Venomancy
The dark magic known as venomancy was wielded by megalomaniacal exploding witches who sought to accelerate their growth by attracting zawm to themselves. The result led to an arcane path that granted its user incredible power, but left swathes of collateral casualties in its wake. ^2f7d97
Fundamentals #
Venomancy was an offshoot of Zawmancy, utilizing the zawmar archon just like an exploding witch would. While true zawmancy involved extracting zawm from others, venomancy skipped the middleman and facilitated an internal environment where zawm could directly attach to the caster before being transformed into magical fuel.
As zawmancy was a prerequisite for venomancy, all venomancers had to be human females.
Process #
Venomancy required an exploding witch to kill zawm inside herself without self-harm. While exploding witches typically used explosions to destroy zawm, the entities' burrowing within the witch's own body wouldn't be able to be destroyed without a witch disintegrating herself.
To attract zawm to themselves, witches would first need to engage in acts of depravity and evil, increasing the likelihood that zawms would manifest near and attach to them.
The next step would be to become a living crucible. With a whole zawm inside their being, a witch had to imbibe the alchemical ingredients required to make zawm potions. This process was incredibly dangerous because zawm potions fabricated within a living organism gave rise to extremely potent arcane toxins that had a high likelihood of killing the host.
If successful, an arcane chain reaction would begin within the venomancer, making their body a crucible that instantly transmuted any zawm that fixed themselves to the venomancer into zawm potions (which instantly provided their strengthening effect to the venomancer). As long as the venomancer continued their life of evil and depravity, they could continue to attract zawm and grow in power at a rate exponentially higher than most exploding witches.
Powers #
Strength #
Venomancy granted increased physical strength increases similar to an exploding witch. They were typically more powerful than an exploding witch because of the sheer rate and volume of zawm potions that they could create within themselves.
Zawmix #
Venomancers could project a potent arcane toxin, called zawmix, from their hands. They could use it to coat their weapons or spray it at their opponents. Zawmix could cause embolisms to form within a creature as it phased through their body, leading to painful death.
Toxic Explosions #
In addition to the incinerating explosions that were signature to exploding witchcraft, venomancers' explosions spread a debilitating mist of zawmix toxin across the area, causing individuals outside of the blast zone to be exposed to the toxin. Additionally, a zawmix mist hung in the air following the explosion, which could linger for up to an hour depending on the ventilation of the environment.
History #
The First Venomancers #
The first venomancers in Legerian history appeared a couple hundred years after the Coven of Fire’s founding. A group of exploding witches who had toyed with the idea of venomancy on paper for many years finally put their hypothesis into action. There were 12 witches that chose to pioneer the arcane path of venomancy; half of them died in the process. The six remaining venomancers presented their magic to the Coven's elders. They expected their findings to be met with adoration and applause, but they were instead branded as heretics to the Coven of Fire. The Coven saw the revolting, unspeakable acts that these witches had performed and were ashamed of how their magic perverted the noble feats of zawmancy. The Coven moved to kill the heretic witches, but the incredible strength the venomancers had accumulated allowed them to escape across Legere.
Venomancers became prime targets for members of the Coven of Fire. Killing a venomancer was the duty of any exploding witch. The witches could neutralize and distill the magically toxic blood of a venomancer into extremely potent zawm potions.
Venomeater, the Dark Hero #
One of the Dark Heroes gathered by the Dark Mage Zak was Venomeater, a mysterious venomancer that hid her features behind a suit of zawmix-coated armour.