Avishraa Reloaded

Each organism, and each part of an organism, has a natural “reservoir” of life force, and the level currently in it is connected to - and affects - the physical state of the organism. The simplest, and most widely used, form of Life magic is to add to the level of this reservoir, which will have different effects depending on how it is used.

A organism or tissue whose life force is approximately at the level of the reservoir is healthy and stable. The weaker and more damaged one is, the lower the level of life force becomes - and vice-versa. Therefore, it is possible to improve matters by “refilling” the reservoir with more life force. Doing this to the body's overall reservoir - if lowered by severe illness, injury, or something else - will improve the subject's overall sense of wellbeing and ability to function, and to stave off the risk of death for long enough that corrective action can be taken (though by itself it is largely palliative, or a form of basic life support). Doing it to a specific tissue, however, will heal minor damage done to it, and optimize its functioning; a version of this technique, used on the immune system, can also be used to fight disease.

Another, very popular, variation on this technique in the Citadel is to target the reproductive system to enhance fertility. While increased life expectancy there (largely due to lifegivers' presence) makes a high birth rate less necessary there than in Avishraa at large, Citadel society still has a strong undercurrent of natalism, particularly among those influenced by the teachings of Dlyss the Oracle. A prospective mother can make a relatively brief visit to a lifegiver and, for the following turn or so, be reasonably sure of a larger clutch of eggs.

It is also possible to overfill the life force reservoir, which will cause physical growth. The effects of this are widely variable, depending on the organism and tissue targeted, and can be either helpful or harmful. If an organism is severely damaged, this technique can be used in place of surgery to heal major - even catastrophic - injuries, and regrow limbs, though it make time and multiple sessions to complete the process. In species that never stop growing throughout their lives (such as plants), it can be used on them at any stage to make them grow faster. In animals, however, and particularly sophonts, there is a natural limit to one's growth that cannot be exceeded without causing other problems. By and large, in these situations its use should be carefully targeted and restrained, and even then, there are situations where it remains a last resort (using it on the brain should only be done in the event of severe injury there, and even done carefully may cause lasting changes).

In any enhancement of an organism's life energy, the process is not free. Aside from the cost in effort from the lifegiver - who must convert their mana into life force, or take life force from themselves or others, in order to provide it to the subject - there is usually physical matter involved in the changes being induced, and it must come from somewhere. If something major needs to be done to the subject, it's important that they eat to replenish themselves. For a severely malnourished or starving subject, usually the only help that Life magic can provide is a temporary boost of strength to be able to start eating again; trying to heal someone of a major injury in that state may well kill them.

Lifegivers can also take life force from an organism.

The ability is used far more often than many think, in that - if a lifegiver needs more life force than can be easily supplied - they can take it from their surroundings, if the area is rich in life. If done in a general enough way, taking a little bit from multiple organisms rather than more of it from one, the effects on the donors will be barely noticeable. Alternatively, if there are other sophonts around who understand the need, they may volunteer to donate their life force to save another.

The results of draining considerable amounts of life force from an organism, however, are what one would expect considering what enhancement of one's reservoir does; it will weaken and cause illness in the donor, and if targeted at specific tissues, can cause damage to them. While it is possible to use this ability offensively, this is rarely done; aside from the fact that it is often too slow to be of use in many situations, most lifegivers find it instinctively disturbing or sickening to drain major organisms of large portions of their life force.

It is also possible, rather than adding to or taking away from an organism's life force, to change what is already there, causing analogous changes in the organism itself, permanently changing its physiology and genetic code.

While relatively easy in terms of the effort expended, doing this successfully for even small changes requires delicacy, practice, and a good instinct for what is being done and what effects it will have; major alterations are usually the province of only the most brilliant lifegivers, though alchemist-lifegivers have a strong advantage in being able to obtain a biochemical understanding of the process in addition to the feel of the life force of their subject. Getting the process wrong is likely to cause the subject's death, or - failing that - to cause the subject to wish for death.

Some find it strange that a class of magic-user so involved with life should have power over the dead, but in fact it's a somewhat logical extension of their powers. An organism that lives has a reservoir of life force that is at least partially filled; when it empties and there is no more life force, the organism dies. But the reservoir itself, the capacity for life force, remains for a time, slowly evaporating away as the corpse decomposes. Therefore, if a corpse is obtained soon enough after death, and is either presented to a lifegiver or preserved until one can be summoned, the lifegiver can pour enough life force back into it to cause it to reanimate.

It must be said that, partly because of the limitations of this form of necromancy, it is generally regarded in the Citadel as useless or frivolous at best. Firstly, while the corpse is reanimated, that is all that happens; the body is restored to some semblance of life, but the person who was once in it is gone. The fate of the soul after death is debated my many religions and wise scholars, but wherever it goes, it cannot be persuaded to return to the body. The body that is left behind will have none of the personality or memories of the original person, except possibly some muscle memory from common tasks.

Secondly, while the body will act alive, it remains technically dead; many of the processes that would go on inside a living body are nonfunctional, or only partially functional. All mana will have departed the body at death, so, if the dead is a Chosen, they cannot use magic; digestion does not work, so they cannot truly eat; and many of the higher brain functions are badly atrophied, so that they cannot reason or speak, and learning any but the most basic tasks is very difficult and must be done by rote. Keeping the reanimation active requires a lifegiver to periodically replenish the corpse's supply of life force; should it run out, the corpse will simply fall over and stop moving, and any decay will pick up where it left off.

Thirdly, without any real intellect or personality, the body - unless successfully trained to follow commands - will largely run itself on a confused welter of base instincts. The result is essentially a zombie that will wander around and make a nuisance of itself, variously fleeing from, attacking, eating, snuggling, or attempting to have sex with beings that cross its path, depending on who and what they are.

Combined with the general reluctance of loved ones to see their dearly departed to be used in this fashion, and the general opinion of the process as macabre, there is often little point in practicing the art, though there is a certain niche for undead plants. After all, they have no souls or brain functions to lose, already operate entirely on hard-coded instinct, and are not often called upon to do something other than exist as they already were. That said, regular plants are cheaper, prettier, and keeping them alive isn't all that much of a hassle.

Lifegivers are possibly the most fortunate of the eight magic types. They rarely get infected by diseases, they are more or less immune to the cancers that other Chosen are prone to developing, and they heal well from injury. And even in the world at large, they are the type of Chosen most likely to be kept and made use of by other takmar rather than killed; in the Citadel, they are so useful, and so uncommon, that even a fairly unskilled one is able to make a decent living; the good ones can often become rich.

This is fortunate, because lifegivers often have to support big families, a strange side effect from having one's mana residing in one's reproductive system. A female partnered with a male lifegiver is more likely to conceive, despite her usual control over that process; a female lifegiver is likely to lay more eggs in a clutch. (A pair of lifegivers is, short of abstinence, probably going to need some kind of help to manage the resulting brood; the fact that takma females normally have some internal control over conception means that there's traditionally been little incentive to develop other forms of birth control).

In any living environment, lifegivers can feel the presence of life force. This is true even in places like deserts and ice caps, where the only life may be microbial and invisible to the eye, though it may be only the faintest trace to them; in a very rich, complex environment where life is found in every breath, the sheer density of it has been known to cause a sort of fascination, even intoxication, in a visiting lifegiver.

Lifegivers are (as previously mentioned) reluctant to drain large amounts of life force from an organism, and are generally likewise reluctant to deliberately cause death. It should be noted that this says nothing for their willingness to cause pain, though most lifegivers prefer to bring relief from it as well.