Endless Blue - Week 44 - The Ur'qwal'she: Perfection in Form

Archeology

The Ur'qwal'she

The Ur'qwal'she are a series of artifice construction projects that began secretly the Bronze Era of Elqua.  The current Ur'qwal'she -- the eight in the line of improved attempts at the perfect hippoideal form -- is almost ovoid in shape and about three meters radially.  An access lock on the outside of the oval casing is specifically designed for the triangular arrangement of the Lumulus' three fingers, which must interlock around the latch in order to open the hatch ingress.  Picking the lock is a nearly impossible task achieve without some form of divine intervention or arcane boon.

It becomes obvious upon opening the apparatus that this is not simply some dearthsteel shell.  Inside are strange pods, space for four masses roughly the size of pisceans.  These pods are interlaced with conduits, chains, ligaments, and cord, working into the very walls of the shell like fabric.  Inside the first two pods, at about the same location that a passenger's gill slits would be, are a series of ten sigil-less levers, and the bottom of these opened eggs lays a layer of padding around a central spool.

History

The inquisitive and the diplomatic have long tried to understand the minds of the incomprehensible Lumulus, and rarely has there been any success.  But the same is true from the Lumulan perspective looking outward at the homeseas of the shell-less.  Unshackled by the constraints of religious dogma, the alien minds of the Lumulus have contemplated tirelessly about the intrinsic metaphysical questions that the other races do.  It seems to be one of the few things shared in common with the rest of the piscean species, but even that commonality is not enough to catch glimpses into the inconceivable thought processes that ruminate in their chitinously encased craniums.  Without spiritual doctrine to dictate their direction, Lumulan philosophers turned to more logical methodology to glean the answers they sought.  In the quest to solve the enigma of why life exists, the Lumulus stepped into the role of Creator and chose to determine how.

The birth of the cultural quest known as  The Ur'qwal'she -- Perfection of Form -- began in the Bronze Era.  Developing the art of smithing metals not only gave the Lumulus an unsurpassable  edge in economical development, but gifted them with the medium in which to forge the most ambitious  agenda of any species in the known world.  The final objective of their progressive plan was to produce the perfect reproduction of the Lumulan morphology, and to attain that goal they began construction on a machine that would obsess their culture for millennia.  Individuals willing put aside their own aspirations for themselves, their families and their forgeclans, and instead targeted their attention on learning the skills and knowledge that would be needed to complete their great experiment.  The shaping of metal, the mixing of alchemicals, the assemblage of an almost never ending series of interconnecting clockwork parts was deemed more than an honor, but a duty more dear than loyalty to their race.

The beginning form of the Ur`qwal'she was simplistic, even austere.  A rough lozenge shape that could barely fit the two pilots elected to operate it during it's test trials.  Once cramped uncomfortably inside, the activation of the machine began a series of physical rearrangements of it's constituent pieces, like a revolving puzzle.  Three short, pole-like legs on each side, a pair of clumsy and cumbersome claws extended from the front, below the hemispherical portholes, each beneath a short but slim shaft of metal.  Behind it the rear extended in sections, lengthening the craft a half-times again before unfurling into a fluked rudder.  The deployed state corsely imitated the idealistic form of the crustacean-like shape of it creators.

Despite its auspicious beginnings, the inaugural launch of the Ur'qwal'she met in disaster.  Failure of the first incarnation was brutal and stunning, leading many to think the task was beyond the reach of Lumulan minds.  But in the end rugged determination won out and the project was renewed.  The second incarnation began reconstruction, cannibalizing the form of the first incarnation in much the same way a Lumulus might consume a previously shed carapace.  The Lumulus learned from their early mistake, improved upon the Perfect Form, and eventually were ready for their second attempt at creating perfection.

It failed.  So too did the next attempt, and the next, and the next after that...  Several generations of apparatus have been forged and re-forged, only to have nature prove the whole attempt to be in vain.  But each failure only further tempered the Lumulan resolve, and the pieces that were to become the artifact Ur'qwal'she were collected and started anew.

No incarnation of the Ur'qwal'she has ever been lost.  The closest came during an outbreak of the Shellback skirmishes when aggressive Chelon forces occupied the area secretly storing the apparatus' bare structure for several months.  During those few months it took every ounce of Lumulan ingenuity and dedication to finally drive back the invaders whom it is believed never found the hidden workshop that stored it.  Quickly the Lumulus moved it to a more remote location on the fringes of the Lumulus Basin and the Spine of the World, in the Antarctic Circle.  There it lay dormant and undiscovered as the Kraken Empire rose to prominence and dominated the Known World.

With the fall of the Kraken Empire, the way was cleared to rescue the Ur'qwal'she from banishment and continue the creation.  Today, the octal incarnation is near completion, in part due to the same "deal with the devil" the Lumulus made with the Chelon to defeat their common masters.  Now armed with the secret of lumulating dearthsteel, the Lumulus are convinced this is the ultimate achievement, and success is all but ensured.  Once activated, it will the culmination of a geas felt through the entire species for nearly as long as there is written record of history.

Campaign Use

The Ur'qwal'she is not a simple magical item to be given the players as payment for some undertaken task.  Indeed, only under the most dire of circumstances would a player character even be let near the artifact, let alone been given control over its function.  However, threats to the artifact's location or existence are prime opportunities for interaction with the players.  The potential power of the craft is another angle, and the player characters might be enlisted by a concerned faction that the Ur'qwal'she will be used as weapon of war, or even a blue print for further creations.  Such a mechanized navy would make the LMSDF or some other agency an unstoppable force, completely unbalancing the state of affairs among the Fluid Nations.

Powers

Constant

- Gazing through the porthole "eyes" of the Ur'qwal'shi grant those viewing with ultravision up to 60 feet.
- The claws possess the vorpal and keen weapon qualities.

Invoked

- The craft can ignore the effects of any current or buoyancy altering spell.
- The body of the vessel can be made to shed ultraviolet light equivalent to daylight so that those inside may see out the porthole "eyes".
- The apparatus virtually inhales in water like any other living creature, sustaining a breathable liquid for those inside.  It automatically filters out any toxic or poisonous substance carried in that inhaled water (such as Ceph ink, red tide toxin, or other contaminant), but does not provide breathable water where there is not (such as in a brine lake or above the surface).  This power prevents the passengers from using any type of currentsense within the confines of the craft.  The apparatus can seal off the flow of water from outside its hull and essentially "hold its breath", leaving the occupants to breathe enough stored fresh water for four to eight hours, divided evenly among the number of occupants.

Resonating

- The apparatus resonates with those parts of itself re-incorporated from previous incarnations.  As a result, the octal incarnation has a primitive "race memory" imprinted on its alchemical conduits and eldritch mechanisms.  This imparts upon the pilot of the vessel an almost empathic link with the craft, and passes on rudimentary emotional cues like fear and anger when face with conditions similar to those that destroyed it in previous incarnations.
- The artifact is capable of consuming prey caught in its pincers.  This act helps repair any physical damage to the craft first, then nourishes the passengers inside.  While inside, the passengers do not succumb to hunger or thirst.

Curse

- The rigors of using the Ur'qwal'she slowly drain the animus vitae of those inside.  The immediate effect is the doubling the need to trance (or sleep for non-Lumulus).  Long term exposure results in permanent point loss to Constitution, and eventually death.  Bodies left inside the Ur'qwal'she after death become perfectly mummified, preserved right down to the intact hair follicle.

Suggested Means of Destruction

It must be piloted to the surface and let all it vital fluids drain out onto the dry soil.
It must be crushed between two colliding islands that move.
It must be made to peel the hull from itself with its own pincers.

Endless Blue - Week 43 - The Art of Submerged War: Navies of the Known World

Sociology

The Art of Submerged War: Navies of the Known World

The Known World of Elqua may have a superficial resemblance to a placid paradise, but nothing could be further from the truth.  The Fluid Nations have been at war with one another for most of their history, and only recently as there been any relative peace between the powers.   The Cerulean Era is name such for the very fact that the Endless Blue had entered into a period of unprecedented peace if not prosperity.  But that idyllic time is coming to an end, as the homeseas have grown too large for their borders, having slowly settled outward into the treaty-enforced spaces between countries called no mer's seas.  Skirmishes have begun as swimming space dwindles and foraging territories shrink.  The voices of the growing populaces are loudly demanding more water, more space, more freedom, but there is no more un-proportioned water to be had without expanding outward into the influences of their neighbors.

Only the civilized races of the Periphery have a standing navy, or even the infrastructure to support one.  The Hinterseas of the Kouton Bay, Gulf of Locanth, Yaun-Teel Bights, and Sahaguin Lagoons seem to be easier prey, with their less sophisticated cultures and more primitive armament.  The Laws of Fluid Dynamics would tell a society quickly outgrowing its alloted space to follow the path of least resistance, to enact an expansionist campaign outward against their primitive but ruthless neighbors.  But there is also the lure of moving inward to the Core.  For those brave (or ignorant) enough to ignore the superstitious fear of the Ruins of the Kraken Empire in the Maw, there lies the ancient pearl of the Elquan oceans, the Creche of Civilization, unused, uncontrolled, just waiting for the ambitious and the powerful to claim it as their own.

The Endless Blue Navies


It is little surprise to learn that in the culture of the martial Orcans it is expected for all citizens to serve at least one term in the the Orcan Naval Force (ONF).  The ONF is a alliance of city-state militias that serve as local law enforcement as well as a military reserve.  As much a part of their culture as their training, soldiers in the ONF understand that they must work together for the greater benefit of the Orcan government.

To achieve this aim, the ONF operates under the same "Eight Banner System" as the Cetacean Barbarian hordes of their history.  The military force is based on the smallest unit, an 8 Orcan group called an arav.  Eight of these aravs forms a zuut (64 soldiers),  with eight zuuts making a minhan (512 soldiers), and finally eight minhans completed a tumen (4096 soldiers).  Any number of tumens formed an ordu, the mispronounciation of this being the origin of the word Horde.

Ranks -- Khan, Noyan, Boyan, Ongul.

The Chelon navy if formally referred to as Her/His Majesty's Royal Armada, or HMRS.  It is comprised of a number of legions overseen by tribunes, whom in turn report to the legate placed in charge of them by royal decree.  A legion is six cohortes, which in turn is broken into six centuries of 60 to 180 legionaires.  These centuries are divided into a number of ranks dependent on the current military objective, a designation that refers to the ordered arrangement of legionaires into lines.  Each line is the equivalent of a unit of soldiers.  A Senate of Legates oversees the direction and deployment of the legions.

Ranks -- Legate, Tribune, Pilus, Centurion, Legionaire

The Lumulus Maritime Self -Defense Force, or LMSDF, are a decentralized military organization that works in cells across the surviving forgeclans.  These cells are not secretive, but the organization of who reports to whom is so complicated to the non-Lumulus that it is impossible to trace back to where orders originate.  Any one unit of the LMSDF only knows the unit above (and below at higher ranks).  This protects the chain of command from infiltration, as well as the individual Lumulus as their knowledge is always limited.  This strange, seemingly limiting method of letting soldiers "know only what they need to know" has kept their military particularly insular, and is one of the major reasons that the fall of the Kraken Empire could be achieved.

Ranks -- Unknown

The Mer Currents maintains a force called the United Marine Command (UMC).  The UMC is a multi-layered organization that starts with the shoal.  A shoal consists of 6 soldiers with an attachment of 1 packbreeder.  The consistency of these shoals varies greatly, dependent on the combat specialty for which the shoal is intended.   Infantry based shoals would be warriors with a packbreeder controlling beasts of massive builds, while a reconnaissance shoal would consist of scouts and a packbreeder guiding highly swift creatures.  Special shoals comprised of spellcasters but are not common and are normally part of a special branch, either the arcane or medical corps.

From there 2 to 4 shoals form a School, and 2 to 4 schools form a Company.  These companies typically take on colorful names as a traditional method of instilling pride and belonging into its constituent soldiers.  Further up the chain of command, 4 to 8 companies forms a Flotilla. and 2 to 4 flotillas makes a Brigade.  A Division is a pair of brigades, and 2 to four division forms a Corps.  Beyond that is only the highest military leaders, with the entire Fleet under their purview.

Ranks -- Fleet Admiral, Admiral, Rear Admiral, Commodore, Captain, Commander, Lieutenant Commander, Lieutenant, Junior Lieutenant, Ensign.

The Yaun-Teel, like everything else in their culture, relegates the need to maintain an armed services to private mercenary companies.  It is a business to them, like anything else they do.  There is no such concept as "patriotic duty" for the Yaun-Teel.  Instead, it is fulfilled by the work ethic expressed by the soldiers of the mercenary company.  This does not mean no Yaun-Teel ever feels the need to step up and lay down his life for his country, but it does mean that each mercenary company works independently of each other.  Hundreds of such organizations exist in the Bights, selling their swords to the highest bidder when there are brief respites in the waging of war between nations.

Ranks -- Per mercenary charter.

The other three primitive races -- the Kouton, the Locanth, and the Sahaguin -- deal with war and invasion on the local level, with each settlement taking on the responsibility of keeping its constituents alive.  While their homeseas are recognized as sovereign nations, they possess little in the way of a central government to lead them.  For issue of tsunami-level importance, the races generally hold a meeting of the elders, those individuals with sway and the means to enact others.

Ranks -- Not applicable.

"War spares neither the brave nor the cowardly: The brave are killed to wage and the cowardly are killed by the brave."
-- Unknown

Endless Blue - Week 42 - Garment Couture: The Fashion Aesthetic

Sociology

Garment Couture: The Fashion Aesthetic

Elquan fashions favor the simple over the complex.  While craftsmen are more than capable of (and do) producing the most intricate of work, the tendency of water to obscure light and detail means such astounding detail is lost.  Clothing and jewelery with fine detailing can only be appreciated in the Shore areas, where light can most easily penetrate the water's natural absorption.  As a result, many refer to those that wear detailed clothing and finery as "wanting to be deep fish in the shallows", referring to the vain desire to appear imposing in one's small area of influence.

Textiles

Fabric is a well known technology beneath the waters of Elqua, with records of woven fabrics dating back to the Bronze Epoch.  While cloth of that time originally had only the natural coloration of the plant or animal material from which it was derived, eventually dyeing became possible with mated containers.

All cloth is made on machines called looms, a moving interleave of thread that meshes together to form a continuous plain of fabric.  Thread itself is an extension of the creation of rope, refined and reduced to a more manipulative state.  Thread is comprised of the fibers of plant matter and/or the hairs of hairy aquatic mammals*, spun around each other to form a contiguous length of string.  The thread is then loaded into the loom which forms a criss-crossing lattice of interwoven threads.  The product is cloth.

A variety of cloth (and supple leathers) are used in Elquan fashion.  Indeed, cloth weaving is not limited to just organic materials.  Lamé -- a fabric made with a metallic weft --  uses a thin metallic yarn that is wrapped in a metallic wire or ribbon.  So fine and skillfully spun is this mineral thread that is becomes nearly as ductile as cloth without loosing the luster of precious metal.

Hides and skins of sea fauna are also used in the fabrication of clothing as it is in the creation of nautiluses, but where the latter uses tanning methodology that produces stiffer material, the former concentrates on softening the skins.  Fish skin comes in a wide variety of natural coloration and scale composition, and these gradations are used by seamstresses to produce incredible works.

Articles of Clothing

Clothing is the shaping of fabric into objects that can be worn on the piscean body.  Not every species in the oceans is equipped to survive in varying temperatures, and as such sometimes need extra protection to shield them from the elements.  Over successive generations clothing has evolved from just being "shelter that is worn" into an expression of art, tradition, culture, and personality.

Cap-- This is a generic catch-all term for anything worn essentially on the top of the head.  They can be kept in place by any manner of means, be it a tight headband, pinning in the hair, or strapped under the chin, jaw, or ears.

Choker -- A choker is like a necklace, but instead of hanging loosely down from the neck and shoulders, it is more snugly around the throat (but not too tight as to constrict breathing or swallowing.  It can serve the same role as a belt and can be what keeps the chemise (below) in place, but is differentiated by the need to keep the weight demands low as to prevent choking.

Chemise-- A chemise is an article of clothing that covers the torso of a piscean.  They may be as form fitting or formless as desired, and they need not include sleeves -- but may have them at various lengths, also either tight against the arms or more loosely draped as taste dictates.  The creation of chemises always needs to keep in mind the location of the picean gills along the lower ribs, and must keep that area free of obstruction lest they endanger the wearer with strangulation.

Glove -- The piscean glove is a bit more complicated than the gloves of our world.  Most pisceans have varying lengths of webbing between their digits, and natural ungues at their tips.  While this stretch of skin aids in swimming, it makes tailoring gloves more difficult.  A slit is cut in the fabric of the gloves where each finger connects to the hand and is extended outward to the second or third knuckle.  A piece of cloth is then folded over and sewn into the hem of the slit, and the seem is reinforced with stiffer materials to keep the glove form fitting.

Belt --  A loop around the major axis of the piscean body, belts are perhaps the most varied of all the articles of clothing.  They can vary in ever conceivable way -- thickness, width, tightness, color, even the method of wear is exceedingly flexible.  While traditionally worn perpendicular to the central anteroposterior axis, belts can be jauntily skewed over the hip, across the chest like a bandoleer, or even interlocked like a harness.  They are the most functional part of Elquan dress and the most universally utilized in every way of life.

Ephod -- The ephod is the article of clothing that covers the main trunk of the tail.  Like the shirt, it can be as basic as a cloth hanging from the waist to as complicated a network of interwoven fibers enshrouding the tail.

Caudalet -- Much like the choker, a caudalet is worn around the end of the tail right before the tail fins spread out from the piscean form.  Also like a choker, a caudalet can be used as the connective part of the lower end of an ephod or to anchor tail flippers (see below).

Flipper -- The lower counterpart of the glove, flippers are pieces of clothing worn over the pelvic and/or tail fins.  They are usually made of sterner stuff than gloves, as they must endure the constant wear of continual swimming.

Accessories

Accessories are differentiated from clothing in that they are usually comprised of harder materials than fabric, usually metal.  This material would be uncomfortable, even detrimental to the wearer is used like cloth.  They are instead used to accentuate and supplement the garments worn by a piscean.  Common forms of accessories take the form of jewelery such as earrings, torcs, bracelets, and rings.  Elquan tailors have taken to incorporating jewelery into their garment designs, making buttons, clasps, and buckles decorative as well as functional.  Other materials used in Elquan jewelery is abalone, crystal, gemstone, sea shell, and perhaps the most pervasive accoutrement of all, pearl.

Fashion by Historical Culture

Culture enforces as much influence on fashion as whimsy does.  Areas of high ethnic concentration will contain greater numbers of  traditionalists, whom bring the "old ways" of dress with them.  Part of being accepted into a society is the adoption of their customs, and adopting the apparel of the local populace is the primary visual means of integration.

The Yaun-Teel maintain a practice among their orthodox members of keeping their bodies fully clothed as much as possible.  This sets them apart from their slaves, whom are usually divested of all clothing early on in a method meant to humiliate and break the will of their "indentured servants".

With their culture very much entrenched in the martial tradition, it is unsurprising to find that the Orcans in a martial fashion, incorporating nautiluses into a style of dress that expects the struggle for life and death to erupt at any moment.

In many ways, the amount and intricacy of clothing worn by the Chelon is an indication of their social standing, with the more powerful and affulent affording complex outfits that fly in the face of function.

The Ceph both eschew clothing and are rebuked by it.  Their non-piscean forms make many of the articles of clothing useless to them, which is just as well as it would interfere with their natural camouflage abilities.  Ceph clothing must be specially made for them, usually consisting of a huge glove with eight fingers on it, caps, and belts.

Locanth and Sahaguin, cultures diametrically opposite oceanographically as well as philosophically, strangely share a common aesthetic when it comes to clothing.  They will dress pragmatically, opting for clothing that is functional for an intended purpose.

The strange Lumulus connect their clothing directly to their chitinous exoskeletons, anchoring them with piercings in the hardened plates.  Their quizzical clothing incorporates the unique metals that their culture is renown for into a way of dress that is both clothing and jewelery simultaneously.

The Mer are the most mercurial when it comes to clothing, as they are a species fascinated by fashion.  Fads come and go across all of the Mer currents quicker than a Kouton hides a secret, and they take their inspiration from whatever aspect of the mode of dress from other cultures strikes their fancy.  What is chic one day is dull the next, and whatever little feature of culture that captured their attention at one moment could cause social expulsion by the time you learned of it.

Speaking of the Kouton, they prefer to wear loose fitting robes and cowls that cover most of the body, obliterating any distinguishing features that may betray knowledge to others.

"Clothes make the Mer, so long as other make the clothes..."
- a snide comment on the way Mer reputation for dress.

---
* -- Despite being referred to as "mammals", these animals do not require air to breathe.  Like the cetaceans and dolphinidae of the setting, aquatic mammals have gills and never developed the blow hole, nostrils, or any other form of in taking the atmosphere into their bodies.

Endless Blue - Week 41 - Alchemy: Mixing Concoctions Under Water

Chemistry

Alchemy -- Mixing Concoctions Under Water

The art of alchemy is a laborious process at best, with the need to balance proper proportions, equalize doses, and mix various solutions together under highly controlled conditions.  In an aquatic environment, the process becomes infinitely more complex as the very water of the surrounding environment constantly runs the risk of diluting any experiment.  The slightest taint of the pure ingredients by water that has been exhaled, expelled, or excreted could utterly invalidate the veracity of an experiment.  Conversely, alchemists play with substances that are dangerous, even lethal, to pisceans, and should some of these odorless, tasteless, sightless concoctions spill into widely spread currents a virtual mass slaughter could occur.

The first tool of the alchemist is the mated container.  This refers to the necks of the containers where the solutions may be poured in or out.  The body of the container could be stiff or supple, dependent on the need of the mixture, but it is the coupling shape of the necks that allow protected mixing.  It is based on simple invention of the Screw, which is credited to early Chelon philosopher Vitruvides of Naucratilus during the Golden Epoch.

The end of a container comes either as a male or female spout.  The male spout has an extended length that is slightly less than the outward circumference, around with a grooved thread has been carved; the female end has no such extension, but a mirrored pattern of groves is carved into its inner circumference.  The male end is insert into the female end and twisted in a clockwise fashion until the thread of the screw is fully embedded.

The coupling is made waterproof by the precision of the two screw threads and the use of a gasket placed flush in the female end.  This gasket is made of plant fiber or animal cartilage and cushions the inserted male end against the female end's spout.  The produces a waterproof yet temporary seal that allows the substance in one container to be drained into the other simply by tipping the conjoined containers.  Sometimes these containers are constructed out of animal bladders instead of rigid materials, allowing a greater level of control over the expulsion of fluids from one container into another, and aided in the refinement of the alchemical tools used today.

Vacuum Sealed

Early alchemists first created waterless containers by inducing a vacuum in a sealed container by utilizing of denser-than-water liquids is required.  A long, stiff container with a resealable spout is immersed in a dense fluid located at least thirty-three feet below sea level and allowed to fill.  Water from brine rivers and lakes are ideally suited for this process as they will pool naturally at the ocean floor, and have such a distinct difference in density with the water around them that the effect is magnified.  By inverting the orientation of the filled container -- the spout pointing downward and the body pointed towards the surface world -- a vacuum can be achieved by gravity.  Pulling the stiff container slowly upward but not out of the brine pool creates a vacuum at the apex inside the container because the tensile strength of the container prevents itself from being crushed by external water pressure pressing inward, but the heaviness of the brine liquid is pulled downward by gravity.  Such vacuums were poor and small in size, but as the practice continued innovation allowed for the development of better tools.  Today alchemists have developed pumps that attach to mated containers that will draw all the water out.

By expelling water from a container, chemicals that would otherwise be toxic or caustic can be contained and used by alchemist.  This led to the hydrometallurgical process that the homeseas of Elqua use to produce their precious metals.  This also allows the leeching of gasses and solids from compounds, accomplished by letting the waste product from chemical reactions rise to an upper mated container (for gasses) or drop to a lower mated container (for liquids/solids).

Light Where the Sun Cannot Reach

The most ubiquitous application of this technology is the bluelight.  Named so due to the color of the light given off by the intermix of two distinct compounds, bluelight is the de facto method of illumination beneath the water's surface.  By mixing the two components in equal amounts and vigorously shaking, the agitated medium produces enough light equal to a torch.  The chemical reaction is steady, producing a flicker-less light that flares quickly into existence and slowly fades out in about an hour.  Doubling the amount of the first compound extends the duration of light by 50%; doubling the second compound improves the luminosity by 50%.  The balance between duration and brightness has been finely tuned through trial and error, and while it is possible to just mix more of the two solutions together in one larger commixture, better results are attained in smaller controlled mixes.

More so before the invention of bluelight, packbreeders would raise bioluminescent animals as a form of lighting.  To this day the raising of siltfish used in mining operations still thrives.  Siltfish are specially bred tropical, beautifully patterned with bioluminescent cells, that are very sensitive to changes in temperature and clarity of the water.  They are prefered by miners for deep excavations where light is needed as well as some method to determine of the ambient waters are poisonous.  The siltfish normally glows an organic blueish-green, but the glow will slowly change to reddish-violet as toxins build up in the fish's systems.  Using the fish requires a little more effort than simply cracking and shaking a bluelight, but so long as the fish is fed and tended well it will continually shed its light as long as it lives.

Traditionalist and many religious practices still require the usage of bioluminscent algae as a light source, such as the patriotic and uplifting ceremony of the Everglow during the Free Olympiad.  Even races such as the sonal Orcans, with their echolocative senses, still rely on the usage of sight for most of their daily routine.

Mechanics

Another adaption of the natural ocean around them is the application of lubricant.  Hinges and other moving parts made of solid material weather poorly under constant submersion in saline.  To counteract this corrosion, alchemists hit on the idea of employing the mucus of  hagfish as a grease.   When threatened, hagfish exude a slime that expands in water into a gelatinous goo that clings to surfaces yet slides effortless against itself.  The makes for a prime grease, and many times is used to accentuates the gasket in mated containers.  It possess innate anti-microbial properties that makes its seals antiseptic as well as watertight.  The slime itself is inert, but should it get in the gill slits of a piscean it can cause choking and eventual death from asphyxiation as the chest cavity fills with the phlegm.

Hagfish slime has since been co-opted by Ressurectionists as a component in their golem-like ambulatory undead for both the ability to block infections as well as it natural lubricatory and cartlaginous properties.

Connectors

With the introduction of the mated connectors, ingenious inventors have produced a long line of ancillary tools and aids that take advantage of this connectivity.  All manner of piping, valves, and taps have been designed to assist the alchemist in his chemical concoctions.  However, there has yet to be any form of standardization in these tools, with the work of each craftsman being nearly unique to themselves.  Some prefer thicker theading on screws to allow faster attachment, while other tend to use thinner threads that require more turning that results in a firmer coupling.  Aperture diameter, thread slope, even the very material comprising the tools differ between each manufacturer.  As a result many alchemists have resorted to carrying a hodgepodge of screw adaptors lying about in the off chance two pieces of pipe differ in size, or are the same gender.  The finest alchemist set ups use vent-blown glass manufactured by the Lumulus, tempered for strength and clarity but chemically inert as not to interfere with the reactions being observed.

Endless Blue - Week 40 - The Resurrectionists: Tailors of the Fabric that is Flesh

Sociology

Resurrectionists -- Tailors of the Fabric that is Flesh

Purveyors of the dead, dealers in dark magicks.  These are what the populace would call necromancers, dabblers in the animation of corpses.  But those that seek knowledge of the dead prefer the more neutral title: Resurrectionists.  Despite the conjured image of twisted souls perverting the sanctity of departed love ones to serve out some abstract nefarious goal, the Resurrectionists actually employ their misunderstood art for the betterment of the water world as a whole.  One part caring healer of the sick, another part environmentally conscious recycler, and a final part questor for eternal life, the Resurrectionists see themselves as the answer to the Known Worlds current problems.

Anatomy of an Anatomist

The beginning of the Resurrectionist movement lay partially with the creation of the scientific method of medicine.  To better understand how to combat infirmity and impairment, a healer must understand the underlying principles of biology.  Resorting to battlefield chirurgy can only reveal so much, with the mangled flesh and expended lives strewn across the waters like so much chum.  What few specimens were not scavenged by wildlife or ravaged by saltwater were hardly the best material from which to learn the secrets of how the piscean body works.  They needed better cadavers to examine, fresher bodies to dissect, in order to delve into the mystery of biology.

They turned to the packbreeders of Elqua, asking for the bodies of their expired warbeasts for anatomical research.  In exchange, the Resurrectionists shared insights with the donors to better breed their stock.  This arrangement worked well for both parties, and the knowledge of biology was furthered by fathoms in a reconnaissance of discovery.  But just as the small window of opportunity on the battlefield were mined of all their secrets, so too did the dissection of fauna eventually peter out of insight.  The Resurrectionsists had to face the truth they wished to avoid -- they needed intact, practically fresh piscean bodies.

The integrity of the dead is sacrosanct in nearly all Elquan cultures, and the rites that must be observed to properly ensure the passing of the dead are strict.  Foremost among them is the taboo against desecrating the body.  All dead are to be weighted and consigned to the depths, to sink further and further into the darkness below to become one with the Source.  Even the other religions such as Olyhydranism and Pantheon worship still command their schools to send their dead to the center of the globe.  The mere thought that the body of a loved one would not be weighted and sunk, thus forever barred from returning to their Creator, horrifies the piscean races.  But this tradition of burial is essentially throwing away perfectly good research material to a Resurrectionist.  It was such a loss each and every time blind superstition overrides the potential medical discovery that the Resurrectionists made a desperate move...  They began to clandestinely pay for bodies.

It was a shameful but unavoidable decision.  It had to be done, and to this day the Resurrectionists pay the unscrupulous and nonspiritual to "rescue" weighted bodies for later experimentation.  Delivery of the bodies had to be in secret, with utter discretion and no questions asked.  So long as the body thieves kept quiet about their clientele, the Resurrectionists asked no questions of how or where the bodies were collected.  With this unspoken pact in place, it was not long before the grave robbers began to offer "dead contracts".  Targeted at the desperate and poor, dead contracts were a formal if illegal agreement that the signer would receive payment now, interest free until the day he dies; at which point, the body of the deceased then becomes the property of the signor.  This trafficking of yet-to-be-dead bodies has not gone unnoticed by the authorities, but they can do little about it when the victims are too afraid of the body thieves to come forward.

As this financial arrangement became more and more lucrative, the Resurrectionists improved their healing skills and began to make a name form themselves.  This led to the formation of the guild known as the College of Doctors, established as an organization that garnered the fame from their successful medicine that could never be achieved under the banner of the Resurrectionists.  The organization has grown, diversified, and spread across the Known World.  So large is the organization now that most have no clue of the group's less than ethical beginnings and newly inducted members see it as the idealistic philosophy that the Resurrectionists pretend to be.

Pragmatism vs. Atheism

There is a confusion in the minds of the less metropolitan that the Resurrectionists and the Godless are the same philosophical movement.  This is simply not true.  Granted, Resurrectionist  share much in common with their atheistic counterparts, but the two movements have sharp distinctions.  The Godless espouse that the gods are false, while the Resurrectionists assert that the dead have no need to be revered.  Resurrectionists believe that once the body dies, the animus vitae-- the force of life -- is gone and what is left behind is so much scale and bone.  Whether the force of life simply dissipates or moves on to join with a creator is only of ancillary concern to these animists.  In contrast, Godless do not believe there is a Source or any other creator that collects souls, but life is still precious for the simple fact that it is the only thing in the universe that fights entropy.

Resurrectionists are not evil, and do not view what they do as an abomination against nature.  They are pragmatic, rationalizing that the departed have left this world behind. With their mortal shell cast aside as useless, there is not moral ambiguity in others using it as a natural resource.  It is little different than the piscean use of aquatic flora and fauna as food -- there is not cruel intention in the consumption, just the natural balance of life taking succor from the waters around it.  They would no more blink an eye at using the remains of a piscean as a miner has digging ore from the seabed or a culinist harvesting seaweed from the kelp fields.  It is simply a matter of pragmatism, using what exists as the tools of survival.  Societal mores make their activities taboo, but ethically it is no more antithetical to life as cutting coral for construction of shelters.

The Dead that Swim Once More

Many secrets owe their discovery to the questionable endeavors of the Resurrectionists.  They have contributed to more medical innovation than all other physical arts combined, and those breakthroughs have brought results that would have been declared miracles in earlier ages.  Indeed, it is their study of nature that gave them the ultimate lore -- the ability to make the dead move.

This unique talent traces its origins back to the earliest piscean archeologists whom took a second look at the strange formations in the rock bed.  Once simply regarded as an odd form of pareidolia, it was these early proto-Resurrectionists that realized the stone were actually fossils, petrified remains of living creatures that swam the oceans of Elqua epochs in the past.  They began to excavate these stony bones with an obsessive determination that their kinds still suffers under to this day, collecting the parts, arranging them in various orders as they postulated skeletal arrangement and musculature.  With the advent of Seamus Lorwynn's theory of evolution, they postulated the biology of the past to have parallels in the past, and used the morphology of modern sea monsters as a guide to model the prehistoric creatures against.  Ligaments, muscles, organs, flesh...  all masterfully plotted out in the minds of these imaginative and intuitive individuals so clearly and concisely they could practically make them move as they had when they were alive.  One day, they actually accomplished it, and the first living dead, or golem, was created.

The undead that Resurrectionists animate have more in common with puppets than the unliving, and a distinction must be made between the unliving that Resurrectionists create and the undead that seep down from the Vastness.  The former are vile aberrations of life, fueled by some unquenchable fury to destroy the faintest trace of animus vitae.  The latter are mere animated slabs of meat, muscle tissue given inertia through memory.  These undead are in actuality golems made of flesh and bone, stone and scale.

The first golems were primitive things, made of fossilized bones and clay flesh, lashed together with seaweed and hide, enshrouding a tiny flicker of animus vitae.  They possessed no grace, no beauty -- they were as ugly in sight as they were in function.  Those primitive attempts at bringing to life what was lifeless were things of horror and revilement.  It is no wonder that even today the Resurrectionists must keep their natures hidden from the light of day.

As techniques were refined, the most common form of golem was and still is the homunculus.  Small approximations of the piscean form, they look more like marionettes that living flesh.  But they were the first of the living dead that were imbued with intelligence, albeit rudimentary.  From those lowly beginnings, the Resurrectionists sought greater and greater achievements in the art of reanimation, growing in size and breadth and reach with each passing year.  Word of their discoveries have come under scrutiny of local lords, even the racial governments have looked closely at the potential for "rejuvenating soldiers" that reanimation promises.  Images of highly skilled and utterly loyal Royal Medic Corps being assigned to the regiments of countries' navies, attending to any of the wounded that were beyond saving, applying their craft there on the battlefield.  The details of what those medics would actually be performing are usually glossed over, but it takes little imagination to realize the result would be the cannibalization of the terminally wounded into cobbled together yet functioning soldiers.  The admirals in charge cling to visions that the worst of such behavior would be relegated to the fallen warbeasts of their forces, and are willingly turning a blind eye to the repugnance of the truth.

And with the borders becoming ever so much more restrictive, the conscription of Resurrectionists into the territory wars may be nearer than anyone realizes.

The Paragon Cynosure

Practitioners of alchemy have their Philosopher's Stone; the faithful have their Holy Grails.  There is a equal ultimate achievement among the Resurtectionists, sought as zealously as the Grail and as greedily as the Stone.  This cynosure of all Resurrectionists is nothing less that the resurrection of an extinct species.  Not the paltry animation of golems, but the restoration of the animus vitae in a species that has long ago gone extinct.  Treatises through the generations have posited on what that would mean, ethically, morally, spiritually, but most modern practitioners of reanimation begrudgingly agree that the paragon cynosure, the ultimate expression of resurrection, is to bring back a dead intelligent race.  Nothing else fits the bill better than the mysterious and infamous Icht.