HAHAHAA I designed the IAICOH seal finally!! I've had this idea for ages but never really put it on paper (...the screen) before now. It features the giant sea turtle, a in-Sirpaverse animal :)
I also designed an employee card, waow!!!!
More on IAICOH and the seal under the cut:
Magic is extremely ordinary in Sirpaverse, that much is obvious. Literally anyone can perform magic, most technology around has magical properties. Much like how a firefighter in the real world knows how to prepare for an electrical fire instead of dragonfire (the former is real here, the latter is not), first responders in the Sirpaverse have training and gear ready to counter most common harmful spells and respond to accidents that may result from a person or animal panicking or an ordinary object having malfunctioning magic.
But, what about situations where the complexity and intensity of the magic at hand is far out of the scope of normal magical knowledge and experience? Someone wielding fire magic is rather easy to handle, but an elderly monk who has mastered the ultradeathmegakill spell he personally invented and never told anyone about that ultradeathmegakills every living thing and corrodes all physical material around him in seconds... significantly less easier to handle. This example is very extreme and definitely not actually real, but it highlights just how dangerous magic can become. New things are discovered constantly about magic, its capabilities are far more vast than previously assumed. How do you counter the spell equivalent of a hydrogen bomb, if it came out that a group of people have been developing one? How do you arrest a murderer like Pigeon man who appears and vanishes however he pleases and doesn't even seem to exist most of the time? How do you reverse the effects of someone like Face Stealer and his invasive and harmful magic? That’s what IAICOH is for!
"Jaiko" as most everyone calls it, aka IAICOH or the International Agency of Investigating and Containing Occult Hostiles is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. IAICOH monitors and investigates highly unusual occurrences and highly magically powerful, highly dangerous people, animals, organisations, contraptions, what have you, hopefully to make sure the threat is contained and no one is harmed. It’s kinda like the CDC or my own dear Food Authority but for magic, or like the SCP Foundation but…. you know, also for magic. And hardly as messed up if my knowledge of SCP serves me right.
The name is fancy but the actual day-to-day jobs of the employees are not that interesting, even if it sometimes involves information that is not to be released to the public. Most of the time Jaiko is looking for leads that may hint at more things going on under the surface, like several disappearances linked by the same or similar "supernatural" occurences beforehand or dozens of non-native insect species suddenly appearing in spades in the southwest. They send people to do some tests, do some investigating, interrogate locals, gather up information on similar past occurrences, usually that seals the deal and Jaiko moves on. Jaiko also conducts research, funds magical research and rehabilitates victims and perpertrators of the incidents it responds to, though Jaiko's daughter organisation Haven mostly focuses on rehabilitiation and rebuilding what was lost. Very rarely does Jaiko ever take forceful action.
So! Now that you know IAICOH, here's some more about the seal!
The giant sea turtle or heaven is a species of sea turtle closely related to leatherbacks. They're very culturally significant to merfolk and landfolk alike and symbolise perserverance, protection and kindness. There are stories of heavens saving humans by shielding them from strong currents and tidal waves or letting lost people rest on their backs. In IAICOH's seal, the heaven protects the entire Earth itself, carrying it on its back and shielding it with its flippers. This is the mission of IAICOH, after all! The heaven keeps a watchful eye on the Earth and its surroundings to make sure it's safe and sound.
