Grave

The Origins

Grave is a relatively new magic, created some time before the advent of the Dunash, around the year 4500. Forged by Y'shendra, it was created as an offering to her most ardent followers, a tool through which they could both spite the Living Gods and supplement her will. Like Sigilic Pyromancy, both Grave and its Ascension were originally confined to the boundaries of a Holy Order, though with time the magic bled out into the cracks of Atharen and Icheron, becoming appropriated by magi like those in the Daravinic Entente. Now, Grave is an uncommon but well-documented magic, and an essential weapon in the artillery of both clerics and those who wish to wield the might of the undead.

Concepts

Nightorch: The Nightorch is the conduit through which most Engraving is done, acting as a secondary and essential component to perform the magic's many feats, alongside ether. As is established in Druidism, the majority of healing done on Atharen requires a transference of life from one entity to another. While Druidism largely relies on siphoning the life of plants, Grave utilizes a taboo source of energy: mortal souls. Early on in the magic, the Engraver learns to harness souls from the recently dead, siphoning them into their lantern: the Nightorch. This lantern, one with a regulating lid that allows for the transference of souls and energy in-and-out, is the Engraver's most fundamental tool.

Vitescence: While many Engravers rely on the Nightorch as their source of vitality for both healing and reanimating corpses, the most enthralled of practitioners tend to source from a tertiary component known as Vitescence. Vitescence is one's own vitality, though with little risk of death through its overuse. Instead, Vitescence is often referred to as the 'vibrance' and 'liveliness' of one's body, and its consumption to perform abilities rarely results in lethal consequences, but instead a temporary, withering decay of one's health. As one utilizes more and more Vitescence, they begin to appear more corpse-like and shriveled, their skin greying, their features becoming more bony as their skin deepens into their face. They become physically weaker and more frail, though many would argue the usage of Vitescence is worth it.

Vitescence, while not mandatory to use, allows for one to exceed their limitations in both healing and resurrecting the dead, augmenting one's capabilities without expending much in the way of additional ether. When one's supply of souls is depleted from the Nightorch, or they are suffering from the jaws of Overstepping, Vitescence presents itself as an attractive tool to continue to push the Engraver towards their limits.

Initiation

To become an Engraver, the new initiate must allow their master to bind a small fragment of their soul to a Nightorch. The result of even this minuscule facet of their soul being sealed within the lantern is immediate, reality receding around the initiate and becoming replaced by a world of blackness and decay. In order to survive the initiation, the initiate must follow what sounds almost like the distant sound of church bells, wading through the pitch black darkness with their lantern as the only source of light. Even those with exceptional darkvision will only be illuminated by their lantern, and all who endure this initiation will become slow, weak and skittish, harrowed by the process as their body becomes more gaunt, almost as if they were to overuse their Vitescence. Most of the time, the journey towards the ringing bells takes around three hours to complete, and the path there is often tumultuous; it is an unfamiliar landscape, with slopes, thicket and riverbeds that require the finding of a bridge to cross. The source of the sound looms far in the distance, and appears to be an effigy of Y'shendra, the bell-like sound emanating from a gold-glowing, beating heart within the effigy's chest. Touching the effigy will end the initiation, spelling the mage's success.

As the mage endures their initiation, they must be careful not to run or lose their lantern, as physically disconnecting from it at any point will result in them failing the initiation. Those who fail will forever lose the fragment of their soul instilled into the Nightorch. Considering the soul is an organ that holds back the dangerous excesses of magic, creating a pore within it will allow for the Raw Ether of the initiation to leak into the initiate's body, immediately placing them into Severe Mageblight.

If the initiate succeeds, their soul will return to its normal state, only with the addendum of the Mark of Grave: an onyx-colored, gothic cross, often appearing between the mage's clavicles.

Overstepping

The drawbacks listed below do not always come in pairs, and certainly not simultaneously. Some may come and others may not.

Lesser: Nausea, fatigue, headaches, muscle spasms, dehydration

Moderate: Bleeding through the nose, eyes and ears, intense cramps, seizure-like shocks and spasms, internal bleeding, vomiting and weakness

Severe

Containment: WIP.

Abilities

WIP: WIP.

Agony: Hastily reanimate a corpse, causing them neurological anguish and channeling that pain into hunger and violence. WIP.

Hound: Force the corpses of the dead to reveal information, using vestigial echoes of consciousness. WIP.

Repose: Sustain the damage of wounds over a longer period of time, enduring their initial trauma in favor of a more prolonged, but less extreme response. WIP.

Ghast: Stitch multiple corpses together with magic, rearranging their parts before reanimating them into one powerful undead. WIP.

Blacksworn Abilities

Forsaken: A black wind rolls over the field, reanimating every single corpse within miles to be controlled by the Blacksworn. WIP.

Ascension: The Blacksworn

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