Legent

Legents are a kind of Familiar in the Windrose world. They are famous in magical circles for being particularly strong Familiars that can both grant great boons and cause great amounts of unintended damage. In certain Mage circles, the practice of summoning Legents is considered a forbidden art, but elsewhere it is very common and well-researched.

#### Characteristics

##### Creation

Legents are based on a fundamental aspect of magic in that the potency and incarnation of magic can be influenced by culture and human thought. This can be seen in how the potency of various spell foci wax and wane based on location and culture. The practice of summoning Legents takes this concept to a logical extreme - using human thought in the form of mythologies, ideologies, and other stories, as a focus for the magic itself.

Summoning Legents requires the usage of a summoning circle, which is an elaborate rune that focuses magic for the summoning. Non-Mages can also summon Legents this way, but in such a case, the circle has to be made out of specific materials that act as a further spell focus. A mage can draw the circle using any material and power it with their magic. A variety of items are then placed in and around the circle to act as a second focus to direct the formation of the Legent. During the process of summoning, the fundamental concept that the desired Legent is based on is incarnated within the circle. Following this, the tribute items are consumed by magical energy that then subsumes the fetal Legent, directing its form. The items offered as tribute and the mindset of the summoner when summoning a Legent can make it so that separate Legents summoned from the same myth or story can incarnate in wildly different forms. For example, the Lord of Lanterns is a Legent summoned from myths of Tenjо̄, a Mitsudain figure who is said to help ferry souls to the afterlife. The real Tenjо̄ is a humanlike woman with blue hair and fox features, but the Lord of Lanterns, a Legent summoned with the purpose of hunting and exterminating other magical beings, takes the form of a vaguely humanoid figure with a long purple cloak and no face, but rather a metallic mask with a massive hole in the middle.

##### Functioning

A Legent is spiritually compelled to fulfill the purpose of their summoning, such as granting wishes or cultivating farmland. This purpose can be further directed through a magical contract, which most summoners make with a Legent to restrict them from causing extensive damage through their compulsion. For example, the exorcist Kestrel has a contract with his Legent partner Fawn that stops her from eating humans and animals. The core purpose and contract of an existing Legent can be changed by reconducting the summoning ritual using certain kinds of summoning circles and new tribute items.

Certain magical circles consider the core myth that a Legent is summoned from to also be considered a Legent metaphysically. The exact reasoning for this school of thought is unknown. In some specific cases, likely involving the presence of a lot of raw magic present in an area, some kinds of Legents can form naturally. This likely operates under a similar principle to the formation of Curses.

Like other magical beings, Legents are made entirely of magic, and are not wholly restricted by physical biology or the laws of mundane physics.

#### History and Culture

It is unknown when the practice of summoning Legents was first discovered. Over the course of histories, different cultures have developed their own views on Legents and their summoning. As with most familiars, the Windrosi city of Snowdrop requires summoners to apply for a license for summoning Legents, and the subsequent summon has to be registered with appropriate government authorities. Most magical organizations within Windrose consider Legent summoning to be a dangerous art, but the version practiced by the Ilmen Family in Indigo specifically that allows non-mages to summon is entirely forbidden. This version of summoning originates in the Mitsudain city of Golden Beaches, where summoning and binding familiars is an incredibly prevalent facet of everyday life.

There is a much less well known variety of Legent summoning known as the "prong method", in which magical tuning forks are embedded in a host body, summoning the Legent directly into said body. This method, while dangerous, also allows summoners to bypass the need for a contract and control the Legent's power directly.