Taxonomy of shards, ghosts and magically induced manifestations

Also know as the longest email ever written, this was sent to all scholars in the Security department and got an impersonal tone, yet it was directed specially to the biologists.

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Extract

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(...)

While we depend on biologists to study the different properties of the all kinds of Shards, their sources and manifestations, that is a lot of information. Employees of other areas, like border guards, explorers, and map designers, experts of their fields but less experienced in the study of manifestations lives can use a way to quickly determine their nature and their potential to be helpful or dangerous.

(...)

The ghosts are much more complex to understand than magically induced manifestations. Not all the natural manifestations will have the same intentions even if they come from similar types of shards, and both aspects need to be studied.
For that reason, it is useful to classify them by the shards that forms them, and then make a distinction between different specimens according to their behavior.

(...)

Ghosts species will be named using the code for the composition type and the code to designate their core shard separated by a hyphen (-).

In case of mixed ghosts, the core's code will be "mixed" and show between parentheses the code for those shards.

composition - mixed ( core + core ... )

(...)

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The announcement starts congratulating the creative names that were being used back in the day, only to immediately communicate that from that moment on, each of those names would always be associated (and second in importance) to one that follows certain rules. The notice included those rules, and a model data sheet that would allow the non-biologist employees to know the most vital information about each ghost at a glance. There was also a recommendation to continue the research about the conditions, shards, and beings that trigger ghost. These was meant to set the ground for the developing of a method to induce manifestations by providing those conditions instead of using magic; something similar to what happened in The Village and the City of the Lost, where things were better than planned because the population intentions triggered the perfect manifestations for them. It's not a novel thought, really; the granter has been "introducing" people to the proper shards ever since he started assigning rooms to employees. For better or for worse, scholars had failed to determine any pattern that can be used to systematically do what granters can do by instinct.

Type

Manual, Scientific

Medium

Digital Recording, Text

Authoring Date

Over a century ago

Location

The company's headquarters

Authors

• Gael

Signatories (Characters)

• Gael

Publication Status

Sent to the work e-mail of all scholars and partially published in the internal bulletin and codex of the Security department

Purpose

Don't tell the scholars, but Gael send this because the biologists were getting a little crazy with the naming. We had Colorful flowers of the mines, Paperweights, Lulicuxiacaias, Evocaciones, and Pedro Pablos and it was impossible to know what those ghosts were until they were trying to bite your head or raining over your house.
The codes aren't perfect, and I don't think that they provide much information, but standards are part of team work, right?

Public Reaction

The biologists got a little full of themselves about being called a basic pillar of the premises safety and the company's functioning, but they also did exactly what they were told and that meant everybody else in the department had enough free time to look for places to hide to avoid their bragging.

Modifications

The head biologist replied the original message with some notes that were added to the version in the bulletin and codex, including:
Some ghosts that show the very same characteristics, can have different core shards. We are still studying this phenomena but for now we are clasifying them together, by including all possible cores in the code, all separated by a vertical bar (|).

I though it was a bit odd when they told me that I would report to the security's administrator. Where I come from, we are not related to those matters, or at least, it doesn't feel that way. I do understand why my staff includes scientist for areas that don't seem to be related to biology: even the gravity and the light can be living beings in this world. But being a part of security? I thought that the boss was mixing things or something; he was so young back then.
But then Gael explained how our research was fundamental to define what regions should be restricted, and to know the safest ways to deal with each type of shard. More recently, he explained that they rely on us to get the information in a brief and simple way, not everyone can be a biologist, after all.
The other day, he let slip that he writes briefs for the granter with the knowledge we gather. He doesn't really need it, because he can feel what shards are, or something like that; but apparently he prefers to be informed too.

— Guierald, Head biologist