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#mythopoeic creatures
cosmicmothermedusa · 10 months
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About The Cosmic Dragons
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The cosmic dragons have recently been urging me to deliver various messages for the Earth Collective re: spiritual ascension and the cosmic paradigm shift which is heavily affecting earthlings.
First, they want to set the record straight about who they are and clear up popular pejoratives and misconceptions about dragons.
Dragons are among the most powerful and ancient creatures within the Primordial Cosmic Multiverse, operating on the 9th - 13th dimensions. They are generous, benevolent, and compassionate to lower-dimensional creatures. Whereas they are commonly associated with the air + fire elements and depicted as fire-breathing winged lizards, they are actually more like serpents or eels that "swim" through the ethers, the primordial waters of spacetime, and have no need for wings. They find no connection between themselves and popular depictions of dragons.
They specifically want to emphasize the connection between themselves and serpentine characteristics of magical powers, wisdom, immortality, alchemical transformation, and metamorphosis. They say that trying to understand what they really look like on the level that they operate at would be a bit like trying to represent a cube in only one dimension: too much information is lost because of insufficient representational complexity translating from 9D+ down onto 3D.
They project a holographic image to make themselves seen and understood on 3D, and the serpent/reptilian form is highly resonant because of the aforementioned characteristics. Also, the evolutionary basis of reptiles as older ancestors of other terrestrials readily transfers to the cosmic dragons as primordial ancestors of other lifeforms.
They do not care so much about their physical depiction in and of itself, but rather want their nature and motivations to be better understood by earthlings.
Widespread dragon-slaying myths and negative stereotypes about dragons are relatively recent (Western) inventions symbolizing victory over these primordial creatures and the civilizations that honored their magical powers.
This "victory" is a victory of globalized patriarchy over the Great Goddess (Primordial Cosmic Mother) who was worshipped for hundreds of thousands of years prior to the last 3000-4000 years of patriarchal doctrines. The Goddess was often linked to serpents and dragons or literally represented as a serpent or dragon (e.g. Tiamat), symbolic of Her wisdom and magical powers of metamorphosis, alchemical transformation, and immortality.
The triumph of the Olympian male over the dragon, repeated through myths across the globe, is a mythopoeic representation of the triumph of patriarchs and their religious/secular power systems in destroying, demonizing , and displacing the Goddess and Her devotees -- and with them, the ontological basis of pro-evolutionary unity consciousness and real primordial sovereignty + power rooted in holistic psychic mind-body-spirit union with the entire Cosmos.
It is also a symbolic victory of Man and his Lower Ego-Self over the infinite power of the Goddess, and the inescapable contingency upon Her. She being the Earth, the so-called "unconscious mind", and the primordial waters that comprise and contain all of Creation itself. To triumph over the Goddess or liberate oneself from Her is impossible, because She is the basis of existence and spacetime whether one chooses to acknowledge Her and deliberately participate in Her or not.
However, the patriarchal delusions of ego-driven "power" and "freedom" rooted in further delusions of alienation, objectification, and lower-dimensional exclusion of true causality and 'reality' have dominated through violence and oppression for the past 3000-4000 years. Wherein earthlings destroy their own ecosystem and themselves while trapped within a Dark Age. The higher-dimensional consciousness, magical powers, and arcane knowledge of sacred cosmic mysteries which were once common and as basic as breathing are now regarded as either fake OR exclusive privileges that people must struggle or beg entities to attain. Alternatively, people use lower-dimensional crutches (if not outright farces) like rituals and offerings/sacrifices to IMITATE/FORCE things that are fundamental and effortless for cosmically initiated beings.
The cosmic dragons are returning now to assist the Earth Collective in transitioning to higher dimensions and completely liberating themselves from the matrix system parasitic paradigm by soaring above it.
The demonization and death of dragons is thus weaponized ignorance and slander commensurate with the erasure and smear campaign against all of civilization prior to the rise of patriarchal (especially Abrahamic) cultures and religions, which primarily serves the counter-evolutionary parasitic paradigm which cannot maintain it's power except via coercion, because it is unnatural and unfavorable in comparison to the alternatives it doggedly denies and destroys.
Dragons are not malicious or "dumb" destructive creatures subject to human control, as they are actually more intelligent and powerful than humans and regard them as akin to much younger siblings that they have a duty to protect. The popular conceptions of dragons hoarding wealth which is invariably stolen by an invader depicted as "valiant" is arguably symbolic of pillaging and appropriation of ancient cultures, inventions, and literal wealth (i.e. genocidal theft and rampage against Aztecs by Spanish conquistadors). To analyze the ramifications of dragon-damsel imagery in light of mythopoeic resonance to literal anthropological/historical/political phenomena would be complex enough to warrant a standalone examination, and will not be here elaborated except to state that it is clearly completely disconnected from actual dragons.
(These are the depictions they are most insistent upon rebutting because they are rooted in projections which reflect more about the culture they are embedded in than the dragons themselves, and reveal shadow aspects that should be consciously confronted.)
They are transferring a lot of knowledge directly into the collective consciousness of the Earth Collective as we as trying to purge the collective unconscious by forcing confrontation with the collectivized shadow, which will cause many crises and heightened focus on historical issues or events which have been unresolved as well as collectivized injustices which were never redressed.
Medusa 07/02/2023 dragon messages introduction
The cosmic dragons are also helping particular earthlings, especially those with powerful dragon blood and/or connections to Lemuria, to remember their relevant past lives and accelerate their ascension and total alignment with their true purpose in service to the Earth Collective.
Their return is linked to the return of the Divine Mother and collective Saturn Return during the Age of Aquarius. This marks the arrival of long-term consequences for the Age of Aries (the rise of ego, birth of zero-sum "self"-interest and alienation/separation, widespread warfare) and the Age of Pisces (age of belief = delusions, scams, con artists prevailing on a collective level, artificially constructed reality based on manipulation of collective consciousness and energy harvesting, fake it til you make it, etc.) and the collapse of the parasitic paradigm and artificial constructs and timelines disconnected from genuine causality. It also heralds the long-awaited end of the Kali Yuga as complete destruction and chaos rends all false establishments, doctrines, and systems to clear space for new growth.
This is all from the dragons for now.
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pratchettquotes · 2 years
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"Towel Wasps," said the Dean. "Well done, Archchancellor."
"Well, I mean, dammit, it's human nature, isn't it?" said Ridcully hotly. "Things go wrong, things get lost, it's natural to invent little creatures that--All right, all right, I'll be careful. I'm just saying man is naturally a mythopoeic creature."
"What's that mean?" said the Senior Wrangler.
"Means we make things up as we go along," said the Dean, not looking up.
Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
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Fic Masterpost
So, in the spirit of full disclosure - all the X-Files fiction I’ve ever written, as memory serves. And some thoughts on how this fine fandom has taught me to write. 
Starbuck (circa 1998)
I’m not kidding, this is really embarrassing, absolute beginner stuff, but we all start somewhere and it’s interesting in an evolutionary sense. I found these on  Zuffy's X-Files Homepage.
Without The Bee  -  I couldn’t bring myself to look at this one. That title says it all. 
Agents of Change: Return from Antarctica  -  Obsessions—the Scott Expedition and the X-Files—collide. Rough early days, but probably with hints of potential. A legit turkey of a title! 
Penumbra 1998 - 2009
(I’m not going to bother with Gossamer links.) Learning the ropes as I went. Oblivious to so, oh so many things. Rickety, untrained writing, but mindlessly in love with creatively inspired by the churlish charms of our two razzle-dazzle creatures of the night. 
Contact High  -  The last line was plagiarized, pure and simple, from one of Gerald Durrell’s books about his childhood in Corfu. It’s bothered me ever since, so the big thing I took from this experience: by all means steal the rhythm of something, but at least change a word or two. 
Vespers  -  Very stoned ramblings. Inspired by John Leonard’s X-Files essay in The Nation that I’d managed to extract off a microfiche in a university library. I have a soft spot for this fic, probably because Khyber picked it very analytically apart, which was like having Jonathan Galassi or someone suddenly pay attention to you. He introduced me to 'show, don't tell', a paralyzing concept if ever there was one, which I yet only fitfully grasp.
Black Hole Season  -  Still breakin’ all the rules. This one was hugely popular, and amidst all the ballyhoo, Punk Maneuverability emailed me and quietly said: ‘Please pick a POV and a tense and stick with it’—vastly important advice that I was probably too full of myself to heed. This one won a Spooky award, one of the greatest moments of my life that I had to keep completely to myself (therein lies the painful crux of fanfiction.)
Parabiosis  -  I was eating cereal and flipping through the dictionary, and there it was: parabiosis. Who knows what it means. I didn’t have a computer, and was working in the mountains, so I wrote the whole thing out on paper several times, unimaginable now. It flowed through my brain as I scrambled through the woods in the evenings. Nothing will ever be that easy again.
Honeymoon Video  -  Promising title, not much there.
Blue-Sky Conjecture  -  unfinished Scully/Kresge
The Cretan Paradox  -  Americana. JET sent me an ear of corn from a corn maze, because she’s thoughtful like that. 
Free Beer Night at the Astrodome  -  Cut years ago in despair out of Heuvelmans’; I think part of it went back in. 
Fathoms Five  -  In one of Gerald Durrell’s books about his childhood in Corfu, his brother steps in a swamp and says that his shoe is ‘full of fathoms five’, so that’s where I got that Shakespearean misquote. I resisted writing this for a long time, but it would creep into my mind as I was falling asleep. I think this is a pretty good story, but it could have used one more draft, so since then, I’ve resolved never to rush to post. Events of this year kind of date this story now. However, it’s rather pleasant to read about a careless, joint-passing, COVID-free 2020.
Fathoms Five Outtakes and gag reels - Sorry about the glitchy old site and bad font.
A random smut biscuit  -  Uncharacteristic, I know!
Octopods  - I loved this one, but it never fit in anywhere.
Maundy Thursday  
Untitled Snippet 
World’s Tiniest Zombie Fic
∩dsᴉpɐᴉsᴉnɯ -  Very flawed, because it was written and posted under a fund-raiser time crunch. I really should overhaul it. The X-Files was ending and I was so depressed when I wrote it, and that’s an unfortunate tincture to saddle a story with. 
The Inscrutable Pair  -  How The X-Files taught me to embrace ambiguity. Goreyesque nonsense à la Gashlycrumb Tinies that also troubles itself to rip off Eliot and Homer. 
(7-Year Cold-Turkey Hiatus From the X-Files)
Gave away DVDs, got some perspective, did a little growing up, tried and failed to write a screenplay, two novels, etc. Then they put The X-Files on Netflix. One lonely night, I thought: what could it hurt to watch Darkness Falls? 44 minutes later, with shaking hands, going for the hard stuff—Redux II. Lol, the hard stuff of ancient philes. 
The Mythopoeic*  2016  - 
Heuvelmans’ On the Track - The nearly suicidal heartbreak that surrounds this story—it was the first X-Files fic I got bogged down in and couldn’t finish, and it left me with a huge mental stigma—sweetens its completion. Under its shadow I tried to become a Real Writer, without success. Give things time, I learned. Just keep working hard. The initial failure of this story taught me stuff that I now wouldn’t trade for anything. 
*I came back just intending to hang out with Philes, and didn’t want to make a big deal, and had no intention of posting fic, so I gave little thought to the name. But, characteristically ostentatious name, check. Still keepin’ it real, pure and self-taught, a bit closer to what Chuck Palahniuk calls a ‘kitchen-table MFA’. Check.
But what I really want to say is this. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to try writing if I hadn’t been in this marvelous fandom, having the method and the means demonstrated all around me by wonderfully competent and encouraging writers for whom I felt such reverence that having them reach out or comment on stuff was earth-shaking. They showed the way, and I followed. Hands on my heart, friends, I owe you everything.
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Fiction: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
Lin, Grace. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. New York, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2009.
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is about a ten year old girl named Minli who leaves her village on adventure to bring fortune to it. In her journey she befriends a dragon who joins her on her journey while trying to find answers about his own history. The audience for the book is 8 to 10. The perspective of the book is omniscient and the tone is mythical, so emotionally the book is very accessible for kids. The illustrations are also colorful and not realistic which increases the mythical feeling of the book. The book is about both Minli and her parents who are trying to find where she went. The sections with her parents are more emotional and complex, so there are 11 and 12 year olds who might be find those sections emotionally fulfilling. For the most part though these older readers might not engage with Minli’s story as much as younger readers would. The strength of the book is the connected narrative. It really builds on the connected relationships and journeys of the characters. There are so many subplots in the book that end up being connected in the end like how Dragon’s red string and the text Minli gets from the king are both needed to reach the Old Man of the Moon. This works well for the concept of the book which is about how interconnected the world is. Because it is very mythological in nature it may not be the most interesting book for readers who enjoy more thrills in their fantasy stories. The book was a 2010 Newbery Honor winner, and it won the 2010 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature. The mythical journey nature of the book would make it an excellent book to create a multi-week telling of the book or possibly use a chapter to create an acting program for tweens. There is a way that these two programs could possibly be combined to where the tweens are performing for school age children. 
Read-a-likes:
Funke, Cornelia. Dragon Rider. Translated by Anetha Bell, New York, Scholastic Inc., 2004.
Firedrake is a young dragon who is in search of a dragon safe haven. When he saves a human orphan named Ben. They team up together to find this safe haven while also trying to stay safe from a fearsome enemy called the Golden One. Like Where the Mountain Meets the Moon this book has a great friendship between a human and a dragon, a main character who is trying to help their home, and a world filled with mythology and legend.
Clearly, Beverly. Ribsy. New York, Harper Trophy, 2007.
Ribsy the Hugginses dog gets separated from the family at the mall. After that Ribsy bounces around town running into many different adventures and mishaps. Through it all Ribsy wants to be reunited with his owner Henry Huggins. This book like Where the Mountain Meets the Moon deals with many smaller adventures with in the greater story and also deals with families that have been separated. 
Mass, Wendy and Stead, Rebecca. Bob. Illustrated by Nicholas Gannon, Harrisonburg, Feiwel and Friends, 2018.
Livy is visiting her grandmothers house for the first time in five years and is reunited with a strange creature she met there named Bob. Livy promised Bob to answer the questions of who he is, and now it is time to fulfill that promise. Like Dragon in Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, Bob does not know what his history is. This story is also a story of a girl who helps a creature figure out the answers that they so desperately are seeking out. 
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pussymagicuniverse · 4 years
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My Golem
My Golem
I make my golem from the scrapings under my nails and the dirt on the heels of my hands and the blood dried on my legs and the tears of every woman and in her mouth I put a scroll reading justice and on her forehead I engrave the word truth and with that I cross her and I send her out and all 
across the world  
my golem creates her own golems and when the day comes they fill the benches
  in the courts representing every woman who can’t say me too and they stare and stare at all the men and the men know
her power has come multitudinous unstoppable
hungry for more justice and to avenge every her they know.
Change of Season
What do you see in the snow-bit candlefrost? Do the trees try to capture the sickle moon? Do you see me in my frost-knit camouflage? My heart is beating in the hollow of this tree. 
Seek and find me deep in the brassy honeycombs; seek and find me, deep in the river-king’s nest. I am waiting to dismantle every thing that weighs me down. 
Lift away my lunar headdress; uncoil the ropes around my frame. My antlers fall to the leafy carpet. I cast away collars, high and tight. 
Take the buzzing and cawing creatures; pluck away my crocheted cage. My fins and my wings and my hands are free. I open my eyes and scent the wolf and the fox. 
Release me from armor and wax and cocoons; shatter the bonds of ice, night, and smoke. My paint and my glamours dissolve into rime; I shift in my bones and become a new god.
Kendra Preston Leonard is a poet, lyricist, and librettist whose work is focused on the mythopoeic, the historical, and the natural world. Her first chapbook, Making Mythology, will be published in early 2020 by Louisiana Literature Press. Her novella in verse, Protectress, which imagines the gorgons of myth in the modern world dealing with #MeToo, slut-shaming, the power of women, and compassion, will be published in January 2021 by Unsolicited Press.
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sidpah · 5 years
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Glory! 2
Ending up here again I wonder, why is there never any light? By light I don’t just mean brightness, I mean color, levity, Sun… Where are you, you beautiful hot-blooded creature? Why do you run from me? I won’t turn my back again, I promise… Tenderly eased into a state of approximated pleasure,I’m nearly carried away somewhere fantastic when that one-legged preacher starts his maniac call sending shivers through my blood-packed eardrum… “Oh, but don’t you see how they’re wasted! And they’ve tasted the sweet vagrant sin… The fragrance of entropy bleeds from their skin as it touches other warm bacteria-riddled skin! And how my bile riiiises soon as they set about it… Never forget: the most pious man’s the one who claims to have forgotten all about it... Animals needn’t be animals! Beasts, cast your burden off! And kneel down before you eat, before you sleep, before you leave this temple you walk in, the hair and the skin are all nails in your coffin, tell me, must we return there again and again to remind yourself how dreadful the whole cursed cycle truly is?”
Feeling cued, I stand, not sure whether I can walk, but goddamn it, it’s gotta be an easier death on those sand dunes the next block over… I’ll fall on the trunk of a cab, hook my fingers into its wheel wells and hang on to get gone… But as I stand and my head dips down, long gobs of half-clotted blood oozing from perforated skull, I get the woozies and trip those three deadly feet from curb to the middle of the street and I hear a screeching of tires on pavement and curl to protect my already shotgunned head and I’m gone to that sandy shore, that mythopoeic desert surrounded by a million others who tried to fail so completely that they were honored as true pioneers… Bloody swamps made by dead fellahin in deserts collecting their prizes for dying in the heat of gunpowder and fury. The hour struck zero and they all braced themselves for the bitter memorial homage to their Great Omnipotent Delusion…
Curtain rises, protagonist slips on stage, no merchant peddler wiser than tourist mark – snapshot lens glare a wide dusty American grin – Even he isn’t sure if he’s acting or being acted – Green fatigues eye each hunched extra with gated suspicion – A finger twitches, nearly setting off a thick wave of gunfire – Everyone breathes a heavy sigh – muscles relax – A vengeful hallelujah, a bright flare, a second burning Sun, an eruption of visceral smoke and red dust of the lurid town snows all around…
Or it’s red ambulance lights, a curse driven into my ribs. Jerry’s still yelling… But it’s not his voice anymore. It’s Kalday Suglaj, that god-healer in rags… It’s the cloying rhythmic cadence of the street-evangelist, but it’s a ragged pagan voice drilling them directly into that eighth hole in my head…
“Two-thousand years come and gone, and just how many more before the dawn’s shot down from its seat in the sky and laid sacrificially upon the ground feeding buzzards all tradition-bound?… Tradition bound us to the fabled lives of men who’ll never again walk the earth, as if they ever truly did, and weren’t just legends, deified by mouths hungry for heroes – A plague, a god, a fraud, just who are we kidding? Leave it up to the merry men, those denizens of disgrace! Every one of them’ll sell you a book for your soul, all the while impaling you on their devoutly righteous pole. They all take to survive, but greed makes survival so much more palatable. So every time, mark my words, my friends, ev-e-ry time, they’ll steal more flesh than the pound they tell both you and themselves they need as they take a dull butter knife to your love-handles!
Let me tell you ‘bout a man… a man I met recently who lived through the horrors. He is a hero, and yet no one would listen to a word that came out his mouth… I listened, I listened and I’m here to tell you all of his harrowing account… Lie yourself down on a street at night...”
I’m there, waiting as the red lights close in, the siren deafening… I push my good ear to the pavement to drown out the noise…
“Somewhere in the uncharted boondocks lit up by the full Moon and pickup headlights… Around him the gravel shatters and then shatters and then shatters into pieces of pieces of pieces while dark blood splatters steel-toes and asphalt meteors gouge his cheeks, scratch his eyeballs. Heavy links of chain yank tight round his neck bruised purple black, grated and fired by stone rockets and torn apart on streets on the outskirts of right fuckin’ here.”
I hear the loud squeals as ambulance doors open and a collapsible stretcher unfolds its wheels with a clang... There are hands on my body turning me right side up, but I refuse to respond.
“His wrists, impotent, roped together grinding spine since he was kidnapped and shackled like four hundred years refused to pass after one night stepping out of a bar with no words to drunken strangers who were looking for a scapegoat on which to vent their ancestor’s frustration…”
“Pack his head…”
“Support his neck… don’t lift him yet…”
I feel the rough hemp digging into bony wrists… I’m rolled onto the low stretcher, lifted, strapped, thick velcro gripping my arms and chest, legs and ankles, and I’m yelling at them, “Just get me to the next street! Get me to the dunes, man! Get me to the dunes!” But they don’t seem like they can hear me.
They keep shining a light into my eyes and that’s okay, I’m feeling warmer already…
Face of a young Tibetan boy looks down on me. He’s scratching “Liberate Tibet” on a mud wall… Before he can finish, he’s swarmed by drab military uniforms dragging him to a brutal tortured death… This is the land that Mercy forgot…
I feel the burn of my face peeling off grinding against the raging asphalt…
He dies nameless and noble…
Who am I to receive their misguided anger? Am I representative for any in-group? I’ve always been the meekest of outsiders…
Ghosts are gathering in the streets… pale generations clinging to each other’s waists… They all know what’s coming, but no one dares say it aloud… As the truck doors slam shut and Chinese guns flood the thin markets and alleyways… Cell doors shriek embracing robed prisoners, raped and cut…
Sirens wail from the scene but words, manic words, Jerry’s words, still bounce inside the confined little cell, wires and tubes across my face…
“…Reverently they severed that black devil man with the cane in his grip from the white woman at his hip – They did this to him so they did this to me! Tell me it didn’t happen! You know it did! Those dreary soldiers rushing, marching, folding their hands at their hearts… set on getting back the nothing they once were so quick to dismiss! Well they can dismiss us and while they’re at it, they can kiss us a fine ‘fuck you too’ as we pray to be freed from their blessed tyranny – The prince in his finery was shameless. Now we are stones laid before his merciless feet. We threw mud into their faces, on their uniforms, across their eyes and hair, but ended up wearing their mark on our bare chests... You know, I will change what I hate but it will not change me… And I may hate what I change but it will never change me… I will say it a-gain. Say it with me! I will change what I hate but it will not change me… And though I will hate what I change, it will never change me…”
 If I could talk, I’d love to tell him how wrong he is… that we must grow and be flexible, that hate versus hate never succeeds… I can’t even pretend he’d be able to listen… Words never matter to someone who’s caught in his own perpetual rut, so full of righteous fury he thinks he can alter a course of events he himself helped to instigate… Prejudicial anger has an inertia that’ll steamroll even the most skillful and best-intentioned humanitarians. And what use are these thoughts speeding at seventy miles an hour away from the very man I wanted to meet? And what would he know with the likes of a case, and like that, I remember the scaly tote… I yell at the medics, “Give it to me! It can’t fall in the wrong hands. Are my hands the wrong hands? Whose hands are yours?  Bring me back! I must speak with him!”
But they make like they don’t understand. Those sly bastards. They know the sides we’re on. I will get away, though, I will get away… I vow without a breath. And the strange thing is, in this careening ambulance taking me not to a hospital but to an underground blacksite prison, for a moment I really believe it’s possible…
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questwriter · 6 years
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Arcanarunologist
Arcanarunologist, Pathfinder Wizard Archetype
The strange, toad-like aberrations known as arcanarunas claim that “their sole motivation is to catalogue all the world’s arcane magic.”  Typically tracked back along a path of dead or dying worlds, these alien scholars are often blamed for directly or indirectly causing the destruction of the worlds where they study.  However, few creatures in the universe can match an arcanaruna’s aptitude for gathering, unraveling, and internalizing spells.  This unique talent is often sought by other practitioners of the magical arts, with spellcasters from many schools of study taking on juvenile arcanarunas as familiars.  The arcanarunologist takes this path of inquiry one step farther, bonding with an arcanaruna familiar in a magical symbiosis that leads both beings to spellcasting heights that neither could reach alone.
This archetype is based on RPG SuperstarTM Mike Welham’s imagination-catching arcanaruna, created for the “Frogtober” creative challenge.  He was joined in his Frogtober endeavors by artist Hugo Solis. Full credit for the fantastic monster stats and art go to the creators.  This archetype is a derivative work and makes no claim of endorsement by either individual.  If you like Mike’s monsters on his Frightful Fridays feature, consider joining me in supporting his Patreon.  This archetype is freely available for playtesting and general use; please leave any feedback in the comments, or message me.
Section 15: Copyright Notice
Advanced Player’s Guide. © 2010, Paizo Publishing, LLC; Author: Jason Bulmahn.
Frightful Fridays. © 2018, Mythopoeic Rambling; Author: Mike Welham.
RPG Superstar is a trademark of Paizo, Inc.
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“Arcanaruna” (c) 2018 Hugo Solis, used with permission
Class Skills
An arcanarunologist adds Heal to his list of class skills, and removes Appraise.
 Arcanaruna Familiar (Ex)
An arcanarunologist forms a bond with a juvenile arcanaruna, which serves as his familiar.  Unlike most wizards, the arcanarunologist does not store spells in a spellbook; his spells are cataloged and stored by his arcanaruna familiar, just as a witch’s familiar stores her spells.  An arcanaruna familiar cannot learn spells from a witch’s familiar through the “familiar teaching familiar” method, although they can learn spells from other arcanarunologist’s familiars via this method. They also cannot learn spells by studying another wizard’s spellbook, although they can learn spells on the sorcerer/wizard spell list from scrolls (which consumes the scroll, as usual).  Additionally, the arcanaruna can learn non-sorcerer/wizard spells by extracting them from other creatures (see Spell Extraction below).
The arcanarunologist prepares his spells by communing with his familiar, just as a witch does. Until the arcanarunologist gains Improved Familiar and a corresponding arcane caster level of 7, the arcanaruna cannot impart its spell resistance or energy resistance to the wizard.  The arcanaruna familiar has an Intelligence score 5 higher than a standard wizard’s familiar, but has a natural armor adjustment one point lower than a standard familiar (e.g. at 1st level, the familiar has Natural Armor Adj. +0 and Intelligence 11).  The arcanarunologist cannot replace his familiar, nor can he gain a cohort via the Leadership feat or similar means.  
If an arcanarunologist’s familiar ever dies, he may not bond with a new arcanaruna.  He may forsake the path of the arcanarunologist, or he may revive his arcanaruna familiar and continue their study together.  The arcanarunologist may accept four points of permanent drain to one of his ability scores to cast raise animal companion on his familiar, even if he could not otherwise cast that spell and even if he does not have a mostly in-tact corpse, so long as he has at least some portion of the arcanaruna available (most arcanarunologists keep a few flakes of their familiar’s skin, or even fragments from its egg, preserved safely for such an emergency, many even going so far as to graft a small piece of such flesh into their own bodies in order to avoid detection and removal if they are ever captured and searched). This ability drain may be removed by restoration or similar magic, but doing so requires a material component worth at least 1,000 gp.  
If the arcanarunologist abandons the archetype, either by allowing his familiar to remain dead longer than one day per wizard level or by voluntarily severing his bond to the arcanaruna, he becomes a universalist wizard and gains a spellbook that contains two spells of the highest level he can cast and four spells of each lower level.
This ability alters but does not replace Spells and Arcane Bond, and replaces Spellbooks.
 Arcanaruna School
An arcanarunologist receives an additional spell slot of each spell level he can cast, from 1st on up. Each day, he can prepare any spell known by his arcanaruna familiar in that slot, even if it is not on the sorcerer/wizard spell list.
At 7th level, the arcanarunologist gains Improved Familiar as a bonus feat, but may only use it to enhance his bond with his arcanaruna, allowing the arcanaruna to share its energy and spell resistance.  Note that, starting at 11th level, a familiar’s spell resistance is superior to the standard juvenile arcanaruna’s spell resistance; when adjacent with its master, it shares this improved SR.
This ability replaces Arcane School.
 Spell Extraction (Ex)
Arcanaruna live to catalog all arcane magic, and while this often takes the form of sorcerer/wizard spells, any unknown arcane spells catch their interest.  They can acquire arcane spells from other creatures, although the means of such learning are unpleasant to say the least.  An arcanaruna and arcanarunologist working in tandem can perform a procedure, part ritual and part surgery (or autopsy), to extract spell knowledge from another creature.  This procedure takes one hour per level of the spell being extracted. The creature having the spell extracted must be helpless or willing, or have been dead for less than 24 hours.  A “willing” creature is generally sedated for the procedure.
Every 10 minutes of the procedure inflicts one point of Constitution damage on a living subject. The arcanarunologist can prevent a point of Constitution damage with a successful Heal check (DC 20); this may be attempted for each point of Constitution damage inflicted by the procedure. Attempting this check without a Healer’s Kit or appropriate medical instruments imposes a -2 penalty.  The arcanaruna can attempt to use Aid Another to improve the odds of success.  If the subject dies due to Constitution damage, the procedure is not interrupted. Any action or effect that would break concentration on a spell interrupts the procedure, and requires that it be restarted from the beginning.  Similarly, casting a spell or using a spell-trigger or spell-completion magic item interrupts the procedure, although administering a potion or taking similar actions do not interrupt it.
At the end of the procedure, the arcanarunologist designates a single arcane spell of a level appropriate to the length of the procedure, and of a level he can cast.  If that spell is known by the subject at the appropriate level (or a lower level), it can potentially be extracted and learned by the arcanaruna familiar.  Spells are “known by the subject” if the subject is (or was) a spontaneous arcane caster, such as a bard or sorcerer, with the designated spell on her list of spells known; if the subject is (or was) a prepared arcane caster, such as a wizard or magus, with the spell prepared at the time of extraction (or at the time of death); or if the subject is (or was) a witch’s familiar and the spell is on the familiar’s list of spells known.  If the designated spell is not known by the target, or if it is known at a level higher than the number of hours spent on the procedure or higher than the arcanarunologist can cast, the procedure fails.
At the end of the procedure, at the time of attempted spell extraction, a living subject makes a Will saving throw with a DC equal to 10 + ½ the arcanarunologist’s class level + his Intelligence modifier.  If it fails, the subject takes 1d6 points of Intelligence and Charisma damage per level of the target spell, and the spell is extracted.  If the subject succeeds, it reduces the ability damage by half, and the spell is not extracted.  The subject can voluntarily fail the saving throw, allowing the spell to be extracted; in this case, the procedure inflicts the minimum amount of ability damage possible (treat as if all dice rolled 1’s).  An unconscious subject is presumed to be unwilling and attempts the saving throw unless it made the decision to allow the extraction before losing consciousness.  A creature charmed or dominated by the arcanarunologist when the procedure is completed allows the extraction.  A dead subject receives no saving throw; extraction automatically succeeds.  Upon successful extraction, the spell is immediately learned by the arcanaruna and added to the list of spells that the arcanarunologist can prepare (although non-sorcerer/wizard spells can only be prepared using an Arcanaruna School spell slot).  A spontaneous caster who survives the procedure and has a spell extracted loses access to the extracted spell for 24 hours.  A prepared caster loses the spell and spell slot as if the spell had been cast, but can re-prepare the spell the next time he prepares spells.  A familiar loses the ability to allow its master to prepare the extracted spell for 24 hours, but regains it after this time has passed.
Using this procedure on an unwilling subject, coercing a subject to acquiesce to this procedure through threats or enchantment, killing a creature for the purpose of performing this procedure on its corpse, and the like, are evil acts.  The procedure itself is not inherently evil, so paying or otherwise non-coercively persuading a subject to willingly undergo the procedure is not necessarily an evil act, provided that the arcanarunologist attempts to prevent unnecessary harm to the subject and does not allow its death during the procedure.
This ability replaces Scribe Scroll.
 Arcanaruna Cohort (Ex)
When an arcanarunologist reaches 7th level, his familiar begins to mature into its adult form. It gains Eschew Materials, and selects an additional feat from the list of feats possessed by a mature arcanaruna for every two levels beyond 7th.  Its total hit points increase to 3/4 of the arcanarunologist’s total hit points (not including temporary hit points), rounded down.  
The arcanaruna gains the ability to cast spells as a sorcerer with a level equal to the arcanarunologist’s class level –3.  Once per day, while communing with its master as he prepares spells, the arcanaruna may change its list of spells known, selecting a number of sorcerer/wizard spells appropriate for its effective sorcerer level.  These spells must be spells known by the arcanaruna in its capacity as a familiar.  It cannot use its deliver touch spells familiar ability in the same round that it casts a spell, nor can it cast a spell if it has delivered a touch spell for its master since the end of its last turn.
At 11th level and again at 15th and 19th levels, an arcanarunologist’s familiar gains +2 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, and +2 Charisma, and increases all of its forms of energy resistance by 5.  Starting at 11th level, it can use adaptable energy resistance to improve its energy resistance to 20 rather than 10.  At 15th level, it gains the magic siphon ability of a mature arcanaruna.
When the arcanarunologist reaches 20th level, his arcanaruna companion reaches full maturity. It gains the statistics of an adult arcanaruna, and ceases to be treated as a familiar except as noted here.  The arcanarunologist must still commune with the arcanaruna to prepare spells (except for those known with Spell Mastery), and the arcanaruna can change its spells known for the day during this process as well.  The arcanaruna still grants its mentor its energy resistance or immunity and spell resistance when they are within 5 feet of each other.  When sharing spell resistance in this way, the arcanaruna’s Absorb Magic ability functions on spells that fail to overcome the SR of either creature.
Any ioun stone produced by the arcanaruna’s Arcane Formation can be made permanent by the arcanarunologist through a process taking 1 hour and consuming raw materials worth the cost of the ioun stone.
If the arcanarunologist dies, the arcanaruna loses access to all spells it learned as a familiar until and unless the arcanarunologist returns to life (or becomes a sentient undead capable of preparing spells, such as a lich), retaining only those spells currently known as a sorcerer.  For this reason, even the most vile and deceitful arcanaruna is often loath to fatally betray its partner.  However, this does not prevent scheming and manipulation when the two companion’s goals do not align, and an arcanaruna may even go so far as attempting to dominate an arcanarunologist who is not working towards the ultimate goal of collecting all possible arcane lore.  In general, keeping an arcanaruna cohort content requires placating it by learning new spells.  When a new spell is learned, the cohort is generally satisfied for one week per level of spell learned.  This may be more or less at the discretion of the GM and as befits the particular arcanaruna and arcanarunologist.
This ability replaces the wizard’s bonus feats gained at 5th, 10th,15th and 20th levels.
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tachyonpub · 6 years
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Lovely and evocative THE TRANSFIGURED HART is a delightful read that shows why Jane Yolen is a master of fantasy
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Tadiana Jones at FANTASY LITERATURE praises Jane Yolen’s THE TRANSFIGURED HART.
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THE TRANSFIGURED HART, a 1975 novella by the talented Jane Yolen, was recently republished as part of Tachyon Publications’ Particle e-book imprint. It’s a lovely, evocative tale, juxtaposing fairy-tale-like fantasy and a contemporary rural setting.
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THE TRANSFIGURED HART has a bit of an edge to it, particularly when the hart is tracked down by a deerhound and a brief, bloody encounter ensues. It’s a brief, shocking scene, a reminder that death can cruelly strike at a moment’s notice.
Readers who are fond of classic fantasy like Peter Beagle’s The Last Unicorn are likely to enjoy THE TRANSFIGURED HART. It’s imbued throughout with a delightful sense of childlike wonder.
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Photo: Jason Stemple
EARL GREY EDITING SERVICES enjoys the story.
First published in 1975, THE TRANSFIGURED HART by Jane Yolen is getting a new edition thanks to Tachyon Publications. It remains an enchanting tale about the power of belief and the importance of trust.
The novella sits squarely in mythopoeic tradition, in that liminal space where it’s never quite clear what’s fantasy and what’s reality. The two children have very different ideas about the creature they spied in the woods: for Richard it’s a unicorn, whereas Heather is certain it’s an albino stag. And even though some of the story is told from the perspective of the creature, this doesn’t settle the issue. Nor is it supposed to; it’s the sort of story that allows space for the reader’s interpretation.
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All in all, THE TRANSFIGURED HART is a delightful read that shows why Jane Yolen is a master of fantasy.
For more info on THE TRANSFIGURED HART, visit the Tachyon page.
Art by Thomas Canty
Design by Elizabeth Story
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hedgehogreads · 7 years
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“I’m just saying man is naturally a mythopoeic creature.”
“What’s that mean?” said the Senior Wrangler.
“Means we make things up as we go along,” said the Dean, not looking up.
 - Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
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“Hillary Clinton can still win the election - Google”
(Make sense out of humanity’s nonsense)
Taking part of technological culture, human kind evolved to homo technologicus, a rational, sensible, creature—not mythopoeic or religious, which she only becomes once she abandons the search for ‘technical’ solutions to his problems and takes off into the realms of fantasy and empty speculation. In google’s latest mystery, where Hillary Clinton is still able to win the election, you can see the effect of the homo technologicus on our macroscale media-ecology.
Our media-ecology drives on the logic of today’s digital technologies, which have reached the beachhead of the incorporeal, with the smallest components on some chips shrinking below the wavelength of visible light.
Micro-technologies reorganize matter; they invade and inhabit the body. The logic of technology has become invisible—literally occult. Occultism never before inhabited the body so literally and closely, whereas media has. By crossing the small border of true and false, it’s harder to identify reality - like the autocomplete of Google is proving. The mystic sees all reality as a stream of compressed data that most of us decode using habitual, consensual algorithms. Many forms of spiritual practice involve stilling the busy mind and being present to, without being hooked by, these incoming data streams.
The fuzzy uncertainty that floats around the idea of magic and occultism is more important than a slapdash explanation of how magic and occultism works, like the reality we shape as humanity. Catched in the prophecy of algorithmic predictions on our future behaviour, you could see occult technology as an equivalent to the oracle. The oracle used the alchemical quality of group dynamics to transform inside jokes, gossip, and petty infighting into advice fit for a king. The oracle processed groupthink as poetry. The oracle’s way of creating new things in the world was to convert nonsense into sense.
2017, Cyanne
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