Eitr

**Eitr** is a mythical substance set to appear in *Little Witch Academia: Witches of Midgard*.

## Description & Characteristics

A substance said to be the origin of all living things yet poisonous at the same time. Ymir, the first Jötunn, was conceived from Eitr. Ancient serpents such as Great Lindworm and Jörmungandr (serpentine wyrm with Jötunn heritage) had traces of Eitr in their very being, though the former had higher concentration since it was born directly from the substance alongside Ymir, having lived inside the latter as sort of parasite before bursting its way out following his death at hands of Odin, Vili, and Ve. When Great Lindworm perished from wounds sustained during it and Heimdall's final battle against Loki at the height of the Ragnarök, the Eitr inside it was released prompting Nine Olde Witches to purify the substance with much of Yggdrasil's magic through Claiomh Solais, preventing it from further ravaging Midgard and beyond as well as creating first generations of Pomokai Holoholonas in the process.

Through mythical accounts of how flames from Muspelheim and frost from Niflheim met in the middle of Ginnungagap which led to the birth of Ymir, Eitr was theorized (and later confirmed) to be the mixture of two different raw magics from the opposing realms. Among earliest known magic users who managed to synthesize the substance in more manageable state was Erik the Ageless aka. The Seax, the current Grand High Priest of Naglfar who sought to harness its life-creating properties to further his cult's cause.

### Life Creation

While extremely poisonous and even potent enough to kill a deity, Eitr ironically possesses the power to generate new life. Some theorized this mythical substance as some sort of "primordial soup" in its raw, chaotic state, thus must be refined so its life-creating properties can be properly harnessed. Following the discovery of means to recreate Eitr, many past magic users, Erik the Ageless himself included, refined the technique in hopes of fully unlocking its secrets which involved long trial-and-error process. It was known that Erik had experimented further than others in such endeavor, though he refrained from playing god.

#### Cloning

As discovered by Erik the Ageless and his Myrkálfar benefactors, Eitr can also be used to clone living beings. Using bio-engineering techniques they taught him along with necessary equipment of their design, he can infuse genetic sample of a living creature with necessary amount of Eitr in order to shape the substance into one or more replicas of creature in question. Each clone then incubated within their respective incubation sphere generated by the same artifact that also designed so he could influence their development (ex. growth rate, partial cloning to grow spare body parts, and removing physical defects from the source material). It was such technique that allowed him and his fellow Hall of Death Goddess Temple of Naglfar members to grow new organs he and his subordinates lost in battle and create a replacement body for his beloved protégé Turid devoid of defects resulted from her family's generations of inbreeding.

### Resurrection

Eitr apparently has the power to revive the deceased, which attributed to traces of Helheim magic within its Niflheim magic composition. As Helheim magic's necromantic properties within Eitr has been altered by the combination of the substance's magic power composition, anyone who revived by it would become a rare and unique variant of draugr called Eitr-walker. Unlike ordinary draugar, Eitr-walkers can better conceal their undead nature as not only their undead husks lack the stench of decay found in typical reanimated corpses, but also able to shift between mortal and undeath state at will. Though he initially wondered whether complete resurrection with Eitr being possible after a fateful encounter with Eitr-walkers at Eitr deposit in Sweden, Erik opted not to explore such possibility out of belief he had enough "playing God" with such dangerous substance. However, Farmatyr, the mad Thapoli-Naglfar War who plagued by his part in Wolfwood Holocaust, would steal research notes pertaining Eitr confiscated by Sword of Laeradr in order to illegally conduct a research for means to perform complete resurrection with the substance to no avail. Such insane pursuit would have been fruitless anyway and in his madness, he instead played his part in Lara's death and revival as the vengeful Eitr-walker.

## Notes and Trivia

* The concept of Eitr being utilized by Naglfar to artificially create life was partly inspired by the use of essence by the tyrannical Shaper sect in *Geneforge* series. Like the former, the essence is used to create living beings by the series' primary antagonistic faction as either bioweapon or workforce for their cause.
	+ Eitr's portrayal in Witches of Midgard-verse is also inspired by its iteration in *Tomb Raider: Underworld.* In both versions, Eitr appears as a poisonous substance that can reanimate the deceased as resilient undead.