Gemstone Therapy Basics - What is the Color of Your Zodiac Sign?
The information given to you in this post is based on the commonly available Gemstone basic information, which can be found here. Ernst Wilhelm also has a course available on his website, where you can find a detailed table of Gemstone remediation for all planets and all Zodiac Signs. I recommend purchasing it for those interested in deep research and accuracy.
The reason I decided to write about the subject myself is the sad reality of the gap between what the average person can afford to do and the real cost of buying the most expensive gemstones available, which is what Ernst recommends in his course. His examples offer the purest variety of gemstones, down to the carats necessary for the gemstones to have the appropriate effectiveness, and some of these gemstone varieties are rare, and end up costing thousands of dollars. While it is most certainly a perfect remedy, I hope to bring some general understanding of how colors affect us astrologically, which can allow you to dig yourself for cheaper equivalents of gemstones (plenty of them on Etsy), giving you a tool easily available to you to actually use in daily life.
As per the Ryan Kurczak video linked above, you can see that Zodiac Signs are all linked to certain colors. This allows you to visualize what colors you could also wear on yourself in order to remediate your specific planets or simply bring the energy you desire into your life. The image above gives you the information you need, but I will list it nevertheless.
Aries - Red
Taurus - White
Gemini - Blue
Cancer - Pink
Leo - Yellow
Virgo - Scintillating (as in shiny, multifaceted, eye catching)
Libra - Green
Scorpio - Brown
Sagittarius - Orange
Capricorn - Multi-Colored (or striped, or simply bicolored)
Aquarius - Purple
Pisces - Clear (translucent)
Let us not forget the Nodal Colors of Rahu - Smokey Grey and Ketu - Pitch Black.
This information can give you a lot about what preferences you have in life. For instance, I'm a Cancer Moon, and I'm a die hard fan of pink, always have been. I'm also a Scorpio Sun and Lagna, and use beige/brown/tan as a neutral base for my pink. So as you can see, colors affect our lives in a very real way, as they reflect in our choices and preferences.
Now, how do you approach each planet? Mixing the nature of the planet with the color of the appropriate Zodiac Sign. For instance, Ketu is pitch black. So in order to remedy your Ketu, you would mix the color black with the hue of the sign of your Ketu. For example, my Ketu is in Gemini, so I would look for a gem of a very dark blue color, or even black with a bluish shade to remediate it.
Such a basic remedy won't be as effective as purchasing a real quality Gemstone, but few of us can really afford them, and even less intense remedies can still be applied to either work on the energy of our own chart or get help during a particular transit.
For instance, working with a clear quartz during the current Saturn in Pisces transit can be a good idea, as clear stones are ruled by Pisces and a clear quartz is a commonly available high vibrational Gemstone, as opposed to a genuine diamond, also a Piscean gem, available only to the chosen few. So meditating with such a tool can help you come to a conclusion on what this transit could expect of you, or how to make the most of it, or how to get past blockages that such a transit can cause with more understanding.
Using cheaper Gemstone remedies may not be the perfect solution, but it is the only one for so many of us, and without the minimum of knowledge, you're at the mercy of many counterfeits and popularly pushed stones that stores thrive on, which doesn't really help you remediate your chart at all. For example, the extremely popular rose quartz and amethyst won't improve your natal chart unless you have Cancer or Aquarius placements, and even then, these stones only work on specific planets within those signs.
It is also important to note that this table provides us with relevant information about the use of color. That will be particularly powerful if one has a planet in the 1st house, directly impacting the physical body. Then, we judge such a planet based on the sign of its exaltation. For example, my Sun is in the 1st house, so reddish tones normally reserved for Aries will be relevant to my body. Because the Sun is in Scorpio, the color will be reddish brown. That can apply to any planet positioned in lagna based on the same principle. If the color combination isn't obvious straight away, use a color blender online tool. It can be useful with hard combos like Sun in Libra in the 1st house that make you mix green and red.
The color information can also exist as a relevant tool to examine patterns in the world. For example, the most commonly sold colors for basics in homemaking are linked to our fundamental patterns of emotional safety through white, the color for Taurus, the exaltation of the Moon. It is assumed, that such a color should be a basic, soothing background for anyone, activating Moon's fundamental nature.
There is also a reason why the color black linked to Ketu is associated with timeless elegance but also death and loss through funerals, as Ketu is the place of letting go.
From my experience, there are 3 basic techniques that allow you to explore the principles of Gemstone and color therapy.
1. Simply remedying your chart. Based on your placements, wear appropriate gemstones/colors in clothing/your environment to remediate specific planets. For example, wearing red on Mondays can be healing for an Aries Moon. A mix of appropriate gemstones and appropriate colors will help you make the most out of your own chart.
2. Wear extra friendly gemstones that delight your chart by aspect, even if they don't correspond to your own placement. For example, if your big 3 is in any water sign, wearing a translucent Moonstone, which is the energy of Jupiter in Pisces, will automatically delight any water trine in your chart. This also works if you want to help a planet that you can't remediate that easily. For example, gemstones for Saturn in Aquarius are difficult to find and expsnsive, so for my Saturn I use Amethyst, as it represents Venus in Aquarius and these are friendly planets. It doesn't directly remediate my Saturn, but it adds positive energy to its vibration.
3. Wearing exaltation sign colors on appropriate days of the week, regardless of your chart, can help you immerse yourself in the energy of a respective planet. For instance, wearing white on Mondays emphasizes Lunar energy. Wearing red on Sundays will make you feel more solar. Wearing green on Saturdays can help you add more structure. While this won't help your own chart, it's an interesting way of getting in touch with planets. You can also experiment by mixing your own colors with days of the weak to see the results. For example, as a Cancer Moon, I mix white and pink on Mondays, adding that pastel Lunar touch to satisfy the planet.
4. Like I already mentioned above, wearing the color of any planet in your first house (regardless of the Gemstone as these are specific to planets) along with the color of your lagna will always be natural. The exception is enemy days of the week. For example, as a Sun in the 1st house person, I use reddish-brownish tones but avoid them on Fridays and Saturdays, days of Venus and Saturn, Sun's enemies. But using brown as a general background color is natural for any Scorpio rising.
Thoughts on rewatching S2E16, “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered” (3/4): Amy's the last person that should be messing with that stuff
So Amy Madison appears for the second time, and there have been some big changes - now she’s a witch!
I want to natter about:
What does that actually mean?
How did she become a witch?
Why did she become a witch?
How does she relate to Jenny?
What happens after this episode?
What?
So first, what does it even mean that Amy’s a witch? Because it doesn’t seem to just mean that she does magic, but what exactly it does mean is never really explained. My rough sense of what the series as a whole seems to show us is that lots of people can cast spells (at least around a Hellmouth), generally just requiring the right combination of knowledge and ingredients. Being a witch goes beyond that.
Some people (like Jenny and Giles) are shown as relatively proficient in magic, but with a fundamentally reactive stance: they’ll step in to reverse or counteract bad spells, or to bind demons etc., but they’re mostly not advancing their own goals using magic.
Other people are shown doing lots of magic to actively advance their goals, such as Ethan Rayne, the mayor, the evil zookeeper, etc.
And yet others are shown performing magic either by accident (the frat boys who summon Gachnar, the gag where Xander speaks latin in front of a spellbook and it catches alight), or as a one-off thing following specific instructions (e.g. Spike when he restores Drusilla using Angel’s blood).
But none of those characters are referred to as “witches” (and Jenny explicitly denies being one). By my count, only four characters get that label - Catherine Madison, Amy Madison, Willow Rosenberg, and Tara Maclay. What distinguishes them? It’s not that they don’t also perform the sort of elaborate, chanting-based rituals that everyone else can perform - indeed, it often seems that they are better equipped than others to perform such rituals. But they also seem to be able to produce magical effects immediately, with just a gesture or a few brief words - ranging from levitating a pencil to moving a vending machine to turning someone into a rat.
The impression I get is that whereas other people might know how to arrange and channel magical forces that exist in the aether, or in particular objects and substances, or in some external patron, witches are distinguished by having some of that energy inside them: they don’t have to arrange an intricate circle drawn in blood to conjure it, they can just let it flow out of them directly.
If that’s what being a witch is, it sounds pretty awesome, and this raises the question of why people who clearly are super into magic (e.g. the mayor, or Ethan Rayne), nevertheless aren’t witches. Given how often Ethan is getting grabbed and punched by Buffy or Giles, it would seem pretty useful to be able to telekinetically throw them across the room. So why isn’t he doing so?
And there are, it seems to me, two natural answers: "can’t" and "won’t." That is, either most people can’t become witches, for one reason or another, or they could but there’s some sort of cost involved that makes them choose not to.
One version of “can’t” might be gender-related: maybe only women can be witches? Maybe Ethan and the mayor wish they could have that kind of power, but they’re held back by their lack of ovaries. It’s sort of a weird idea, and raises all sorts of questions about trans witches, but the show has already decided that only women can be Slayers so shrug. But that wouldn’t explain why Jenny’s not a witch, and it feels a bit like… someone would have mentioned it, right?
A different sort of “can’t” answer would be that witches have a special innate gift. It is striking that both Amy and Tara have mothers who were also witches, so maybe this is like, some bloodlines are just favoured by Hecate or whatever?
But if that’s required, then it becomes sort of a notable coincidence that Willow happens to have the right bloodline, and sort of a neat discovery. You might imagine a scene where she’s worried she might not have what it takes, or a scene where she discovers with joy that she does.
On the other hand, it might be that anyone can become a witch with enough effort and practice, but it comes with costs that lead many perfectly capable people to foreswear it. You might think it’s some sort of pact or consecration to some nefarious being, but 1) Willow never seems to have to sell her soul, and 2) the mayor is explicit that he has made many such pacts.
An alternative explanation would be that becoming a witch makes you a supernatural being, which brings with it certain downsides. We know at least one - certain chemicals stain your skin now that didn’t before (as per S1E03). Maybe there are others - people can detect you or ward you off with magic, or with certain everyday substances (garlic?), you need to hang around hellmouths for your health, maybe demons find it easier to affect you in certain ways. (I think of this as the “Disney’s Aladdin Jafar” idea - you want phenomenal cosmic power? You got it… and everything that comes with it.)
A third explanation is to do with mental health: all that magical power stored in your body is doing things to you, altering your psychology over time in subtle ways. Lovecraftian-style, you know - every time you use witchcraft you risk losing a few sanity points. Or in a more mundane analogy, maybe witchcraft power is like lead or mercury, circulating in your body, slowly eroding your brain.
I think this fits pretty well with what we actually see in the show! Willow becomes addictively dependent on magic in season 6, but also more importantly she becomes someone who can knowingly violate her girlfriend’s mind, and who can later try to destroy the world in grief. It’s not clear that simply being a witch led to this, but it’s not clear that it didn’t.
And this does seem like the sort of thing that Jenny, Giles, and the mayor would all be somewhat concerned to avoid - despite their very different values, they all care about staying in control of themselves. But I don’t know how well this accounts for Ethan… and if this were the case then you might expect someone (like Giles?!) to mention it (to Willow?!), in more specific terms than what he actually says.
So my inclination is to think that maybe the most likely explanations is that all of these are partly true, and even experts in-universe don’t really know how they all relate. Some people have a natural affinity for witchcraft (and they mostly seem to be women, often the daughters of witches) but not uniformly, and the process of developing witchcraft correlates pretty strongly with going a little mad, but nobody’s sure if that’s causal or just a selection effect, or what the mechanism is, and witches do become vulnerable to some things that might not have affected them before, but maybe none of it is very consistent or systematic and so it’s hard it’s hard to explain to someone exactly why becoming a witch is potentially a bad idea, but long-standing traditionalist organisations. like the Watchers’ Council and whatever’s going on with the “elders” of the Kalderash, have reached the point of being pretty sure they want to discourage their members from going down that path.
Anyway, back to Amy. She clearly is a witch in this sense: we see her seemingly hypnotise a teacher without words or ingredients, just by staring and concentrating. And she turns Buffy into a rat in about 5 seconds (albeit there is a verbal invocation required). She is, in fact, the only clearly confirmed witch we’ll have on screen until some time in mid season 3, when Willow starts with her pencil levitating. Between now and then, it’s just Amy, and then Jenny, Giles, and (increasingly) Willow, all of whom are simply more or less adept practitioners of ritual magic. And, notably, she seems less adept than them at actually completing rituals successfully - her love spell goes wrong, her rat transformations go wrong 50% of the time that we’ve seen. So it seems clear that developing the raw witchy power and developing the knowledge and skill to channel magical energy effectively are distinct things, and doing well in one doesn’t guarantee being equally good at the other.
2. How?
Ok but how did Any go from zero to sixty here? The others seem surprised, and Giles seems mystified: “Where did you learn animal transformation?”
(The fact that Giles asks that suggests to me that he kept the spellbook we saw in S1E03, putting it in whatever secure location he thinks Willow can’t get into. That also just seems plausible: why would you give it back to a traumatised teenager?)
Potential answers:
The innate Madison gift is flowering
She’s been studying her mother’s texts, perhaps a second spellbook that Giles didn’t catch
Some hijinx happened offscreen.
One thing I like about the second spellbook theory is that it can help explain a shift in who she invokes: she appeals to Greco-Roman goddesses, like Diana and Hecate, while Catherine appealed to made-up beings like “Corseth” and “the Laughing Gods”. Two different sets of patrons, two different spellbooks?
The main hijinx I have in mind is the idea @badwolfwho1 has suggested of Amy dressing up for Halloween in a witch costume from Ethan’s Halloween shop. Just like Xander got a sudden dose of military knowledge, Amy got a sudden dose of witchcraft knowledge.
Which is clever, and I’m happy to imagine that as the inciting incident that leapfrogs or jumpstarts things. But I don’t think I would want to find out that was the whole story, because the other two explanations are more dramatically appealing to me. They both involve an inheritance from her mother, and the second involves her making a choice. Which brings us on to the third question:
3. Why?
Why is Amy a witch? What would motivate her to study witchcraft, the weapon that was used for so long to violate her very ownership of her body?
Again @badwolfwho1, renowned Amy Madison scholar, is at hand to suggest one plausible answer: fear. We the audience know what happened to Amy’s mother, but nobody in-universe does. As far as they know, she might re-appear at any time, and when she does she’s liable to be very angry at both Buffy and, perhaps even more so, Amy. You can absolutely imagine her feeling like she needs to equip herself with all available power so she can be safe.
But I also think there’s probably some deeply fucked up identity issues at work here. And maybe just to editorialise for a moment: what intrigues me about Amy Madison is that, like many other characters on this show, she goes through a sequence of terrifying ordeals, but unlike most other characters, none of them are ever cleanly external.
She never gets menaced by some inhuman monster from beyond that can be cleanly slain and killed and forgotten about. No, her sequence of ordeals, just within the fist three seasons, is:
Being body-snatched by her own mother
Being blackmailed by her supposed friend
Being mind-controlled by her own love spell
Being abducted and almost burnt at the stake by her friends’ moms
Being turned into a rat by her own spell
And hanging in the background of this is her father, apparently her only remaining immediate family, who left because her mother was a witch, returned guiltily in season 1, and then is never mentioned or shown until season 6, when we’re told that he now has a whole separate family who don’t really want anything to do with Amy. From her perspective: Is that his fault? Is that Amy’s fault, for turning herself into a rat for 3 years? Or is it Amy’s fault in a different way, because he had already started noticing that she was a witch even before she disappeared, and couldn’t help but see her as just another version of her mother?
Or had he always wanted to forget her because, as his backstory and Amy’s familiarity with love spells subtly suggests, he himself was love-spelled into settling down with her mother, making Amy herself the product of witchcraft and mind-rape, a living symbol of the worst thing ever done to him?
Did she study witchcraft because she eventually noticed the way he looked at her and figured “if the suspicion is gonna there anyway, I might as well do something to earn it?”
Is she driven, on some subconscious level, by an unbreakable sense that she and her mother are one and the same, even though she hates and fears her mother?
I don’t know! The writers aren’t interested in telling us. But I find this whole horrible mess deeply compelling. Because what it adds up to is that Amy Madison spends 50% of her life as a victim of witchcraft (her mother’s or her own), and 50% of her life being victimised by others for being a witch (Xander, the Gingerbread mob, possibly her father). She’s perpetually suffering and perpetually becoming very thing that makes her suffer.
And I think this might also help plug a small plot hole in this episode, pointed out by @badwolfwho1: for Xander’s blackmail to have any force, there must be someone he could tell. And he’s already told Buffy and Willow, and they didn’t do anything (and what would they be likely to do?). So who is it - who would Amy be scared of finding out?
I think the answer has to be: her dad. Because she knows Xander could tell Giles, and last time we met Amy, she was seeing Giles barge into her house to tell her parents she was involved in something very very dangerous. And if her dad left because her mom was a witch, she has to be wondering how he would react if he knew she was following in those footsteps.
Anyway, I don’t want to stray too far from the events shown on screen. And on screen, what we see Amy doing is using magic against a teacher to avoid having to do homework. I think this qualifies as mental violence, at least in something like the same way that light manhandling qualifies as physical violence. It’s certainly not admirable or a good thing - I find Amy fascinating but I also recognise she’s a mess of a person here. But there’s also something strikingly pathetic about this: you’ve mastered the black arts, and you’re using it to coast on your education. It doesn’t seem like the action of someone whose life is going smoothly, does it?
(It’s almost like if humanity had created a revolutionary new form of computing system and it was mainly being used by students to get out of writing essays…)
4. With Whom?
I really wish this wasn’t the only interaction we get between Jenny and Amy. I mean, it’s not even really an interaction between them, it’s the love-spell-ified versions of them. So we really can’t tell much about their relationship, if they even have one. At the very least, they seem to know each other, and don’t seem to be surprised that the other is capable of/aware of magic (though would they even register if they were surprised?). It seems natural to assume that Jenny has heard some fragmentary things from Giles about Amy and her mom, and that Amy has heard some fragmentary things from Willow about Jenny. But there’s no indication of a relationship beyond that.
And I lament this, because there is so much potential for interesting interactions between these two. I reposted something a while back about whether Jenny and Faith would get along, and I think much of that applies here too: there’s the potential for a very strong and mutually beneficial connection but also lots of potential for that connection to not be made, or blow up in their faces.
Most notably - Amy’s magic all comes, one way or another, from an older woman who practices magic. That older woman abused her in an incredibly intimate and damaging way, but now she has in some respects turned herself into that woman. It would be amazing if there wasn’t a part of her that still wanted to prove herself and earn that older woman’s approval, alongside a part of her that hates that woman and wants to hurt her.
All of which is to say: if any older woman who practiced magic were to make any sort of overture to Amy (e.g. “you really fucked up that spell but also you should never have cast it, let me teach you how to not be stupid about magic”) they’d be likely to get some nuclear-strength projection/transference.
(Which, as with Faith, I think Jenny could potentially handle but would not be super keen to volunteer for - it’s notable how much less interested than Giles she seems in being friends with and mentoring these young people. Willow seems like the exception but, you know, Willow is super-smart and super-compliant, sort of the easiest sort of student to mentor. Someone with deep-seated emotional issues, like Amy, might be a different story.)
Indeed, when I started writing this I had a gripe: is the best way these two can think of to insult each other really just to jab at each others’ age? Because the actresses are the exact same age, they are both born in 1970! We are watching one 28 pretend to be a 17 year old insulting another 28 year for her age? What is going on here?
But now I’m thinking: maybe Amy has a specific antipathy towards older (dark-haired, magic-using?) women? Maybe that’s why she focuses on Jenny’s age?
I dunno. I just think there’s a recipe for an explosive clusterfuck here and I wish we had gotten to see it.
5. What Now?
Of course the reason we don’t get to see Jenny and Amy interact after this is that 1) Jenny dies next episode, and 2) Amy doesn’t appear again until half-way through next season, and 3) neither of them even get a mention in the final scene of this episode(!) Which sucks because I really wanted to know how they’re handling the aftermath.
With Jenny I think I can see the outlines: I imagine she’d be furious, but not let this get in the way of her bigger concerns around Angel and Giles and all that stuff. And then she dies.
(If she came back somehow in season 3 and then her input got Amy turned back into a human ahead of schedule, then you might expect to see a bit more of a reckoning…)
But Amy… Amy just vanishes, until a year from now when we find out that she’s actively practicing magic in a coven with Willow and some guy called Michael. So there’s a lot left open to fill in.
I have to suspect that the immediate aftermath of this episode is Not Good for her. Willow is apparently very upset, and probably some of that will be directed at Amy. Giles definitely seems angry. She probably has a lot of self-directed anger, but also a lot of anger at Xander. Angry about being blackmailed, angry about being mind-controlled, angry about messing up the spell.
Clearly it’s resolved within a year, but how long does that take? And does Giles or anyone else end up talking to her dad? Is this whole farce the reason why nobody tries to get her involved in the Ritual of Restoration in a few episode’s time?
It’s notable, in particular, that Amy isn’t involved in the vampire-hunting squad that Willow organises over the summer while Buffy’s away. This might be because Willow (or Xander? Or Cordelia?) doesn’t want to invite her to join, or it might be because they do and she refuses. To me it seems much more likely to be the latter, because everyone we see on screen seems to have moved on from the events of this episode by then (indeed, moved on implausibly quickly, see previous post criticising the episode).
So my headcanon is that the events of this episode fuck Amy up bad, make her withdraw from the Scooby Gang entirely, reinforce her conviction that 1) she can’t use magic without hurting herself, and 2) she can’t talk to anyone about magic without them using it against her, leaving her isolated (there may be literally nobody she talks to? She’s certainly not talking to her dad!) and seething and resenting how fast everyone seems to forgive Xander. So when Willow approaches her in the summer asking for help, she refuses out of spite because it feels like the only chance she might get to hit back at them. But that gets it out of her system enough that at some point in season 3, when Willow approaches her again, she’s more receptive. Not because she’s processed this in a healthy way! Just because it’s faded down into the welter of scar tissue that is her soul.
Anyway, that’s just a headcanon. There’s no canonical answer: Amy pops up briefly whenever the writers think she would be useful, and so we never get the season-long arc of crippling obsession and homoerotic rivalry between her and Willow, culminating either in a more targetted and successful love spell on Willow or in a “This Years Girl”-esque body swap that ends with them making out in each other’s bodies, that we deserve.
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Hey. I'm the OP of the post you tagged saying to ask about The Undaunted. I am asking about The Undaunted. Plz share about the thing, you seemed excited.
In 2022, a new edition of The Undaunted came out, which was huge because I'd been trying for four years to find a way to read it. I'd done a project on trans history in 2018 and become a little obsessed with him, and specifically The Undaunted (why not one of his other books? no clue), and while a PDF was available, I decided to check it before starting to read, and there were some pages that were fully unreadable, so I wasn't going to start a book I couldn't finish.
The Undaunted is medical fiction, and since Alan Hart was a doctor it is pretty heavy on the medical, so it's really not for everyone. Also, it was published in 1936 (and set in the 1920s), so a lot of terminology and attitudes (medical and social) are outdated.
But it was also a book, written by a trans man, published in 1936, with a canonically gay character! And not just one glimpsed in the background, someone actually important, and written with sympathy. And a character with a chronic health condition that leads to an amputation late in the book.
It's been a while since I read it, and I'm not so good at synopses, so I'll just be putting the official one here.
In 1936, Hart published The Undaunted, his second best-seller. The novel, which follows young doctor Richard Cameron's attempts to find an effective treatment for anemia, begins in the west coast city of Seaforth, a stand-in for 1920s Seattle. Within the medical-research plot, Hart also weaves the story of men-Cameron and radiologist Sandy Farquhar-whose personalities and bodies do not fit neatly within the norms of the social or medical establishment. Dedicated to medicine and the understanding that scientific knowledge can decrease human pain and suffering, these men must nevertheless pursue their careers at personal cost. Lauded in its time for its insights into the inner workings of the medical field, The Undaunted is also an important document of the struggle of the human heart.
I really liked it, and am almost certainly going to read it again. There was also something in there that, despite me knowing it was coming (again, I'd spent four years looking into this book) really struck me emotionally in a way that has stuck with me and I don't remember anything else getting to me like that.
While it is very medical, I'll also put out there that it's the first medical fiction I've ever read. It isn't hard to follow and I actually found it really interesting! Maybe that's a sign that I should read more medical fiction, but I did not know before that the medical aspect would be interesting to me.
If you're in the US, you can get it from bookshop.org for $18.95 (currently on sale for $17.62). Through bookshop you can support independent bookstores, and if you don't have a specific one you choose to support the money goes to a pool that's divided among the bookstores they support. Or you can choose one, and you can 1. possibly see if you have a local bookstore you didn't know about, or 2. they have filters and you could support an LGBTQIA+ owned bookstore this pride month!
Mortal but still possessing the spark of the divine, the Hero-Gods of Iblydos are a perfect demonstration of the quasi-deific power that one can achieve with the spark of mythic might.
However, with very few exceptions, most of these hero-gods never ascend to true divinity, and therefore, pass away. Many may be content to honor these departed figures in a mor historic and secular sense, but for the priests of the fallen, the divinity of these blessed heroes does not end at the grave.
Indeed, while most souls of hero-gods move on to final rewards and places of honor, they nevertheless leave behind spiritual echoes that reflect their paragon status in life. Don’t assume that being something other than a soul makes these phantoms any less, though, for they are still full beings that act and behave as their counterpart did in life.
These priests of the fallen learn to invoke various hero-gods through these phantoms. While their bond is less intimate, they can change things up each day be invoking a different spirit, giving them some flexibility, though perhaps with less depth compared to a more permanent bond.
Each day, these priests can call upon a different spirit reflecting one of their fallen hero-gods, allowing them to get slightly different power suites each day, but at the cost of them being unable to store the phantom inside their minds and gain the benefits of such.
These aspects that the phantoms invoke can include the offensive and battlefield control of the archmage, the combat skill of the champion, the defenses and durability of the guardian, the blessings of the hierophant, the inspiration of the marshal, and the underhanded strikes of the trickster.
As partially-divine casters, these mages can channel energy to heal and harm depending on their beliefs.
Sometimes a different phantom is needed for the situation, and in an emergency, these mystics can banish their current ghostly partner and call forth a different one as needed.
Like many spiritualists, these priests can transfer mental effects to their phantom, though obviously they vanish back into the ether rather than into the mystic’s mind.
Powerful priests even gain domains, complete with knowledge of casting domain spells.
The most powerful of these mystics can finally bring their phantom into their own heads, albeit temporarily, to gain the benefits they would normally gain from doing so.
This archetype is interesting. As a clear hybrid of spiritualist and medium, the archetype has some flexibility to it, but while thematic, the spirit legend-based foci lack depth despite their thematic abilities. Even still, it can prove quite useful, and be sure to use each spirit as needed.
I can imagine that this archetype might seem controversial outside the culture that it is from, calling upon phantoms of the long dead that to some may seem sacrilegious. However, from the inside perspective, it may not seem that way at all, instead seeing it as a way to commune with and honor the dead.
In the land of Kotorogi, soldiers that fought and died in the service of the nation are enshrined at a temple where they are considered minor gods, and the priests there can call upon their spirits to make use of their skill set as needed. However, not every regime in Kotorogi has been just, and the actions they died performing were not always noble, even if they served the will of the ruler at the time. This has led to some controversy, and rumors of a schism within the priesthood.
Though they possess little faith of their own, the android known as Archer-11 finds themselves able to call on spirits of past androids with a similar circuit pattern to their own. These past lives are multifarious in skillset, but they all fight loyally. But this begets the question: Why do they come to them? For what purpose?
On the world of Aggaelis, heroes are immortalized in the stars by the gods, reshaping or at least repurposing the arrangement of the heavens to find a place for such blessed beings. Those with the know-how can call upon them as well, conjuring translucent figures lit from within by the asterism that represents them. However, now the figure of Halkas the Mighty, the earliest known hero and undine son of an ocean god, has begun to fade from the heavens, and the gods have been strangely silent about this.
Can medical arts be effective in treating chronic conditions? Or are they specialized to battlefield treatment?
Yes and No (but mostly No).
Disclaimer: medical arts are not something that they get into much, and I haven't read the most recent main story chapter which I think may have more details on this topic, so if I'm wrong please correct me.
Medical arts, like all arts, somewhat depend on the individual casting them.
Most medical arts can cure, like, bruises and that's it. They can keep you from getting tired in combat, but if you get injured you'll need actual medical attention.
Now, arts can be used to do things like close wounds and re-set bones, but only if the person casting them has a detailed grasp of the anatomical features involved (and practice in using their arts in that manner).
Sometimes you get people with arts that can do much more than this though. Nightingale and Mephisto both have limited medical knowledge and nevertheless have some of the most powerful healing arts we have seen. In specific regards to chronic conditions, Nightingale's arts have been shown to mitigate oripathy symptoms (albeit at the cost of her own health).
OK, with Gale in tow, we're off to talk to the bookseller downstairs:
"(Literature department. Can I help you?)" the tome-seller at the rear of Sundries stage-whispers as Rakha approaches.
"Why are you whispering?" asks Rakha at a completely normal volume, having never been in a library or, frankly, been much concerned about delicacy.
"(Whisht! These books are sensitive!)" the woman hisses. "(They prefer an environment of quiet reverence.)"
(A/N: One of the options here is to then immediately shout at the top of your lungs, "IS THAT TRUE, BOOKS? ARE YOU SENSITIVE?" At this point, you're kicked out of the conversation, Gale disapproves -1, and both nearby stacks of books explode in a fireball. XD And then the bookseller won't talk to you again until you pay 400 gold to cover the damages.
Tempting, but Rakha isn't really interested in causing trouble; as usual, she just wants answers and wants them now.)
"(I'm trying to find out about a particular Netherese crown)" Rakha says, agreeably lowering her voice; with her particular mannerisms, the effect is a sort of rumbly murmur, like an earth elemental with a head cold. "(Have you anything on that subject?)"
The woman's eyebrows shoot up, startled. "(Bold!)" she whispers. "(You might've heard that our library has a collection other shops would lack the skill to curate. Between us, even Master Lorroakan was reluctant to house them in his tower. The pen is mightier than the magic wand, apparently.)" She snickers briefly before returning to a serious attitude. "(They're locked away for their and our customers' safety. Our finest reserve includes the 'Tharchiate Codex,' 'The Annals of Karsus: A Netherese Folly', 'Sights of the Seelie,' and 'The Curriculum of Strategy.' Do any of those interest you?)"
All of them interest Rakha, in fact. If these are tomes of magic knowledge, then she wants all of them and every bit of information they can provide her. But there isn't time, not now, to be distracted from the main point. The Annals of Karsus is certainly what she wants - information on Netherese magic.
Something, however, gives her a moment's pause - something she hasn't thought about in some time.
Nestled deep in her pack, untouched for months now and almost forgotten in her haze of other problems, is a book. The Necromancy of Thay, found in the basement of the blighted village near the place where the nautiloid crashed. A book full of magic which, even in those early days, she was able to subdue with her own natural power - but which, nevertheless, holds secrets she was not able to unlock.
It belonged, Gale explained to her, to a Red Wizard of a far-off country called Thay. And he used the word Tharchiate as an adjective to describe some of the magic from that place.
"(The Tharchiate Codex)" she hears herself say before she's realized she's going to ask.
The bookseller gives her a careful, narrow look. "(Interesting choice)" she says slowly. "(If I didn't know better, I'd think you might have 'The Necromancy of Thay' in your position. I'd advise tremendous care with the Tharchiate Codex. The cost of unlocking its mysteries is onerous.)"
Interesting. This is not an answer, and the woman seems to know it perfectly well - but also quite clearly has no further interest in giving more information. "(The Annals of Karsus)" Rakha says, somewhat irritably. Her voice starts to lift a little in volume and one of the nearby books emits a threatening belch of sparks.
The shopkeep raises an eyebrow. "(It is said to be written by Lord Karsus himself)" she intones dramatically. "(The Netherese arcanist who attempted to replace the goddess Mystra, failed, and was banished for the attempt. Great magical knowledge lies within those pages, but not many can withstand it.)"
"(That's it! That's what I need!)" Gale hisses eagerly from behind Rakha.
Narrator: The Annals of Karsus would no doubt have much to say about the crown's true nature, if only you could read them...
"(Sounds perfect. How much to buy it from you?)" Rakha asks briskly, ignoring the little voice in her head intimating that this isn't possible.
"(Buy?!)" Rakha can hear the effort in the woman's voice not to break her own rule and shout. "(Books as temperamental as these are not on sale!)" she hisses. "(They are secured in our vault, where none can harm them, nor can they do any harm. Consider yourself lucky to have learned of such a book's existence - and then forget about it. The Annals of Karsus are best left unread.)"
Rakha releases a heavy breath between her teeth. No doubt this woman knows what she is talking about, but the truth is it doesn't matter. Gale has said this book is important if they are to stop the Chosen and the Elder Brain. And, perhaps more importantly - these are books full of answers and this woman is trying to keep them from her.
She leans forward, drawing her lips back a little from her teeth. [INTIMIDATION] "(Unless you want a very nasty paper cut)" she rumbles, "(you're going to tell me how to get into that vault.)"
A little of the blood seems to drain out of the woman's face - but to her credit, she stands her ground and holds Rakha's eye contact. "(Customers like you are why I prefer the company of books)" she growls. "(The only way to gain access to the vault is through my office. And before you ask - no, you are not allowed in there either.)"
Ah. There it is. "(Thank you)" Rakha says curtly, turning away. "(I've learned more than enough.)"
"(You certainly have!)" the bookseller hisses irritably at her retreating back. "(Even simple knowledge of these tomes is enough to stimulate most.)"
-----
"Well. What a lovely woman," Gale says as they move out of earshot of the bookseller - and the books. "A proper respect for the power which can be contained in a volume of knowledge. Truly admirable in all respects."
Wyll gives him a sidelong look. "Are you intending to suggest we give up the search?" he asks, his lips twitching.
"Oh, most certainly not," Gale says cheerfully. "This is a case far too important for petty, quibbling regulations - and with Lorroakan out of the picture, we have full run of the place and I see no reason why we shouldn't take advantage of it. Still - always nice to see someone taking their work seriously." He rubs his jaw thoughtfully. "Those Annals are definitely precisely what I need. Somewhere in that vault are pages with all the answers about how that brain is being controlled."
"And the Tharchiate Codex," Rakha mutters distractedly. "Answers about the Necromancy of Thay." Absently she puts a hand on her pack where the heavy outline of the ancient book still sits.
"Yes, yes," Gale agrees brightly. "Much to be gleaned in that regard as well - if you feel your mental stamina is up to the challenge."
"Oh, good," Jaheira quips sardonically. "In my experience it is always a good sign when a book comes with a warning label."
so i started mha and subsequently was imbued with the urge to Create but i harnessed my inspiration and finished chapter 11 because i left you guys starving so i could be emo and get a job
characters featured: yvette (oc), nilou, pierre (oc)
cws: none
wc: 1,449
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Chapter Eleven
Yvette found you at some point. Being employed by Lord Scaramouche, she was in the same boat as you– stranded in a foreign nation with a comatose employer and no friends or family.
Having her around made things easier. The night that your master slipped into his coma, you were effectively jobless and homeless. The next morning, you leased an apartment together.
About a month has passed since then. Bit by bit, you’ve been chipping away from the savings that you brought with you. You were already low on funds from the deposit and the down payment. Though you had split the cost, Yvette couldn’t afford to cover more than a fourth.
I need to get a job… Only, it’s not that simple. Everyone could tell you were a Fatuus. It’s obvious from the way you dress, the way you talk, the way your eyes scan the entire environment as you move through it.
No one trusts the Fatui and less than no one likes the Fatui. Finding someone willing to hire you would be almost impossible and even then you could be fired for the smallest of slights.
Still, it’s not fair to Yvette. As soon as you told her what had happened, she went out in search of a job. Now, she’s working as a maid for the mysterious lord of the Palace of Alcazarzaray.
You get to work writing your resume. “Assistant to the Sixth Fatui Harbinger” might not get you anywhere with most people, but there’s gotta be someone out there who doesn’t care. Right?
*****
Two months later, you finally strike out.
Since the Akasha was shut down, scholars from every Darshan are struggling with the return to traditional research. It’s been hard to get past the initial shock— they went from having all of Sumeru’s knowledge whispering in their ears to permanent radio silence. Everyone is desperate for any help they could get; the House of Daena librarians could only handle so many requests at a time.
Back in Snezhnaya, everything is filed analog-style. Chronologically ordered documents within filing cabinets of alphabetized folders, rolodexes with names and addresses for every Fatui contact of import, binders with detailed reports of missions and related expenses. Having the expertise of a professional secretary, you get a job working for some student researchers.
The pay isn’t glamorous in the least, but no one else would hire you. Not the stockbrokers, not the grocers, not even the owners of the Puspa Café or Lambad’s Tavern. No one with any customers to lose wanted a former Fatuus working for them, so this was your only option.
Your job is very straightforward: find and assess relevant subject matter. The actual execution isn’t quite as simple. The House of Daena is the largest library in Teyvat, boasting a collection of over three hundred million books, scriptures, and tomes. Combing through it all is a huge effort.
Once you find the suggested literature, you still have to make sure the contents are what is needed for the research study. Even just an inspectional reading— table of contents, indices, glossary, etc.— takes hours. The worst part is when the material proves to be useless in the context it’s needed in, making all your work in vain.
Nevertheless, poverty is a good motivator. Though your days at the library often stretch into the night, the hefty pouch of mora you claim at the end of each project brings you great relief.
*****
With your jobs, you and Yvette find it easiest to do your grocery shopping late in the evening. Once a week, the two of you leave work early, meet at the apartment, and leave with a couple baskets each to buy the most basic of essentials.
Your first stop is always, without fail, the tavern. While you usually take turns cooking, it’s become a weekly ritual to dine out and relax before shopping. More often than not, this entails visiting the fortune teller to pet her cats.
Most of your groceries come from Hamawi’s stall, but you like to check out the Grand Bazaar every so often for some less-than-essential goods. On this particular evening, the atmosphere feels different… electrifying almost.
As you take in your surroundings, you realize that the shoppers and stall owners are murmuring and gravitating toward the stage. Forgetting the weight of the baskets on your arms, you pull Yvette with you into the crowd.
You get some looks, presumably because of your uniform, but it’s worth it. When you make it to the front, you hear the strum of a sitar and your eyes land on a lone dancer.
She bears a striking resemblance to Yvette. Her skin is pale, her hair is bright red, and her eyes are like aquamarines. The longer you stare at her form as she dances, the easier it is to imagine her as your companion.
Finally, her performance ends and you’re released from your trance. The crowd begins to disperse and you turn to leave with Yvette.
“Wait! You, with the red hair!”
The two of you turn to see the dancer pushing through the crowd. Your eyes meet, confirming your suspicion that she was referring to Yvette– there weren’t many people in the room with red hair.
“I totally get if you don’t want to, but hear me out!” She takes a deep breath before continuing. “You and I look almost exactly alike. If you danced with me, I could choreograph new shows where you pose as my doppelganger! It doesn’t matter if you don’t have experience either, I can teach you!”
As you stare blankly at one another, she blurts, “It pays really well, too!”
From the look in her eye, you can tell just what Yvette is thinking: she’s interested. “How much would she earn?”
“Oh, I earn about 800,000 mora for every show,” the dancer responded.
Without sparing your roommate another glance, you give your answer.
“She’ll do it.”
*****
A lot has changed in the few weeks since you met Nilou. With Yvette being a fast learner, the theater was able to include her in their most recent show as a backup dancer. Her paycheck was less than Nilou’s– 500,000 mora– but that was to be expected. It would be hard to shine as bright as the star of the Zubayr Theater.
Aside from your elevated financial status, your time in Sumeru had changed your appearance almost beyond recognition. The pallor from Snezhnaya’s inhospitable winters was chased out by Sumeru’s sunny weather. Your hair was no longer bound and trapped in unyielding updos.
Best of all was your updated wardrobe. One afternoon, as you were having lunch with Nilou and Yvette, you spotted a blue skirt with brightly colored fish. She noticed you staring at the garment and convinced the vendor to lower the price so you could buy it and a pretty white blouse to go with it.
The difference in treatment was instantaneous. Passersby no longer whispered when they walked past you, merchants called out to you to buy their goods, waiters smiled at you when you entered restaurants.
It would almost feel good if you could forget.
*****
Eight months after the incident, you wait at Bayda Harbor, watching the ships pass by. Normally, you would go through research material while waiting for something, but today is different.
Any one of the dozens of ships in the harbor could be host to your most loyal companion, Apollo.
Before leaving the city, you did your best to make some snacks for Apollo. They didn’t have the same varieties of carrot that were available in Snezhnaya so you improvised and dipped some hay and mint leaves in boiling sugar water. Crystallized, it made the perfect rock candy for horses.
I hope he likes them, you think to yourself as you check to make sure the treats haven’t melted in the heat.
As the sun nears its peak, you think you hear your name being called. You look around until you see not just a familiar snout, but a familiar face as well.
“Pierre!” you call out with a grin. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, someone had to bring your horse, miss,” he replied fondly, with a tip of his hat. “Besides… It’s about time I went on vacation.”
The two of you chat for a while as you feed Apollo the snacks, which were much to his liking– he even nibbled at the tin when you ran out.
Once the two of you part ways, him to the desert and you to the city, you squeeze Apollo tightly.
“I missed you, Apollo,” you whisper, sniffling. “It’s been so hard without you. Without you both.”
He says nothing. He is a horse.
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tags: @lacunaanonymoused, @dollpoetwriting, @constantlyoverthinking, @littlesliceofcheese, @yourfavoritefreakyhan, @magicalink , @swivi
a/n: if you saw the version of this where i mourned the loss of a tag list member no you didn't
