Tattoo Magic
by Simon

Magicus Profundis. Scroll 38

Tsonglas, A., (D.M). Some Notes on the use of vivoglyphic (tattoo) magic by primitive tribes.

Certain primitive magicians (shamans) from villages along the Northwestern coast of Landsrue, rather than using scrolls, inscribe spells upon their own flesh by using needles dipped into magic ink. These articles are based on interviews conducted with a native practitioner of this art. How he came to be in Ramsgate is beyond the scope of this article.

There are many legends and misconceptions about vivoglyphs which I hope to dispell. The spells are not just scrolls written onto the skin of the practitioner, although that is probably the closet analogy familiar to most magicians. Instead of being written on the surface of the skin with a pen or a brush a needle dipped into magical ink is poked repeatedly into the outer layer of skin. This moderately painful and delicate procedure is accompanied by an incantation in the native tongue of the magician. The ink appears to be mostly octopus or kraken ink, in this case with some ashes of bear liver and eagles eye added, although the magician would not let me do a detailed analysis of the ingredients, citing his oath of secrecy to the clan. As with most primitive potions, it is not clear that a detailed analysis would be very helpful. Typically, most of the ingredients and half of the incantations used by primitives turn out to be superstitions rather than useful components in shaping the mana.

These glyphs radiate a faint magical aura, similar to a scroll, but it seems to serve as a channel for the mana as the caster uses the spell. It is interesting to see the glyphs cast, because they are simply peeled off and cast. After seeing this done, it is apparent to this observer that while this requires only minimal incantation, the mana cost to the caster is the same as if the spell was cast from thin air. This dispels the notion that these glyphs could be used to store up a greater supply of spells than the caster could use in air. However, according to the magician, these glyphs can be written by one magician onto another, and the difficulty is in the inscribing, not the casting, so they could be used to give apprentices some experience with casting spells beyond their ability.

Just like the way that a conventional magician gets better with spells, the barbarian requires less incantation to cast them, as these natives get better, they can write these glyphs smaller and smaller. To figure out how many spells they can inscribe on their bodies, they use the "rule of elevenths." Each arm is figured to be an eleventh of the skin area of the caster, the front and back of each leg an eleventh, the head an eleventh, and the front and back of the torso are each two elevenths. Depending of the level of the spell and the abiltiy of the caster, the glyph may take up between two elevenths, or a half of an eleventh of the skin area of the caster. Most of these casters shave their heads to get more skin to inscribe, particularly since the head is rarely covered with clothing and is therefore accessible at a moments notice. Some spells are however relegated to the torso, either because they are too complicated to fit on the head, or are secret, and not to be exposed.

Many of the spells are said to be related to various native totems (bear, eagle, otter etc..) It is not clear whether this represents actual aspecting of the mana used for these spells, or the "mystery cult" status of native magic education. One limitation that seems to be clear is that these spells are cast from living flesh, to living flesh and have no ability to directly affect non-living matter. The natives refer to this as "live magic" as opposed to "dead magic." Therefore, most elemental magic would seem to be precluded. While a fireball can set somebody on fire, its affect on flesh is a side effect of the fundamental manashaping of the elements.

According to the magician, in primitive (!) tribes further from the coast, instead of using ink under the skin, they rub powdered "flying deer horn" (believed to be peryton) into stylus cuts into the skin, thus raising ropy scars which serve a similar function to the inked vivoglpyhs. This probably represents the origin of this form of native spell casting.