Forbidden craft
General content warning: violence, gore, death
Some dark craft falls into categories forbidden by the Consortium. Certain forms of the ‘three Cs’ are permitted to be practiced by Watchers. Knareswick researchers may apply to the Consortium to practice forbidden Craft in pursuit of their studies.
Corruptions
Necromancy and everything it entails. Corruptions require corpses as fodder - i.e. using entrails to draw sigils or pentagrams, consuming body parts to extract memories, etc.
Examples:
- Animating the dead - ritualistic craft that calls for animal sacrifice; sacrificing someone else’s familiar is preferable; animated corpses are temporary mindless workers.
- Creating Caliban - ritualistic craft that calls for the sacrifice of a baby or child as well as a body part belonging to the creator; grows a perfectly obedient and resilient humanlike person capable of complicated tasks.
- Death Flute - enchanted flute carved from bones of the recently dead and requiring the sacrifice of a creator’s ear; its music lures children and the emotionally vulnerable.
- Cobbling/Transplantation - Crafted grafting of body parts. Unlike medical transplantation, which is not perfect and done with consent of the deceased, cobbling is done with Craft and the body part will need to be replaced as it slowly decays.
Wixes who frequently practice Necromancy have a higher chance of experiencing mental decay in old age.
Consumptions
Blood craft is the use of blood to perform ritualistic spells that are very difficult to break. They usually require a good deal of blood - even the simplest spells would need at least a cup’s worth. All blood craft requires an equal sacrifice of the practitioner’s blood and the subject's.
Examples:
- True bond - complicated ritual that binds two people by blood; any blood affliction (disease, curse, etc) felt by one will be felt by the other; if one dies so does the other.
- Blood curse - requires blood from at least two related people; curses a bloodline for three generations; anything from bad luck to chronic pain or illness.
- Blood oath - binds you to keep secret whatever is spoken within a certain measure of time, or forfeit one’s tongue. Blood is drawn in one’s palm and an obsidian pebble pressed into it, all the while murmuring an incantation specific to the nature of the oath; if successful the cut will be healed when the stone is removed.
- Tethering - A material is treated with a mixture of blood from two people and then woven into bracelets/anklets/rings that can only be removed by one person or the other. If a string is forcibly snapped, the other will also snap. This is used to alert someone if you are in trouble and cannot otherwise get in touch with them.
Some blood Craft, like blood analysis, are not considered by the Oversight to be Corruption, and involve the use of regular fodder instead. Children may play at spells by pricking their fingers and making promises, but it's hardly binding or Consumptive.
Cruelties
The casting of spells and the enchantment of objects. Cruelties aim to inflict pain or control people. A wix must inflict a spell on themselves, once, before they are able to use it on other beings.
Examples:
- Clenched fist - some part of the victim (hair, blood, nails) must be mixed with fodder and held in a clenched fist whilst an incantation is recited; sensation similar to a heart attack. Requires physical proximity.
- Iron nail - an enchanted nail; once pinned into a person renders them walking comatose; white eyes, automaton response to orders, fuzzy consciousness. Effects fade within the hour. Used by Watchers in the apprehension of dangerous people, considered "humane".
- Suffocation - TBA
Of the three C’s, Cruelties come at the highest cost to its practitioner by shortening their lifespan. It can also cause emotional instability.