Critique, I pray you!
Defining terms:
Refiguration: something added to the original form of the human.
Alchemic: supernatural properties of a substance.
Thaumaturgic: supernatural properties of an action.
Shifting: the ability of a refiguration to disappear and reappear.
A horn-caster.
(Inspired by this picture:
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/4a/10/7e/4a107edb89bd39cd3c5af445b8e87b71.jpg)
A smooth, metallic horn, with an even taper to a point between a needle point and cone. It grows from coral or frost like roots that materialize inside the tissues of the throat, which send many fine patterns into the nostrils, and may send solitary threads up into different parts of the brain. The horn may grow nearly twice as long as the horn-caster is tall in extreme cases, but most often it grows only to their own height or less. At its usual length its base is about as large around as a plum. It may come from the mouth, or the roots may fuse a path through the other tissues of the face, in which case it can come from any part of the head, from any angle, but this is rare. Its growth is usually far faster than its withdrawal. The horn is not adamant, but because its form is maintained by thaumaturgy, it must withdraw if a force is put on it that would cause it to bend, break, or melt, because the force that maintains its form is burdened.
It takes great skill to restrain or arouse the horn voluntarily. Even with powerful horn-casters its appearance may preceded and followed by coughing, choking, and dry vomiting. Horn-casters often have a habit of shaking their heads, licking the insides of their mouths, and taking long breaths through their noses.
Only one horn can ever grow at a time, and the horn cannot change its angle after it has begun to grow. Another rare thing is to be able to grow it from your hand. It may spontaneously grow at death, withdrawing slowly, or not withdrawing at all unless force is applied to it. It may also spontaneously grow from the corpse.
A horn-bearer.
A horn that passes from the base of the palm, in line with the forearm, never elsewhere, and only from one hand (there are left-handed and right-handed ones). It passes out of a kind of mouth, like a worm’s mouth, in the base of the palm, which is difficult to see when closed but always visible. It is not smooth, but rough like bark, or coral, and is in substance like bone, shell, or horn, instead of metallic. It is concrete gray when it is young, but as it is used it becomes flecked with darker color, until the entire horn becomes dark. The dark specks are more numerous towards the point, and the base is the last part to darken. Depending on how it is used, it may be a nearly black dark red like old blood, or a nearly black dark brown like soil. It only extends as long as the length of the hand and forearm combined, though in some extremely rare cases may extend nearly the height of the body, or longer. At its common length it is around the size the thumb at its base.
It can inject alchemic fluids, or distil alchemic fluids and draw them out, through a nearly invisible orifice at the point. It is breakable, and cracks, or crumbles, in great heat. The horn is often taken for use as an alchemic tool or substance. The spike is present in a smooth, “fetal” form inside the wrist, and becomes fully formed in the “throat” of the hand as it passes out, drawing from alchemic substances in the body. It can extend involuntarily, but is usually aroused voluntarily. Those that bear a horn may rub their wrist, or the base of the hand, especially if they are afraid. When nervous they may desire to hide the horn-bearing hand. It cannot shift, the mouth and fetal horn in the wrist are always present.
They may break off their own horn, to reduce or hide their alchemic imprint, or to use the horn in a different way. It bleeds and exudes alchemic fluids when this is done, but does not continue bleeding. The mouth in the hand may continue in pain, and the hand be incapacitated, for days. It may have flares of pain when the horn would otherwise have extended. A broken horn cannot be restored or healed except thaumaturgically.
Some, instead of having a horn in the hand, have one under the tongue, in the palate, in the forehead, or between the eyes. There can only be one horn. The horn in the head is less than a third the size of one in the hand, and is smooth like a bone or a tooth, and is white rather than gray before it darkens.
Thaumaturgic wires that grow from the hands or head: any number can be cast at one time, to nearly any length (that the worker has the thaumaturgy to produce), and can be cast from the head and both the hands at once. They can bend voluntarily, or involuntarily, but if they are bent or over-heated by an outside force they withdraw into the body again, at least mostly. They are anchored on the bones.
A single thaumaturgic wire growing from the hand or head, which may have other wires growing from its side. In rare cases more than one may be grown.
The hand and wrist dissolving into a cold, liquid metal, tremulous, but unaffected by gravity. It can be formed into needle ended wires that can bend voluntarily or involuntarily, or the liquid can be formed into a blade, or a thaumaturgic blade configuration or dance that would take too long to describe fully here. The wires may also form originating on the surface, edge, or point of the blades.
These blades are adamant, though the wires withdraw if they are bent by an outside force. Nothing can heat them. If the liquid is touched it involuntarily forms a point or edge at the place of contact, but not all the liquid may turn solid. The hand begins dissolving at the fingertips, and may partially dissolve only, but one finger cannot dissolve independently of the other fingers. The control or stabilization of its form may be connected with thaumaturgic resonances, and counter resonances or cancelling resonances could be used to unform the wires or blades into the liquid again. If the arm is cut off (or the person dies) the blades and wires return to liquid and reform into a hand.
The eyes, or a refigured structure in the roof of the mouth - behind the nose - can become liquid metal forming blades and wires in the same manner as the hand, but only one of the three - eyes, mouth, or hands - can be present in one individual.
The hand becomes a tremulous mass of thaumaturgic blood, and form into a black, rugged, stone blade. If the blood is touched it forms a point of stone involuntarily, but not all the blood may turn solid. The stone is as though it was naturally a blade, broken into that form, rather than chiseled into it. It cannot become longer than a person’s arm, and is most often shorter than a forearm. Very small areas of the hand may turn to blood and harden into a sharp flake of black rock, but only involuntarily. The stone is adamant. If the arm is cut off the stone turns to blood, but does not reform into the hand. This is only born by one hand (with some it is the left hand, with others it is the right hand).
The hand and part of the forearm turn to thaumaturgic blood. The blood turns to alchemic arms: like thin umbilical cords, no broader than a finger, transparent, showing the thaumaturgic blood it is gorged with, and hard as steel cables. If the unformed blood is touched it reforms into a hand, or into the arms, involuntarily. The arms are anchored to the end of the original arm, which appears as though the hand were shorn off, but also has complex, internal refigurations in order to anchor the arms. There may be from one to five alchemic arms.
Either or both hands may turn to alchemic arms. The arms may extend longer - without becoming thinner, though their greater length makes them seem thinner - using alchemic energy rather than substance, but they cannot become shorter than their original length without returning to blood form. Their original length is often longer than a person’s arm. Part of the arm at the end is armed with black, or dark gray, conical needles, called nails, down each side. These nails may be from the length of a fingernail to the length of the little finger. At the base of each are clusters of tiny pads that can thaumaturgically adhere to any solid surface that is not thaumaturgically warded. They have vast piercing and cutting ability. The part of the arm that is armed with the nails is from the length of the foot to the length of a person’s height. The armed part is sometimes called an alchemic feather.
An extremely rare and difficult variation is to turn a refigured structure inside the nose into a mass of thaumaturgic blood that fills the mouth, and the arms emerge from the mouth, and are anchored on complex, refigured jaws. Saliva mixed with alchemic liquids flows from the mouth when this is done.
The alchemic arms can be used to work thaumaturgy, or thuamaturgically sense by touch. The nails can inject or draw alchemic energy rather than alchemic substances. When the arm that bears the alchemic arms is cut off, or the refigured person is killed, the alchemic arms vanish, leaving behind the relatively small amount of blood used to start them. The alchemic arms cannot be cut or broken except by vast force, in which case it turns to blood rather than cut or break. It may be bound thaumaturgically into its form, and be cut by an alchemic blade, and thus be removed, but the ritual is rare and difficult. There is a different ritual that reverses the energy through the alchemic nails: this destroys the arm but preserves the nails. The alchemic nails from a destroyed arm are used as conduits of thaumaturgic energy.
An alchemic hair; only one grows on the body, and only on the head, face, neck, forearm, or hand (including the palm). It cannot be cut, burned, or broken, and it cannot be pulled out without destroying the flesh at its base. It may be straight or curling, and any color, or white (if not white at the beginning it will never become white with age, it never changes color), and it is always long. If it happens to be the same as the rest of the person’s hair, and grows in their hair or beard, it can easily be hidden, but of course can be found thaumaturgically.
It is a powerful conduit of thaumaturgic energy, and a person’s alchemic imprint is greatly reduced if it is removed. When removed it loses its native energy, but is useable as a superconductor of thaumaturgic energy.
It can be used loose, tied in knots, wound around the hand, finger, wrist, or around an object. It can move involuntarily, or at the will of its possessor, and when hung down over something it can indicate various things by swinging in certain patterns like a pendulum. It may move and float about while the refigured person is asleep. Intense thaumaturgic energy may also cause it to become hot enough to melt metal, cold enough to cause frostbite instantly, or give a deadly, electric shock at the touch.
Without a head, the skin passes smoothly from one shoulder to the other.
Without hands, the ends of the arms are rounded like the knee. Sometimes it may be up to the elbow.
These are alchemic seals, and certain seals can shift, effectively like opening or closing a door.
If it is not a shifting seal, the head or hands are as if they have been cut off, leaving bare skin between the shoulders or on the arm instead of a wound. The severed part needs to be thaumaturgically preserved or thaumaturgically mummified in various ways depending on the seal, in order to be able to open the seal again. If the severed parts decompose or are destroyed, then they must be healed by thaumaturgy (healing force of the highest order) before the seal can be opened.
A spur on either side of the wrist, at the base of the palm, in the side of the hand at the base of the index finger, or at the base of the little finger. Any number of these points may bear a spur, on either hand. It is often in shape more like a flange than a thorn, and is almost never taller than an inch. It is hard like wood or iron, and hairless, and may be the color of the skin, or more wood colored. It is used for injecting or drawing alchemic energy, rather than alchemic substance. After much use the piercing core of the spur begins to be exposed at the tip: a black spine, like a large stinger. It is rarely able to shift. In rare cases there may be a spur in the forehead, but this is different in nature, and occurs only if no spurs are present on the hands.
An added, thin, alchemic finger on either side of the wrist, at the base of the palm, in the side of the hand at the base of the index finger, or at the base of the little finger. Any number of these points may bear an added finger, on either hand. The finger is thin as the thinnest twig, or the stem of an apple, is wrinkled, all but black, and far harder and stronger than one would expect. It may be as long as the original fingers, or three times as long, and is most often half again as long. It cannot shift. It is used as an alchemic sensory organ, often by touching or tapping, but also by “feeling” the air. More rarely it may be tipped with a claw sharp enough to cut, and leave alchemic energy or substance in the wound.
The original fingers may be able to shift into the same kind of thin, alchemic finger, but never on the same hand as any added fingers. The finger may partially shift starting at any of the joints of the finger. The finger can shift all the way down to the wrist, the part of the palm belonging to the finger shrinking and darkening, twisting the rest of the hand so that the unshifted fingers point in random directions. If all five fingers shift entirely, then the hand is a complete, alchemic claw.
Backward hands: two right hands, two left hands, or the right hand on the left arm and the left hand on the right arm. It can usually shift. As the two hands have different functions in alchemy, the backward hands have yet other functions.
What do you think?
What parts stand out to you? Does it give you any ideas? Do you have a question about some part? Does any of it remind you of something?
Please critique!
How can I not die over that?
