Editing Heartless (section)

== Kinds of Heartless ==
There is a wide variety of methods to becoming a Heartless, a few are outlined here.

=== Heart in a Box ===
The Heartless creates a phylactery or vessel, where the root of their being is placed.  Their body becomes a construction or representation.  If the vessel is damaged or destroyed, the Heartless practitioner is destroyed as well.  Should the body that faces the world be destroyed, they reform or are resurrected.  Once achieved, further research or rites may steadily cut down on any of the drawbacks, with more laborious efforts enabling them to decorate or augment the construction they form.  Other forms include taking one’s heart and wrapping it in a riddle, instead (a Rumplestiltskin effect), or arcane science (practice plus a transfer or upload of consciousness, with the prepared clones being the ‘box’).<ref name=":0" />

=== Deflected Heart ===
The Heartless creates an effigy, such as a piece of art.  They invest wholesale into this and reach the point where the effigy absorbs the entirety of the practitioner’s years (the Heartless practitioner ceases to age) and/or the practitioner would need to suffer a thousand wounds in a day before the effigy’s limit was reached.  Other forms may not use art, but something like science (the aging or pain becomes a waste that accrues and must be stored) or a whipping boy- a once-mortal person that is kept in a place that Death cannot reach, tattooed or otherwise set up to have the Practitioner’s ills transferred to them.<ref name=":0" />

=== Body Thief ===
The heartless uses a ritual to remove the target from their body and then extracts their own heart to transfer it in.  Some practitioner families maintain farms or close associations with families that they have cultivated and encouraged to be optimal vessels.  Variants tend to play on what exactly is done with the hearts extracted from victims and the nature of the ritual conducted.  A more extreme variant involves using practice to swap bodies with others, willing or otherwise, with the other person (now in the practitioner’s old body) either left to live their life or killed after the fact.<ref name=":0" />

=== Mind Thief ===
The Heartless enact an assault on a target.  They break a target and then create openings, which they ultimately capitalize on to possess the target as a spirit would.  Mental combats or ‘dream doors’ may see the practitioner fighting the target or exploring the target’s psyche as a pseudo-physical space to be invaded.  Some attack, retreat, and marshal their strength before repeating, while others will occupy, gradually affecting the target’s actions.  As more leverage is gained, those that stay gain more time or influence.  Either way, on eventual success, they take over the subject’s mind and body both.  Some variants on this might approach things differently, or in a more personal way.  The right words can worm their way into people’s heads, with curses and key phrases serving to break a person down, for a very effective mind-thieving ritual that requires the consent of the victim.  A therapist might have a patient willingly let them in through hypnosis sessions, exploring the psyche in a purely benign way over prior sessions, then utilize this at one final point, going on the offensive for their one real shot at attacking and conquering.<ref name=":0" />
===Bloodied===
To remain young and strong, one preys on others to take what they have.  Extracting key fluids or essences serves to renew or refresh the practitioner.  This road makes a practitioner much more Other, in a faster way than many alternate paths.  Variants will take different things in different ways.  Bathing in blood is common, but it’s possible to steal the skin of others to wear, or modify one’s own genitals with needles that extrude mid-coitus to leech out vital essences.  Taps can be used on others to extract vital things, in a series of collections that are mixed and balanced to restore or enhance particular qualities of the Bloodied Heartless, in a more alchemical approach.<ref name=":0" />

=== Viscera ===
A Jekyll-and-Hyde type Halflight practice, overlapping with [[Alchemy]]. Begins with a herbal concoction known as the Sixberry admixture, which allows for temporary molding of one's body.<ref>A man dons an animal skin and stalks a forest trail.  Another drinks an 
alchemical admixture, and becomes a beast of another sort.<br>[...]<br>The Sixberry admixture is the basic ritual for the Viscera approach, and paves the way for future progression.  A simple and flexible herbal concoction, softening those parts of the Self that are firm, and scouring away that which is disposable.  Taken as a triple dose, one might soften their own bones and features enough to mold them, but should expect up to a month of aches and pains after the admixture’s effect wears off, as the body fights to return to normal. - [[List of Books#Quasi|Quasi]], quoted in [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/09/03/4-5-spoilers-bedtime-reading/ Bonus Material: Bedtime Reading].</ref><ref name=":1">Four basic rituals are listed, in order, as per the Viscera (Otherness stemming from within),  Mien (Otherness starting at the outside), Calendar (Otherness at set intervals), and Unfettered (Otherness from detachment) categories. - [[List of Books#Quasi|Quasi]], quoted in [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/09/03/4-5-spoilers-bedtime-reading/ Bonus Material: Bedtime Reading].</ref> This type of magic can even be employed by the unawakened, but risks eroding the Self to the point you could collapse and be left a [[Vestige]].<ref>“Dreg is a vestige.  Was Aware enough to dip into some Jekyll and Hyde type alchemy, eroded away a good chunk of his Self.  Only a fragment of the person was left, other stuff took up residence.”“I was almost a doctor,” Dreg said.  “A sip of this, a drab of that, to bring out the sharpness of my mind and my attention to details and diagnosis.  I was an angel to hundreds of people who had nothing.  But the same drug made me frail, and some people broke me to pieces so they could take my stash of herbs and chemicals.  Then I had only the frailty, a shattered body, an old self I’d forgotten, and dashed dreams of what might have been.” - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/09/05 Excerpt] from [[Leaving a Mark 4.6]]</ref>

=== Mein ===
Removing aspects of the 'Self' with strips of paper and replacing them with some external source of power. 

The most basic practice on this path is called Citation; specially-prepared paper is touched to a body part and comes away with a part of the 'Self' (e.g. eye colour) attached. Starting with these sorts of external surface elements is essential to becoming strong enough to survive the more advanced techniques.

Advanced practices include removing abstract properties from yourself, removing injuries, stealing aspects from a human or Other, or inflicting your own removed properties on a target. The removed things can also be used for various non-Heartless purposes.<ref>The Citation practice is the basic ritual for the Mien approach.  A paper is prepared and laid into the skin to meet the Self, then removed.  Color may be pulled from a lock of hair, pupils from eyes, or scars from flesh.  This will weaken the practitioner in many ways, some not immediately obvious or intuitive.  The practitioner should then shore themselves up with power, with the awareness that the type and amount of power will affect just how the body fills in the blanks.  Each ‘surgery’ in this manner may strengthen or alter them in the longer term.  Advanced use of this practice can cite away more abstract elements, but this should be done with extreme care, on a sturdy foundation of healed physical changes done with this or other Mien practices.  Other advanced approaches allow citing away the qualities of another individual or Other, to be taken into oneself, forcing one’s own exaggerated, unwanted qualities into others, and treating one’s wounds by using the Citation to remove the damage.  Removed scraps will take on physical form as papers, mementos and/or things with small power to them, useful in various Visceral practices.  Note that restoration of what was sacrificed is difficult to impossible.  - [[List of Books#Quasi|Quasi]], quoted in [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/09/03 Bonus Material: Bedtime Reading].</ref>

=== Calender ===
A "werewolf" Heartless practice. Setting up a timetable, with periods during which you're not human or otherwise altered.<ref>The ‘Bloody Sundays’ Calendar practice is rather more open ended, setting a strict timeframe for changes (not necessarily the namesake Sundays), with a list of possible contracts and Others.  Some of the possibilities include transformation into a vengeance curse, shift into one of the seven Ideal Selves covered in Eclipsed Self Part II (the Brute, the Grace, etc), and tapping into a realm for a set time.  This should be considered a moderate-tier ritual and be conducted with close assistance and due precaution.  Once begun, the contracted timeframe must be ridden out. - [[List of Books#Quasi|Quasi]], quoted in [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/09/03 Bonus Material: Bedtime Reading].</ref><ref name=":1" />

=== Unfettered ===
Described as "Otherness through detatchment",<ref name=":1" /> this path involves entering one's Self with astral projection and altering it. Battling past internal barriers and automatic defences against damage, it is possible to physically destroy things like one's own mortality, bad karma, certain connections, curses, memories, psychological issues etc. This is very hard and dangerous, generally requiring one already be an experienced Practitioner with backup, with the more fundamental aspects or those that connect with the outside world being harder to reach.<ref>Finally, the most accessible Unfettered practice is the Shadow of Oneself.  The Self is opened up and astral projected into, sometimes while the practitioner is asleep.  Individual issues, memories, and facets of the Self can be explored and confronted as physical things and places, growing more meaningful as one gets deeper, and may be slain with physical means or altered with practice.  At seven points along the periphery of the Self where it meets the rest of the universe, often past key barriers (core memories, Karmic barriers, inner demons), one can address or attempt to slay things such as specific connections, specific marks of karma, mortality (and other incarnation-related aspects), and any attached curses or abstract qualities.  Once sufficiently threatened (and it <em>will</em> be threatened even if the practitioner is ‘healing’ it, such as by removing a curse), the Self can be expected to attack the practitioner, in hopes of destroying the part  of them that seeks to change so drastically.  A moderate ritual for which assistance is strongly recommended, primarily used for strategic targeting of key problems by those who cannot wait as long as Citation requires. - [[List of Books#Quasi|Quasi]], quoted in [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/09/03 Bonus Material: Bedtime Reading].</ref>