The Ennoblement of Fluid

The Ennoblement of Fluid is a book of medicine and magic attributed to the pseudo-historical wizard Morogyad. Written in Oluzpek as part of the "Oluz canon" of the Esoterica of Morogyad, the book provides recipes for a variety of tinctures and infusions, mostly of various seaweeds and sea anemones, which can be used for medicinal or magical purposes.

Content

The Ennoblement of Fluid consists of seventeen mostly fairly short essays on the use of marine life - vegetable and animal - in medicine. The first and longest chapter, however, deals specifically with water and its purification, which Morogyad avers can be accomplished most effectively via gestures of the fingers he associates with the concepts of liquidity and transmutation. This is generally accepted as a reference to the magical gestures Morogyad discusses in Phardys Horodyas Karanrad, part of the "Tyros canon" of his Esoterica, which itself does not specifically identify which finger is which or what gestures achieve effects. Thaumatologists continue to experiment with this, and some of the later chapters of The Ennoblement of Fluids provide considerable scope for such effort, though the chief scholarly outcome of the introduction is the notion that the water used in the formulas discussed in the later chapters must be as pure and fresh as possible. Whether this is regarded as ironic for a wizard so closely associated with the sea is an interesting side issue.
Each of the remaining sixteen chapters are each devoted to a given marine source for medicinal tinctures and infusions, with instructions on harvesting and preparing them. None of these instructions are complete, but all can be followed to some degree of success.
Chapter two describes a variety of "frond-like" seaweed found in great profusion around islands in the Sea of Jars and commonly eaten as food in the Insular cities. When salted down into a wafer, ground into a powder and subjected to the "appropriate gestures," however, this foodstuff can be mixed into wine as a potent anti-venom and restorative.
Chapter three describes a different, black seaweed scorned as food because of its bitter taste. When dried into leaves and infused into honey over a great heat, this plant can be taken as a tonic which sharpens the mind and relieves pain.
Chapter four discusses a brown seaweed that grows "like rust" on rocks and ship hulls. When consumed "live" - a state that may simply mean wet - it serves as a perfect aid to the digestion, regulating problematic bowels and settling complaints of the stomach and kidneys.
Chapter five describes "sea grapes," the seedpods of an aquatic plant found in the open ocean. Although purple in colour, these contain a "fire-coloured" substance which can be treated with the appropriate gestures and watered down into a salve which greatly accelerates the human body's powers of healing.
Chapter six is a long treatise on the anatomy of the flying fish, digressing into discussions on how they fly. The heart of the fish contains an ichor which Morogyad claims grants them extraordinary vigour, while their eyes, drained of fluid and transmuted "by the hand" into powders, can restore sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. Morogyad claims it is also possible to turn the liver of the fish into a sure for "wasting sicknesses," but goes into little detail on how.
Chapter seven discusses six different varieties of sea anemone - pink, blue, yellow, "feathered" and two different red varieties ("frond-like" and "fingered") all of which, Morogyad avers, are venomous. If the "appropriate gestures" are made during the combination of these various creatures in very precise ratios, however, they can be made into tinctures with a variety of purposes. Morogyad provides instructions on how to make a potent purgative, a cure for respiratory illnesses, a tonic for stroke victims, a treatment for carbuncles, another for varicose veins and a sedative strong enough that the patient will "sleep through fire."
Chapter eight offers no formulae or techniques, instead discussing a massive species of great-headed fish Morogyad idenitifes as "The spirit of the sea," claiming its annual migrations mirror the daily rising and falling of the tides. The fish's head contains, he claims, a white oil that can burn with a pure flame, ennobling any fluid heated with it. It is generally accepted that he is referring to whales and therefore attributing magical properties to whale oil, an antique and precious commodity in the Eleven Cities.
Chapter nine is an essay on the magical properties of pearls. Morogyad claims that immersing a pearl in any fluid and while making the "appropriate gestures" with the other hand will cause the pearl to dissolve, removing any adulterants, toxins or impurities from the fluid.
Chapter ten, somewhat confusingly, also deals with pearls, but makes especial reference to the "dark green sheen" of the gems, strongly suggesting that Morogyad is referring to black pearls. He claims these can be ground into powder and made into an infusion that will settle and cure any fever or respiratory ailment. The chapter is mostly of interest because Morogyad goes into intermittent detail about the gestures required to activate the magic, claiming that the figure of solidity must be crossed behind the finger of fluidity and touched to the thumb, which will multiply its power.
Chapter eleven discusses small bulb-like organs found in the skulls of sharks which, mashed into a paste and placed in the mouth, can alleviate shock and bring the patient back from the dead "so long as their heart has not already stopped."
Chapter twelve gives instructions for the cultivation of a particular variety of blue-green marine algae which can be made into a salve for the treatment of "wounds that refuse to close."
Chapter thirteen provides instructions on how to cultivate the same algae to produce different effects, including effective treatments for colds, coughs and venereal disease, by performing ritualistic gestures over it at certain times of day over a period of several moons. Noteworthy for clues concerning the "appropriate gestures," the chapter also contains some speculation from Morogyad that the plant-based remedies of the clerics of Dahan - a god he never mentions in any other book or context - may be worth studying to further advancements on the technique.
Chapter fourteen deals with the tentacles of a particular species of jellyfish which are dangerously venomous. It then goes on to explain how to dry and cure the tentacles into a purplish crystal salt which, when dissolved in pure water, creates a tonic that produces a powerful, hellish hallucinogenic effect.
Chapter fifteen discusses a different, smaller, rather more benign jellyfish whose tentacles, when dried, cured and taken in exactly the same way, produces a tonic that serves to warm stiff joints and alleviate arthritis.
Chapter sixteen states that the flesh of the puffin, when treated with salts and cooked at "a higher temperature than common flames" will produce an ichor that can be used as a powerful flux for the production of steel. This is an odd chapter to include in a book of medicine, except that Morogyad observes in passing that the ichor is also a deadly poison.
Chapter seventeen discusses flounders, the swim bladders of which Morogyad describes as a powerful aphrodisiac and cure for impotence, with the added proviso that it allows a couple trying to conceive to decide the sex of their child. He makes the important proviso that the organ must be consumed when absolutely fresh, and recommends that live flounders be kept in an apothecary's laboratory.
Chapter eighteen discusses sea tulips, mostly in their decorative capacity, noting in passing that their "pollen" is a powerful food for those seeking to recover their strength after an illness. Since these organisms are not true flowers and do not produce pollen, commentary on what this could possibly refer to varies widely.
The final chapter gives instructions on turning various forms of coral - red, blue, silver and "mottled" into amulets that can serve as prophylactics against various poisons - specifically hemlock, aconite, adder venom, and the secretion of the poison dart frog. It is through this chapter that it is known that the Eleven Cities knew about the poison dart frog in the pre-Wesmodian era - knowledge it appears to have subsequently lost.

Commentary

Part of the basis of the practice of medicine in the northern cities, The Ennoblement of Fluid is also noteworthy for the broader clues it provides on Morogyad's system of magic by gesture, repeatedly hinted at in the Tyros canon. Chapters ten and thirteen in particular contain discussions of gesture magic which appear to relate to and expand upon the four-finger system presented in Morogyad's earlier work. Chapter ten, for example, appears to imply that the thumb is a force multiplier for the other fingers rather than being one of the named fingers itself. Although few solid techniques are given the book serves as a potent reference work for those experimenting in this field.
The introductory essay has also been used by thaumatologists to present a unified theory of Morogyad's magic. Halumayan thaumatologist Telk Zan Pollenok has advanced a far-reaching theory that involves recontextualising the entirety of reality as a sea and the thaumaturge as a person swimming through it, using their hands and feet to alter their position and situation within this context. Pollenok contends that this mode of thinking would explain Morogyad's system of gesture magic and provide a useful frame of reference to create a series of rotes. He himself appears to have made considerable headway in this field by combining Morogyad's ideas with the information that can be gleaned from the ritual dances conducted in honour of the fire-god Ajqyod, with whom Morogyad is more than passingly associated, especially in his northern context. Pollenok's untimely death and the dispersal of his notes make it hard to precisely judge the extent of his progress.
The focus on marine sources of medicine is another example of Morogyad's - and therefore his father Zargyod's - close association with the sea, particularly in their Oluzian contexts. The notion that Zargyod - and by extension Morogyad - has his origins in a northern sea deity can and has been supported with reference to this work.

Availability

The common image of the Oluzian apothecary surrounded with small scrolls and pamphlets is attributable to the fact that The Ennoblement of Fluids is more generally seen in its home port as a corpus of literature rather than a single book. Individual chapters, often extensively glossed or edited, are common and cheaply-obtained in the northern cities. Authoritative copies of the complete book, however, are fairly rare, as are translations from Oluzpek into other languages. Various branches of the Commercial Guilds are known to possess complete copies, as does the Alchemist's Guild of Dypholyos. Various chapterhouses of the Brotherhood of Rooks are also known to possess this book, which they have absorbed as part of the medical traditions practiced in the southern cities where they possess greater influence thna they do in Oluz.