Crystal Gauger

“He’s not crying from pain,” whispered the woman next to me. ”’Though they say it hurts worse than childbirth. He’s crying because he can finally avenge his family.” I swallowed, uncomfortable, as I watched the young man, stripped naked, with sweat and tears rolling down his shaved body. He didn’t utter a sound as whirls of runes were carved into his bubbled, burn-scarred skin. “And how will this help?” “He was a silver tongue - could talk the skin of a wild-cat, that one. Lost his voice in the fire. And his looks.” The fire that my lot set, I thought. Not my group, of course, but us. The outsiders. “Now his anima will be re-trained, re-focussed, through the runes of the Crystal Gauger and through his own passion. If he survives, that is.” ”What will he become?” ”Don’t you understand by now?“ The woman’s eyebrows raised, surprised that I could be so stupid, apparently. “He’ll become whatever he wants to be.”

— Klaas Marsinger, explorer for the Arsanger Trader Company

In Lyra many are born with an attunement - but as people change, sometimes they desire that atunement to change with them. The most critical item of this ritual is the Crystal Gauger.

The Crystal Gauger forms

The Crystal Gauger is an incredibly rare item. They are artefacts of the Ancients, but their original use is unknown.
Crystal Gaugers vary in the colour of the crystal, but their construction is usually similar: a long wand of crystal, around 20 cm, etched with runes along most of its length. Gold, lead or leather bindings are common at the non-active side.
It’s not known why, or who was the first to conceive of it, but carving the runes present on the Crystal Gauger into the skin of a meditating person can open up the flexibility to change their atunement. The ritual is complex, draining, painful and takes many hours, but at the end of it, the supplicant has a new atunement of their choice.