Dollmaker

A Dollmaker is a Practitioner who focuses on creating magical, animated dolls, such as a Canopic Doll. It has some overlap with Item Crafting.<ref>Forged Hearts, Tess Hager

PSBN: 7340927009515
On Loan to BHI by: L. Graubard
Level: Intermediate
Schools: Enchantment, Sympathetic Practices - Bonus Material: Bedtime Reading</ref><ref>"Mrs. Graubard will be available throughout the day and evening to discuss enchantment and puppets, and she’s suggested she’s comfortable matching to beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels, as the situation requires.”
Learning enchantment from the Dollmaker it was. - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.5</ref> The major distinction is that these Vessels are ambulatory.

Methodology

Is a large field of practice using tools and more.<ref>As a practice, Dollmaking is complementary to other existing practices, but in a peculiar fashion that marks it as very different from another broad field such as Shamanism. A player who likes the idea of a particular practice can easily transport a variety of practices to the Doll, using the doll as a container and vector for that practice. The Hyde dynamic can become the practitioner crafting their alter ego and swapping which of them is conscious flesh and which is doll, the elementalist can turn their dolls into containers for elemental energy that shatter and explode, and the cursewright can make small cloth dolls that latch onto individuals to impose curse effects as long as they can hold on. As varied as the various niches might be, they come at the cost of needing that baseline skill and tying practice to the dolls that are not indestructible, though they are tougher than most will initially assume. - PACT DICE: Dolls</ref>

Canopic Dolls

Person-sized dolls. May require blood, oil, and/or guts to keep them "alive". Under certain circumstances, such as if raised alongside a person, they can take their guts & skin and become human.<ref>“My mom made Effy on the day I was born,” Talia said.  She didn’t look so bothered to be in front of the class.  Avery only liked to be in front of people when playing sports.  “She said if I wasn’t satisfactory as a daughter, Effy would drag out my guts, put them inside herself, take my blood and skin to seal up the doll joints, and replace me.”

Avery looked around the room, to try to judge why people weren’t freaking out, but the most she saw was serious concern here and there.

“Hmm,” Ray made a sound.

“The way a canopic doll works, especially if it’s raised alongside someone, given a birthday every time I had a birthday, with parts replaced to match my height and shape and stuff as I grew up, ummm, when it harvests, it can become human, after.  She could become me. I awoke on my own, secretly, then I talked to Effy, and neither of us were sure if my mom would keep me or Effy.  So we agreed she’d be my familiar.  That way my mom would have to keep us both or destroy us both.”

[...]

“The partnership of master and familiar is often a reprieve for the Other.  Temporary freedom from needs, demands, work, or anything else. If Effy required a regular supply of blood and oil, as some dolls do-”

“I don’t.”

“But if you did, Effy, then you wouldn’t require it while you’re a familiar.  You get your sustenance from your master or partner.  If you had a lifespan, it would be put on pause.  Of course, needier others have a heavier drain on their master.” - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.7</ref>

Terracotta Soldiers

Main article: Terracotta Soldiers

Involve sealing elemental spirits in a suitable doll or manikin that can hunt for a target and detonate if needed.

Notable Dollmakers

• Graubard family, associates of the Blue Heron Institute.
  • Eliana Graubard
  • Shay Graubard
• Sisters of the Torch, known to make elemental manikins

References

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