Skin magic has two known subfields: Tattoo Magic and Scar Magic, as well as a few unknown subfields. They were all restricted to the Li'o exclusion zone when Juniper Smith used a combination of magics including Kenner's Eye and Prince's Invulnerability to become functionally invincible for an indefinite period of time.
Tattoo Magic[]
"The tattoos themselves were very tightly specified in terms of angles, arcs, inks, and relative size of individual pieces. It called to mind an assignment we'd had in art class to make a vector logo; logos needed to be scalable and consistent, so each part of them had to be defined in mathematical terms, allowing infinite, varied reproduction. A tattoo mage wasn't just drawing a devil on the skin that came to life and gripped his hand, he was drawing a very specific devil."
—Worth the Candle Chapter 30: "Plot Relevant"
Tattoo magic was taught at the Athenaeum of Steel and Sweat[1]. Tattoo mages have the ability to create and manipulate magical tattoos, each of which have a unique effect. Most of the tattoos we see are consumable, but some can be used repeatedly. Tattoo mages generally carry a tattoo book, and are thematically similar to D&D wizards, with a wide variety of spells known and fire-and-forget casting.[2]
As they progress in power, tattoo mages become more proficient at moving[3] and using[4] tattoos, but creating a tattoo is dependent on their skill with a needle and ink, falling under Art in the game layer.[5] More skilled tattooists may be able to make the designs more compact, allowing a more skilled tattoo mage to fit more tattoos on their body.[6]
Some tattoos can be used by someone who isn't a skin mage and some can't (see Spells, below). Tattoos that can only be used by skin mages tend to have mental activations, where other tattoos activate automatically or by touch. Tattoos can be transferred from other people's skin as long as the skin has magic (i.e the person has a soul and is alive or recently deceased)[7] or inked directly by someone else.[8] The person who inks a tattoo does not need to be a tattoo mage,[9] but most tattoo mages are also tattooists.[10]
Spells[]
Fool's Choker[]
A circular band intended to be placed on another person. Unlike most tattoos that we see the Fool's Choker remains under the mental control of the person who inked it, even when on someone else's skin. When activated it cuts half an inch deep into the flesh underneath.[11] The tattoo is a spiked design, which spins rapidly as it is applied, and feels like cold metal on the skin of the target.[12]
Trainees at Steel and Sweat have a Fool's Choker placed on them when they begin studying tattoo magic, which they are expected to be able to remove by the time they graduate.[13] It is also employed by the Tuung of the Boundless Pit to ensure visitors behave.[14][15]
The tattoo is single-use.[16]
Quick-Hut[]
This tattoo creates a poor-quality cobblestone house with a thatched roof.[17] The quality is so bad that the house starts falling apart after about 5 years,[17] but there is an economic niche for people who just want a place to live right now without making a large long-term investment.[18]
Kenner's Eye[]
Kenner's Eye lets the user avoid sleep by storing a 'sleep debt' to be paid off later. The debt accrues at the rate of approximately one quarter of the time spent awake under the influence of the Eye.[19] The tattoo can be used continuously for up to a month at a time, but starts causing side effects[20][21] after a week.[22]
A cheap and fairly common spell for those who needed to stave off sleep at the time of the Second Empire, the ingredients became very rare and expensive as a result of a war, leaving it difficult to come by.[23]
Lecher's Vine[]
Lecher's Vine creates a vine that surrounds a doorway or other portal and alerts the user when something passes through. The tattoo is single-use and self-only. The vine is thin[24] with bright green leaves.[25] One leaf remains behind to "twinge with alarm" whenever the vine is triggered.[26]
Liar's Cup[]
Transfer 'minor toxins' (alcohol, drugs, etc) from the mage to someone else via touch. Infinite use, self-only.[27]
Parson's Voice[]
Parson's voice functions as a horrifically expensive walkie-talkie, costing a quarter million in inks alone. Push the tattoo to talk,[28] and then everyone in a few miles with a linked tattoo will hear what you say.[29] You can link a pair of tattoos into the same "network" by touching them both at once.[30]
Snake[]
The Snake tattoo creates a single non-poisonous snake, size determined by tattoo size. The snake is of average intelligence and completely uncontrolled. The tattoo is single-use and self-only.[31]
Prince's Invulnerability[]
Upon activation, it protects up to six people in the vicinity (caster's discretion) from damage for six seconds.[32] The invulnerability is very comprehensive, protecting even from void weaponry.[33] The tattoo is single-use and very expensive.[34]
This tattoo in combination with Still Magic's meta-stilling virtue and Kenner's Eye resulted in Juniper Smith becoming invincible to most attacks[35] and consequently skin magic getting excluded.
Icy Devil[]
When activated, the mage's hand freezes things it touches for 3 minutes. The tattoo is single-use and self-only.[36]
Surface Sheath[]
Allows a mage to store a single object in the tattoo and retrieve it later.[37] A rare variation exists which can be customized to require a password for retrieval.[38] Storage must be done within 30 minutes of creating the tattoo[37] and seems to require a mage,[39] but retrieval can be done by the person the tattoo is inked on by pulling on the tattoo at any time.[37]
The tattoo takes the form of an elaborate circle, which spins rapidly and then merges with the item when triggered.[39]
Slow-fall[]
Triggers automatically to prevent the wearer from taking damage during a fall.[40] Single-use.[41]
Pseudo-Perimeter[]
Some time after activation this tattoo causes the mage's eyes to glow for a while right before the tattoo burns out. Every time this happened to Leonold Quills decided to move the team,[42] meaning this probably happens when enemies get close. Unclear if the tattoo does anything but act as an alarm. Doesn't function inside time out. Single-use, probably self-only.[16]
Time Out[]
Causes the mage's hand to start glowing blue and leave a trail in the air. The mage can move around to make the trail form a circle,[43] and once it's finished everything inside gets pulled to a small pocket outside of normal time and space.[44] People inside can act as normal until they run out of air,[45] but interacting with the outside world seems to be pretty much impossible.[46] Single-use, probably self-only.[16]
Translation Tattoo[]
A translation tattoo lets you read,[47] write[speculation] and speak[47] a single language as if it were your native one.[48] The language is determined by the tattoo itself and can't be changed after creation.[47] They were the most common kind of translation magic on Aerb before the exclusion.[49]
Faltering Candelabra[]
Likely an offensive spell of some kind.[speculation] Single-use.[16] Cast by Leonold in the eleveator at Quills' direction, but Juniper coudn't see what it did properly.[50]
Aging[]
Exact name and effects unknown. Used by Everett Wolfe to damage Gemma Tails in a way that bypassed her defensive soul link.[51][52]
Other Tattoos[]
Everett Wolfe had some unown method of "skipping" forward through time far into the future, which was presumably tattoo-based.[speculation] He was able to somehow negate the damage dealt by Valencia shooting him in a fashion which involved his tattoos swirling on his skin, although his clothes were still damaged and he still stumbled backwards.[53]
Known Practitioners[]
- Leonold Pavran
- Everett Wolfe
- Juniper Smith
- Zeke[54]
Scar Magic[]
"So anyway, scar magic. The short answer is that you get scars on your skin and they give you abilities."
—Worth the Candle Chapter 25: "Rocket Man"
Scar magic provides passive buffs that last for as long the scars on a user's skin remain in the correct shape. The effects can be quite powerful, but the way skin naturally distorts the patterns over time leaves the magic mostly useless for anyone who isn't an elf.[55]
Spells[]
Physical Enhancement[]
Mentioned briefly, but this appears to be the purpose of Fenn's scars. They made her stronger and faster while they were functional.[56]
Seven Psalms[]
The bearer becomes significantly harder to injure unless they are struck eight times.[57] This does not appear to prevent attacks from imparting momentum.[58]
Skin Magic in the Game Layer[]
Juniper Smith unlocked Skin Magic when Leonold Pavran applied a Fool's Choker to him.[59] Its primary stat is KNO.[60]
Skin magic has the following known virtue:
- Skin Magic 10, Shifting Skin: Allows you to freely move and rotate tattoos around your skin with a thought, even when you cannot feel your skin. Perception of the location of tattoos is added to your sensorium. You no longer take a penalty for inexperience when in a contest to move tattoos.[61]
References
- ↑ "he would almost certainly have spent a few years at the Athenaeum of Steel and Sweat"
—Worth the Candle Chapter 27: "Fears" - ↑ "From what I’d learned, tattoo mages came the closest to being a traditional D&D wizard, at least in terms of mechanics."
—Worth the Candle Chapter 27: "Fears" - ↑ "I had finally managed to budge it at level eight of Skin Magic, but “budge” was on the order of centimeters rather than moving it away from my neck"
—Worth the Candle Chapter 13: "Time Out" - ↑ "Skin Magic 20 should be high enough to cast it"
—Worth the Candle Chapter 118: "Breaking Loose" - ↑ "There was a hidden cap to tattoo magic, which was that it seemed to depend on my Art skill"
—Worth the Candle Chapter 30: "Plot Relevant" - ↑ I think it would be possible to simply reskin a D&D wizard as a tattoo mage by simply handwaving away the material component costs of inks (in a similar way to how material components are usually handwaved away). A tattoo mage doesn’t have a spellbook, he has a book of flash, and he spends his mornings tattooing himself for the day ahead, picking out prepared spells, until his skin is as full as he can make it. As he advances in level, he gets better at making the designs compact, better at making the spells impactful, and he learns new tattoos to put on his skin. How on point this is varies by edition/system, since one of the core conceits of the magic is that you only get what’s on your skin, meaning that you can’t cast stuff you haven’t prepared (which wizards can do in some editions/systems). [...] In terms of flavor, tattoo mages are a grab-bag of dissociated spells with no common threads, which is sort of how I view classic TTRPG wizards. A wizard can cast a Fireball and Detect Thoughts, but these don’t really have anything to do with each other, and don’t really have much justification for being available to the same class, aside from that just being how things were in the beginning. - Thoughts on Adapting Worth the Candle for Tabletop RPGs, Part 1: Entads, Exclusions, Tattoo Magic, Blood Magic, Bone Magic
- ↑ Tattoos sometimes serve the role of magic items. In the case of a spell like Parson’s Voice or one of the translation tattoos, they’re simply a thing to be acquired once you have enough money, and interesting only in that it takes a tattoo mage to apply or remove them. A neat thing you can do here, if there’s no one in the party who’s a tattoo mage, is to have an enemy with a valuable tattoo on them that will go non-functional in a half hour after their death, meaning either a race against the clock or an attempt at capturing them alive. - Thoughts on Adapting Worth the Candle for Tabletop RPGs, Part 1: Entads, Exclusions, Tattoo Magic, Blood Magic, Bone Magic
- ↑ I was good on sleep, but kicking myself for not taking Kenner’s Eye from Amaryllis; it had been one of the tattoos that she’d managed to recover from Everett’s body before his skin had completely lost its magic. There were other, more permanent solutions to the question of sleep, including training with the Elon Gar, but all that would have to wait until later, when it was a point of actual concern. It was possible that I could get Kenner’s Eye from someone, or have it tattooed on me, but I would have time for that after the Harold thing was taken care of.
—Worth the Candle Chapter 158: "OP" - ↑ there is technically no requirement for them to be done by a tattoo mage
—A Brief Description of Aerb Chapter 5: "Magics" - ↑ Leonold was tattooing himself... This was apparently part of the process for a skin mage, or a tattoo mage.
—Worth the Candle Chapter 13: "Time Out" - ↑ "If I activate it, which takes but a thought, it will cut about half an inch into your flesh"
—Worth the Candle Chapter 12: "Life of the Party" - ↑ There was a tattoo that wrapped around the palm and back of his outstretched hand, showing spikes, and this one was rotating, moving faster than any of the others. “It’s important that you not resist,” he said. I took his hand, and he gripped me tight. The spiked tattoo touched me, feeling like cold metal on my flesh, and then I saw it appear on the back of my own hand, spinning across my skin. Skill Unlocked: Skin Magic! Achievement Unlocked: Skin Deep It didn’t stay there though; instead it migrated up my arm, like a chilly bracelet, disappearing beneath my jacket. I could feel it moving though, past my elbow, tickling my shoulder, and then finally wrapping itself around my neck. Quest Accepted: Heading Off the Skin Mage - Leonold has placed the Fool’s Choker around your neck. Disable it, kill him, or circumvent it before he kills you. - Chapter 12: Life of the Party
- ↑ "when you enter into the athenaeum as a student, they put a tattoo known as a Fool’s Choker around your neck"
—Worth the Candle Chapter 15: "Whys and Wherefores" - ↑ “There is an entad vehicle, used largely for observation,” she finally said. “The tuung allow it to go by, so long as it stays far from the walls of the Pit, and those aboard are cleared of magic by their warders and given a Fool’s Choker by their tattoo mages.” Yikes. “The owners have a good working relationship with the matriarchs.” - Chapter 86: Headwater
- ↑ I got the answer to what was going on when I felt a sharp pain in my pinky finger, which instantly started bleeding where the Fool’s Choker had severed the flesh. I was wearing all four of them on that finger, and they went off one by one, cutting into the flesh down to the bone. I touched a bone in my bandolier and burned it to heal myself. Amaryllis was watching me with wide eyes. “That would have been an international incident,” said Amaryllis. “What the fuck are they thinking?” “They were probably waiting for us to come up,” said Rattle-Clack with a shrug. “They knew that I was lying, and hopefully they’ll believe I was lying under duress.” - Chapter 87: Down And Out
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 "two of Prince’s Invulnerability, five of the Pseudo Perimeter, which probably wouldn’t even work in here, one more Fool’s Choker, and a single Faltering Candelabra"
—Worth the Candle Chapter 13: "Time Out" - ↑ 17.0 17.1 there was a tattoo you could make with the right magical inks that would produce a cobblestone house for you, one complete with a thatched roof. Unfortunately, the cobblestone houses that it produced weren’t terribly good in the long term, and after five years or so, they would begin to break down
—Worth the Candle Chapter 113: "A Hell of a Time" - ↑ Economically, it was sort of like the difference between renting and buying, a question of whether you wanted to make an investment that would take some time to pay off, or cheaper living in the short term.
—Worth the Candle Chapter 113: "A Hell of a Time" - ↑ “He’s paying down Kenner’s Eye,” said Everett. “That much is clear. A month awake means a week asleep, maybe more.
—Worth the Candle Chapter 92: "Shades" - ↑ Kenner’s Eye will keep me awake for the next month or until I leave, though I’d obviously prefer not to pay it down, and I’m going to need some other method of staying awake in the long-term. - Chapter 163: Level Heads
- ↑ “He’s paying down Kenner’s Eye,” said Everett. “That much is clear. A month awake means a week asleep, maybe more. There are some side effects, but nothing he can’t handle. The real question is why we can’t so much as move him.” - Chapter 92: Shades
- ↑ Kenner’s Eye was pushing off sleep, and would continue to do so for another week before it started to wear on me, and another month before I would be forced into sleep, by which time we would hopefully have something to replace it with which could eliminate sleep entirely. - Chapter 164: In the House of God
- ↑ Pallida rolled up a sleeve and showed a tattoo to me. The larger shape was that of an eye, but the pupil was like a goat’s, squished in the middle, almost reminiscent of an hourglass. “Kenner’s Eye. It took us a surprisingly long time to find a tattooist, even accounting for the general bedlam.” “I’m actually fairly surprised that Bethel didn’t get one,” I said. “You’d think with all the people passing through, there would have been one with Kenner’s Eye.” It was a disappointment, frankly. Amaryllis had her own copy of it, but there was a problem with that, which was that she had incurred a debt. Taking it from her while that debt was active would put her out like a light. It was a fallback solution, to be sure, especially since we could rush through her sleep with the time chamber, but we’d held off, hoping that we could find something better, so that Amaryllis could pay down the debt at her leisure. “Not so useful, for what it is,” said Raven. “When it was a cheap spell, it was used by guards, firemen, physicians, and anyone who might have to work long shifts, the better to stave off sleep. As the price rose, fewer had it.” “We actually found an abandoned tattoo shop before finding a different tattooist, and the owner didn’t even have it in his book,” said Pallida. “A book we brought, by the way.” - Chapter 162: Deus Ex
- ↑ "Produces a small, thin vine that can surround any standing entrance such as a door or window for a period of twenty-four hours. You will be alerted any time something passes through the ring of vines. Single use. Self only. Required size is roughly half a square foot."
—Worth the Candle Chapter 30: "Plot Relevant" - ↑ I had already secured the door with another Lecher’s Vine, which had crawled from my skin and went to surround the door frame in bright green leaves [...] the vine was still wrapped around the frame, healthy and green. - Chapter 66: The Long Night
- ↑ She followed me, past the vines around the doorframe, which gave me a twinge of alert in the one leaf of a vine left tattooed on my arm. - Chapter 37: Paths
- ↑ "Allows you to drain minor toxins from your body, such as boscleaf, alcohol, caffeine, terrablend, nicotine, or granchar, and stealthily deliver them by touch. Infinite use. Self only."
—Worth the Candle Chapter 30: "Plot Relevant" - ↑ If I’d been a little less world-wise, I might have missed her touching a small tattoo where her jawbone met her neck. I was almost certain it was the Parson’s Voice; if she’d activated it, then she was speaking to someone else at the same time she was speaking to me. I wanted one for everyone on the team, but the magical inks to make them were a quarter million obols each, and we hadn’t been able to justify the expense, not if it wasn’t going to cloak communication. It wasn’t much better than a walkie talkie, except that it was considerably smaller than what they had on Aerb, and much more discreet.
—Worth the Candle Chapter 110: "Bubblegum" - ↑ The plus side was that the comms tattoos, Parson's Voice, would work on the scale of miles, meaning that so long as Bethel always contained one person with a tattoo, she could be called in at a moment’s notice, descending from the sky like a murderous angel to get me out of whatever jam I was in. (Parson's Voice was ridiculously expensive for what it did; Amaryllis had the foresight to grab what she could from Everett after his death, in the brief window where they would still retain some scrap of their magic. Pallida and Heshnel each had one too, and Pallida had given hers up to Amaryllis, meaning that we had three in the group.) - Chapter 142: Sound and Silence
- ↑ https://old.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/en6ure/wtc_why_are_they_not_overheard_by_people_with/fdwjfgn/?st=k59udgwk&sh=3fda3f8a
- ↑ "A non-poisonous snake comes to life and slides from your skin. It has normal intelligence for a snake and holds no particular affection for you. Single use. Self only. Tattoo size determines size of the resulting snake."
—Worth the Candle Chapter 30: "Plot Relevant" - ↑ “Prince’s Invulnerability lasts for about six seconds?” I asked. “Covers six people?”
—Worth the Candle Chapter 13: "Time Out" - ↑ There were entads that offered varying levels of protection to their bearers, but almost all of them had limits, limits which didn’t apply to Prince’s Invulnerability. It could even stop void
—Worth the Candle Chapter 156: "Mome Rath II" - ↑ Prince’s Invulnerability represented a significant expense, even given how large our war chest was
—Worth the Candle Chapter 156: "Mome Rath II" - ↑ here at the end of it, there’s you, in your current form, invincible except to a select few attacks
—Worth the Candle Chapter 162: "Deus Ex" - ↑ "Wreaths your hand in ice, imbuing it with the ability to chill anything you touch for the next three minutes. Single use. Self only. Required size is roughly 1 square foot."
—Worth the Candle Chapter 30: "Plot Relevant" - ↑ 37.0 37.1 37.2 "An object pressed against the tattoo will skin into and become part of the magic of the skin, allowing it to be retrieved later by pulling at the edge of the tattoo. Object must be inserted within thirty minutes of tattoo completion. Required size depends upon the size of the object to be stored."
—Worth the Candle Chapter 30: "Plot Relevant" - ↑ “It’s a variant, keyed to a word. It’s new, discovered in the last few years, the athenaeum didn’t want it spreading because they thought it would weaken the trade, I wasn’t even supposed to know about it.”
—Worth the Candle Chapter 27: "Fears" - ↑ 39.0 39.1 I don’t know whether she noticed us leave or not, but her eyes were still closed and her face still calm as the tattooist completed the elaborate circle on her skin. When he was finished, he touched it with his bare fingers. Though the skin was red and raw, Amaryllis showed no reaction to this.
“Package?” the tattooist asked.
Amaryllis opened her eyes, reaching into her purse, and pulled out the teleportation key, which was wrapped in white cloth and tied shut with twine. He took it without a word and with a squint of his eyes the tattoo started spinning on her skin. The circle was a hand-length across her arm, curving with it. I watched carefully as the key was shoved into her skin, passing into it with only token resistance. When he was finished, ink moved within the spinning circle, then became part of it, until it reformed into a simple, unmoving image of a package tied up with string.
—Worth the Candle Chapter 17: "Voting Blocs" - ↑ "When I looked around, I saw that death wasn't quite so imminent as I had thought; I was slowing down."
—Worth the Candle Chapter 1: "Taking the Fall" - ↑ "I could still feel the burnt out rune on your right hand."
—Worth the Candle Chapter 12: "Life of the Party" - ↑ The tattoo mage’s eyes burnt out again not long after that, so we got moving
—Worth the Candle Chapter 13: "Time Out" - ↑ "The tattoo mage stopped right where he was and held out his hand, then ran in a small circle not more than ten feet wide with his hand trailing behind him. It started with a blue glow in his hand that built as he went, until his entire arm was covered in vibrant blue light... Fenn reached out to pull me in, right as the circle closed and everything went black."
—Worth the Candle Chapter 13: "Time Out" - ↑ “We’re outside of time,” said Quills. “Don’t touch the border unless you want to lose a finger. Carter, status?”
—Worth the Candle Chapter 13: "Time Out" - ↑ "I was breathing up their air and my usefulness was rapidly diminishing."
—Worth the Candle Chapter 13: "Time Out" - ↑ "time out and the time chamber interfered with Parson’s Voice"
—Worth the Candle Chapter 160: "On the Merits of Oblivion" - ↑ 47.0 47.1 47.2 "Translation tattoos were expensive, and you needed one for each language you wanted to speak: the librarians had a large stock of them, and a tattoo mage proficient enough to move them around, but they didn’t have one for Kindeh"
—Worth the Candle Chapter 132: "Uskine Nervedah" - ↑ "It was easier for a person to lie in a second language, unless that second language was granted by translation tattoos"
—Worth the Candle Chapter 73: "Amaryllis" - ↑ "There were very few entads that granted the ability to become a full polygot, most of them well-known, and translation tattoos for everything else."
—Worth the Candle Chapter 111: "Peer Pressure""that means that translation tattoos still have somewhere to function. I don’t think I can overstate how important they are for the international community."
—Worth the Candle Chapter 163: "Level Heads" - ↑ “Candelabra,” Quills shouted. Leonold didn’t hesitate; he dropped down into the elevator and then cast a spell that I could only halfway see while I waited for him to come back. - Chapter 14: ELEVATOR facts
- ↑ A tattoo on Everett’s arm billowed outward like a flame licking in the wind, ephemeral and white, which caught the fox Animalia off-guard. Her hair went white all over her body and she dropped to the floor, either injured or dead
—Worth the Candle Chapter 118: "Breaking Loose" - ↑ He must have known going in that he’d be taking all the damage, which was why Everett had used an attack that bypassed the physical contralocation of the soul link.
—Worth the Candle Chapter 118: "Breaking Loose" - ↑ I was half-deaf from the thumping sound of Valencia’s guns, which were firing across the table to the other side. I saw Everett stagger backward, half out of his chair, as the bullets tore through his clothes, but there was no visible blood, and at his arm I could see tattoos moving over his wrinkled skin. - Chapter 118: Breaking Loose
- ↑ 'Fenn smiled. “Zeke, was it?”
“Yeah,” said the tattoo mage.'
—Worth the Candle Chapter 27: "Fears" - ↑ the scars themselves need to be positioned properly upon the skin, and if the skin changes too much, the magic gets lost
—Worth the Candle Chapter 25: "Rocket Man" - ↑ I was so strong, so fast, and it felt so good.
—Worth the Candle Chapter 25: "Rocket Man" - ↑ My skin is embedded with the Seven Psalms, rendering me difficult to physically injure unless such efforts are taken eight times.
—Worth the Candle Chapter 125: "The Remnants of the Past" - ↑ The hits, which seemed like they should have been grievous based on the way Heshnel recoiled back from them, didn’t seem to be doing any damage.
—Worth the Candle Chapter 161: "Reimer (Chapter)" - ↑ I saw it appear on the back of my own hand, spinning across my skin.
Skill Unlocked: Skin Magic!
—Worth the Candle Chapter 12: "Life of the Party" - ↑ Skin Magic lvl 12! (Skill capped at triple the value of primary stat KNO.)
—Worth the Candle Chapter 30: "Plot Relevant" - ↑ Skin Magic 10, Shifting Skin:
—Worth the Candle Chapter 105: "Notes"