There are many forms of "haves" and "have nots" in the world, but few have had less then Vita, a half-dead orphan residing in the slums of Skyhope. But after a lifetime of fending for herself, she has at last found a home and a family, poor and criminal though they may be. But when the theft of bread goes wrong and she's caught, it seems like it's finally the end for her.
At least, right up until she manifests her Talent midway through being beaten to death, saving herself. Unfortunately, it's in the form of ripping the soul right out of her attacker, with the corpse rising up soon after. It turns out that is special: she is an innate Necromancer, a form of Animancy. Animancy, the magic of the soul, being both illegal and considered a blasphemy in the eyes of the Mistwatcher, the God of the local Church.
But Talents are meant to be used, and this power may be her new family's ticket out of poverty...
Created by Thundamoo and hosted on Royal Road, it can be found here
, and is complete.
Examples:
- Bad Powers, Bad People: To an extent. One thing that is repeated multiple times is that Talents are a part of a person, and that person wants to use them. People with violent Talents therefore have to struggle to find a place to use them without becoming a serial killer. Many of them join the Hunter's Guild where they can use their powers on monsters, but Penelope and Vita both admit that they sometimes dream of just going on a rampage through the city. Because that's what their powers are for.
- Church Militant: The Templars, the warriors of the Church.
- Commonplace Rare: Metal. Metal is noted to be rare and valuable, with a sword made of metal being noted as remarkable.
- Endless Daytime: the sky is continually lit up with an orange glow. The only time it stops is when another Island floats above, blocking out the light, which is the form "night" takes in this world.
- In Love with Your Carnage: Penelope slowly falls in love with Vita because Vita is the only person who understands what it's like to sometimes dream about using your Talent to kill everyone in the city. Vita also notices that Penelope's soul tends to get rather hot and bothered whenever Vita does something especially ruthless.
- Mind Control: Cognimancy, a branch of animancy, is used to control the souls of living creatures. This is mainly used to alter the state of the creatures' minds, resulting in a variety of effects such as making people tell the truth, rewriting memories, changing how they feel about certain people and completely erasing personalities
- My God, What Have I Done?: Lark's entire character arc is about her coming to terms with the fact that she spent her childhood torturing and eating people
- Necromancer: Necromancy, as one of the two known branches of animancy, is highly illegal and a sin in the eyes of the local religion.
- Our Souls Are Different: Souls are the source of Talents, are necessary to cast magic and removal of them kills the person, with the soul becoming dormant afterwards. The Church holds that the Mistwatcher is the source of all souls and they return to its embrace in an afterlife. The first claim is true, the second is only half true and interestingly, souls aren't actually a requirement for life.
- Required Secondary Powers: It seems that all animancers have the ability to sense souls, since it's necessary to do literally anything else with animancy. Vita starts with a range of only touch, but she manages to pump it up to hundreds of yards by the time she joins the Hunter's Guild.
- Sensor Character: "Scout" is a very broad category of hunter, denoting anyone with a long-range ability that can be used to sense monsters. Vita makes use of her soul-sense to great effect, giving her a range and precision most people simply can't match.
- Sir Swearsalot: Much to the Dismay of Lark many people on the cast qualify however Galdra "The Fucking Annihilator" manages to be a standout example both for the frequency of her swearing, and also for being a High templar making the trope name quite litterial.
- Soul Eating: Vita's second most common application of her abilities, which both strengthens her soul and gives her a short-lived energy boost. They're also mentioned to be "delicious".
- Soul Power: Animancy is the general name for magic that manipulates the soul, and it's extremely frowned upon. From a government perspective, it's incredibly dangerous. From a religious perspective, it's treading on the Mistwatchers domain.
- Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: This is in fact how magic was discovered and created, through analysis of both innate Talents and the world around them.
- Superpower Lottery: Some individuals are lucky enough to be born with a "Talent", an innate ability that they can use instinctively. Such abilities general lend themselves well to learning and using related skills or learned abilities.
- Unwitting Test Subject: Penelope sometimes performs experiments on her patients without telling them simply because she doesn't see the point in asking permission for something she knows is for their own good. She starts shaping Vita into a more "conventionally attractive" shape, though in fairness, a large part of that is imply reversing the damage from sixteen years of literal starvation. The rest of the team is horrified when they hear about this, but Vita is mostly just annoyed that Penelope assumed she would be too stupid to agree to such an advantage. Penelope also experiments on Vita's siblings, starting the process of giving one extra-tough bones, another impossibly bendy joints, another extra hearts... It will take time to bear fruit, but once it does she intends to add the improvements to herself and Vita.
- Weird Currency: Since metal is so rare, coins are made of monster chitin instead.
- Whatevermancy:
- Used to classify the different magical categories. Known types include Animancy (magic that affects the soul), Biomancy (manipulation of living biological material), Kineticism (manipulation of movement), Kynamancy (sound and light manipulation, aka illusions) and Thermomancy (manipulation of heat/energy).
- Sub-categories also exist. Animancy has the additional subtypes of Cognimancy (magic that interacts with living souls/minds) and Necromancy (magic that interacts with dead souls), while Kineticism has Aeromancy (movement of air) and Hydromancy (movement of liquids).
- World in the Sky: The setting takes places in a world where all land floats in the sky, moving in stable patterns, with islands being of different heights and speeds.
- Your Soul Is Mine!: One of the most used aspects of Vita's power, in the "Killed Too" and "Drained After Death" subcategories.
