Aether and Lignamancy: Sight, Curse and Throne

Some more spells, this time for Lignamancy.  Flesh changing and transformative, here's three spells in #Crux.  Click here if you want the first bit of stuff on the magic system I've been cobbling together.

I smiled.  I held up the fetish.  The little raven had cost me a pretty penny.  Some crafted their own.  I didn't have the time for that.

And I didn't want anyone to find out how I did it.  The tiny wooden fetish properly prepared, in a style different than my own.  The Grand Bazaar offered everything, including fetishes for Lignamancers like myself.

The curse required a fetish of a Raven.  I tied a lock of my sister's dark hair to it.  I closed my palm around the fetish and let aether loose.

It felt warm. I could feel the beating of a raven's heart in my palm. The curse had come to life. My "dearest" sister would find how well carrion tastes...

Sight of Lignamancy

Sobriquets: Greensight, Speak with Animals, Wildtongue
Cost: 1 Aether
Duration: Lasts until Sunrise

Greensight opens the caster's eyes to the realm of spirits, but those tied to nature.  Rocks, plants, rivers, animals, all these whisper to them.  The spell opens all their senses to these spirits.

This means the caster can converse and listen to the spirits of nature around them.  A by-product of this is the means to speak with plants and animals.

The caster of the spell can also choose to give one of their senses into an animal or plant they've spoken with.  They can only give away a sense, not take it back.  While a sense is given, the caster can perceive through that sense as if they were that plant or animal.  They can see whatever a rat sees.  Or hear whatever a tree would hear.

The caster can end the spell at any time.  But if they end the spell to regain their given senses.  They must recast Greensight if they want to enjoy it again.

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Curse of Lignamancy.

Sobriquets: Weecurse, Baleful Polymorph, Smallshape
Cost: 1 Aether and a Fetish made from the subject
Duration: Lasts until Fetish is broken

This curse turns the subject into a smaller animal, plant or fungi as selected by the caster of the spell.  Their flesh and body transforms into the selected lifeform.  The process is painful.  Excess mass of the subject is tethered to a fetish crafted by the caster.  The lifeform can be any nonmagical life, animal, plant or even fungus.

The excess mass is ectoplasm and exists invisibly in the spirit world.  Should something cut the tether to the fetish, the spell ends.  The mass returns to the subject, restoring their original form.  This includes spells such as Ghostsword or Ghostward.  Both of which can harm or destroy ectoplasm.  Breaking the fetish always ends the spell too.

The caster makes the fetish of relevant materials from the subject.  Hair, blood, saliva, scrap of favorite clothing, anything that connects to the subject.  The other part of crafting the fetish is time-consuming.  The fetish must be relevant to a spirit of the lifeform the subject is being turned into.  Sometimes this is an easy process- mammalian spirits almost always seem to volunteer.

Other times it is difficult enough that the fetish fails to work.  Flowers and other small plants are notoriously hard to convince to help with this spell.  It varies, but a big downside to this spell is the preparation of the fetish, which can take days to do.

When transformed, the subject retains their mind, skills, and personality.  But if their form cannot move, they cannot move; if it cannot speak, they cannot speak.  And so forth.

Throne of Lignamancy

Sobriquets: Polymorph, Giantshape, Goliath Form
Cost: 2 Aether
Duration: Lasts until fetish is broken

The caster crafts a fetish that transforms them into a larger form.  Most often this is an animal.  But it can be any physical form for which the caster can find a piece of flesh, hair or symbolism to use in the fetish.  Unlike Weecurse, Polymorph requires a specific piece of material from the chosen form.  The form must be one larger than the caster's body.

The process is painful.  Careful control is needed to keep the new body from overwhelming the caster's mind.  The new body has its own urges, and an unprepared caster might become a servant to those urges and not their own will.

When the fetish breaks, the Polymorph ends.  A spirit tether (inside the Spirit World) connects the spell with the fetish.  Thus, making it possible to find it if hidden.  The tether is ectoplasmic, and anything that could harm spirit matter or ectoplasm breaks it easily.

When transformed, the subject retains their mind, skills, and personality.  But if their form cannot move, they cannot move; if it cannot speak, they cannot speak.  And so forth.