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Arcanic Limb Grafting


With the heavy erasure of arcanists across the globe throughout the past millenium, most forms of arcanic syncretism have been lost or forgotten as well. Limb grafting is one such ability which modern scientists and arcanists alike have more recently been looking to try and replicate, however fashioning this complex limb structure requires a level of expertise and complexity that arcanists haven't been able to achieve since the age Prior.


What is Limb Grafting?

Arcanic limb grafting is the arcanic construction of artificial limbs from living plant material, and the attachment of said limb to an individual's body in such a way that the limb entwines and 'grows' along with the rest of the natural body. The proposed method of construction involves combining the arcanically reacting blood of the objective individual with the chlorophyll and/or sap of the original plant to create an arcanic 'bloodstream' within the limb.


by midjourney
Theoretically, the process requires at least blood and vale arcanic properties, with incredibly high precision from both arcanists in order to form a fully working limb. The blood arcanist is thought to essentially 'grow' the different biological components within the limb from the original plant material by using the vale arcanist as a sort of arcanic siphon, with the vale arcanist simultaneously shaping and refining the physicality of the structure.
Life, in its natural forms, is a fickle thing; is it surprising that it should also be so in its unnatural forms?

by midjourney

Ancient Remnants

Three different burials in the northern Etter were found to contain surprisingly well-preserved skeletons with arcanically grafted limbs. The burials also contained weapons similar in style to those used in the Wars of Liberation, and so the burials are thought to have been soldiers who possibly fought in the wars and either lost a limb during combat or required an amputation later due to wound infection.

These burials are the only evidence found of successful arcanically grafted limbs, and while one of the limbs was donated to Ethaeras University for dissection, no one has been able to yet surmise how past arcanist achieved the level of success and complexity apparent in the uncovered limbs.

Possible Issues

by midjourney

Open Wounds
The attachment of the limb to the body is thought to require the objective individual's area of adhesion to be open in order to heal properly afterward, however this is obviously extremely difficult to achieve without killing the individual as the theorized process of attachment might take hours or even days. The individual would likely be bleeding out for the entire process, and at a high risk of infection.
Other Arcanic Input
Modern researchers have only assumed limb grafting to involve blood and vale arcanic skills, however there may be other skills involved, and even within the spheres of blood and vale arcanium usage there may be specific techniques necessary to the process that modern arcanists simply don't know. Most arcanists are only skilled in very specific areas of their typing/sphere, and especially modern arcanists are limited in their capabilities.
Arcana Poisoning
At a chemical level, arcanium is poisonous to people and animals, and isn't meant to be in the bloodstream at high quantities for extended periods of time. As arcanically grafted limbs require arcanic reaction and processing to function by nature, having the limb will inevitably lead to arcanic poisoning, and there's no way of knowing (currently) how rapidly the poisoning would occur.


Comments

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Aug 2, 2022 09:52

Love the terrifying artwork you gave the article, makes the thing look a lot messier than you would expect. I'm curious if such techniques have been used for only proper limbs, or would one be theoretically be possible to graft about anything onto the body like some mad Dr. Frankenstein?

Aug 4, 2022 02:28

Thank you for the comment! And as long as the grafted material is plant-based and usable for the vale arcanist, that would definitely theoretically be possible.

Aug 22, 2022 18:55 by E. Christopher Clark

This was fascinating. I love the idea of this as a lost artform—and as Endrise already mentioned, the art just adds to the already great prose.

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Aug 24, 2022 15:02

Thank you so much!