Sea Bishop

Various drawings of sea bishops.
Illus. trad.

Sea bishops, also called sea monks, are grotesque, organic forms of approximately human height that wash up on shores, en masse, generally after observed Kaiju activity. They are called such because they resemble a mutated cross between a fish and a man in bishop's attire, most promimently a pointed hood of flesh that resembles the hats of certain Aiosian friars. Sea Bishops are made of a fleshlike substance of an unfamiliar nature, but have never been observed alive, if indeed they ever were.

Theories

Stories and anecdotes abound as to the nature of these unsettling bodies.
Silexian rituals gone wrong. Some believe sea bishops are the dead bodies of cultists of the demigoddess of sea monsters, Ob'Silexia. As Silexian clergy generally aim to ascend to become one of the Benthic Titans, becoming a sea monk is seen as a failure, perhaps in conducting an important ritual, or simply a monstrous punishment by the goddess for some slight.
Kaiju leavings. Certain schools of scholarship have posited sea monks were never alive, and are humanlike in appearance only by eerie coincidence. Instead, they are perhaps the organic leavings of Kaiju reproductive processes, perhaps emptied egg sacs or capsules, similar to the "mermaid's purses" or "devil's purses" of Earth sharks.

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Usage in Alchemy

Though highly illegal in most societies, sea bishop flesh fetches a high price in certain black markets as alchemical focii for certain dark, often Silexian rituals, however the techniques are becoming known to non-evil sages for use in aquatic Ars Arcanus as well. Some believers also consume the things in the hopes of borrowing the puissance of the kaiju directly, though there is little evidence there is anything to this. The taste and texture are described as squidlike.