{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/black-nerve/apocrypha/thirteen-arts",
  "path": "/posts/black-nerve/apocrypha/thirteen-arts",
  "publishedAt": "2021-07-28T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "The Thirteen Arts of Vesperbanes\n\n::: foreword\n\nNote: This section is likely outdated.  Pending further review, I\ndon't think anything written herein is grossly inaccurate, but some\nterminology has been superseded.\n\nContrast with The Fourfold Divisions of\nVesperbanes.\n\n:::\n\nA vesperbane is a mantis who has undergone the pharmakon rites to host\nvespers within their body. In return they are granted magical abilities\n--- but to use them, the vespers must grow bespoke organs, the physical\nmeans to implement that magic. Vesperbanes' abilities fall under three\nbroad categories, and within those categories are the thirteen schools\nof magical techniques.\n\nUmbra\n\nEnervate is a paraphysical substance that in ways resembles a form of\nmatter or energy, but follows has its own unique physics and chemistry,\nand complex interactions with normal matter. The short of it is enervate\nattenuates energy and enshrouds matter, and the long of it is far too\nlong to get into here. Enervate exists in the environment --- as an\natmospheric layer far above, or bound and seeking escape from the heat\nof the mantle, and at length produced by deposits of precious nerve\ncrystals. It's generally not found nor produced within organisms, being\ncorrosive to structured matter. Thus, a vesperbane wishing to manipulate\nenervate must acquire and maintain a store of it.\n\nUmbrachanneling - school of the black enchanter\n\nThe umbrachanneler harness the power of enervate through precise\nsiphoning or discharge. Any umbrachanneler necessarily wields great\ndestructive power; matter dissolves in contact with enervate, an effect\neven a wretch can exploit. Barriers can be broken down, flesh\ndeliquesced, and the very air itself turned deadly. But their true power\ncomes from their implements, tools made from amalgams, and designed to\nbe imbued with enervate. An umbrachanneler with access to implements is\nlimited only by the imaginations and manufacturing of engineers. But\nthis is not the only way --- an umbrachanneler whose body has been\naugmented may imbue their chitin itself, so their raptorials inflict\nwicked wounds, or deflect projectiles with charged energate (the famous\nEt-Oosen's Phare). Others may seek alchemy over engineering, pursuing\nnew effects through pure enervate, like the dynamists who master\ntelekinetic control of matter.\n\nUmbradivination - school of the black sensor\n\nTo innate senses, enervate is the absence of form and light, the absence\nof sound, and olfactory pain more harsh than capsaicin, more aversive\nthan denatonium. But to a novice sensor, species and saturation can be\ndiscerned. To an adept, form becomes visible as energy gardients beating\nwaves across the surface, the resonance cascades of enervate spells in\naction become stridently audible. The master begins to witness the\nmystifying geometries that the mind that warps to comprehend. Even the\ngreatest stealth erodes under the eyes of a trained sensor, but the true\nprofit of umbradivination is scouting for nerve crystal deposits, and\ngaining forewarning of umbral storms.\n\n(This is a school of some controversy, for those tributes and conscripts\nwith any facility with it begin to encroach upon the blood secret of the\nNibrissa clan, the black whiskers --- an unrivaled sensory organ, that\nthe clan would do much to ensure it is never rivaled.)\n\nUmbrasynthesis - school of the black alchemist\n\nWhen the Telesterion opened the epsilon gates, umbracraft changed\nirrevocably. Even as the low hanging fruit in other fields has been\nplucked, umbrasynthesis still seems ripe with new possibilities. Through\nthe three routes of fission, fusion, and reaction, the marriage of\nenervate and matter begets endless forms most bewildering. This school\nis unique in that the parachemistry of enervate is accessible to the\nvesperless, provided the right tools and perhaps a laboratory. But the\ncombat umbrasynth can --- and must --- mold enervate within her own\nbody.\n\nUmbraconjuration - school of the black summoner\n\nIf umbrachanneling is the mastery of matter, than umbraconjuration is\nthe mastery of pure enervate. An umbraconjurer produces semistable\nconstructs of enervate --- a feat that's been compared to conceiving,\nengineering and constructing a machine with nothing but the reckoning of\nyour mind. A wretch conjurer can manage little more than the nerve\nmissile technique, while a fiend might aspire to the tau-nrv whip or the\nrho-nrv devastator. And of course, no blackbane fails to respect the\ncapstone: umbra dragon invocation, called the last word in\numbraconjuration. But the most reliable of the conjurer's techniques is\nthe simple orb, for it's the most stable form enervate can take while\nstill allowing embellishments for utility.\n\n(Of note is the Asetari clan, a clan descended from a wingless tribe,\nwhose blood secret was the Astral Body: an autonomous conjuration one\ncould mistake for a living creatures, and a family of mind projection\ntechnique that gave them fine control of these wraiths.)\n\nUmbraprojection - school of the black witch\n\nEnervate parachemistry has many parallels to matter, and one is the\nclass of umbral neurotransmitters --- some of which are naturally\noccuring. The theory is that sufficiently fine control of enervate would\nthen give you direct influence over a organism's brain. The reality is\nthat not only is that level of fine control essentially impossible,\nneural connectomes are sufficiently unique that \"illusions\",\n\"telepathy\", or \"geas\" effects through means of umbraprojection are\noutright fiction or embellished legends. What umbraprojection is capable\nof is quite underwhelming. It excels at, beyond anything else, causing\ncausing confusion, mental fog, and headaches. For the wretch\nprojectionist, that often is the goal, but it requires a deft touch to\ndo anything else. One of the most common midlevel abilities is\nstimulating regions whose function is highly conserved, for instance\ntriggering a fear response.\n\nUmbramodulation - school of the black wizard\n\nUmbramodulation is two things: an untested theory of theorectical umbral\nphysics, and what actually exists, a grab bag of strange tricks and\nimpractical techniques mainly cared for by researchers. There are\nanomalous properties of certain low entropy amalgam crystals --- there\nare well-known deviations in cohesion coefficients and the mystery of\nthe phase index. Modulation theory holds that enervate species aren't\nblack boxes of inherent properties, but all properties of the myriad\nenervate species are determined by the vibration of the bonds of the\nfundamental constituents of enervate. And moreover, that those\nproperties can be altered without fission, fusion, or reaction, through\nthe theorized mechanism of modulation.\n\nThere are no combat umbramodulators, and little application has been\ndiscovered. But there's the hope that one day, there'll be a\nbreakthrough...\n\nIchor\n\nRed ichor is the blood of the vesperbat, the creature whom vespers\noriginally evolved to bond with. Vesperbat blood is hyperactive, able to\ngrow and mutate at staggering rates. The bats have evolved natural\nmechanisms to corral their blood, but when it's freed of the flesh, its\nmercurial nature is unleashed. But through skillful use of ichor,\nendless possibilities for the manipulation of biology open up --- and\nindeed, everything any vesperbane has done required ichor to birth the\nvespers, grow their endowments. There is a name for when the use of\nichor fails, and that word is myxogoth.\n\nHaemoaugmentation - school of the red healer\n\nIt's the natural inclination of anyone given facility with biology\nitself: heal the sick and broken, and uplift all to a new standard of\nhealth. And indeed, control of red ichor is a route to mending wound and\nrevising the body, but the reality is far less glamorous. Per hayflick\nregulation, haemoaugmentation is no cure to ageing, and ichor-derived\ngrafts require constant work to escape the necrotic, cancerous fate of\nall bat blood.\n\nHaemodiagnosis - school of the red peeragist\n\nBy name, haemodiagnosis would almost seem a subfield of\nhaemoaugmentation. After all, how could one heal without first\ndiagnosing the malady? But this school concerned more than mere triaging\n--- a haemodiagnostic's aim is to understand biology on the deepest\nlevels, down to the sequencing of gene tendencies and mapping metabolic\npathways. A skilled haemodiagnostic could reconstruct someone's\nappearance from a drop of their lymph. Any developmental weakpoint you\nhave becomes visible to them. And moreover, vespers spoke with blood\nbefore ever arete existed, and echoes still remain. The forbidden\ntechniques of haemodiagnostics allows understanding blood secrets as no\none else can --- and stealing them.\n\nHaemofabrication - school of the red pharmacist\n\nOrgans and tissues derived from metaplasia of ichor have longevity\nproblems, and a way to sidestep this is to make ichor the process,\nrather than the product. The most obvious application of\nhaemofabrication is synthesizing chemicals, but haemofabricates,\ncontroversially, also use their skills to create anti-vesperbane\nweapons. Haemofabrication is subject to some definition issues --- is a\ngraft that amounts to an advanced bandage (that is, a temporary measure\nuntil the body heals on its own) an instance of haemofabrication? More\ncontroversially, ichor-derivatives, such as ichortallow, blur the line\nbetween fabrication, augmentation, and genesis, but have often been\nplaced on this side of the divide.\n\nHaemogenesis - school of the red breeder\n\nNo school of vesperbane arts has been subject to more sanctions than\nhaemogenesis. In short, haemogenesis is the growth of organisms with red\nichor. There are two broad approaches --- one, the easiest, is to shape\nand possess an existing organism. Mammals are the most receptive host,\nand the result is termed a dire animal. The other is to mold the\ncreature of raw ichor. A note is to be made of the creation of\nself-reproducing threats, an act that warrants immediate sanction. There\nare t"
}