Venomancy is the art of corrosion. It draws upon toxins, poisons, and venoms to gnaw away at both the living and the inanimate. The Way of the Venomancer is compatible with many Paths, be they of the Sorcerer, Spiritualist, Wizard, or Mentalist.

“There is no deadlier poison than that which dwells in the hearts of man. Its antidote is found close by, yet rarely administered, for the mind is blind to the heart.”

-Rathair Lockless, Grand Magus of the School of the Viper, Wizard Academy of Sothron Valencia

The essence that binds venom, poison, and toxin together is simple: corrosion. To gnaw away and disintegrate an entity. Be they living or unliving, it matters not for a venomancer.

The beginning of all Ways of Venomancy are similar and independent upon one’s Path. The first step is inoculation, or to gain resistance to one’s toxins of choice. For that end, each Path does it only slightly differently. Spiritualists absorb the spirit essence of their desired poison to both gain an internal mana reservoir of it and to acquire resistance, usually concentrating the toxin in the Center of their spirits. Wizards do the same as spiritualists to acquire their inoculation, but may also imbibe or partake in alchemic and chemical compounds and rituals. Sorcerers that Awaken with a particular corrosive arkanum generally gain resistance passively as they channel their arkana. Arkanists require the same preparation as wizards if not more as their powers are more psychic in nature, and so do sorcerers that wish to acquire corrosive or venomantic arkanums in conjunction with their natal indexes of meta-knowledge.

The School of the Viper is renowned for their wizards, both capable of curing malign poisons and of its conjuration. They are sourced to other countries as assassins and healers alike. And many times, an adherent of this wizardous School is both.

Venomancer’s Constitution, Onyx Ouroboros Variant

Wizards of the School of the Viper take upon themselves the spirits of various magickal creatures. They imbue their ethereal bodies with organs and spiritual structures capable of both resisting and creating corrosive mana of all kinds. The binding principle of their constitution is the Corrosive Void, a particular type of mana with arkane aspects of non-existence and assimilation.

Venomancers of the School can dispel enemy techniques, be they subtle or gross, corroding away at the fundamental building blocks of mana—arkana. And after a technique or spell is broken down, it can be digested to further fuel a Viper’s magicking.

Spirit Organs Void-Blossom Heart

The crutch of the Ouroboros Constitution, the Void-Blossom Heart isolates and generates Corrosive Void mana. Simply called vodraic mana, or vordrai, this type of spiritual essence exhibits both assimilatory and corrosive aspects. Which complement each other quite well since the arkana of assimilation usually uses some sort of minor corrosion aspect to break down mana into its component ethers to then absorb.

The Void-Blossom Heart can be forged in a multitude of ways. The easiest that is reserved for inner students of the School is the imbuement of a vodraic rosebud into one’s Heart of the Bodies. The imbuement process requires the painting of arkane glyphs in both body and spirit to guide the magicks of the ritual. Elsewise, mutations and chaos reign, warping the flesh in unexpected ways. Ghoulification and arkanofication are common results in botched imbuement rituals.

Arkane elementals of the Corrosive Void are not trifling foes. Should a Viper succumb before their Path, they shall suffer a fate arguably worse than death.

The most common method to obtaining this spirit organ results in a weaker version of the organelle. It’ll be more impure, containing less primordiality, and instead conflicting arkana and principles and laws. The effectiveness of the Heart in channeling and containing vordrai is lessened, and the mana amalgam will be weaker as well. To assemble a second-rate Void-Blossom Heart, one needs to infuse dark mana into a rose’s petals, and then bath it in sulfuric acid in the bout of a full night under a newmoon when Alba is no longer present in the black.

After infusing and binding arkana of darkness and of acid, one needs to further refine the artificial void rosebud and purify it. Superfluous aspects need to be shed with large amounts of energy-dense antithetical mana. To turn the arkana of acid into that of the arkana of corrosion the bud must be plunged into an alkaline base and so on and so forth.

“Gnaw at the shell of the soul, suck the marrow.“

-First Principle of the Venomancer: Corrosio Arkana.

Beast’s Maw Center

The Center of the Spirit is naturally endowed with hunger mana, or vorai. It corrodes and assimilates, not unlike the artificial vordrai. The Beast’s Maw takes advantage of what is already present to better pull at and absorb foreign spiritual energy and matter.

The Beast’s Maw Center is forged by practicing absorption techniques tirelessly and by forcefully widening one’s exomembric spirit-tissues. The process is not dissimilar to what many Africaenean tribes practice such as using rings to widen one’s earlobes or stretch one’s neck.

Yet, the forging process does not end there. Instead of keeping the mana siphoned through one’s Center, they must vent it away entirely and starve themselves thaum by thaum. The longer one can last between bouts of spiritual starvation, the stronger the pull of their ethereal bodies. And the pressure it exerts in the mental realm.

Most Vipers are pacifist to the extreme, for if they choose to fight, they will kill their opponents without ability to incapacitate and will cause pain and suffering like no other. As such, a Viper must learn to rattle and warn, lest they kill without need. By bleeding their Center through their aura into the mental realm, a Viper may intimidate and warn another that they are not to be tread upon.

“Bare the fangs, spare the flesh.”

-Second Principle of the Venomancer: Forthright Serpent.

The Rime Mind

The Rime Mind is an ice-aspected spirit basin. It allows the wielder to think calmly and rationally without emotions to cloud their psyche. Nerves freeze over and anxiety is covered in a thick coating of rime.

The Rime Mind not only excels in battle, but also in resisting a Viper’s own venom. Vordrai gnaws at one’s mind and flesh, slowly warping and draining one’s body. The Rime Mind may spread over the spirit and soma, freezing and isolating any runaway vordrai. And then, the Viper may slowly pull at the errant ether with their Beast’s Maw.

The Rime Mind can be achieved in many ways as it is not a rare spirit basin to acquire. One may imbue ice mana raw into their Eye of the Mind, or they may contemplate on the arkana of cold to freeze over their psyche.

“Freeze the Waters of the Mind, bind the Corrosive Void.”

-Third Principle of the Venomancer: Temerity of the Warden.

Dragonseal Claws

The Dragonseal Claws are spirit-weapons that may be sheathed in one’s ethereal body. They function as arkane foci, channeling a Vipers mana into their nails. This allows them to rend apart spells with their very hands, and rip away at wards.

The Dragonseal Claws are made by wrapping a serpentine spirit-beast’s scales and fangs around one’s etheric body and then assimilate it into their spirit. Unsheathing the claws require an activation cost to pierce through the Veil-In-Between and then a channeling cost to keep the Forging stable. Running vordrai through the claws incurs added mana-expenditure besides the vordrai itself.

The type of spirit-beast determines any extraneous abilities or affinities of the Dragonseal Claws. A drop of dragonsblood and runic script is needed to fully complete the spirit-weapon. Not too hard to acquire as one may procure the blood of wyverns and other draconids such as drakenlings and uraiguanas.

The Dragonseal Claws can also bind particularly dangerous mana to their nails and scales that can then be shed and stored for later use or for disposal.

“Don the husk of dragons, rend the spirit.”

-Fourth Principle of the Venomancer: Inheritance of Shed Skin.

Sulfur Vessel Lungs

Sulfur Vessel Lungs are enetheric spirit organs. They allow a Viper to store pillaged mana in their bodies so as to leave their Center purely hunger-aspected. The Beast’s Maw generates a vast spiritual pull strong enough to drain even a Domain technique, but its pull lessens by the amount of non-hunger-aspected mana inside one’s lower basin of the spirit. As such, the Sulfur Vessel Lungs are used as temporary containers for foreign mana.

The Sulfur Vessel Lungs are an alchemical product created by using one’s spirit to resist acerbic chemicals such as sulfuric acid, vitriol, and other fumes. As one gains etherchemico resistance, they must imbue iron and metal-based mana into their lungs to create a perfect seal for foreign essence.

The Sulfur Vessel Lungs may be used to concoct airborne potions and poisons, being quite useful in war for treating casualties en masse or for causing them.

“With lungs like sealed vessels, inner alchemy of the highest.”

-Fifth Principle of the Venomancer: Khemia Sarpah.

Abyssal Serpent’s Sight

The Abyssal Serpent’s Sight is an enetheric spirit-organ bordering on aetheric. The organ must be activated in short bursts and provides a Viper with energy-based mana-sight. Perfect for both dealing with spiritual blockage, using the Sight and then striking at convergence points in the spirit, and for causing it, too. Same applies.

A Viper is both mediker and poisoner.

To forge this spirit-organ, the Viper must scour one of their own eyes with vordrai, breaking it down into component ethers, nethers, and aether. Then, a carved onyx or obsidian is placed inside their empty eye socket and then imbued with the vestiges of their scoured corporeal organ.

The result is that the mundane sight is entirely hampered and crippled in that eye. But, spiritual sight is enhanced ten-fold. Eye patches are as commonly worn as robes in this school of wizardry.

The netheric and fleshly vestiges imbued into the carved onyx serve to bind the spirit to the dead and inert mineral matter. The etheric bindings and the aetheric constructs contained therein is where the magicking truly happens.

“Scour the sight, bind the Deep into thine eye, peer into the Weave.”

-Sixth Principle of the Venomancer: Sacrifice to the Black.

Etheric channels and Other Organelles

The etheric channels for each Viper is unique with exception of the channels that link the Heart of the Bodies to the Sulfur Vessel Lungs. These channels and spirit-veins are coated in corrosion resistant mana, and are used to transport vordrai from the Heart to the physical by way of the lungs.

Vordrai can be used for both combat and medicine. To isolate compounds and concoct potions and poultices of all sorts, and to destroy another in both body and spirit. The mana amalgam is either breathed out or frozen over by the Rime Mind to be transported from the Heart to the Dragonseal Claws.

“Veins of iron, body turned alembic, transmutation of the self.”

-Seventh Principle of the Venomancer: Binding of Revolving Iron.

Channeling and Cycling Technica

Vordrai is only channeled through the lungs due to their corrosion-resistant nature. It is never used in any Enforcement or Enhancement technique due to its corrosive nature. Vipers are not very mobile, instead staying in place and using their mana top disrupt offensive techniques before they can sprout in full bloom.

“Venin used sparingly, held in hidden hands.”

-Eight Principle of the Venomancer: Secrecy Amidst the Grass.