Salt

*If necessary, refer to the Vocabulary section at the bottom of this page.*

 Salt is an arcane force that flows through the world and has the power to manipulate matter by manifesting itself as energy. Salt does not physically 'exist' in the world; instead, it exists alongside it, occupying the same space as whatever matter it clings to. There are also limitations regarding the occupation of matter: salt can only interact with matter that it currently occupies, and the only thing that salt can occupy is organic matter (referred to as a pool). On top of this, organic matter can only passively attract salt if it is **alive** (which is, in turn, referred to as a well).

Despite these and a few other limitations, salt is still a very capable and very dangerous resource in this warped, hellish world. If you were you wield salt for any purpose at all, there are several rules to this strange force of nature that you must be aware of:

1. Salt accomplishes things one literal step at a time, in a similar way a line of code does.
2. Salt will remain totally dormant unless acted upon by an external force or will.
3. Salt will only move between pools through direct physical contact and only if it is directed to through external will.
4. The complexity of a catalyst is important when using salt. The simpler a catalyst, the easier managing active direction will be.
5. Attempting to draw salt from a living pool either requires the donating party to willfully give up their salt.
6. You can only direct salt that is in your own pool, and you cannot interact with salt in another pool.
7. Using salt in different applications can be a totally different experience based on the catalysts you are using and how you are applying it. Sure, some knowledge in magically cooking food can transfer to resurrecting corpses, but not much.
8. There is absolutely nothing restricting you from trying to use salt to do anything, but understand that alongside the possibility of nothing happening, there is also the possibility that something will go wrong. There is also the possibility of something going *very, very wrong*. A wise man is wary of what he does not know. Think twice before trying to magic yourself some muscles.
9. Salt, once it is spent, is gone.
10. If there is a limitation to what you can do, then there is also a workaround. (except #1).

 Salt will settle into matter that it occupies and stay there, dormant, unless directed by the will of a sentient being. If a being taps into the salt pooled within themselves, they can then direct the salt as an extension of their own will. This is accomplished by the being implanting the concept of what they want into the salt. Salt has no will or imagination of its own (obviously, it's just salt) so it will follow its conceptualized direction as literally as it possibly can. As salt manifests itself as energy in the physical realm, it gets spent and dissipates. Channeling salt between pools requires physical contact.

To explain how exactly one would use salt, I'm going to throw a hypothetical at you:

Imagine you're holding a raw steak. You have no cooking equipment or fire, and the only thing you have other than your naked body, insurmountable hunger and this potentially wondrous steak is your pooled salt. If you were to harness the salt and direct it to 'cook this steak', nothing would happen because the salt does not know how to cook, or that it has to manifest itself as heat, or even that is has to *move into the steak first*. The salt would get stuck in a feedback loop and will not spend itself.

Congratulations, you have accomplished absolutely nothing! And now, on top of being hungry, you're disappointed in yourself.

Now, let's imagine an experienced culimancer in the same situation. The culimancer will start by directing his salt to move into the steak and disperse itself evenly through its pool. As the salt moves into position and begins manifesting itself into heat, the steak begins to cook. From there, he'd begin channeling a steady stream of salt into the meat, directing it to replace whatever salt is spent in the cooking process (chances are, he'd do this through an intermediary like a stick to avoid burning himself). Throughout the cooking process, a smart chef will direct a small amount of salt to periodically enter the steak's pool and conceptualize the pool's fullness and the behavior of the salt in the steak to make sure everything is going smoothly. When the steak is sufficiently cooked, he will withdraw whatever salt is left while neutralizing it. Voila! You've got steak. Well, not you. He does.

## Salteration

The term salteration is very broad, and is used to define the act of manipulating something's saltpool in order to alter it in any way. Salteration is the basis of any type of magic that somehow alters the physical realm.

## Direction

While it is unknown where salt comes from or what it even is, there is a general understanding of what salt itself is capable of without direction, and how it is directed.

When someone directs salt, what they are doing is giving their pool the concept of an action or series of actions that salt then internalizes and carries out. Due to the idea coming straight from the director's mind, this means that there can be no error due to translation. The salt will set out to accomplish exactly what the director intended. However, salt is limited by the rules of the universe and all sense. However, this behavior is not necessarily a one way street. Salt can record concepts from other pools and internalize them for a director to then bring into his own mind. This ability has been proven to be insurmountably useful for directors, as it allows them to monitor the happenings inside of a pool separate from their own.

## Schools of Magick

The use of salt is divided into several primary types of magicks based on different applications of magic on different catalysts. This list is incomplete and subject to change:

1. Paroxysm
2. Utilimancy
3. Culimancy
4. Necromancy
5. Hortimancy

## Secondary Magicks

Secondary magicks are the manifestation of salt into certain energies, and are common throughout all the different schools. This list is incomplete and subject to change:

Kinetic - The manifestation of salt as kinetic energy, to physically move a catalyst or store potential energy within it.

Caloric - The manifestation of salt to adjust the temperature of a catalyst, sometimes dramatically. Caloric energy can either heat or chill its catalyst, making it capable of burning or freezing

Electric - The manifestation of salt as electricity in catalysts, used primarily in liquid paroxysm by either field medics or other nonsense.

## Catalysts

A catalyst is an object with a saltpool that is has been saltered to become something more. Every school of magic uses catalysts - necromancy's catalysts are corpses or body parts, culimancy's catalysts are ingredients and food, partimancy's catalysts are large amounts of particles, etc.

Despite the fact that all catalysts can be altered, there are undoubtedly right catalysts and wrong catalysts depending on what you plan to do. In fact, picking a proper catalyst is arguably the most important decision you can make. Picking the right catalyst entails understanding what you want to create and which catalysts have properties that match what you want to create. For example, you'd be much better off using charcoal than a severed deer penis if you plan on making a bomb.

A catalyst's complexity is also an important variable in salteration. Catalysts can come in many different shapes and sizes - after all, the only prerequisite to being a catalyst is being organic. But the more complex a catalyst is, the more difficult it becomes to salter. A catalyst's complexity relies on several factors: its composition, its shape, its size, and whether it is alive or not.

The makeup of a catalysts matter can affect its complexity a whole lot. The internal distribution of its matter, the number of different materials existing in the catalyst and the number of internal complex parts will have a drastic effect on how easy saltering it will be. A smoothed orb of charcoal, for example, is a simple catalyst that is quite popular as well. Its shape is as far from complex as you can possibly be, it is composed of one material through its entirety, and they typically don't get too big. They're also not alive, which is helpful. A deer penis, on the other hand, is rather complex. It is compromised of several different materials, it's floppy and it has all kinds of tubes and (what used to be) working parts. The only way a severed deer penis can become a worse catalyst to salter is if it were alive as well.

The biggest factor in a catalyst's complexity is the status of whether it is alive or not. As every being has both perception and control over their own pool, saltering even a voluntary living catalyst leaves an incredible amount of room for error from the being's own salt, autoimmune system, mind, body, movement of internal matter and other factors... and that's on top the complexity of a body. Saltering a living being is incredibly dangerous and poses a very high amount of possible risks, side effects and dangers. Because of this, the art of salterating living beings isn't practiced nearly anywhere, and whatever knowledge of the practice exists has been either righteously destroyed or locked away.

## Saltic Projection

The ability of one to salter a catalyst is restricted by its complexity and the skill of the director. The reason behind this difficulty is the director's inability to directly operate of their catalyst, instead relying on salt as an intermediary for retrieving information from the catalyst. However, it *is* possible for a director to subvert this obstacle through saltic projection, the practice of transferring your conscience into the catalyst temporarily. Don't be fooled, this is much easier said than done. The principle behind saltic projection is the conceptualization of *you* being removed from your own mind and moved into a catalyst, giving the director the ability to use that pool as if it were their own. The process has vast room for error - the consciousness acts almost like an air bubble, using an imagined barrier between it and the entirety of salt around it. The pressure holding the bubble together is all imagined as well, and can 'pop' by this barrier so much as faltering. The consciousness could find itself trapped in the catalyst with no way to return home, either because of a lack of salt or the physical contact between both pools has been severed. Any variable that could affect the transfer of consciousness is a variable that poses danger towards a director.

If the director is successful in projecting themselves into a catalyst and then returning, either through incredible skill or sheer luck (usually both), they will suffer from saltic madness, an affliction caused by projection or saltic self-affection.

## Vocabulary

* Salt - An arcane force that can manifest itself as energy in organic matter.
* (Salt)pool - A term for physical matter's containment of salt.
* (Salt)well- A saltpool that is naturally replenished with salt over time, IE living beings.
* Salter *(verb)* - The act of using salt to modify an object through its pool.
* Salteration - The use of salt to somehow alter a catalyst.
* Catalyst - A receptacle for saltic enchancement.
* Channel *(noun)* - A pool used as an intermediary between a catalyst and its director.
* Channel *(verb)* - to transfer salt between pools.