Animalcules

Small gooey black slimes.
This is what a living object looks like without a core. A small thing created by two gods. The God of Spellweaving Ferrous, who supplied the souls to Eris, the self-proclaimed Goddess of Chaos, for her chaos experiments. The goal of these experiments was to develop a simpler version of the more complex automatons that most gods used in the Realm of the Gods. These automatons were difficult to create, used multiple layered spell systems to function, and required constant daily upkeep. A project developed by Ferrous, the Animalcule was the first stepping stone in the next generation of automatons in the Age of Antiquity.
Eris was an interesting choice by Ferrous for this project. Her experiments exploring the unstable and random nature of Chaos magic - if it can be called magic - would allow Ferrous to develop methods to further manipulate souls harvested from mortals. Ferrous was on good terms with Hierophant Abandon of Necropolis, who allowed him to collect souls from the river Styx for his experiments. Using mortal souls for experiments is a privilege only available to a few gods, like Ferrous and Eris. Using a god’s soul, however, is an illegal crime in the Realm of the Gods, pushable by banishment to the Mundane Realm for 1000 years to live as a simple, powerless, and long-lived mortal.
In Ferrous' laboratory, these souls were first crushed and compressed in containment chambers powered by deity magic. Souls are free-flowing and expansive. While within mortal bodies they are constrained by the flesh, the brain being its main housing, death allows them to move more freely. Crushing and compressing make them easier to work with. These compressed souls are then meticulously modified to create animalcules using small implements powered by chaos magic, a process that takes hours. This method unfortunately destroys the mind of the soul and leaves the resulting animalcule the intelligence of a small fly.
While this leaves room for spells to be woven into the animalcule's structure, it lacks the mind to do much of anything besides the occasional twitch. Later in their experiments, Eris and Ferrous created a method to preserve some parts of the soul's mind. It's still a blank slate, but at least it can follow basic instructions without much spellwork to make it function.
It will be much later, with many blunders along the way, when Ferrous developed the first animalcule with capable of thinking. It was created from...

Dear Faith,
I am glad to finally hear from you! Hopefuly, the Celestial Realm will stay stable with your peoples' efforts. Things are rough on my end. Well, rough is really an understatement. I will not bother you with the details. I will tell you later about it. There is something else more urget.
I have found Ferrous' secret laboratory in the Everglades.
According to Ferrous' research notes I found there, several years ago he created a living object, almost something like what we are now. It used a god's soul.
Hecate, the Goddess of Witchcraft and Ferrous' partner. You met her before, yes? She dissappeared before Ferrous' fall and we assumed that she was one of his victims.
After Ferrous' experiments were confiscated and destroyed after his fall and sealing in 2011AoA, there were some clues found as to how she died. Ferrous and Hecate were conducting experiments, the notes did not say what exactly. From the vague descriptions I can deciper, a live mortal from the Mundane Realm was their subject. These experiments were to find a cure for a contagion that spreads just from the gaze of this mortal's eyes. They can turn things into stone, killing their victims almost instantly. Gods, mortals, and beasts, it knows no limits.
Apparently, there was one spell, newly developed and untested, that Ferrous tried. There's no spell plan written down anywhere. Possibly hidden. We checked everywhere.
Perhaps Eris can help us once things settle down. She and Pandora found that little box before all this happened. Eris also worked with him...
Whatever that spell was, it misfired and kill both Hecate and this mortal. Hecate crumbled to dust while the mortal just vanished. Somehow, Ferrous collected Hecate's soul and later transform it into an animalcule.
And bonded it to a box.
Words cannot describe how disgusted I feel about this.
It is the box. That box is her. It all started with her. Ferrous used her to do all this. Just as he had done all those years ago. Was this his plan this whole time? Kill all the gods and take our power? What of the Mundane Realm, are they too destroyed and turned to - this?
I apologize for my distress. It's begining to dawn on me how deep this goes. I thought sealing him would put an end to his rampage all those years ago. I was wrong.
It's impossible to undo what happened to our world. We can only move forward, stop Metatron, and save what is left. I'll report again if I find anything more. And, yes, I'll tell Nikey and the others what I found.
May you be well and safe Faith, my dearst friend.
Sincerely,
Nicodemus, God of Spellweaving

Basic Information

Biological Traits

Not much is known about the original animalcule, only that it can bond with materials to create mimics, creatures that mimic everyday objects.

Additional Information

Uses, Products & Exploitation

An incomplete path to something greater... Dearest Hecate, if only you knew what your transformation opened for me. My greatest work has begun.

- From a torn note

Genetic Descendants

• Biology of Living Objects

Scientific Name

Animalculous

Lifespan

Unknown

Average Height

Unknown

Average Weight

Unknown

Average Length

Unknown

Average Physique

Unknown

Body Tint, Colouring and Marking

Unknown

Discovered by

Ferrous, the former God of Spellweaving