Gnarlen
What is a Gnarlen?
Also called gargoyles.
According to many land gods, gnarlen are the only good thing that necromancers have ever invented. According to everyone else, a gnarlen is a magically animated statue. Widely varied in appearance, all gnarlen are the same in one sense: gnarlen are animated by necromantic spells that attach the necromantic core of a lesser divinity to an artificial geomantic interface which animates stone with their motions.
There is another detail however of gnarlen: They have always been created with sacred bindings, so that they are always protectors. It is theoretically possible yet deeply profane (far worse than most necromantic acts) to create a gnarlen without the psychologically-binding spells that make them protective of others. The psychology of the gnarlen is therefore renowned for being of a protective inclination. This is a substantial transformation of
What is the magical gift of the gnarlen?
Gnarlen have three magical gifts.
Firstly, and quite simply, they are animated stone! Gnarlen have immensely durable bodies which are not subject to most ordinary requirements. They do not eat, drink, or even breathe. They are strong, albeit slow, and difficult to damage.
Secondly, they are highly resistant to necromantic injuries. They do not (seem to) decay when casting necromantic spells and they do not (seem to) decay when attacked by necromantic spells. This resistance extends even to self-decay from casting spells. It is somewhat illusory (see The Price of Necromancy), but it is nevertheless potent. Would-be ex-necromancers who are sick of fighting with the decay that comes of having ever tampered with necromancer sometimes self-convert into gnarlen. This costs them their peak potential as necromancers (see cost, below), but it gives them back stability.
Thirdly, and most famously, gnarlen are resistant to Fate. All gnarlen save a rare and pious subset of geomancer gnaren (who have voluntarily given up this advantage to interface with Fate in an ordinary way) are hard for the land gods to foresee the actions of and hard for the land gods to manipulate. They create unpredictable fluctuations in the projection of Fate. Far from being offended by this, most of the land gods appreciate the rogue element that gnarlen provide. The sacred protector bindings on gnarlen are believed to be a major part of why the land gods appreciate the Fate-fluctuations rather than being annoyed by them as they are annoyed by the Fate-fluctuations triggered by other necromantic constructs.
Where do gnarlen prefer to establish their settlements?
Gnarlen show up everywhere as a minority. They require very little to stay alive (as they do not eat, drink, or breathe). Those who wish to dwell among their own kind tend to dwell where Fate is hostile to any other kind of settler. The land gods can do very little to eject gnarlen from their theomes, so there are a few gnarlen everywhere, sometimes even in the most hostile theomes.
The protector bindings on gnarlen are a major culprit of driving gnarlen into their own communities. If someone who accepts conversion into a gnarlen discovers that they do not appreciate having their mentality torqued towards making them a loyal protector and/or savior of the downtrodden, staying away from other lesser divinities and sticking to the company of other gnarlen loosens the binding quite dramatically.
What is the magical cost of being a gnarlen?
Where the other species have only magical gifts, there is actually a price to be paid for having the three gifts of becoming a gnarlen. Over and above the psychological bindings, gnarlen can never be truly excellent at necromancy. Their necromantic core is too well-buried by the artificial geomantic interface which is made around them to animate stone. The result is that gnarlen are at best second-rate necromancers, and there is famously one skill that is the absolute limit of what gnarlen can learn to do with necromancy: create more gnarlen.
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