate in their brain. Its antumbra\nreacts with neurotransmitters and itself, augmenting cognition. Every\nsapient bug in the heartlands is an umbrcog of some development, because\nnouform cognition is what allows for intelligence.\n\nGiven that, why is an umbracog, in the colloquial sense, meant as\nsomething strange and rare? Why does every bug not boast their mental\ngifts, why are they not all masters of the psychic arts?\n\nThere are three principle reasons.\n\nFirst is the danger: umbracognition requires more enervate, thus\nincreasing the concentration of enervate greatly increases the risk: no\ntissue is safe from deliquescence, least of all the delicate fat of the\nbrain.\n\nSecond is vulnerability. Danger comes not only from within, but\nwithout. There are virulent thoughts, hazardous moods, and vast, remote\nentities beyond flesh whose only limb is psychic manipulation. More\nenervate almost as a rule means more susceptibility to umbracognitive\nassaults.\n\nThese two reasons account for why one is not already an umbracog; that\nis, why the principles of mutation and persistence would not lead\npowerful umbracogs to proliferate. But there's a reason why one cannot\nsimply become an umbracog by wishing it so.\n\nThird is mere resource scarcity. Bugs naturally utilize about as much\nenervate as they can get, and metabolizable enervate isn't naturally\nabundant.\n\nSo how does one become an umbracog?\n\nThe safest and most reliable method is the slowest. It entails years of\nspecific meditation, and is all but impossible without an experienced\numbracog to monitor one's progress, ensure that it's done correctly.\n\nUmbracognition requires an excess of psi-nrv, so the method means\nfinding a taxing mental exercise that depletes the brain's volatile\nenervate fastest. Hours are spent each day repeating this exercise\nhundreds, thousands of times. The constant depletion, although\nphysically painful (it's daily migraines for years) stimulates the body\nto metabolize more enervate to replenish.\n\nWhen the exercises are stopped, the body's attempted at homeostasis\nthrows the brain into excess, awash with a slight bit more\nenervate. The aspiring umbracog must carefully utilize this to forge\nthe mental pathways that will enable their future\nabilities. Carefully, because any mistake or waste of enervate may set\nthem back weeks or months in their training.\n\nFor obvious reasons, this is essentially only an option for monks who\nspend their lives in simple seclusion.\n\nThe second method is similar, but accelerated through the use of drugs.\nUmbracognition requires enervate, so why not simply directly add more\nenervate? But not any enervate will do; only specific metabolites can\nslip past the blood-brain barrier and affect the mind. Psychoactive\nmushrooms are the tool of choice, but they are remarkably prohibited\nsubstance in the heartlands.\n\nThis way, an aspirant might become a practicing umbracog in a year or\ntwo. Still, the risk is frontloaded: a bad trip can lead to permanent\nmental damage, if not death. This method is on a spectrum with the\nprevious; one might take a single tripe or two, in order to breakthrough\nbottlenecks, while otherwise pursuing pure meditation; or another might\nadd more trips or microdoses up to one's tolerance for risk.\n\nBut the easiest method of all to become an umbracog is to already be\none. Some individuals happen to be born with a genetic quirk that\nincreases their natural metabolism which may allow them to naturally\nmanifest umbracog abilities.\n\nThis is quite rare. Not only does one need the uncommon potential to\nbecome a natural umbracog, you need to grow up in an environment that\noffers the excess of metabolizable enervate needed, and then you neeed\nthe talent and luck to succeed in instinctively using the abilities and\nthus develop a lasting faculty.\n\nFor all that it requires exceptional luck, there's something very\nunlucky about being a natural umbracog, too. The trait is misnamed;\nthough it's innate, there's nothing natural about umbracognitive\ntechniques, and it's common for an untrained mind to flail against\nitself, make grievous mistakes that leave lasting damage to their mind\nbefore they find someone to guide them.\n\nAll this talk of training, but what are they training for? What do\numbracogs do?\n\nThis is an paralyzingly broad question. After all, umbracognition\narguably encompasses barely anything less than 'doing stuff with your\nbrain'. There are many umbracognitive arts that do not fit with what\nis usually understood as such. \n\nFor this reason, we will not discuss weevil hylocultivation, nor\neuvespid seal inscription, despite both of these having an inexricable\nnouform component. Nor will we delve into mantid's forgotten pineal\narts, nor the reaver's gemsinging --- or their affliction of sable-cap\ncordyceps, which is umbracognitive (if being a foreign agent doesn't\ndisqualify it). Not the myweft of spinner ants, imbued tracely with\nnouetic motes.  Even the eyes of the perspective are beyond our scope,\nfor all that the arch-percipients might seem very on-topic.\n\nNo, here we only intend to grapple with the basics, the fundamental and\nuniversal mechanics.\n\nThere are two sides to the umbracognitive coin, at once linked yet\ncompeting. They are the principles of nouprojection and noudistortion.\n\nIf the nous is thought of as like a image, one can alter the lens\nthrough which the image is focused, or alter the image. Thus, put\ncrudely, a projectique can view or alter another's mind, and a\ndistortique can defend from their ministrations.\n\nBoth effects, nonetheless, are achieved their the control of ones own\nfaculties. The parameters involved can be broadly classed into two\nspectra.\n\nThe first is radiance. A nous may be bright or dark; this can be\nmeasured by magnitude of adumbration it emits. A bright mind's\ninfluence stretches farther, increasing the range of its projection,\nbut also making its presence that much more obvious to the\nsensitive. A dark mind can hide from them, at the cost of diminishing\nits own influence, but granting it a greater sensitivity as well.\n\nThe second spectrum is temperature: a hot mind is ever-shifting,\nflexible and adaptable, learning quickly but forgetting just as\neasily.  A cold mind is one fixed in shape, rigid and slowly shifting,\nwith a long memory.\n\n- - -\n\n> At what point can an umbracog no longer be a bane because of their\n> vespers' privacy? What happens if they become too good of an umbracog\n> anyway?\n\nThere are an additional reasons umbracog banes are so rare, beyond it\nbeing a difficult, dangerous art and it being effective enough to fake\nit with neurobane techniques.\n\nAlthough one can debate over whether vespers have minds, they\ndefinitely do have a nous, in the sense that they metabolize nouetic\nenervate.\n\nUmbracog development requires an excess of psi-nrv precursors, and where\ndo those metabolites come from? They enter the body through the\ndigestive system --- where, of course, a vesperbane nurses a certain\nintermediary.\n\nVespers need more psi-nrv than a mantis does, so when a vesperbane\nattempts the usual routes of attaining umbracognition, it fails. Their\nbrains never build up the requisite excess of enervate, not before the\nvespers seize it. This theft is no harm to the host, and well within\nthe terms of the septagrammaton.\n\n(Indeed, it's can be construed as a kindness, not unlike healing\nwounds or disposing of parasites; for even successful umbracog\ninevitably do some damage to their brains.)\n\nNow, there are spellbinder rituals which can create injunctions against\nthe vespers interfering a bane's attempts to interfere with umbracog\ndevelopment --- but those who perform such rituals often go\ncrepuscular. Which way the causality goes, however, is hard to say.\n\nTo answer your question, they can no longer be banes when they bring\nit upon themselves. Vespers are adept at concealing themselves, and\ntheir nous does not resemable a bug's nous; an umbracog could not\ninvade their privacy by accident.\n\nMuch in the way you could not examine a dark room without opening the\ndoor and shining your flashlight (and thereby revealing yourself), nor\nbreak encryption without making an effort to do so, an umbracog could\nnot discern and decipher a vesper's private emissions without meaning\nto.\n\nAnd, particularly given that they're in the same body, if the cog is\nlistening, the vespers will know.\n\n(Although... a truly exceptional umbracog might be able to listen\ncarefully and distort their knowledge of such to evade detection... for\na time.)",
  "title": "Umbracognition, Briefly"
}