Legend of Ransera

It had been almost precisely a year ago when the witch first entered the forests of Karnor to experiment with the magic of chimerism, and found… very mixed success thereby. She’d vowed, then, to learn more about the science of Biologie, of the study of living things so that she could hone her craft and thereby perfect new shapes.

She... hadn’t really done that.

"It isn’t as though I’ve had a lot of time," she complained to her shadow, gesturing at the sky, "The past year has been an absolute mess. I know Coid said this is the kind of thing which happens from time to time, but who could have expected such upheaval?"

Kitty looked at his master reproachfully, but said nothing. He was very eloquent, in that way.

"I know, I know. As Master Gerhard says, it doesn’t matter how good your excuse is, if you don’t improve, you decay. But I’ve gotten quite a bit done! I found you this year, didn’t I?"

The blank gaze could have meant anything. You couldn’t win an argument with this cat. He was simply unbeatable in the art of vacant stares.

Well, it didn’t matter. She was back now–in different clearings, but the same forest, if she was reading the maps properly–and ready for round two of the experimentation. And this time, she wasn’t going to end up with any spectacular, stupid failures like when she’d tried to shapeshift into a winged horse.

Notes: Still not working. Maybe more wings are the answer??? I suspect not.

For some reason, this form just did not want to work. Albatross wings hadn’t done it the first time, though she had managed to glide with Ise- er, Veriel- directly into a dragon’s face. She’d thought the addition of the titanic condor wings might be the solution… but while that helped it achieve lift, it did little more than bounce wildly aloft.

Adding additional wings from the eagle or albatross totems to try to grant forward lift mitigated this disaster to a degree, but they also made the chimera fundamentally unrideable. If it was going to take this much just to make flight possible, then the entire concept made no real sense.

Resting after her failed attempts, the witch told Kitty: "Animus alone, no matter how clever, just isn’t going to solve this one. If I want to create a flying horse, I’m simply going to need to use another Rune- and neither Traversion nor Reaving are obvious choices."

Kitty cocked his head at the orkhan girl, as if to ask: “Why… do you want to do a flying horse form?”

Imogen scowled at her familiar. "What do you mean by that? Obviously, everyone wants a flying horse."

The cat seemed doubtful.

Notes: I don’t know what I expected from this.

"Well, it works..." the large black cat, covered in copper scales, admitted, "But, you know… what would I use this for?"

Kitogen leapt gracefully down to the ground and ran in circles for a moment, exciting Kitty until he leapt out to do the same. It was entertaining, but it certainly didn’t seem as though it was going to accomplish much. Sure, the scales could deflect a caster shell or some such, turn a killing blow into a bruise; but the witch hardly intended to fight anyone in the feline form.

Also, combining scales and fur itched, confusing the skin and occasionally pinching if you weren’t careful. Probably better to stick to one or the other, then.

Notes: Might as well just wear armor, honestly.

The natural instinct, of course, was to apply metal scaling to her Orkhan form. Her natural body had scales and required no additional aether to manifest them (or, she supposed, it probably did, but at such a scale as she could hardly notice).

But there were advantages. Humans had no built-in armor under their clothes, and therefore it was unlikely anyone would suspect her of entering a place armed. Her human totem was significantly shorter than her Orkhan form, which was a major downside in a pitched battle or when fighting monsters in Ecith, but a significant upside when in close quarters or on the run.

Adding copper scales to the human body, though, was a little weird. In one way, it reminded her a great deal of evoking an Ork’s scales; as long as you kept them small and tightly-packed, they didn’t get too much in the way. Still, you had to keep them away from joints, and a lot of human skin was stretchier than it seemed; you’d think you had a complete coat of armor set up, only to discover later that when you moved you were exposing swaths of yourself.

Plus, what was being gained, ultimately? Again, the scales would deflect blows on a human scale, but they would only transform a caster shell into blunt force enough to break bones anyway. If she was going to make some kind of armored humanoid monster totem, it really needed a more durable chassis.

Notes: Feels extremely good. Should make small-time sneak-thief stuff a breeze.

"Now this-" she said, licking her lips thoughtfully, "-could definitely work well."

This chimera was not quite an exceptional choice for combat, but there were other things in life. She’d spent years mastering Reaving for that, after all, and there were a lot of things Reaving couldn’t help with. One of those was stealth.

Imogen had long admired Carina’s graceful movements on her missions (along with… other things about Carina), and found the Railrunners especially inspiring in their ability to do things entirely unseen, bypassing wards and guards and locks alike. Although people commonly underestimated how gracefully and quickly an Orkhan could move, she had to admit that they couldn’t match humans in such things.

Adding a shadow leopard’s fur and lithe muscles to the short human frame, however, produced dramatic results in terms of speed, reaction, and silence in motion. Better yet, the shadow essence of the Ecithian beast allowed the totem to merge with shadows, becoming almost-invisible with sufficient darkness.

At night, the witch wagered, and combined with a Traverser’s ability to Blink to places within the range of sight, it would suffice to defeat almost any standard security. Windows would be doors; the shadows between lanterns absolute cover. She would be able to move with almost preternatural speed.

"Still doesn’t solve the issue of Semblers." she observed to Kitty, "But nothing in this world is ever truly perfect, is it?"

Notes: More than a little overkill and quite draining. Promising technique if a god decides to hit me with a building, I guess.

The witch and her kitty sat on the stump, staring at the words she’d written in her notebook.

"Seems a bit…" she began, tentative, "...counterproductive?"

“Mew.”

"The hydra recovers from most wounds with ease, but at great cost of energy. On the other hand, coating it with metal would mean it takes fewer wounds… at a great cost of energy."

“Meow.”

"Yes, you’re right. I just don’t think that’s going anywhere."

Notes: Does not fly. My hopes and ambitions are in utter shambles.

Put big wings on a snake, the snake flies, right? Wrong. It was much worse than the horse about it, too. With that one, you could at least get lift if you expanded the wingspan sufficiently. The Hydra body, however, was simply too large, too weighty. Maybe it would have worked with a smaller snake, but even then the wings would be enormous and the utility of that was quite in question.

Still, there were some unexpected discoveries. Putting wings on the hydra didn’t do nothing, it gave it an additional muscle with which to maneuver and an effective way to beat back projectiles. Reared up above the trees, the flapping wings of the air-blessed condor sent a magnificent gale roaring through the clearing, scattering leaves and brush before it.

Not nothing, then, but not quite what the witch had really hoped to accomplish. But perhaps…?

Notes: Actually quite promising. Large, durable to the extent that I’ve saved sufficient power, and can… almost fly.

Imogen’s inexplicable power to create skeletal totems had long stumped her.

Not so much for the question of how she was doing it–she was willing to ignore questions she lacked the ability to answer–but it was tricky to find ways to do anything particularly useful thereby.

Animate skeletons had some upsides. First, they felt no pain, which could be a real boon for a warrior at times. Next, they were very lightweight. Skeletons account for less than 20% of an animal’s weight (and less for birds), which meant that they could could move very quickly. They were quite immune to many poisons and ailments, requiring no breath and suffering little from other stresses. Finally, they were hard to outright kill, as nothing other than the skull presented as an obvious point of weakness.

Yet, there were nearly as many problems. A skeleton was weak; without the aid of aether, it could not move at all, which meant that all of the strength of it had to come directly from the mage’s will. Bones seemed intimidating at first, but they weren’t armor, or even exoskeleton. A well-placed blow from a man of average strength would break them. Thus, transforming into a skeleton came at the cost of raw strength and rendered the caster more vulnerable.

A clever mage, however, could work around this.

The Hydra skeleton alone was essentially a huge snake skeleton, which wasn’t bad as a starting point but lacked traction when trying to slither, so the witch added the bones of cat legs to the design, which also gave it claws. The wings, of course, had to remain feathered, but adding them enabled…

Well, it was flight, though not as a bird would have liked it. Lacking tailfeathers, the winged skeleton’s flights were more like very elongated leaps, soaring in relatively straight directions before coming back down. Still, better than nothing.

The best part about the hydra skeleton, though, was that it neatly solved most of the weaknesses of the skeletal form. Sure, an enemy could easily shatter bones; who cared, when they regrew so quickly? And while it had much less strength than an enfleshed hydra might, its sheer size combined with magically-enhanced fangs and claws ought to be quite helpful.

Altogether a success, in her view.



"Mixed results today," the witch admitted ruefully to her familiar, who was presently sniffing a tree, "I count two unqualified successes and the rest were pretty uninspiring."

Kitty pounced on a root bulb, menacing with his claws.

"But we can improve the ratio, I think. My notes on the metal-armored forms clearly indicate that the problem lies in the lack of solid form below the metal scales. I need a totem which is strong, fairly large, and which can absorb blunt impacts well."

“Mrroarwr!!”

"I couldn’t have said it better myself. Let’s get ourselves to a tannery."

Notes: Holy Shit.

Imogen

Points: 8xp, could be used for Animus but obviously will not be

Injuries/Ailments: A bit of exhaustion

Loot: A bear hide in exchange for money, which is kind of like loot!

Notes: Helpful to just sit down every so often and figure out which chimeras make any sense, you know?