Vulp Body Modifications
- CW: Mild Body Horror
- Vulp Blood magic is actually, as is most forms of magic, far more diverse than it's name would suggest. The magic also extends to manipulation of all the bodily materials and a skilled biomancer is as apt at making hair grow as they are at exsanguinating someone. So from many centuries of careful study and work vulps have found ways to make a vast form of body modifications using magic that range from the purely cosmetic to the purely pragmatic.
Cosmetic Modification
The most common of vulp modification is the cosmetic. Because many of them do not involve vital organs they can be performed easily and cheaply with little in the way of reagents required.
Markings
A very common aesthetic modification includes the addition or changing of fur markings and patterns on the body. Initially these were only used too fit minor fashion preferences for pale colors but as the methods advanced the culture adaapted to the point of including images, writing, and often unnatural coloration. A scant 120 years ago (a short time for a practice going on more than 1000 years) an enterprising biomancer realised how easy the magic made it to implant bio-luminescent tissue into a patient and now many of the markings include glowing spots, stripes, and other patterns.
Height Modification
The most notable of the cosmetic modifications are those intended to increase the height of the vulp. Unlike other cosmetic elements most changes to the height involve significant reagents and skill to be performed safely. The vulp aesthetic fascination with height sometimes ignores these and more than a few vulps have had much of their lives damaged by a failed height mod. These mods can be divided into three categories.
- Spacers: A spacer is made by separating a section of the legs/arms and installing a new material in the gap (often a metal). Bio magic is then applied to ensure the body doesn't reject or get poisoned by the addition of metal to the body. This mod is at times left with a decorative element exposed for fashion reasons. Risks from this can include; structural failure at the meeting site of bone and metal, infection, and metal poisoning.
Stretching: Stretching invovles using magic to cause the bones to distort and stretch into a longer form to lengthen the arms/legs/spine. While that is all that is needed to perform the operation to perform the operation safely a reinforcing material must be then melded into the stretched bones to ensure the limb does not collapse. Most often this is metal. Risks from this can include; the weakened bones shattering under stress, weakening of the muscles and tendons (leading sometimes to tearing of the tendon), and infection.
- Piercing/Gaping: The least common, most difficult, and often the most expensive of the height increases. Gaping is done by using bio magic to shape a gap through the center of a limb or, most commonly, the abdomen. A metal ring is then inserted into the gap to maintain its form and provide structural support. In many cities the abdominal version has become a symbol that one has been acknowledged as a master biomancer and is not common among any of the public. A definite side effect of abdominal piercing is that the reshaping of the internal organs needed to keep the body functioning in the new form often reduces the effectiveness of the same organs, primarily the stomach and intestines as they are usually the ones most reshaped. Risks from this can include; death, malnourishment, partial or complete paralysis, and infection.
Eye Modification
- Less common due to fashion reasons, most eye modification is pragmatic rather than cosmetic, but there is still a small percent of vulps known to have their eyes changed. In order of frequency these mods tend to include; changes to color, changes to pupil shape, the addition of extra eyes, and making the eyes glow. In all cases the main risk associated is blindness, though that list is also the list of how much risk the procedure presents in that regard.
Practical modification
- Naturally any race with access to the ability to change the natural state of life around them is going to attempt that to improve themselves. This is definitely the case with vulps, however they learned that unfortunately many of the goals of that field were not going to be cost effective. While they succeeded in making a vulp who would grow to 2 m tall and could lift 500 kg they found that doing so not only cost a fortune in reagents and materials but also produced a vulp who required 10 times as much food and medical care. As a result practical modifications tend to be less extreme. The following are the most common practical modifications, in order of commonality:
- Increased constitution: Improving the liver and the immune system is the most basic of the practical mods and is the one most likely to be publicly funded. At least 5 vulp cities (out of 137) have completely eradicated communicable disease from their people with a method along these lines being made mandatory for all citizens.
- Skin Toughening: Able to be applied over small areas and quickly removed once unneeded, modifications to make the skin more resistant to penetration are surprisingly common among vulps in a profession where such penetrations are a likely event. In the case of the few times that a vulp city has required the forming of an army this mod was applied to all soldiers.
- Night Vision: The eyes are modified to work far more effectively in limited light. Mainly this mod is installed in farmers and fishers who, due to their jobs, often work far away from the major illumination sources of the city. Though a lot of the more covert element has also found this useful.
- Pits: Heat sensing pits are installed on the vulp. This modification is mostly useful for guards and vulps trying to avoid guards as it helps to locate warmblooded creatures in the dark.
- Enhanced hearing/sonar: Infrequently, because it often comes with the problem of being too sensitive to loud noises, vulps will modify their ears to pick up a much broader range of frequency or to function at much lower decibels. This is usually (though it's rare as mods go) used by either delicate craftsman or by assassins. Turning this into sonar often requires additional work on the vocal cords and many years of training/practice.
- Extra limbs: While the term is limbs, this mod is almost exclusively used for additional arms. This most is also extremely rare because while the art of attaching a new limb is relatively common among the vulp, the skill to comfortably manuever an entire additional limb is far less common and adjusting to the new musculature often requires modifications to much more of the body.
The Pale City
- Nosville (City of fragrence*), also known as The Pale City, earned extreme notoriety among vulps due to its biomancers pioneering a mod that enabled the recipient to survive on a diet of only blood. This mod was initially developed as a side result of a more common mod to assist recipients (especially the master biomancers conducting the research) to avoid undernourishment as a result of abdominal gaping forcing them into an all liquid diet. While subsisting only on blood was only ever a real thing among the cities nobles and elite (who did it more as a show of power and wealth) it became a major aspect of the cities reputation, causing it to be both feared and highly respected.
*The founding site of the city was home to an exceptionally sweet smelling variety of fungus and until the blood drinking thing was most known for its production of perfumes and incense.