Circuit tattoos

What sort of heathen goes around without magic to hand?
— A Natare Primus

When magic is built into your very society, but is so ritualistic that it is not at all spontaneous in its solution, people develop and standardise ways to turn that ritual down into something that makes it fast and easy to use. Enter the circuit tattoo. Circuit tattoos are technomagic tattoos that lace a person's form. Painted on with a special ink made from eucalyptus sap, circuit tattoos combine the ease of a ready cast spell, with the preparation of having it on you when you need it. While circuit tattoos can be created by mages and activated by the non magically inclined, they tend to mostly be found around people with need of access to a ready made spell. Apothecaries have refined the formula for the ink, often making it hardier for longer travels of trackers and hunters, while explorers and approved archeologists tend to use an easier to wipe away one, supporting a few easy to use spells across the hands, upper arms and forehead; usually a light spell or two.

Utility

Circuit tattoos are single use, the magic crumbling away as each is activated - overloading the simple interaction between paint and body, and so combat mages often find mages with a small hand-script to place as many circuits upon a combat mage as possible. While single use, circuits if low enough 'energy' can have a significant duration, and so for those with less messy jobs, circuit tattoos can be a fashion accessory, a favoured one being a heat spell, that keeps the wearer warm while also allowing a more looser fitting or even more exposed clothing style than the environment allows. This style of solution almost always battles against grime and sweat and so is less useful as a full body solution for those on the go, but trading for a mage to apply one on a cooler winter day does help keep off the chill if one can afford the trade. When not using special gloves laced with magic and a power source, Gardeners may also lay a growth spell across their arms and hands and shoulders, often applied by someone familiar with both magic and gardening, so that the specifics of the task can be pre-prepared, rather than needing a mage to be present at the sight of the manual labour.

Modern Escalation

Since the introduction of the demons and the revelation of humans walking among the common population, circuit tattoos have become much more an intrinsic part of city-foliad culture. Creative use of the cone of force circuit seems to be the most in-fashion right now with many designs incorperating much more magic than would have previously been seen as wise. The gist seems to be that those of the cities seem to feel the urge to defend themselves against threats that were always nebulous and in the forests and now are too present and too close. Those in smaller towns see this behaviour as irrational, as they have always had a passed down tradition of using what comes to hand as a natural deterrent from such worries from the forests, a tendency to walk slow and quiet, and a knowledge to depart swiftly should a threat suddenly be too loud and not where it was a moment ago.

Circuit magic is the basis of most magic native to Levis. While witches have their own magic that draws from the well of possibility, Levis magic comes from carefully painted or traced symbols linked to a power source. This power source can be a living creature, often the caster, but it can also be something like the solar cells. Circuit magic is integral to so many things and processes within Levis that to remove it would rip most of the soul of the continent away. Everything from the magic that holds Levis' books (called bindings), to their Combat Mages and explorers, and the way they grow their houses and buildings, all can be linked back to circuit magic.

Related Vehicles

Travelling Levis is the young Nightbloom K'ranjax. Covering his hair with a hat woven from Greshire, with silver eyes poking out from beneath and a smile painted on his face where a mouth would be, K'ranjax travels from wet spot to wet spot, plying a trade of circuit magic and body painting, using a paint rarely seen in the circles of mages from the land. Easily bribed with a warm dumpling, often filled with soup and fish, K'ranjax - though seen as strange and often frightful, is a warm voice seeping into the mind of those he deals with.

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