Help Me With King's Monster
I hereby call upon the Creative Collective Mind to help me coin a few terms for The King’s Monster.
Problem: I need a satisfactory term for the system of magic, and its practioners, used in the story. Something with Latin or Greek roots would be preferred, such as carne- (flesh), pneuma- (breath), sanguis- (blood), cruor- (blood, Grk) or -logy (study), -vocare (to call), etc. But I haven’t come up with a term that seems “natural” to me yet. Can you?
Details: Mages draw on the magical “energy field” by filtering it through their own bodies to influence the world. However, the body wasn’t made to handle such unnatural stress, so magic acts as a progressively degenerative disease, causing internal bleeding, lesions, tumors, cancers, etc. Mages have short life expectancies after beginning to practice; more, if they’re careful, less if they squander their power. A violent mage battle could leave both mages dead just from the physical side effects. The term for using one’s own life force would be called +TERM 1+.
Mages can alleviate the damage to themselves by filtering magic through other bodies before shaping it. Corpses seem to retain the ability to act as a filter at fading levels for roughly 36 hours. However, using corpses isn’t terribly useful, except perhaps on the battlefield where convenient corpses abound. Non-mages look askance on this usage, however, for fear of what it might be doing to the dead person’s soul. And, let’s face it, handling corpses is just unclean, especially in world with no formaldehyde. Physical contact is required. The term for using the life force of corpses would be +TERM 2+. (Why not “necromancy”? That means “divination using the dead.” -mancy = divination/oracle. This isn’t divination….)
Finally, mages can use other living creatures to filter magic. Since this is quite painful for the subject, and often leads to the subject’s death either immediately or from side-effects, it’s usually coerced, and thus it’s condemned as a crime whenever humans are the subjects. Animals can be used and are considered a gray area; as long as they’re the mage’s own beasts, most people won’t object, although it’s considered distasteful by sensitive souls. Physical contact is required. The term for using the life force of living beings would be +TERM 3+.
Whether used on self, corpse, or other, the usage always leaves damage. A quick, one-time use might heal; prolonged use will leave lasting diseases or disorders that will eventually prove fatal.
Any terminology ideas, o roleplayers and writers, readers and wordsmiths?
drupagliassotti @ June 7, 2007