Item: Gatebooks Category: Teleportation Type: Magic Powers and abilities: Teleportation Needed prerequisite for use: None History: Discovered by one of the Original Sisters, Sister Bramble in her quest to create an infinite bag of holding to aid her on her quests and her uncurbed tendency for hoarding. Instead of creating a pocket space to hold her items, a temporary means of teleportation was developed. Centuries of further development Description: Carried in the form of a specifically-reinforced book, these are limited-use teleportation portals that most Sisters and Wolves carry around with them. The Gatebooks comprise of two parts: the book itself, containing the magic required to activate the portal, and a “glyph” that is either attached to the front of the book, or can be popped off the page like a cut-out and applied to the activated portal to “open” it for others to pass through. They operate by opening a portal that a user can step through with an assigned glyph emerging on the other side while the portal closes behind them upon deactivation of the glyph, usually by reciting the incantation given on the page. This is generally the first thing that magic-users learn to create after mastering elemental magics, due to how useful these are - and how many times they’ve saved lives when they’ve needed a quick escape. However, they are quite complex, and extreme attention to detail is required to successfully craft a book without accidentally injuring or maiming the user. The most basic mechanic of these Gatebooks is that they are not “enchanted” but “written” with specially-made quills. A set of several variables have to be completed in order to anchor the teleportation properly, such as location, time, radius from original location, magical wards, who can or cannot pass through, so on, so forth. The non-magical equivalent of writing a Gatebook properly would be some form of programming, giving those who worked in information-technology an advantage. Mastered properly, their functions can vary from transporting a person from one country to another or merely leaving within a radius of where they originally were. Notes:
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There are famously five ways to kill a man. For an Embodiment, however, there are four ways, each becoming steadily more difficult.
After several centuries of hunting and tracking down Embodiments, the conclusion drawn was simple: Embodiments did not always start as corrupted and twisted versions of fairy tales, but instead a person seeking to replace what had been lost. This can include anything from a precious toy, to their children, to their loved ones, or simply to fulfill a deep desire within. It is this desire and the yearning to replace and find that precious something that draws Yarn-Givers to potential Embodiments, and the lure for these victims to accept the Yarn the Givers bring. Logically, then, the easiest way to “cure” the Embodiment would be to “cure” their source of grief, by bringing back to them what they have lost or to help them do what they were trying to do. In some cases, this means bringing back a child to them, or showing them a memory that will sate their grief. In some cases, it involves locating a volunteer who is willing to see past the harm an Embodiment has done and accept and forgive them. These, however, while easy on paper, may not always be achievable: the child they have sought may be dead; the forgiveness may not come; sometimes, the grief cannot be so simply cured. A second way was developed in order to neutralise an Embodiment: the forcible purification of the Embodiment themselves, by means of a cleansing ritual that was developed. These are most effective on the “newer” Embodiments, the ones that have had the least history in operation. The older the Embodiment, the more difficult it will be to cleanse them, and the riskier it will be. However, this is by far more preferable than simply killing the Embodiment altogether, for reasons that will be made known later in this passage. The third way and the most difficult way to “cure” an Embodiment is to confront them with their crimes and make them see sense. A less charitable description that is sometimes given is “guilt-tripping”, but it remains an unfortunately apt method of causing an Embodiment to be “cured”. Presented with enough evidence of the harm they’ve done, the Embodiment can be induced to break it themselves. The Yarn cannot simply be “handed over”, as the Yarn will always return to the Embodiment in this situation. This is where the difficulty lies: this method of attack will bring the Sisters and the Wolves - as well as the Embodiment - in direct conflict with the Penitents, who then swarm the Yarn and the Embodiment to prevent this from happening. The common theory is that they are summoned by either the Yarn of the Yarn-Giver who is responsible for the Yarn, to prevent the hold of the Yarn’s power from breaking. This also has a high chance of reducing an Embodiment into just another Penitent, disintegrating into a mess of Tembu-ka and turning the Embodiment beyond curing. Done correctly, however, the Embodiment having broken the Yarn will return to their original selves with no memories of what they have done, and their afflicted victims will be subsequently cured. The final method is simply known as Elimination, wherein the Embodiment is killed. This is to be used only in the most dire of circumstances, with appropriate mages and healers nearby to shield both the Sisters and the Wolves, as killing an embodiment will release a more powerful and concentrated dose of Tembu-ka into the surrounding environment, poisoning all those in its radius. This can render both Sisters and Wolves in a coma-like state, wherein their life force is slowly sapped away. This is called “The Fading”, and can have lethal consequences for those affected.
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LoreTrivia and snippets of information from this world, from commonly used items to the history of events and milestones. Archives
December 2015
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