Living Conversation

Living conversation involves organic life forms, including sentient beings. It is primarily used for the purposes of healing and growth, but also has the potential to cause harm to living things. Students who specialize in living conversation often go on to be Healers, and must study the body intimately in order to become adept and healing it; other possible careers include botanist, veterinarian, surgeon and many others.

Living conversation is the favoured conversation in Hesse.

How It Works

Living conversation ennervates cells and stimulates chemicals that change living things. Because of the potential for massive, damaging changes to the body as the result of this type of conversation, spells have to be carefully constructed with a full, working knowledge of the body. Simple living spells involve subtle but widespread changes, or small, inconsequential changes: stitching small wounds, or giving someone a headache by rapidly decreasing their blood pressure. More complex spells involve intricate knowledge of anatomy and the function of every inch of the body. Only well-trained Healers, the galdori equivalent of doctors, are equipped to deal with this level of skill.

Living spells also affect plant and animal life, and in the same vein, only those who have dedicated themselves to the study of the life form they are working on have the expertise to do complex conversation. Simpler living spells might include the stimulation of growth in plants or animals, but only botanists and veterinarians would be able to use living conversation to its fullest potential.

At its most extreme, living conversation can produce effects that some consider to be unnatural by unlocking the cellular potential in living things.

Limitations

Living conversation is limited by biological realities, but what is medically possible by living conversation standards far surpasses the secular possibilities of medicine. While it is possible to reanimate dead tissues immediately after death, any tissue decay will cause the brain to be non-functional. Living conversation disproves the 'spark of life' theory that life is completely gone once brain activity ceases.

As with all conversation, living conversation requires concentration, but it also requires some sort of distance from the target of the spell. It is exceedingly difficult to cast living conversation on one's own body. Laypeople who have not had healing training often cause themselves great harm by attempting to stitch their own wounds.

Branches of Living Conversation

Coming Soon.

Types of Spells

Adrenaline spells stimulate the adrenal gland and produce short-lived bursts of energy, which can improve concentration and performance.
Advanced state manipulation spells are only available at an advanced level of conversation; it is possible to put the target into a kind of stasis, wherein life is preserved but metabolism and movement are halted. Used in conjunction with a protection spell, this can effectively save a life in a dangerous scenario. Other advanced state manipulation spells can cause the target to fall into a deep and long-lasting coma, age rapidly, or lose all motor function.
Anaesthetic spells mostly exist to save the target from pain by shutting down parts of the nervous system that sends pain signals to the brain.
Blood spells regulate the blood - thinning it, congealing it or removing certain impurities.
Control spells grant the caster temporary control over the body's motor functions. This is almost exclusively used for harmful intent. Varieties include spells which force movement or induce a kind of temporary rigor mortis or paralysis.
Draining spells are inherently harmful and drain the life from a living thing, causing it to wither, age rapidly, or even die.
Enhancement spells enhance the body's natural abilities. Eyesight, voice, hearing, smell, taste and touch can all be granted temporarily superhuman strength.
Immunity spells affect the body's immune system. When combined with the introduction of disease, they can either rapidly spread a disease throughout a body or render that body completely immune to the disease, effectively vaccinating it.
Nervous spells affect the nervous system, stimulating it in various ways.
Repairing spells (usually called "tissue-healing" or "bone repair" spells are the most basic building block of healing conversation. They bind broken tissue and bone together, or grow new tissue, or instruct the body to repair itself. An elementary tissue-healing spell is not automatic; the healer must know anatomy very well or they stand the risk of growing too much tissue or bone.
Sickness spells induce the side effects of diseases without actually infecting the target with disease.

Known and Published Spell Examples

Note: each Living Conversation spell can be modified for different species of plant and animal. In school, students learn how to use these spells on humanoids, but in their basic form they will have different effects or be disastrous if used on other animals. You must modify these spells to account for different anatomy, which means your character must have a basic understanding of said anatomy.

Adrenaline: Increases adrenaline flow in target, making them temporarily a little more physically capable.
Anesthetic: This spell has a great many variations, each of which operate differently. One variety increases chemicals within the brain to mimic the effects of anesthetics or analgesics. Another variety rapidly decreases the energy in a target, making them temporarily sleepy and unaware. This spell is commonly used in medicine.
Ashes: A burst of carbon ashes is expelled from the caster's hands, and can be used to temporarily blind or obscure someone's vision. A quick-cast spell.
Bristle: Cause a nervous reaction in your target. His hair will raise and his adrenaline will be spurred on, causing him to encounter a fight/flight instinct. This spell has almost no discernible side effect.
Congeal: Slows blood flow and encourages clotting. Used to stop blood loss, but can be quite painful to endure.
Deep Vision: Your eyes become adjusted to the darkness and you can see even in the blackest of pits. Causes a glow to emit from the eyes.
Grow: Speeds up tissue growth. At a basic level, this can be used to grow new skin over wounds or stimulate the growth of a plant. When used in healing medicine, this spell is called Heal Tissue. This spell is usually cast in succession until the entire problem area is healed. It is a slow process but becomes more effective with level. At more advanced levels this can repair massive tissue damage.
Hibernate: Causes the metabolism of a living target to slow substantially. In people and animals, it causes the breathing and pulse to also slow dramatically. While under this spell, the target uses very few nutrients.
Immunity: Boosts the immune system of a target, making it more difficult for them to become ill from natural diseases or succumb to poison.
Infertility: Disrupts the target's ability to reproduce. This spell is particularly shaky, because it is short-term, could create permanent infertility, or could simply just not function at all.
Nausea: Plays with the gag reflexes of a target, causing them to suddenly lose their lunch.
Pain: Stimulates the nerves in the skin again, but much more intensely, causing excruciating pain for around ten seconds at the most basic level of skill.
Paralysis: Locks up the mona in a living being completely. Breath stops, but life is preserved. Considered an offensive spell because the effects are incredibly painful, as mental functions remain. Difficult to break. Lasts several hours.
Reanimation: Reverses brain death. Must be used on the target within three hours of brain death.
Rigor: Simulates rigor mortis in living tissue. Makes the target's ability to move barely possible, if at all. Limited duration.
Silence: Cause your target to lose his/her voice for a significant period of time. Possibility of backlash, which would render the caster unable to cast any more spells.
Skin Crawl: Stimulates the nerves in the skin, giving the heebie-jeebies, or the sensations of bugs crawling over them for a few minutes. A variation, Tickle, is less severe and easier to cast, and is sometimes used by younger students as a prank. There are literally hundreds of varieties of this spell devised by pranksters throughout the centuries.
Stasis: Causes every molecule inside the target to freeze, stopping all metabolism and movement. The subject effectively becomes as hard as a rock, and just as hard to damage. Lasts several hours or until broken. Considered a beneficial spell, used to protect casters who are under duress.
Sting: Stimulates the glands to produce painful, stinging welts. Variations include Boils, Weals, Lashes and Pox.
Stitch Wound: Closes an open wound. This is usually used in conjunction with Heal Tissue. It is a spell combination of Adhere and Grow.
Vocal Augmentation: Your vocal cords resonate at superhuman frequencies, allowing your voice to be heard from very far away.
Wakefulness: Awakens the target from sleeping, or even a coma. Very unstable and not always successful.
Wither: Causes an organic life form to shrivel as all moisture is sucked from it. Can be used on people, but not very effective at an elementary level; increasingly effective as the caster progresses in level.

Specialty Living Spells

Alioe's Eye: Gives the caster the ability to see long distances, as long as there is a line of sight.
The Shun of Imaan: The target begins aging at an extreme rate, temporarily. Depending on the time of the casting, a person can age several years, or wither into a crone. In the most extreme cases, the caster reduces the target to a mass of rot. Almost guaranteed backlash of some sort. A very dangerous spell only attempted by the most advanced galdori.
The Touch of Naulas: Requires the caster to physically touch the target. The target experiences a deep chill, and then falls into a deep sleep, which quickly results in a coma. Within a few days or so of the spell, the target's life simply gives out, killing the target. However, if the target recieves healing within this time, they will recover, so it is in the caster's best interest to keep the prone target away from help. This spell is almost guaranteed heavy backlash, including wracking pains, internal bodily problems, and sometimes falling into the same condition as the target. The Touch of Naulas is rarely ever employed, and for good reason.