Inanemancy ([ih-NAN-uh-man-see] | / ɪˈnæn ɪˌmæn si /)
Magic of the Void
As seen in
Somewhere along the way we all go a bit mad. So burn, let go and dive into the horror, because maybe it's the chaos which helps us find where we belong.
I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.
PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER! Itty bitty living space.
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.Inanemancy, or "magic of The Void," is difficult to define, but Literomancers know it when they see it. It defies the laws of known physics and metaphysics, yet obeys its own rules. It exists in the unknown, unfathomable, or empty spaces of reality. Often, it exists outside of reality as we know it entirely.
To try and restrain Inanemancy by simple terms is to bind the unimaginable and the imagined and place them into the palm of your hand.
It's Lovecraftian bullshit. Enough said.
Manifestation
Some lunatics go in search of the secrets of Inanemancy. They are either disappointed, or find more than they bargained for. Most Inanemancers stumble into it, often by accident. Those who maintain enough coherence to explain their discoveries will usually caution people not to pursue it. The truth is that one cannot manipulate the frayed edges of reality without being at least a little unhinged. Most are a lot unhinged.
It appears that some kind of significant trauma is necessary to awaken Inanemancy's powers, accompanied by contact with Otherworldly things. An Inanemancer is distinctly changed from whatever they once were. Unlocking their powers from that transformative moment is usually a process of self-discovery and reaction to other traumas. Powers vary widely and are often linked to physical, as well as spiritual, transformations.
Alternatively, beings that are innately Otherworldly may also possess Inanemantic powers, such as Prince Galakrond's conjurations, like Boodles.
Most people associate Inanemancy with the Voidtouched, but it may also be present among Liminal beings such as cryptids. It seems likely that the powers of The Cosmic Kraken may also be a form of Inanemancy.
It is difficult for Inanemancers to conceal themselves, because many of the accompanying physical transformations — or existing Otherworldly features — are difficult to hide. Such features may include extra eyes, tentacles, maws of teeth, or fungi manifesting where they have no business manifesting. Blends of animal and human features, or simply an "Otherworldly" quality, may also be possible, such as Queen Sable's starlight glow in some of her forms.
Most Inanemancers present as if they were also neurodiverse, and it is something of a debate as to whether neurodiversity is necessary to open the door to Inanemancy, or if contact with the fringes of reality induces neurodiversity.
The Law of Inanemancy
Nothing is impossible, but everything has its price.
Some of the Voiders perceive the Void as having its own sentience, and it doesn't like being messed with. They would describe messing with reality as having a "snapback" effect. The more you defy the rules of reality, the more likely you are to pay a heavy consequence.
Others believe that when you push against reality, it naturally resists, falling under the principle of "every action has an equal and opposite reaction." They wouldn't necessarily attach an emotion to this effect, any more than they would to a law of physics. It's just the way reality works.
Corollary of Transmogrification "The Crowley Corollary"
Reality is mutable. Magic is the process of directing the change.
Or, as Aleister Crowley famously said, "Magick is the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with the Will."
Corollary of Subjective Reality "The Shakespeare Corollary"
Reality is nothing more than a story being told. Change the story and you change reality.
Or, as the Bard famously said, "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players."
Corollary of Consenus Reality "The Berger and Luckmann Corollary"
Reality has rules because conscious minds agree upon those rules.
In their 1966 book, The Social Construction of Reality, sociologists Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann proposed that what humans perceive as "reality" is actually a social construct, and these collective agreements create a shared framework known as consensus reality—a version of the world that people collectively agree to operate within. Inanemancy's take expands this to include physical as well as social/subjective reality.
Corollary of Possibility "The Schrödinger Corollary"
Every possibility exists before reality is crystalized. This means that every possibility still exists.
Illustrated through the "Schrödinger's Cat" thought experiment. At the quantum level, is matter a wave or a particle? It will behave according to either rule depending on how it is observed.
Corollary of Oppositional Defiance "The Adam Corollary"
It is possible to reject reality and refuse to conform to it.
Or, as originally said in the B-movie The Dungeonmaster and popularized by Adam Savage, "I reject your reality and substitute my own."
Corollary of Consequences "The Chaos Corollary"
Changing reality requires opening the door to chaos, and therefore, changes will not be entirely under your control.
Incomprehensible Appearance
The Inanemancer floods their body with some of the incomprehensible nature of the Void. Sentient minds "reject" this effect. While this does not actually change the Inanemancer's appearance, nor make them invisible, it means that they are consciously ignored, and impossible to describe after being seen.
Cameras will also fail to capture their image, usually by glitching out. Using this ability has a cost, in that some important electronic or electromagnetic device almost always fails around the Inanemancer afterwards, usually at the most inconvenient time.
Pathforging
The Inanemancer can shift the location of physical spaces. Usually this is in the form of slight alterations that cause confusion to anyone trying to navigate a shifted space; perhaps a landmark has moved slightly in relation to another landmark. Note that some specific effects of the Smoke school of Versomancy would be other examples of uses of this ability, such as The Long Way Round and Missing Step.
Masters can relocate entire cities with the support of a literomantic ritual and a lot of collective effort. Further, they can manage this without causing floods, earthquakes, or other natural disasters. This is the nature of the magic that powered The Penwall Ritual.
Sekrits!
Fluent in Gibberish
The Inanemancer can comprehend the incomprehensible, and they recognize bullsh*t when they see it. They can understand garbled communication from the insane and the non-verbal. Further, they can see through effects meant to confuse the mind or confound the senses, such as many forms of illusion magic, or "altered states of consciousness."
Living Cartoon
For a short period of time, the Inanemancer can ignore the laws of physics, as long as they are acting consistently within a trope. The most common use of this power seems to be emulating humourous Saturday morning cartoons (ie. walking over cliffs without falling, being hit with anvils to no lasting harm, reinflating oneself, etc.) but may also fall within other tropes in animated genres (ie. anime tentacles). Violating the trope risks the consequences of reality coming home to roost... but often, the Inanemancers who invoke this power find themselves stuck in said tropes, possibly for much longer than intended.
Enter Sandman
The Inanemancer can cause the living to fall asleep, sometimes even during extreme situations. This is usually accomplished through a physical agent (ie. Mykola Lapin-Void's sleep dust). The drawback of this is that sometimes "friendly fire, ain't," as Princess Mykola and her father, Erin Righ, discovered during the Battle of the Tunnels.
Beginners can cause uncontrollable drowsiness and yawning, effectively creating a distraction and impairing quick-thinking.
Advanced practitioners can cause a person to fall asleep in even high-stress situations.
Masters can cause a person to fall asleep even in life-threatening situations.
Uniquely (at last thus far,) Mykola Lapin-Void's sleep dust will cause Zombies, who cannot sleep, to have intense, often disturbing hallucinations that effectively incapacitate their ability to function for a limited period of time. This is true even of zombies that show no other sign of independent thought or will.
Dream Shaping
The Inanemancer can shift the course of a person's dreams. This can either be used positively (perhaps helping someone to confront their fears and traumas in their dreams) or negatively (by enhancing nightmares to embrace a person's deepest fears.) Note that said person must already be asleep to be affected by this power, and it requires the ongoing focus of the Inanemancer, who is effectively also asleep while this is going on — meaning they cannot defend themselves or react to their environment without "waking up." (Shared with Versomancy )
Dream Warrior (also called "Princess Luna")
The Inanemancer can enter another person's dreams and fight their nightmares face-to-face. Sometimes this takes the form of confronting "ghosts of the past" (ie. the memory of an attacker or abuser). Others, the nightmare is given a symbolic form that the Inanemancer must confront (ie. an animated smouldering coal to represent anger; a ball of mist and lightning to represent anxiety.) The dreamer may also participate in the combat, and this can have dramatic positive effects on their mental health. Of course, just as with Dream Shaping, the dreamer and the Inanemancer must already be asleep, and there is no guarantee they will win the fight. (Shared with Versomancy.)
Sufficiently advanced practitioners may take others into the dream with them through a collective ritual, who may also aid in the fight.
Somnolent Sense
The Inanemancer can sense people who suffer from sleep disorders. If they know that person well, they can even identify them by their "sleep aura." This was demonstrated in the Battle of the Tunnels when Princess Mykola recognized Prince Galakrond's aura by the "feel" of his insomnia.
Fiver's Insight
The Inanemancer gains glimpses of the future, or other things they could not otherwise know. This might take the form of "gut feelings" or full-on visions of things to come. This power, however, is notoriously fickle. Sometimes only part of the sought-after information is received, or sometimes, it just doesn't work at all. Often, feelings and visions come without warning or request. (Shared with Aquamancy)
"I have a bad feeling about this." Often masquerades as neurodiverse pattern recognition.
Advanced practitioners can give extremely accurate divination readings through Tarot cards or similar tools.
Masters often dream of future events or get clear visions of the consequences of a decision. They may also dream of things happening at great distances to themselves, and usually know when someone they care about has been hurt or has died.
It is said that through some advanced, often dangerous, practices or artifacts, the Inanemancer may get direct, detailed answers to questions they ask.
Immutability
The Void is nothing if not change. Most who have been touched by it have had their thoughts, identities, even bodies, warped beyond recognition. This gives them powerful resistance to things that would threaten their hard-won sense of self.
Beginners have a certain essential "stubbornness" that makes them strongly resistant to mind-manipulating or emotionally manipulating magic that would violate their essential natures.
Advanced practitioners (if one can use this term for a person who discovers this almost by accident) can resist magic that toys with their emotions. Even if they are successfully manipulated in the beginning, they can usually recognize it early, and choose to act in ways that are more aligned with their essential natures and values.
Masters can resist powerfully upsetting shifts that make one question their sense of self, such as forced shapeshifting. At this level, Inanemancers also develop immunities to most of the powers of other Inanemancers.
It is said that some Inanemancers can even resist the driving hunger of undeath for limited periods of time.
Overcharging
The potential of the eternal nothing is infinite. An Inanemancer can harness a small part of that potential to give a sort of "cosmic booster shot" to any of their existing powers, making them more effective than they otherwise would be for brief periods. The longer an Inanemancer spends "charging up" in the Void, the greater the power boost — and the greater the peril of Magic Drain when they finally crash out. While the most (in)famous use of this power was Queen Sable's effort to bolster her abilities following magic drain in The Third Word War, Prinx Tempest also used it during 3WW prior to the Battle of Mount Mitchell, and Princess Sunny often uses it in limited doses to bolster her Vivimantic healing powers. Consequences of overuse can be severe.
Kintsugi
"There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in." Through being broken, the Inanemancer gains resilience which can then help make others whole. A common metaphor in trauma therapy, like the Japanese art of kintsugi pottery, when something is broken, instead of being discarded, or instead of trying to hide the cracks, the cracks are highlighted with resin and gold to draw attention to them, creating a whole new type of beauty, and even making the piece stronger than it was before. The Inanemancer, through patience, kind words, empathy, and the wisdom of having been broken themself, can help put someone else's broken spirit back together. (Shared with Versomancy.)
Void Rift (also called "Void Portal")
The Inanemancer can teleport. This is accomplished by making a tiny wormhole through spacetime, piercing reality at right angles. This is the essential power that allows the Voidtouched to enter the Void.
A beginner can only teleport themself and what they are wearing or carrying.
Advanced practitioners can pull other things (or beings) through the same wormhole.
Masters can create larger portals and sustain them for longer periods.
Rare Inanemancers can effectively create mobile Transcontinental Portals and sustain them for hours, if not days, though this is extremely taxing and risk of magic drain is high.
Walking the Void Paths "Fractal Thinking"
The Inanemancer can glean information about the many possibilities that might extend from a single incident or moment in time by spending time in the Void, walking the paths of the Labyrinth. While this has no obvious effect, it does make Inanemancers with this power incredibly good at lateral thinking. This enables them to make complex risk assessments in a flash of intuition, and grasp potential consequences of even minor actions in ways that most people simply cannot. It is generally accepted that this ability contributes to Queen Sable's recognized strategic acumen.
Body Manipulation
The Inanemancer can do things with their bodies that no bodies ought to be able to do. In the past, this has included: releasing Void Polypore spores with specific effects, grappling with tentacles, opening a giant maw to be larger than one's own body, turning into living fire, etc. This power comes with a heavy price, however — changes to one's physiology that are not entirely under one's control, and distinctly inhuman, connected to the manifested ability. For example, Prince Galakrond grows an active colony of mushrooms, and multiple eyes, on his body, Princess Sunny has tentacles and a maw in the middle of her back that began in her bunny form but is now part of all forms, Prince Jean's ears randomly burst into flame, etc.
Sarlacc Maw
The Inanemancer is capable of opening a giant maw in their body and devouring anything they can put in it, regardless of size or composition. This can likely be viewed as an advanced variant of Body Manipulation, with the caveat that absolutely anything can be devoured with no harm to the Inanemancer — from elephants they are too small to swallow, to toxic waste or a nuclear reactor's core.
Gazing into the Abyss
If the Inanemancer can meet someone's eyes, they can show them the unfathomable depths and darkness of the Void. This is only a split second glimpse, but it assaults the target's mind with a full awareness of incomprehensible nothingness and the fathoms of eternity. Most Inanemancers do not do this, because the effects are unpredictable and potentially deeply traumatizing.
Tang Portal
The Inanemancer can create a portal that not only pierces space, but also, realities.
The Inanemancer can step into and out of parallel realities that are very similar to their own. Very small changes will be noticed here, such as shifts in the names of popular brands or major literary characters. Alternatively, they may walk through the Liminal spaces between realities or planes of reality, such as the Mists. Prinx Tempest routinely used this power to steal cups of coffee from other versions of themself in realities where literomancy did not exist, or sent messages through pinprick portals.
Masters may step into realities with significant differences in history or laws of physics, such as the 1337 Speak Reality or the Beach Reality (in which interstellar travel was discovered long ago and it appears Humans no longer exist.) At this level, if they can protect others from natural hazards of such travel, such as madness from Void exposure or radiation from their portal, they can take others with them.
Thus far, one, or possibly two, Inanemancers have been known to be able to open portals to vastly different realities, such as The Cupcake Reality, where physics, history, and the basic rules of the reality's structure are outright alien to the Tomeverse. One Inanemancer was also able to open enormous portals and, with great effort and support, move thousands of people through them. However, this is the ability that made the evacuation of the 1337 Speak Reality in Operation GTFO possible, and it cost Prinx Tempest their life. It is believed that since Prince Jean has inherited the powers of The Overflow that he will be able to do the same, given time.
Entropic Immunity
The Inanemancer gains immunity to entropic forces for a short period of time. This includes the forces of aging and decay. This is not enough immunity to bestow immortality, but might lead to surprisingly extended lifespans. Also, it can temporarily make the Inanemancer immune to radiation poisoning.
Eldritch Speech
The Inanemancer comprehends Eldritch Speech. This ancient tongue predates current reality, and can cause ripples in the fabric of spacetime just by uttering it. Most "normal" beings exposed to it experience negative effects based on their level of exposure, but using it is necessary to evoke some of Inanemancy's more powerful effects and helps to control some of the more dangerous and powerful beings that an Inanemancer can summon.
A Beginner can comprehend the gist of eldritch speech, but can't use it. They are also immune to its negative effects when it is spoken in their proximity.
An Advanced practitioner can understand most of what is being said, and can use a few words themself, such as asking where the bathroom is. Their speech is sufficiently Otherworldly that those who hear it may suffer nausea, may feel repelled, or experience other negative, mildly distracting effects.
A Master is conversational, and can make ears bleed or cause temporary incapacitation by their use of the tongue.
A very few Inanemancers are fluent in the eldritch speech, and they can cause madness or other extended forms of incapacitation if they are not careful.
Entropic Field "The Hex Effect"
Bad luck afflicts the Inanemancer's foes. While this can be convenient, and truly dangerous to the Inanemancer's enemies, especially at higher levels, it comes with a price. The Inanemancer must "discharge" a similar run of bad luck either before or after the use of this power in order to balance the scales, and waiting too long after using it will cause reality to assign its own. Wise Inanemancers will lose dramatically at cards or repeatedly botch their RPG dice rolls. Less wise Inanemancers will find themselves tripping over nothing, souring milk, or causing droughts. Extremely unwise Inanemancers might be randomly struck by lightning or a bus.
Beginners can cause their enemies to have extremely unlucky poker games or trip over cracks in the sidewalk.
The foes of Advanced practitioners often find they have loaded their firearms with the most defective ammunition in the stockpile, or random static discharges cause their computers to fail at inconvenient moments. Or perhaps they will drop their expensive smartphone into the toilet when the cat knocks it off the sink.
Opponents of a Master would likely fall off the curb after tripping over that crack in the sidewalk, and twist or break their ankle in the bargain. Or they might drop their sword and reach out to catch it by the blade. Or, less destructively from a physical point of view, they might accidentally launder the winning lottery ticket that was in their jacket pocket.
When accompanied by the effects of Living Cartoon, it would probably be hilarious for a crane to break just as someone were walking under it, dropping a piano on their head. Most likely, however, the effects are considerably less amusing.
Note that the Inanemancer must be within physical proximity of their target to inflict the bad luck. This must be intentionally activated — it is not a reactive effect. Further, it will simply have no effect if the target, or targets, do not intend harm to the Inanemancer — meaning that they must be intending to engage in an act that the Inanemancer would find harmful (so acts that violate free will would also fall under this umbrella.)
Summon Void Elemental
Summons an elemental creature from the Void, such as the creatures Prince Galakrond refers to as "Void demons" or "chthonics," or possibly starwalkers, such as those who inhabit Stairway to Heaven. The caster must be able to convince the elemental to do their bidding. Requires excellent negotiation skills, patience, and empathy to keep the stubborn elemental from returning to its home. An advanced user may summon a small to medium elemental of average strength.
A Master may summon a more powerful elemental.
For more information, see Elemental Summoning
Conjurations
The Inanemancer can summon spirits from the Void to serve their wishes. This relationship lasts for extended periods, unlike summoning an elemental, and is usually sealed by some sort of contract, taboo, or sacrifice (ie. "a year and a day," forbidden to cut one's hair or nails, exchanging one's firstborn child, etc.) Further, some Conjured beings require regular "feeding" to stay in the world for extended periods, which often consists of such things as mold, fear, or the Inanemancer's own blood.
Weirdness Magnet
Weird sh*t happens to Inanemancers. They often end up in improbable situations, and the phrase that is probably best used to describe this ability is "what are the odds?" While this brings numerous inconveniences, it also works in the Inanemancer's favour, in that they have a knack for improbable escapes, unlikely disaster avoidance, and somehow surviving against all odds.
Cosmomancers and Versomancers
There are some significant overlaps between these domains and Inanemancy, but little overlap between each other. Umbra and Dream Scape powers are the most likely to overlap with Versomancy. This might be because Princess Mykola and Prinx Foxx are also Versomancers, and have shared what they can of what they know.
Aquamancers
Many of the powers of the Deep seem to have some overlap with Inanemancy.
Teleportation
Technomancers, Geomancers, and Aquamancers have abilities that allow them to create various versions of stationary teleportation portals. Personal teleportation is more rare. Cosmomancers can also teleport, and some of the abilities of Versomancy, which allows travel through the Mists, look a lot like teleportation, especially Step Through the Looking-Glass.
Elemental Summoning
Most domains can summon elementals that relate to that domain specifically, and Inanemancy is no exception. However, the "extended contracts" of Conjurations appear to be almost unique.
Incomprehensible Appearance
There are other powers that exist that allow literomancers to avoid being seen, or avoid being seen by cameras, but they are accomplished by different mechanisms and usually don't go together. Queen Sable's "SEP Field" applies a similar effect to objects or areas, but this requires the conscious writing of a literomantic spell, and does not appear to be a power she can just "will" to happen. Senna Nightshade built three technomantic suits of body armour that bend light to be effectively invisible.
Fiver's Insight
Aquamancers have some similar psychic abilities, but the mechanics and specifics tend to work differently.
Immutability
Versomancy, which is concerned with Truth as one of its Areas and Types, has related abilities.
Weirdness Magnet
Vivimancy has some overlaps with El-Ahrairah's Luck. It should be noted that at least two, possibly three, of the Voiders possess both abilities.
And let's be honest... we're all a little mad here, too.Inanemancy is powerful. When reality itself is negotiable, magical potential is seemingly limitless. However, it is also characterized by truly daunting drawbacks. And while some literally earth-shattering effects are possible, more than one practitioner of Inanemancy has been destroyed by their hubris, some in recent memory.
It's simple — filk around and find out. The Void will eat you.Inanemancy in action is often horrifying to witness. It may be accompanied by the shifting of shadows, body horror, folds in space, distortions of time, shrieking or gibbering with no obvious source, mindbending visuals, sounds that make one's ears bleed, odd smells, blinding light, fire, and darkness.
Again, it's just Lovecraftian bullshit!
Inanemantic Law
snort
The laws of the Void are simple. There are none. All rules are meaningless. Life, death and taxes have no hold here. Gravity, the speed of light, and physics are mere suggestions. Only through a few avatars can pieces and parts of the Void be semi-tethered into a functional form of reality.
chuckling Okay, okay, I'll try.
It's a willful teenager with phenomenal cosmic power.
Yeah, the jury's out for me about the sentience thing. But you know, if you behave as though it has sentience, you usually get better results.
Areas and Types
The Voiders, who are currently the most prominent Inanemancers, tend to think of their powers in terms of how they relate to the "layers of the Void" that they most interact with. However, there are numerous overlaps. Just because a power is classified under a particular "layer" does not mean that other Inanemancers cannot use it. After all, reality is negotiable.Literomancy Levels
Minimum level needed is listed before the ability/spell. Variations are listed below.
| Symbol | Level + Description |
|---|---|
| Beginner: Anyone may learn this ability. Similar to a cantrip or low level spell. | |
| Advanced : Achieved after study and practice. If the mage is from outside the originating House or group of this magic type, they need to train under a Master of this magic school from the originating House or group. (If the power is shared between Literomantic schools, the Literomancer trains under one of the appropriate House's/Group's Masters for that area.) In other words, please talk with the House or group that is known for that type of magic. | |
| Master: Achieved after considerable study and practice, usually after tutelage under a Master. A Master may be a member of another House or group. | |
| Reserved: Epic level aspect, reserved ability. This is usually reserved for an individual player, House, or group. |
Inanemancy Sharing Key
Minimum level needed is listed before the ability/spell. Variations are listed below.
shared with Versomancy
Exceptions and shared magic domains are noted.
Minimum level needed is listed before the ability/spell. Variations are listed below.
The Umbra
The Umbra is the space between realities, the Liminal area where what is, what could be, and what is no longer, are interchangeable.I thought for sure The Bunnycomb was this way...
meles_boodles_sus
It is rumoured that someone tried moving an entire city into the Void in recent memory... and it is rumoured that this led to the disappearance of The Missing. The Voiders cite this as one example of acts of hubris causing disaster when dealing with the powers of the Void.
snicker That's because we spend so much time in altered states of consciousness.
It's impossible to be taken seriously when you sound like Bugs Bunny.
The Dream Scape
The Dream Scape is the place where ideas are spawned out of raw chaos. Humans and other sentients routinely visit this place when they dream or daydream. by arusyak-images
The Firmament
The Firmament is the place where chaos is spun into reality. It is sometimes thought of as the womb of creation by those who have interacted with it.Voidtouched by Vic_B
Voidtouched by Trandoshan
SABLE! Those empty husks we found in the Labyrinth... what are you doing?!
The Labyrinth
The Labyrinth is the layer that is thought of as the heart of the Void. It is the place where all realities, and all pathways, are possible at once, but nothing is yet realized.Princess Sunny conjuring a Void rift by Pixabay
Yeah, but try to explain this to someone when you're trying to tell them why they shouldn't do something.
Moth Demon by Geralt
Voidtouched in the Star-Womb by 7546285
The Overflow
The Overflow is the place where realities go to die. Things that once were end up here to be recycled.Yeah... but don't.
The Netherlayers
The Netherlayers are reality's garbage dump. Things that do not fit within reality's current paradigm, but cannot otherwise be destroyed or recycled, end up here.Dark Arts - A woman calls on a creature of the Netherlayers by Waldkunst
All Layers
Known Variants
mutter mutter Fae magic cough
History
Folklore is rife with tales of sinister witches who have exchanged their immortal souls for power, who sour milk, make clocks run backwards, cause infertility and droughts, and feed their familiars their own blood. Inanemancers are to blame for those tales. Occult lore speaks of numerous madmen who pursued ancient and forbidden knowledge, who found what they were seeking, but lost their minds or souls in the process. Inanemancers are to blame for those tales, too. Not that things actually work the way that the tales claim they do. Like for example, the state of the soul. No Inanemancer knows anything that would prove or disprove the existence of an immortal soul. Nor has any Inanemancer ever seen Lucifer or any other legendary demon... that they can confirm.Look, there's a lot of Void creatures who like to mess with us, especially in the Netherlayers. They might call themselves by names that freak us out... but I have yet to see any evidence that they are, in fact, the beings they often claim they are.But the truth is, there have been at least as many Inanemancers with sinister intent as there have been with benevolent aims. Beings who want power often want to exercise that power over others, and there is a lot of potential power to be gained through Inanemancy. The risks often don't occur to those who seek that sort of power, and for those who do consider them... well, losing a piece of one's humanity is often not seen as a drawback. However, sometimes, a person who has suffered at the hands of the world is embraced by the Void. They don't necessarily seek that sort of power... but they need it, and it finds them. So the powers of Inanemancy are often the purview of the lost, lonely, and abandoned, just as much as they are of malevolent sociopaths. And the two are often confused, because the average person often has no idea which one they are dealing with. As a result, Inanemancers probably suffered at the hands of the Inquisition, and related movements, far more than any other sort of literomancer — whether they deserved it or not.
House Mollusca and the Cosmic Kraken
It is possible that Inanemancy, however, is every bit as ancient as the mad sorcerers of folklore claimed. There are multiple indications that House Mollusca has had dealings with Inanemancy for millennia, and this may the reason they have traditionally been so secretive and insular. After all, it is said that Cthulhu sleeps beneath the sea. The powers that are attributed to the Cosmic Kraken may be Inanemancy, and there may be a Void Rift in Zafforza Trench. Indeed, the need to guard the world from this rift may be why the Cosmic Kraken built their home there. It is even possible that the appearance of the rift may have been connected to the destruction of the Atlantean civilization, and have left behind the ruins that have been reclaimed as Zafforza City in recent years. See the sidebar: Extraplanar or Extraterrestrial?H.P. Lovecraft
Much of the nature of Inanemancy seems directly drawn from the work of H.P. Lovecraft, who wrote numerous stories about existential horror and "things that should not be." Other writers of the time also wrote about similar things in what is now generally recognized as a shared universe. Was Lovecraft an Inanemancer? There is no way to prove it one way or the other, but Inanemancers believe he was.Modern Times: Voiders Anonymous
In the modern Literomantic Age, it was Princess Sunny, Prince Galakrond, and the "Missing Voider" who brought Inanemancy into the public consciousness. They started a webcast show about their mutual experiences in the Void, partially as a kind of "Literomancer Pride" movement. Initially, the public embraced them, and they quickly gained a fanbase who called themselves "A-Voiders." But almost as quickly, partially motivated by a lawsuit in which Queen Sable was one of the plaintiffs, various media figures launched a smear campaign against Voiders Anonymous. Public opinion of Inanemancers was not helped when Prince Galakrond became one of the two Night Monarchs of the Third Word War. It was WriterGreg who put an end to the attempt to cancel the Voiders. He publicly lambasted the network on air in defense of Queen Sable and the Voiders, called out the GOT News Network for their conflict of interest, and quit his job on the spot. When it came out that the GOT Network was working closely with The Company, who were the first corporation to be officially charged with crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Court, their stock values tanked, their viewership declined, and the corporation folded. Near the end of the Third Word War, "the Missing Voider" did something that "angered" the Void... or, something that was such a strain on the current reality's paradigm that the "snapback" was lethal. Many literomancers simply disappeared, as though wiped out of existence. While there are echoes of their presence, anything that might indicate any identifying detail is gone. Names were wiped out of books, images and voices blurred on recordings, and people remember speaking to people they can no longer remember anything about, even if they remember part of the conversation or even if that person was a family member or friend. This included an entire literomantic House. These people who no longer exist are known as The Missing. People stopped attacking the Voiders publicly, but those who had any inkling of what had happened simply avoided them. That changed when Prinx Tempest decided to evacuate the 1337 Speak Reality before it was destroyed. The Voiders decided to support them, and House Lapin and House Meles put their full resources behind the effort, quickly joined by most of the other literomantic Houses. Perhaps because of the losses of the Missing and the Third Word War, the public quickly got behind the effort. However, keeping such a large portal open for as long as they did cost Prinx Tempest their life, and almost destroyed Queen Sable as well. Since then, the Voiders have been relatively quiet. The public, in general, has come to view the Inanemancers in the same way they view any other literomancer — which is to say, they are regarded somewhat warily, since they are, like any other literomancer, potentially dangerous. However, they are also known to be essentially "human," with all the merits and flaws of anyone else, with the same potential for heroism and benevolence, as well as stupidity and malevolence. For the most part, the Voiders have been on the right side, putting themselves and their bodies between humanity and supernatural threats, just like any other Tome Knight... and the public knows it.WIP
Streamer
Missing
Status: Location Unknown
Deceased
Status: Deceased Character
Retired
Status: Retired Character or Article
Navigation
Inanemancy symbol by Canva (SA)
The Voiders returning to the Warren after a battle with the Void Nuggies by HeroForge/Tempest Kwake
The Abyss Stared Back by Tom Gauld
Type
Metaphysical, Arcane
Known users
The Voiders
Others
Possible, my ass. Coffee told me once that her little brother Cthulhu was the troublemaker of the family. And she said it so casually. What I can tell you is that I watched her in kraken form bitch-slap something that looked to me like Cthulhu all around the underground lake at the Battle of the Warren and telling him to go home. I think there's a lot more going on there than most Molluscans would have us believe.
And he's as crazy as we are, which says a lot.
Extraplanar or Extraterrestrial?
It isn't only the Voiders who have displayed powers and traits associated with Inanemancy. House Mollusca, particularly the Cosmic Kraken, has shared in some of these Inanemantic elements. Scion Striker, upon being granted the powers of a Cosmic Kraken before he was mature enough to handle them, found that time and space were no longer fixed for him, and he repeatedly found he could not tell when or where he actually was. The burden effectively shattered his mind, and he was forced to retire from mortal society. He remains on guard at the deep rift in Zafforza Trench, under the care of Daciana Grey, his loyal Bodyguard. The deep rift in question has traits that the Voiders believe are strongly indicative of a Void rift. It is incredibly dark, and creatures emerge with extra eyes, teeth and tentacles. Monsters from the rift have worked their way into the world's estuaries in the recent past. It is understood by Aquamancers that "the Deep" is a place of mystery, secrets, and forbidden knowledge, and some of the known powers they associate with the Deep have a lot of crossover with Inanemancy. And of course, Lovecraft's tales of the "Deep Ones" of Innsmouth and Cthulhu sleeping beneath the sea raise obvious questions. However, the vague hints of information that have leaked out of Mollusca over the past several years have not spoken of the Void. Instead, they speak of the Cosmic Kraken's powers as having originated "beyond the stars." Associated Atlantean technology, which is only now being rediscovered, suggest some extraterrestrial origin. Are the Cosmic Krakens, and the Molluscans by extension, descendants of extraterrestrial beings who came from outer space? Or do they have their origins from what others call the Void? And more importantly, since there is a clear association with the Void and Deep Space... is there any difference?
Void rift at McMurdo Station warping the walls (image provided by the Houndstooth Company) by Pawel Czerwinski (Unsplash)
Pteradactyl Chthonic by JCoope12
The Book of Necrosis by Rachaelmarie / Placidplace
by Shyredfox + Moonflower
Fallen Angel by V_M
A rare photo of Coffee Quills at full size (circa 1970) by Memory Catcher
An imp or servitor demon by TheDigitalArtist
Paths of the Labyrinth leading to the Netherlayers by Placidplace
Lovecraftian Chthonic Creatures by Fz_3d
Demonic Spawning Rocks of the Pit by Gam-Ol
Void Apple by Canva (SA)
Void rift in the Warren, displaying the "bending light" effect by Sufyan (Unsplash)
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