Lorenzo, please do not eat my balls for this. This is the best I can do. I appreciate it is full of holes. I am coming to think that my teachers and forerunners are fucking idiots.

Taxas Vitae

Lit “Taxonomy of Life”.

Canonical “chant”/mnemonic – “Degenerae, Chimerae, Augmentus, Constructae, Naturalis, Metamorphae, Abominae” (earliest in Mercan? copied widely)

• Degenerae – as Naturalis, but in some sense decayed or corrupt. Mercan “that function despite holes in their tubes” but that’s bollocks.
• Chimerae – as Naturalis, but multiple forms combined. Telltale – it’s a horse but also a rat, etc.
• Augmentus – as Naturalis, but things fused or grafted. Telltale – discernable joins.
• Constructae – beings created from inanimate matter by beings of order Naturalis. Telltale – looks like shit (nullogenesis is hard).
• Naturalis – ordinary living creatures of explicable biology, that is “those that are systems of tubes”.
• Metamorphae – beings that have been transformed and are no longer what they were. Telltale – never quite complete. Always something left unchanged.
• Abominae – “things that should not be”. Telltale – freaks you out, I guess.  Mercan -“Of this as a class, nothing can be said – each individual is unique.” (really?). Pleased, anyway, that Lichen is in here – hate that shit.

Taxas Chimerae

Guess this is what you really want…

• Dispermic – the vile offspring from a union of two creatures. Vulnerable to – acid, as acid separates parts.
• Chymical – two creatures fused together through dissolution, then reformed. Vulnerable to – salts as they were born of a liquid.
• Sanguine – blood of two creatures in one set of tubes. Vulnerable to – fire as each blood has its own boiling point.
• False – not a chimera at all – naturally that way, augmented by grafts, or constructed in likeness of a chimera. No vulnerability.

Bad news – if the chimeric types have telltale signs, there’s nothing in the books about it. We could write one? You could pay me to write one while you do the fieldwork?

Your faithful servant,

Turm Hedget, student, School of Acidic Patterns, 15 Nov 674

 

 

… Sparked by the von Korps murder of a House Verdun watchwoman, the two houses fought street to street with many deaths on both sides. House Verdun were driven  into the security of their estate walls by the ferocity of the von Korps “enforcers”, in the morning the von Korps found they were trapped by an abstract painting of a lock across their mighty wooden gates, and paintings of sharp spikes along their high-city-facing walls. As yet unable to undo this art magic, they are reduced to entering and leaving by way of their back stairs into the Smoke.

House von Korps blames the murder on three burglars from the low city – a difficult-looking woman, a battered-looking veteran, and a wild-eyed man with an unkempt beard – although the reason for this charge is unclear. The von Korps have offered a bounty of 100 sp each for the apprehension of these ne’er-do-wells.

During the chaos, a cart being moved by von Korps soldiers overturned on the high city promenade, spilling half a dozen bodies. Witnesses were conflicted as to whether they were alive or dead. …