Animo-Ex-Taurus

Effect

The desire of a so called Animo-Ex-Taurus ritual is to split apart the soul of a sentient creature with that of a feral animal and recieve their abilities, physical stength's and extra senses, while still keeping a structure similar to humans and hopefully remain sentient as before.
Different cultures and groups of people also often have different desires of effect and therefor seek different kinds of animals.
While considered heresy in most elven cultures, there are groups of Wood Elves that seek to create these creatures to represent either their village, nature or faith. Because of this they usualy use animals within bird and ungulate families. Rituals with these animals tend to work out and Dryads, Centaurs and other Thornchildren are born this way.
The House of Wolves within Dark Elven society has also been known to conduct these rituals illegaly. Male soldiers are created into Lyncanthropes to serve their female commanders. However as these wolflike are too feral to serve, elves who dare take a more dangerous ritual to turn into Packmasters and keep their sentience are offered respect and a place within the House's nobility.
The Orochen use this ritual widely because of need. They use any animal needed to enhance their armies for warfare against the more advanced races. Furthermore a very few number of Orochen groups and even clans have started to use the ritual on two of their own, a smaller more sentient and larger more feral, as a matter of saving their own race and make it equally intelligent and humane as the people of well developed civilizations.
There are also various people within every civilization and culture that are interested in these creatures for their own gains. Darker Circuses are known for using Taurus in their shows. Various witches are also known for having Taurus familiars as translators, so that they may commune with animals.

Side/Secondary Effects

Side effects that often happen that are not wanted for within Animo-Ex-Taurus mostly affect the mind. Loss of intelligence and shorter memory are usual for most transformations. This can get so bad that the sapient species lose control and the beast takes over, in which they lose everything that seperates them from being completly feral. A feral creature can however be seen as positive depending if their leaders are able to control them or not.
Less serious side effects can be loss of agility, mobility or dexterity, if the animal within the ritual happen to for example be a bird. The claws would prevent them from using many tools and decrease their efficency with them. The talons would also not be as efficent to walk with as normal feet or hoves.
A botched ritual most usualy results in death.

Manifestation

Animo-Ex-Taurus is not a cheap ritual to conduct. It demands an altar within stone, large enough to fit sacrifical animal and sapient creature. It must also have a statue depicting the Godess Jingváelica. The surroundings are then filled with plants to please her.
The best ritual place to exist had a willow grown behind the statue, that stood on the ritual place within a small pond, filled with lillypads. The godess was also covered in nothing but vines and the surrondings of the altar was covered in beds of flowers.
Once the ritual has begun, one can hear a woodlike creaking and cracking, as their bodies are filled with intense warmth and even more intense pain as their skin changes, bones reshape and organs swap places.

Source

The source of the ritual, like all spells, runes and rituals, come from the myst. The power for Animo-Ex-Taurus in particular comes from natural laws surrounding life, growth and biology. Mysticans with knowledge of nature mysticism can therefor open up their minds and read the laws of the animal and sapient. From there they can mentaly copy and paste the laws of one creature to the other. The skill and perfection required for this is however so critical that even some of the best mysticians are incapable of singlehandedly performing it. Therefor the godess help is always requested as she has no hardship perfecting it.

Discovery

The ritual is not known when first discovered. Considering the nature godess own appearance and meetings with mortals it's hinted she herself told them about it, and if that is the case, it very much would explain the statue. It was only recently discovered however that dragons and other Draghânids are incapable of taking part in such a ritual.
There is however a famous quote from an Orochen intellectual to describe what it's purpose to exist may be.

Behold, the power to save our race stands right infront of us. The power to make us equals. The power that would let us rise an empire and turn into something more. But what do we use it for. To make armies, cause destruction, death and untold chaos. Maybe the others are right, maybe if we keep struggling for power, to use something selfishly at the cost of others and little gain of ourselves, perhaps we are destined to go extinct.

Material Components

A live animal is required for the ritual to take place. It must be healthy. The Taurus that comes out of the ritual also depend not only on the animal, but the personality of the animal. A good example of these are the difference between using a lonewolf, normal wolf or an Alpha. The lonewolf results in werewolves. They are far more powerfull than lyncanthropes and carry the same intelligence as before the ritual, if not rarely even higher. Packmasters are similar but less powerfull in their own, but carry the ability to command feral wolves and Lyncan.

Gestures & Ritual

Within the mystical alphabet, Green runes require to be chanted in the phrase. "Nature, unite these two as they were meant to be togheter." In order to summon the godess.

Related Discipline

The ritual are related with Orochen shaman traditions and the worship of their Mean Green Godess. It should be mentioned the word Mean is a big compliment within Orochen society.

Related School

Animo-Ex-Taurus is an art of mysticism within the nature school.

Effect Duration

The results of the ritual lasts forever and can not be reversed.

Effect Casting Time

The time it takes for the ritual to complete varies between two hours and a day, depending on the animal and it's complexity.

Level

The most skilled of Orochen shaman are capable of conducting the ritual without the godess help. Therefor they are seen as the apex within their race.

Applied Restriction

Most cultures deem the ritual as heresy. The exception within human culture would be Diestrian circuses that are at best allowed to use them for showcasing heresy and why it's bad. It's also widely restricted within elven territory, but with an exception; Taurus that are not feral and can walk the streets normaly are very accepted within their societies and even seen as holy within Wood-elven culture.
The Dwarves, Frozen Empire, Quarrn and Especially Zarawakania hunt these creatures with zeal, even though they tend to be more acceptant than other cultures, due the facts Taurus often posses significant hardship to slay and that they are seen as unatural and often innocents trapped within a beasts body. The study within Isenguard that lead to this was however lacking, as only feral Taurus involved the experiments.
Charpaccans are indifferent towards Taurus.