B&B musing 1

BEASTS AND BINDERS

The soul is bound.  The beast is bound to your soul.  Its a symbiotic connection of sorts.  The beast bound is the foundation of all magickal talent.  The Beasts cannot think or possess their own thoughts, outside of the primal rage that dominates their kind, without Binder to be binded to.

At least, thats what all the Academies have taught since binding began.

Binding's first law: All Beasts Want to be Bound.

But then, there is the second law, all Binders learn.  The one that is implied: All Binders Can't Have Magic with Binding Something.

The energies of the bound beast flow into the Binder, a symbiotic feedback loop of arcane energy the Binder can manipulate.  These manipulations allow the Binder to create magical effects, but only as long as they have been binded with a Beast.  And that the Beast can obey them.

A dying or unconscious beast cannot obey its binder.  Some beasts are strong-willed, being hander for their Binders to control.  Worse, some beasts can only be bound by, well, feeding off the energies of their binder.  There are rumors of some beasts that can possess their binder, controlling them instead of the other way around.

RITUALS AND SUCH

Skilled Binders can have two or maybe three beasts bound to them.  Some legendary Binders possess the ability to bind up to five beasts to them.  Binding beasts is tied to a complex ritual- it often takes 4 or 5 days to complete.  Sometimes the Beast finds the master, other times the master has to find the beast and cow it to their will.

The goal of the Ritual is always to obtain the Beast's True Name.  This isn't a entirely conscious thought the Binder has.  Learning the True Name of a Beast marks the Binder's skin with it, often in arcane glyphs.  The binder has no control over where this appears.

Oddly, the Beast also gains a sigil when Bound.  The Beast also learns the name of its Binder and the ability to speak that name aloud.  They gain a rudimentary form of intelligence when this word is uttered, the first step the Beast takes toward becoming a sapient being.  This progression continues over time.  Beasts bound for the longest times acquire the greatest personas and minds of their kind, albeit still bound to their forms.