Recently I’ve been watching Revolutionary Girl Utena and got thinking about why Souji and Mamiya try to defeat Utena by exploiting the emotional baggage of students using corrupt flowers. Which also got me thinking about how in Miraculous Ladybug Hawkmoth uses corrupt butterflies to exploit the emotional baggage of Parisians. One can say a lot about how this trope’s utility to a story’s structure and how it fits the constraints of the medium, but this post isn’t about that.
This is about what must be true about a setting for it to make sense for someone to use a strategy like this and what steps they would need to take to accomplish it. In TV shows such a thing considerations don’t matter that much, but in a game it gives it’s something for players to interact with and resist.
The Problem
- Magic is the power to change the world by the force of your will. Of it we know these laws.
- Magic comes from emotion, the strongest magic comes from the strongest feelings.
- Your strongest feelings are about yourself or about something else in relation to yourself.
- You are a part of the world.
Taken together this means that sorcery powerful enough to meaningfully change the world will change you. That’s frightening isn’t it?
This is the reason why all sorcerors are so strange, this is where Monsters come from. To grasp true power with your own hands means to lose sight of your vision for how the world should be. Even worse, that there are already countless paladins, woezards and miracle workers out there, each with their own idiosyncratic vision, each an enemy in potentia.
The Solution
In the study of the occult there are rumors of those who gained mastery of magic without losing their rationality, who gained immortality while remaining themselves. If you can find that method it would be perfect, but in the short term it’s better it’s better to get someone else to take on the risk. One could groom the perfect sorcerer to your goals which also requires time.
Inducing monsterization may be considered in poor taste, but sometimes you have no other option. If your enemies are sorcerors your only hope to resist them is with supernatural power of your own. To make this strategy safe you need to worry about three things. First, you need a way to find suitable candidates, second you need a way to push a target over the edge, third you need to find a way to direct them.
Search
Finding suitable candidates is more of an art than a science, but with the world as it is there are plenty around. The difficulty often lies in finding candidates without exposing yourself.
- Rumors: The simplest way is just keep tabs on who’s suitable around you. However you’re only one person, and if you have an intelligence network, you have the resources to get better pawns then induced monsters.
- Authority: If you are in a position of trust, such as a boss, a priest, or a teacher, then candidates may already be in the palm of your hand. These candidates would need to be used sparingly as they are easily traceable to you.
- Well of Darkness: Acquire one of the 22 Voyeur Lenses, cursed artifacts made from the eyes of the monster Panopticon. Place it in a bowl on top of a tower which has never seen sunlight. Look inside, and the lens will show images of who is suffering. Untraceable by mundane means, but the candidate will feel like they are being watched, those with the sight will be able to look back.
- Vicious Audience: Sign a pact with the branches of Harpy. They have an intuitive grasp of who makes a good candidate, and will share this information as long as you put on a good show. Be sure to entertain if you value your entrails.
Catalyst
We do not know exactly what causes natural monsterization, but luckily we do not need to. Objects carrying the imprint of negative emotion that can overwhelm weak souls and cause them to monsterize. Unfortunately monsters induced this way will generally be much weaker than natural ones, but it is also reversible because it is not the candidate’s own magic.
- Ghosts: Scholars argue if ghosts are a kind of monster or something different, but possession can lead to some strange transformations. It’s easy for the reason that the art of necromancy is well known, and difficult because the art of exorcism is also well known.
- Mirror Shards: Colder than ice, sharper than a razor. Only reflect the ugliness and evil, never beauty or goodness. When lodged in the eye or the heart makes the candidate cold, bitter and distant. Shards can be physically removed from targets or melt under an earnest enough smile.
- Dream Implantation: A seed of an idea planted into something's head can take root like an unruly weed. This requires a method to travel through the dreamlands, and a way to avoid its denizens who do not take trespassers lightly.
- Blood of Dracula: It has a strong scent, and very easily leaves stains. Induces monsters with the aspect of the wolf or the bat, an aversion to light and a parched mouth. The issue with this one is that Dracula in his sleep will try to control them, and that its effect is burned away by the sun.
Control
Monsters are selfish things, more likely to do what they want then what you need. You need to find some way to direct them. Just like with finding candidates, each method has its trade offs.
- Nothing: You can choose to release a monster without control. If done cautiously it won’t trace back to you but if the things you love come to harm you only have yourself to blame.
- Threats and Promises: Monsters are not so insane as to not understand a deal, but be careful since they are by nature impulsive.
- Lotus Wine: Allows you to directly enthrall a monster. Like all magic it is unsafe but tolerable in moderation. It also has the problem of being an expensive and controlled substance with a distinct smell.
- Pacts Sealed in Blood: There are forces that you can swear on when setting a bargain. The Three Legged Spider, the Master of the Woods, The Devil. Breaking a deal sworn on one of them will have disastrous consequences, however gaining their attention is not without risk.
