Journeying Jormungandr

GLOGtober 2023 #1: Resonant Eyes, Nails, and Teeth

GLOGtober 2023 prompts are here.

5. Cool things to replace your eyes, teeth, and fingernails with.

Everyone loves magic items. They're great! They're like regular items, except they can do bonus awesome stuff. When you replace a piece of your body with one, that's like being magic, which is just the best.

The only problem is enchanting. See, any hedge mage can call themselves an enchanter, but most of the crap they build lasts a few years, at most, and often fails disastrously. Not ideal when you've grafted it to your body. Proper Enchanters are rare and their work either costs a king's ransom or you don't pay with money, which is even more expensive.

So, if you want to get some magic body bits, there's two schools of thought.

First, you can find yourself a conveniently magical creature, rip off a piece, maybe do some necromancy or blood alchemy to it to make sure the graft takes, and smack it on to your body. Of course, necromancy is antithetical to life so it's not exactly ideal to stick into your own body, and while blood alchemy is a Science, you're mixing it with Magic, so that's always risky, and you'll have to take immunosuppressants most of the time. You could just go without and let the natural magics within the piece you cut off meld with the (typically much smaller) natural magics of your own life and body, and hope that it takes care of the transplant issues and that the graft doesn't start rotting.

The second way is with magically resonant items. See, enchanting an item is hard, but making an item that can transmit and amplify the natural magic present within all living things is easy. Well, not easy, but easier than proper enchanting. Such items are typically produced by fairly consistent, albeit complex, procedures that require little to no magic to perform. Rather than being empowered by ritual or arcane process, they are powered as a natural consequence of the method of their creation or by absorbing ambient energies.

Generally, the teeth and nails are convenient to replace because they are easy to take out (relatively), are hard (and therefore easier to make last), and won't try to regrow (so long as you pll the nail out by the root). The eyes are chosen for their power, for the eyes are the window to the soul, and the soul-light shining from those windows is powerful indeed.

Red-Iron

A grim work of dark magic, favored by black alchemists, diabolists, and anyone who has access to a lot of heat and a lot of corpses.

The human body is conveniently rich in iron. The average adult human male has 3-ish grams of iron in their body, though some factions of black or red alchemists keep a slave breed selected for size and hemachromatosis, which allows them to get more iron per body processed (it's not enough to just feed someone iron salts or iron solutions - it has to be actually absorbed and stored). Dwarves are even richer in iron, but are often harder to source.

Typically, the extraction process involves strangling the subject (to avoid blood waste), then placing their body in a special crucible, pulverizing it (carefully, so as to avoid blood waste), boiling off the water, cooking the rest to ash, then using primitive electromagnets, rare earth magnets, or alchemical processes to extract ferrous materials. Alternatively, some spells exist to streamline the gruesome process, but even then, it's hard to get more than 75% efficiency and 80% purity.

Red-iron is called red-iron not because it is red, but because it looks red. The red tint is merely a product of perception, and the redder the (apparent) tint, the purer the extraction and the more potent the metal. Typical examples seem a hybrid of maroon and iron-gray, though rumors of processes that can extract blood-red and scarlet metals of terrifying potency exist.

Making red-iron from nonsapients produces a dull metal with a tendency to rust and induce feral madness in those who graft it to their body.

Red-iron is rarely sold, and when it is, it tends to sell by the gram and at great price.

You could, in theory, make bigger things, like swords, armor, and golems out of red iron. You probably shouldn't.

Nails

A fingernail weighs about 1 gram, according to some random person on the internet, and has density roughly comparable to iron. Generally, you can get 0.5 to 2 red-iron fingernails from a body. Red-iron remembers blood - so long as the nail bed is bloody from having the nail freshly, the new nails will bind to meat.

The red-iron nails seem to seek vitals and weak points when scratching and tearing - the more nails, the more deadly. Generally, per hand, you'll get claw attacks that follow the following progression for one through five nails replaced: 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12. What makes them truly deadly is that the attacks come with vicious swiftness - when both hands have red-iron nails, even an untrained individual can make two attacks, so long as both are with the red-iron nails.

Teeth

Red-iron teeth weigh between 2.5 and 8 grams each, requiring up to half a dozen sacrifices per tooth. A typical human has 32 teeth - a full mouthful of red-iron teeth is thankfully incredibly rare.

The teeth allow one to extract more vitality from the meat they consume - so long as they are well-fed on a diet containing a large amount of meat, they are harder to kill. The more teeth, the more dark vitality floods their body: every four teeth, rounded up, grants +1 max HP. At a full set of 32, they gain an additional +2 max HP. Additionally, anyone with even a single red-iron tooth can safely consume and efficiently digest raw meat. Once per day, having a meal of fresh meat restores health equal to their bonus HP from their red-iron teeth in addition to any other benefits.

If the front 8 teeth (4 top and 4 bottom) are all replaced, the individual gains a bite that deal 1d8 damage. If at least half of the set is replaced, the bite attack restores a number of the biter's hit points equal to half the damage dealt, rounded down, so long as it bites a living creature - the full set increases the amount restored to the full damage dealt.

Eyes

A red-iron eye weighs between 45 and 60 grams, requiring typically at least twenty and sometimes as many as one-hundred sacrifices. Red-iron eyes can see in the dark, and see dark truths. Whenever they meet someone for the first time in a while, they roll once on the following table if they have a red-iron eye and learn the listed secret - individuals with two or more red-iron eyes roll three times.

1d6 dark truths

  1. Greatest fear (repeat rolls reveal next greatest fear or more details)
  2. Greatest shame (repeat rolls reveal next greatest shame or more details)
  3. Most vulnerable loved one (repeat rolls reveal next most vulnerable or more details)
  4. Greatest physical weakness (+1d6 attack damage on 1 hit, repeat rolls apply to additional attacks)
  5. Greatest secret desire (repeat rolls reveal next most significant desire or more details)
  6. Greatest blind spot (+1d6 on a stealth check or check to lie or deceive, repeat rolls apply to additional checks)

Individuals with red-iron eyes almost invariably become twisted, manipulative, hateful monsters.

Stormglass Eyes

Stormglass is made of pure ultrafine sands, mixed with certain metallic dusts, turned to glass via lightning (typically, by placing the sand in specially molded ampules affixed to lightning rods). Stormglass eyes require the highest possible purity and perfectly balanced mixtures, and even microscopic imperfections can render the orb useless.

When replacing an eye, the stormglass can channel both light and electromagnetic energy - a stormglass eye functions both as normal eye (with extraordinary clarity) and allow the individual to see electromagnetic fields. Typically, both eyes must be replaced, or the imbalance will lead to splitting headaches, blurred vision, and crippling nausea.

Rumors of specialized, high-sensitivity stormglass formulae that allow the user to see fully in the dark or read the electrical impulses in the brains of others abound, though if such secrets exist, they are well-kept.

High-quality stormglass eyes need to be custom-molded to an individuals socket. However, the greatest expense is typically the labor of the alchemist who refines the mixture and the craftsman who creates the mold, as the majority of the raw materials is (relatively) affordable high-grade sand. Additionally, harnessing lightning is unreliable - even a master alchemist cannot achieve more than a 4-in-6 chance of successfully producing a working eye from any given attempt.

Breath-Charged Rune-Teeth

By replacing the teeth with rune-marked, thaumaturgically-capacitive alloys and piercing the tongue with a thaumaturgically-conductive bar, the mouth can be turned in to a basic self-charging rune-combination system.

Typically, runes will be set so that the top row of teeth will connect through the bar into the bottom row of teeth (the alloys chosen for the teeth do not conduct magic to each other, save through the bar). Depending on the specific pair of teeth connected via the conductive bar, different effects can be achieved, though the effects tend to be relatively minor. Undesirable pairs (for example, runes for SELF and POISON) will typically be situated in a way that makes them hard to impossible to accidentally activate. Of course, complicated rune combinations can lead to almost any effect imaginable, though will require finer craftsmanship and will often be less magically efficient.

To avoid accidental activation, when not needed, the bar will be taken out or capped. Additionally, only alternating teeth will be rune-marked, and sophisticated alloys that are generally inert for both teeth and piercing are used to minimize the chance of interacting with potions or other magical phenomena.

The teeth are charged slowly charged by the wearer's breath - for breath is life, and life is magic. Typically, the effects are relatively minor in power - otherwise, they would take prohibitively long to charge and requiring storing dangerous amounts of magical power in one's mouth.

1d6 targeting runes

  1. SELF - the effect centers on one's self.
  2. LOVER - the effect is delivered via a kiss (or bite, or lick) to another person.
  3. BREATH - the effect alters one's breath or exhalation.
  4. BLADE - the effect applies to a firmly grasped object (typically, the desired palm will be rune-tattooed to more effectively channel the magic). Magically-conductive implements can be held to further extend the effect.
  5. VOICE - the effect applies to an area - delivered by speaking. Often requires greater magical charge to have noteworthy effect, especially to yell.
  6. WATER - the effect applies to liquid in the mouth - often spittle or a mouthful of water.

1d8 effect runes

  1. POISON - introduce impurities, cause illness, weakness, or unconsciousness. Popular among assassins when combined with BLADE, LOVER, and WATER.
  2. CLEANSE - clean, remove poisons, remove diseases. Often combined with BREATH as a halitosis cure and SELF for general hygeine.
  3. STRENGTH - invigorates, hardens, empowers. Popular among the aging rich with difficulty... performing... when combined with SELF and ahem BLADE.
  4. SWAY - manipulates minds, lowers inhibitions, sabotages objects (blades become unwieldy, keys jam).
  5. PROPEL - knocks away, empowers motion, accelerates. Combined with BREATH for superbreath. A favorite among warriors with SELF and BLADE.
  6. SLOW - impedes, mires, decelerates. Combined with SELF for a pseudo-featherfall (rarely enough to negate fall damage), BREATH to slow one's metabolism.
  7. FIRE - ignites, boils, burns. A particularly dangerous rune. Most often combined with BREATH
  8. CUT - cleaves, slices, and chops. Assassins like to combine this rune with LOVER and kiss their target's neck.

Harmonic Nails

These nails made of finely-tuned silver-alloys are favored by dwarves, subterranean elves, and ASMR producers. By scratching and tapping, the nails can be used to transmit messages through contiguous solids - such as brick walls, packed earth, and tunnel surfaces. The message is received by anyone with their harmonic nails touching that surface within 500 feet (by the shortest path through the medium).

In any given round, a single nail can receive 10 words (as well as the approximate location of their source) or transmit 1. If too many words are being transmitted in the area, reception becomes a useless mess. The magical channels within the nails make them extremely intuitive - it takes only a week or two to become highly proficient in their use.

Rumors exists of songs and techniques that allow for communication of secret alternative "frequencies", directional messaging, greater transmission rates and bandwidth, and greater transmission range.

The nails require masterful craftsmanship and careful tuning, many steps of which require exposure to certain pieces of music played by skilled musicians with fine instruments. Typically, each nail is about half as expensive as a suit of full plate.

#glog #glogtober #magic-items #rpg