Taboo magic and the dangerous mutated animals it creates

Table of Contents

Since its invention, the use of magic anchored in organic material has spread widely through the empire and become a pillar to many modern technologies. However, the life forms anchoring this magic are exclusively plants and fungi despite there being another obvious source of organic material: animals.

How to work anchor-magic in animals?

Transforming a living being with magic requires working at the molecular scale, often over the whole organism, and so on an enormous amount of molecules. Doing so involves an amount of magic that is just as big, and experiments have to be tightly optimised to achieve anything important. Biomages start their projects by selecting one biological characteristic or behaviour they want to enhance or alter. They then have to find the series of genes, hormones and other signalling that control it—easier said than done.
However, once they have accomplished this, they can then use magic to either mutate those elements or to create a new genetic system to interact with it and give the desired results. This method obviously requires numerous back and forth until the right balance is found. This is not made easier by the fact that working with animals means often having to wait years for them to reproduce and grow to know if the experiment was successful. Thus biomages cannot improvise and have to build up on each other work.
The advantages of anchoring magic in animals rather than plants or fungi is:

better mobility, as currently the fixed status of complex magical systems are a big draw back;

the ability to create systems not possibly with plant biology.

But if this is so interesting, why is it forbidden to work this magic in animals?

Plant magic by Shutterbug on Pixabay

The taboo

Mutating animals themselves is not too different than working with plants or fungi; the same techniques can be adapted to the different biological systems. The problem is that once those adaptations have been created, the mages with knowledge of them can then also apply them to one particular species of animals: humans.
Enhancing humans' biology with magic is not bad in itself. What is dangerous is that bioengineers' goal is always to create long lasting mutations in the individuals of a given species that can be transmitted unmodified to its descendants over several generations—thus reducing the boring maintenance work that the bioengineers have to do. Having this occurs in humans would be catastrophic; mutations would spread invisibly through our species without anyone fully understanding the consequences, potentially dooming humanity.
Luckily for everyone, when this magic was first developed, the emperor of the time realised the danger. Not only did he ban the practice in the empire, he also ordered the culling of all of the mutated animals and humans, as well as the execution of all the scientists wih knowledge of the anchoring-in-animals techniques. Thanks to this prompt action, the empire was soon declared free of danger.

Science by serezniy on DepositPhotos

Outside of the empire

In foreign countries, imperial laws obviously do not apply. Most countries nevertheless saw the good sense in also applying the same ban to human experimentations. However, the possibility of doing so in animals and thus of using a magic forbidden to the imperial citizens was too good of an advantage to pass up. This has led to the creation of dangerous species for which the foreign armies have found many uses, from battlefield soldiers to ambush predators guarding the borders.
To not help matter, many foreign countries are always rushing to keep up with the imperial technological advancement, and as a consequence they have suffered many industrial disasters. The magical and chemical pollutions released during those have ensured the further twisting of the mutated animals and their escape in the wild. In countries like Sanne, you never quite know on what you might fall if you wander outside of the cities...

A sudden chirp startled Hélène, and her head swirled towards the opened window of the hotel room. A tiny fluffy bird was sat there, looking all cute and colourful. This kind of chiffchaff cousin met her gaze and cooed, skittering a little closer. Hélène's hand rose towards it, before she jumped back.
That damn—Of course no animal was safe in Sanne! Even every random bird had to have some mind-control magic! The thing was undoubtedly a carnivorous monsters hiding hundreds of teeth in its small beak—which in fact, looks far too sharp to be harmless...
Seeing her move away, the tiny horror protested loudly and flapped its wings. Hélène stiffened, but the bird's movements triggered some sparkles over the window as it came too close. An invisible ward. Hélène slowly released her breath. She was safe—so long as she didn't stray too close. The Sanniens were not as stupid as they seemed.
Still, morbid curiosity kept her rooted to her spot until she understood exactly what the danger was. Her answer came in the form of a big crow suddenly plunging beak first from above with clear murderous intents.
For all that it seemed clumsy, the chiffchaff was damn fast. Too fast for Hélène to follow what happened, but between one second and the next, it was a feet to the side and the crow was laying on the windowsill, dazed and confused. Rather than use the occasion to escape, the chiffchaff rushed forwards and rubbed itself on its would-be predator. Which promptly dropped unconscious.
Oh. Poisonous feathers.
And then the dreaded teeth made their apparance.
Hélène shuddered. What a lovely country Sanne was.

Example of species
Carnivorous locust: a foot-long insect with sharp teeth. They communicate together by releasing pheromoens in the air, with one controlling their dispersion vs swarm formation behaviour and another preventing them from turning cannibalistic on each other. Biomages have mutated these pheromones to control them and trigger the instant formation of a huge murderous swarm upon them detecting the presence of humans not carrying a specific artefact.	Terrible Mantis: an ambush predators camouflaged to look like the mutated flowers of the forest in which they live. Once a prey is within their reach, they strike in a fraction of a second to seize it and bite its head off. They have been mutated to be 3-m tall and to attack all humans not carrying a specific artefact and are used to guard the Sannian border.
Sannian bioengineered carnivorous locust by AmélieIS	Sannian bioengineered gigantic mantis by AmélieIS
Poisonous birds: small cute fluffy birds. They look to be a perfect meat source while travelling through the forest, but the pollution of the forest has mutated them and their feathers now carry a neurotoxin that can paralyse in seconds—letting feathers drift down in the wind until they hit prey is the perfect hunting tactic. Some city dwelling subspecies have developped weak mind-control abilities and rely on tricking humans with their cuteness.	Evil fish: the main guardians of the Sannian river borders; they communicate together with bioluminescence. They have been mutated so that they can live in the magic-resistant waters, getting the necessary magic thanks to their teeth allowing them to absorb the magic of the flesh in which they bite. This makes them a beloved torture method of the Sannian army and of many criminal groups, and so many subspecies have been created to carry fun endotoxins in their teeth.
Sannian bioengineered poisonous bird by AmélieIS	Sannian bioengineer fish by AmélieIS

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