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Published: 2014-01-19 03:20:30 +0000 UTC; Views: 5093; Favourites: 101; Downloads: 27
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Description
ayyyyyy come look at my fucked up OC
Amalgams are mobile platforms that consist of stacked colonies of microscopic entities informally known as demons, bonded parasitically to the body of a magician. A byproduct of magic done on or near significant quantities of standing water, demons will spontaneously swarm puddles or lakes in the presence of magical energy. They crave and feed on magic, which also appears to have a cohesive effect on them: normally individualistic, single-cell-like demons will bond together while feeding and create larger and more intuitive beings.
While demons largely ignore normal humans (although ingestion of contaminated water may result in severe health problems), they will aggressively pursue magicians, who often avoid and fear water for this reason. Demons are highly parasitic in nature, and contact with bare skin will result in them burrowing into and anchoring themselves to the body of the magic user, where they will remain, feeding off their latent energy. While smaller sites of contamination on the limbs can be localized and easily removed, the same cannot be said for the unfortunate magician who falls into a teeming lake of demons.
The event is called a 'drowning' among magician lingo, and the effect is said to be similar to throwing a magnet into a pile of iron filings. The demons will maul the unlucky mage, stripping them layer-by-layer of skin, organs, and bone until only a ragged approximation remains. This becomes the magical core of an amalgam--brought together around it, the demons will collectively form a new body and begin behaving like a single, sentient organism.
While the appearance of an amalgam is polymorphic--the demons that it consists of behave similarly to a fluid matrix--it often has a form, or elements of one, that it prefers. Amalgams are often jumbled masses of limbs, teeth and organs with little coherence besides an ability to move: this is due to the fact that demons appear to construct bodies by randomly sampling the anatomy of their core host. In addition, canid, avian and other animal structures are common in amalgams, suggesting that demons have a collective 'genetic catalog' of things they've devoured.
The ability to regenerate from even full vaporization makes the amalgam a prized weapon in combat situations. The mechanism is not yet understood--even the organic core has been shown to re-form after total destruction--but as amalgams consist of units of tiny demons, they seem to be able to import more to repair themselves. Amalgams cannot be killed by conventional weaponry, although they can be immobilized by shrapnel that impedes their regeneration. They can, however, be killed by religiously significant objects, superchilled iron, or certain chemically pure metals, which have a dramatic effect on the demons, causing them to evacuate the body, which kills the exposed host.
Amalgams share both memory and personality with their host, prompting debate over whether or not the magician is the one in control (or even conscious). Most individuals suffer from neurological or psychological issues that are theorized to result from integration problems with the core and the traumatic nature of the drowning itself. Symptoms can range from face blindness to tremors to even the sudden onset of phobias, and most amalgams suffer some degree of visual or auditory hallucinations. As a result, the use of them in warfare is highly controversial.
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Comments: 19
BraveAbandon [2022-12-12 19:13:26 +0000 UTC]
👍: 1 ⏩: 0
98-demon-cat-woman [2020-10-07 21:29:38 +0000 UTC]
I like your art style and I tried to look you up on tumblr but I couldn’t find your username. I found while looking for cool RE infected characters fan art when I stumbled upon you. You have a lot of talent for making these.
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Guardian-of-Urk [2020-03-16 04:26:41 +0000 UTC]
Finally, someone draws the transformation of a human to monster type creature.
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Sylver-frost [2019-04-24 05:26:16 +0000 UTC]
On your tumblr some amalgams have notes like 'allied prefectures of hassia' or 'marani federation'.
Nidhogg's says 'republic of andalucia'. Are these countries in your universe?
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mini-ebil-ninja [2014-01-31 15:49:53 +0000 UTC]
HEY I DECIDED TO STALK YOU from both facebook and dA haha
this got a lot of notes man congrats oo;
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avatarmex [2014-01-19 06:33:51 +0000 UTC]
hey this is so goddamn good
im saving it for future draws of nid
exelent !
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zombieless In reply to avatarmex [2014-01-19 06:41:37 +0000 UTC]
thank you! :> it was a lot of work drawing the pics and then writing the explanations. I hope everything is clear and understandable!
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avatarmex In reply to zombieless [2014-01-19 06:46:37 +0000 UTC]
it is !
the work on the progress is really good
im also working on upgrading my drawing skill
but im way more slow than you
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zombieless In reply to avatarmex [2014-01-19 07:24:28 +0000 UTC]
thank you! :> i hope i fleshed out Nid's abilities and weaknesses enough here.
keep on trying! you'll get there soon.~
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Chrispy92 [2014-01-19 03:36:10 +0000 UTC]
Awesome! I really like the visual bleed effect.
I've wondered though, what inspires you in terms of writing? The text you come up with certainly reminds me of some kind of declassified CIA document.
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zombieless In reply to Chrispy92 [2014-01-19 06:29:17 +0000 UTC]
Thank you! :> I worked hard on it, and I'm glad it turned out well.
And well, for this story in particular, as its set at the height of the cold war in the Sixties, I was very much inspired by those types of government documents, but I was also approaching it from a worldbuilding stance as well. Seeing as this world is virtually identical to ours except for the discovery of magic, I wanted to consider how it would shape its development and culture. I think the easiest way (for me) was to see how scientists would approach studying magic. They would need to write in-depth, technical dissertations, stuff that was designed to educate the population, stuff that would show up in school textbooks. So thats basically where I'm coming from with this writing :> I want it to be informative, but also technical.
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Chrispy92 In reply to zombieless [2014-01-19 07:29:47 +0000 UTC]
Technical is a nice way of putting it. For me I especially liked how you referred magical inscriptions as 'schematics' as opposed to runes or something. It's given everything a unique identity. Good work
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zombieless In reply to Chrispy92 [2014-01-19 07:44:06 +0000 UTC]
thank you! :> and yeah--I figured since we're talking 1920s-1960s era and these very carefully engineered inscriptions were developed by what were basically magician scientists, schematics would be a more appropriate word. I was considering working around the terms 'magic' and 'demon' for a sense of realism, but figured that it would further muddy the waters. I suppose that they were popular public terms for the concepts that eventually became so ubiquitous that they worked their way into the scientific vernacular.
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Chrispy92 In reply to zombieless [2014-01-19 07:56:34 +0000 UTC]
The fact that religiously sanctified objects appear to have a great affect on them does indicate that we are talking about the supernatural here. If it were not for that one could easily consider the demons and whatnot as some type of Cthulu-esque psychic beings or something. But magic does still sound better.
Your description of amalgamations remind me a bit of ferro-fluid acting under a magnet. I am beginning to imagine that Nid warping within his amalgam form would look like ferro-fluid being worked up by a magnet. Just an idea anyway.
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zombieless In reply to Chrispy92 [2014-01-20 03:07:56 +0000 UTC]
yeah, that does seem to be so, which has strengthened their society's belief in religion and the potential existence of other supernatural beings (such as angels). other people in-universe theorize that demons are actually physical manifestations of humanity's malice or belief in them. they posit that religious objects do not harm demons because they are actually divine, but because within them, people have constructed immense significance. so basically they believe demons are hurt by meaning.
oooh, i hadn't thought of ferrofluid! thats really cool visualization, and i'll definitely integrate it into my idea on how they behave. the initial concept for the makeup of amalgams was something similar to the the fluid-like movement of colonies of ants or other insects--crawling and undulating like thousands of living things.
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Chrispy92 In reply to zombieless [2014-01-20 03:48:20 +0000 UTC]
Interesting idea of belief being manifested. Although it does raise the question of whether there are positive manifestations of humanity's good nature. Like courage and mercy. We can't have one without the other, although whether these angels are any better than demons is another debate.
Good ideas all the same.
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