Summary
Of the many
magical arts across Veltrona, Puppet Magic is historically a 'later generations' form of magic. Its reliance on adequate material goods and the sophistication of manipulating inanimate objects makes it a difficult artform to practice reliably. While early individual practitioners, through trial and error, natural talent, and/or sheer stubbornness, have managed to find success, they're more the exception than the norm.
The art itself has roots in spirituality, with some of the first puppets being effigies of the dead,
spirits or goddesses, children's playthings, or even the still-living who deserve honor and acclaim. To some extent, scholars argue Puppet Magic itself may be derived from early studies on
Avatar Magic, an artform fundamentally associated with goddesses. The two are so close together in the ancient times it's impossible to truly tell them apart.
Consequentially, the closeness to divinity would cause later problems for Puppet Magic practitioners. Since it would grow to become a costly art to practice, the first generations were the likes of priestesses, shamanka,
necromancers, and others who dealt with matters of faith and divinity. Those who were more interested in the possibilities of Puppet Magic by itself were, in turn, stifled by these well-established authorities.
How these tensions resolved differ, but usually resulted in Puppet Magic being reserved by religious authorities, outlawed, or separated from religious institutions outright. Combined with the difficulty inherent to the artform, Puppet Magic often saw setbacks more than successes. Some, however, developed fairly successful generations on improving the artform.
Atenkhet is perhaps the most consistent example of such. Faced with the monotony of the endless sand storms, the long, thankless vigil over tombs, and ever in need of divine conduction, their 'puppets' became a solution. Puppeteers would oversee teams of cleaners and laborers who would handle the dreariest, or most dangerous, tasks in lieu of people. Not to mention their aide in tending to crops, or foraging in unsafe areas.
A lost puppet is simply materials gone, preserving the preciousness of life, after all.
More engineered solutions arose from the so-called
animation puppetry style, where self-acting/autonomous puppets could be assigned orders. Atenkhet uses them extensively for guardianship over important locations, and focused on creating ever more capable puppets. Their world-famous
Guardian of the Black Pyramid is perhaps the premier example of a war puppet built to extraordinary size, and horrendously powerful destructive ability. It has ever existed as the protector of Atenkhet's most sacred life source,
the Black Pyramid, and the bountifully endless waters it produces.
In the city of
Kubuadac, puppetry served more as a vessel for necromancers to channel the dead. By carefully constructing appropriate puppets for ancestral spirits, the dead could more easily return to the living world. These 'spiritual puppets' do not conform toward normal puppetry or animation puppetry. There are some arguments they're not true puppets after all, since there is no outside practitioner controlling them.
It's something of a semantic argument puppeteers endlessly spin in circles over.
Conversely, the likes of
dragonkind experimented early on with the ideas of Puppet Magic, but gradually abandoned it. While puppets could be made to do menial labor, no dragon found it respectable to be a puppeteer for such things. Designing animated puppets to achieve those same goals also proved endlessly frustrating. Problems with the quality of work, reliability, and the general drudgery in figuring out solutions made them unattractive.
That said, some dragon lineages, such as the Kar, continued to innovate and work on puppets. Their models often end up being exported to the other lineages who don't have the will or industry to support home built puppets.
It can be reasonably said that most civilizations have an awareness of Puppet Magic and its various uses, though not all are capably supportive of it. The industries needed to maintain, fuel, and improve Puppet Magic are fairly demanding, making it a troublesome prospect. That said, those who've paid the price have enjoyed great luxuries, and envious eyes constantly glare at them. Ironically, the need for comprehensive support means even if the details of Puppet Magic are 'stolen' from someone, few nations can really
copy mass-production as well.
The later emergence of
Puppetkin proved especially surprising as a sort of 'side-effect' of the artform.
Magical Arts
Broadly speaking, most magics that would be considered Puppet Magic fulfill one of two criteria: remote control of an object, or living animation of an object.
In the case of remote control, skillful usage of
mana allows the practitioner to manipulate objects like one would the strings on a puppet. Depending on the skill of the practitioner, such puppets could be anything from straw dolls, mannequins equipped like knights, or even enormous
Living animation of an object is a far more vague idea, but the central root is that an inanimate, otherwise non-living object is given purpose, ability, and means of execution. In this case, rather than a doll being manipulated by a practitioner, the doll instead attempts to fulfill the will or command the practitioner infused it with.
In a holistic sense, these two things are perhaps deserving of separate identities. That said, their classical proximity to one another means that most people eventually lump them together anyway. It can be a useful detail if one wishes to use pedantry to aggravate scholars or
mages.
Puppetry
For remote control Puppet Magic (or simply,
puppetry), the practitioner wields mana to form a connection with one or more objects, and then controls them. There are a host of issues with this approach that make it insidiously difficult to wield effectively at even a most basic level. The first, and most common, of these problems is: how does one actually make these puppets work?
If a person only has their eyes, ears, and other senses, but the puppet itself does not, how can it be moved effectively? The practitioner being nearby poses a lot of questions on that matter, especially if one intends to use the puppets for combat. Solving this dilemma is a core trait of Puppet Magic practitioners because there are many different ways in which to do so.
Some may operate their puppets around themselves, acting like a general amidst an army. Others devise forms of extrasensory powers in order to see through, or at least around, the puppet(s). Even more particular forms, like pre-designed methods of operation for their puppets, are utilized to turn them into sophisticated tools. There is no one singular solution, as all of these have upsides and downsides that ultimately affect the efficacy the artform.
They're also heavily influenced by the second most common problem: the mana 'threads' themselves. Puppet Magic stands out among magical arts in that it's unusually vulnerable from being disrupted. If the threads are disrupted, control of the puppet is lost, and so renders it completely useless. The control and finesse required for the mana threads is truly absurd, and the single greatest hurdle any practitioner in the art must overcome.
That said, if these problems are taken care of, puppetry offers very unique opportunities. One could conceivably operate one-woman mining/logging/farming operations, overseeing the work of many different puppets. Surveyors, zoologists, herbalists, and others wishing to brave the wilds, can send puppets in as 'forward scouts' or 'danger testing' devices. The latter of which actually made puppetry a fairly well-respected and heavily desired artform for people in
Etzli Cuauhtla.
The military applications of puppetry can be rather curious. Puppetry in such an environment is more of highly flexible set of weapons with unpredictable behaviors. This makes engaging a Puppet Magic practitioner inordinately dangerous because figuring out what they can do
exactly is a life-or-death proposition. For example, a puppeteer that uses their puppets to cast magic behaves very differently from one who has a bunch of puppets wielding swords.
That said, their artform's sensitivities, complexities, and particular concerns means Puppet Magic runs the risk of being overwhelmed more often than not. It's very rare puppeteers have the luxury of brute force as an option. Instead, they must dismantle their opponents and carefully arrange a winning condition. Such outcomes require more work and effort than many other forms of magic, which makes it unattractive for many to pick up.
Even with that, those who do specialize in it tend to be very notable and incredibly dangerous thanks to the relative rarity of competent practitioners in the first place.
Animation
A candidate for one of the most maligned magical arts and being severely misunderstood, animation puppetry focuses on the practitioner imbuing a nascent 'will' or 'idea' in order to animate objects. Its ill-gotten reputation comes due to how close to
necromancy it
appears to be. Indeed, some early forms of necromancy may have been the root inspiration for animation puppetry in the first place, which doesn't help at all.
Still, despite the proximity the two share, animation puppetry achieves its goals solely through the practitioner's efforts, not that of the dead. By infusing an object with a strong essence, the puppeteer can motivate it to move and perform actions on its own. This fantastical capability comes with a range of hard, unyielding limitations it must contend with:
Puppet size and complexity directly correlates to mana requirements and skill capability.
Puppet physical properties affects how it can perform its actions, and how costly they are to do.
Puppets cannot utilize magic themselves in any form, it must come from the practitioner somehow.
If a puppet perceives its assigned task as 'done', its 'will' evaporates and it becomes inert again.
These four problems come to inform many others in the animation puppetry style, and create a very particular balance that must be achieved. For example, one cannot simply make a puppet and tell it to 'mine ore' out of the ground. It has no concept of reaching the ore, identifying it, or even knowing how much is enough. Instead, a more complex understanding must be imbued into the puppet, which requires far more time and effort to design.
Hence, even a puppet for what people consider 'simple labor' is an art piece unto itself in complexity. Everything from being able to move limbs, stand up, maintain balance, walk without falling, recover and get up from falling, etcetra, must be designed for the puppet. There is no easy shortcut involved with this work that isn't simply copying the design of another puppeteer. Even that is not always desirable, as many puppeteers have different ways of doing their work, sometimes incompatibly so.
To say that the start up costs for animation puppeteers is immense is a bit of an understatement. Unlike many other forms of magic, such as
fire magic, which have immediately applicable uses, animation puppets do not. Years, if not decades, of study and work can go into their artform before they have even a rudimentary puppet ready to use. That is presuming a relatively small team of people working together or single practitioner, though.
Because designs are the most important part of animation puppetry, sharing or collaborating them directly correlates toward one's improvements in the artform. Entire teams, sects, and other organizations often formulate around animation puppeteers in order to assist their development. Resources, knowledge, designers, and more all contribute toward a commonly designed, usable puppet that can be animated.
Atenkhet is perhaps the most famous of all animation puppeteers, as mentioned earlier.
The
baarham, among their many infamies, are also well-known for their puppets. Their quality-over-quantity approach created some of the most sophisticated puppets seen, even boldly shaming
dragonkind from their usual throne of supreme excellence. The
Baarham Dominion itself notably held the highest recorded manifestation-rate of puppetkin emerging, even outpacing that of Atenkhet. That said, statistically they were such a small population they barely existed in the baarham census records of the time period.
Ultimately, while many forms of magic benefit from outside help, collaboration, and peer review, few are as reliant on the process as Puppet Magic. Animation puppeteers, especially, become focal points of massive efforts to create and realize their artform to its fullest extent.
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