{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/black-nerve/apocrypha/fourfold-division",
  "path": "/posts/black-nerve/apocrypha/fourfold-division",
  "publishedAt": "2022-01-15T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "Affinity\n\nMost vesperbanes have an affinity for one of the four earthly elements.\nWrapped up in that word 'affinity' is a complex, poorly understood\nphenomena, a consequence both of a soul's enervate composition and the\nphysiology of their umbral system, as well as subtle thing like diet or\nhealth. There is a long-lasting nature vs nurture debate on the matter\nof affinity; while most vesperbanes seem to have an innate affinity, it\nhas in some cases mutated with training --- but is that a true change,\nor the revelation of what was always there, or incipient, like a nymph\nturning imago?\n\nAsh: When fire burns, the flame is nothing but incandescent ash\nturning to smoke. Ash form techniques grant a user a sense for and\ncontrol over fuel, ash, and smoke, with their influence being strongest\nfor fuel & ash. This, of course, grants them a fine ability to shape\nflames, stoke or quench them.\n\nAsh forms cannot create fire from nothing; for this reason, every user\nis made unique by their choice of fuel. Various oils are common choices,\nwhile adepts may make use of gases, or coals.\n\nOne also requires a means of starting the fire: for this, the ash forms\ninclude supplementary 'spark' and 'flashpoint' techniques to\ninstigate flames, the latter being a powerful, expensive burst of\nthermal radiation. By similar means, ash form techniques can be used as\na source of illumination.\n\nWhile ash forms grant no innate resistance to burning per se (unless\nyour clan name is Thimithi), their control means directing tongues of\nflame and plumes of smoke away from you is a matter of skill.\n\nAsh forms are more properly thought of as a mastery of carbon, and for\nthis reason advanced ash users have tricks that might surprise those who\nview them as only pyromaniacs: control of wood, graphite, or even\ndiamond.\n\nSand: Sand, or glass, or stone. All of these would be equally\naccurate labels --- inaccurate, rather. If the ash style concerns itself\nwith carbon, sand is silicon. But a pure example of this element is a\nrare thing. Sand has, further, has two additional weaknesses. One is\ndensity: to lift a heavier thing requires more power, and the heavier it\nis, the more you run the risk of, rather than throwing it, being thrown,\nbecause enervate forces exist between objects, rather than going\nsolely from one to another.\n\nThe second reason is inertness. Fire can burn, but what can sand or\nstone do? apply force, chiefly. Which worsens the first problem (for if\nforce is the end, using as much mass as possible is the means). Because\nof this, unlike all the other other elements, sand form users rarely\nmanipulate their element alone.\n\nEvery vesper has fungal symbionts, and vesperbanes with sand affine\nenervate cultivate them extensively, letting their root masses grow deep\nand broad into the earth before a command directs them to retract,\ncurling into a tight compressed mass. This is their preparation. When\nthe time comes for tactical use, these masses can be return to the\nground, and directed to rapidly expand to their original shape. Fungi\nare well known for the pressures they can exert, and these conduct the\nusers enervate to apply further force to the earth.\n\nThis is the true power of sand forms: while a user can fling boulders at\na distance, or blast foes with gouts of sand and shards of glass, their\ncontrol of the battlefield, creating platforms, pits, bridges, could not\nbe done with kinetic force alone, and is a matter of what fungal\npatterns they have prepared.\n\nWater: Water is a subtle element, and occasionally underestimated:\nit lacks the flash of ash form, or the scale of sand form. When it is\nconsidered, it's often purely as a counter: water extinguishes flame.\nThis lack consideration is fine; water is the assassin's element.\n\nFor one, because water chiefly composes bodies, water form users can\neasily sense the presence of enemies or animals in general. (Carbon,\nbeing not uncommon itself, means ash form users could replicate a\nlesser version of this --- if any of them bothered with sensory\nspecialization.)\n\nFor two, an extension of the first, force applied to the water in a body\ncan be easily deadly. A vesperbane, particularly a trained one, can\nresist this, but no resistance is perfect.\n\nFor three, what is poison, but adulterated water?\n\nFinally, when a water form user spends enough time studying their\nability to rust iron, they will come to a realization: it's not really\nwater they're controlling, though that certainly comes easiest. The\nwater form controls oxygen, which comprises most of water's weight.\nThis is why a user can extinguish flames without even using water, or\nwhy rusting (a long term process) can be accomplished so quickly.\n\nThe uncreative will see an immediate application: one breathes oxygen,\nafter all. Others go on to imagine what chemical possibilities this\nopens.\n\nNiter: For much of history, an oddly appreciated element. It had\ndomestic applications in the form of crop fertilizer, while users\noccasionally dared to produce blackpowder, often exploding themselves.\n\nBut when purified, ancients found the essence of niter was a\ncolorless, odorless, suffocating gas once called azote. This\nbroadened the imagination, and allowed for the modern niter forms. All\nair, it turns out, is composed mostly of this azote, and control of it\nallows users to call the winds, dampen or generate sounds, and of\ncourse, choke the life out of enemies.\n\nBut even a gale force wind is more tactical than it is offensive, and\nthus the chief technique of niter form is the compression of much air\ninto tiny volumes. when released, it unleashes a devastating blastwave\nin the opponent's direction. another technique exploits the stability\nof vortex rings to deliverate enervate or toxic fumes at a distance,\nwithout the diffusion of winds.\n\nThose are the four earthly elements, but one other bears mentioning.\n\nLightning: this was a blood secret, the hidden art of the\nGaveldika clan. Clanshatter stripped many clans of their accrued power\nand status,[^seven] but few suffered as much as Gaveldika, enduring\nperhaps the gravest shame: their blood secret became a matter of\ncommon revelation.\n\n[^seven]: See \"On the Seven Forsaker Clans\".]\n\nLightning is simultaneously the most narrowly straightforward and\nversatile of the elements. It is offensive to a fault, and devastating\nat that (there are few recourses to even a small amperage run through\nthe heart), but can disrupt most other elements, ionizing and catalyzing\nreactions.\n\nThis neatly segues into a thing forgotten earlier --- or rather,\ndeferred: interactions between elements. no clean rock-paper-scissors\nor elemental cycle exists. Water puts out fire, but so do most things.\nSand (especially augmented with fungi) easily absorbs water, while\nfire can burn the fungi, crippling a sand form users' effectiveness.\nNiter, other than extinguishing flame, has no particular strengths or\nweaknesses interacting with the other elements. Lightning, as\nmentioned, has an advantage against all of them.\n\nFurther, each affinity also has implications for the users' ability to\nshape enervate, even without affinity distillation.\n\n-   Ash users are most effective with manipulating adumbration and the\n    emission of enervate. This means they excel at destabilizing and\n    dispelling other enervate techniques.\n-   Sand users are most effective at imbuing and enshrouding matter\n    with enervate, and particularly adept with amalgams.\n-   Water users are most effective shaping enervate itself, rendering\n    them the best at conjuring enervate constructs.\n-   Niter users have the greatest range and finesse with force\n    projections.\n-   Lightning users, perhaps as a consequence of their ability to\n    charge their enervate, excel at nature transformations.\n\nFinally, demographics. As implied, affinity is influenced by genetic and\nenvironmental factors. If your mother was a niter user, you are more\nlikely to be a niter user. If you live by a lake populated with water\naffine enervate, you are more likely to be a water user. Some of it is\njust random, though.\n\nBasically, roll 2d6:\n\n-   2-5: sand affinity (10/36)\n-   6-7: ash affinity (11/36)\n-   8-9: water affinity (9/36)\n-   10-11: niter affinity (5/36)\n-   12: special affinity --- probably neutral or maybe lightning. could\n    be a clan affinity or mutation (1/36)\n\nComplexion\n\nLike a body with specialized organs for each purpose, vesperbat blood\nhas differentiated humors, each executing a particular function.\nMyxoma cells have a natural plasticity, but it's common for\nvesperbanes to develop a hypertrophic excess of one particular humor.\n\nOleocholer, the blood of pyrexia: A dark, oily secretion, oleocholer\nwouldn't be inaccurately viewed as the fuel of the blood. It is burned\nto produce heat and energy, and in oleocholic banes, this often results\nin a jittery, manic presentation. An excess of oleocholer allows for\npyrexia form techniques: temporarily heightening the body's metabolism\nto feverish extremes, either for enhanced combat ability, or specialized\npurpose (burning out a poison, or quickly synthesizing a compound).\n\nMalphlegm, the blood of contagion: Slimey, moldy, and somewhat\njelly-like, malphlegm is the waste of the blood, innumerable unwelcome\nviruses and bacteria expelled --- occasionally including diseases of the\nusers own design. Malphlegmic is the most obviously combat focused\ncomplexion, and this is taken to extreme in the infamous plaguespitters:\nbanes with thoraces bloated with toxic build up, the billary sac ready\nto be discharged upon their foes.\n\nHemoserum, the blood of homeostasis: Clear and inviscid, it's\nunclear if this humor, once called sanguine, is the blood itself, or\nsome manner of immune-like specialization. The hemoserumic humor allows\nfor the incorporation and assimilation of others' blood, and the\nadaptation of ones' own blood to be transfused into another. Some have\ncalled it the interface humor, responsible for hormone and conjugation\ncommunication, ichor's nego",
  "title": "The Fourfold Divisions of Vesperbanes"
}