Tor Harness

In the fights against Adremer Tor's tendrils, the Transcends of the Weave conceived of a metaphysical augment, the Tor Harness, in order to combat the threat.

## History

The history of the harness began some time after the scattering of Adremer Tor. With the Weave all but shattered and its constituent civilisations vulnerable to the the roaming tendrils of Tor. Several groups, including scattered enclaves of the Metasoft Corporation, looked for ways to fight this entity's fragments. Due to Tor's nature rendering its fragments incredibly difficult to contain or take samples of, the study of Tor's weaknesses had to be performed on the field, often rendering large numbers of casualties in the process of its study. This difficulty meant that research proceeded painfully slowly, needing several centuries before the first designs were conceived, and several more before the first prototypes passed testing. During the study, it was discovered that filtering small fragments of Tor through a type of specialised technology (originally created to process and analyse energy samples from different universes) allowed the fragments to be combined with Void protoplasm, and other types of energy. Testing of these combined energy types against Tor fragments revealed that the opposing fragment could be damaged and destroyed by this combination of powers. This technology was eventually converted into a metaphysical implant; allowing it to be integrated and fused into the consciousness or soul of a being (and in the case of Transcends able to be integrated into their Void Cores).

In the following millennia, the basic design for the harness was spread throughout the universes of the former Weave. An activated harness is now considered essential military equipment for those wishing to fight against the remains of Tor. Due to the relatively high rates of corruption for Transcends dedicated to anti-Tor combat, there is a certain amount of stigma attached to their users; wielders of an active Tor harness are often viewed as cursed, staying in proximity to Tor tendrils so often.

## Mechanism

In its inert form, the Tor Harness is a mass of mixed protoplasm from the Timeless Eternities and the Void, given some basic functions through its component concepts by its Transcended creator and shaped into an inanimate object. Once activated by a Transcend through direct contact with their Void Core, the object dissolves; the Pattern of the Transcend imprints itself onto the formless mass, causing the Harness to permanently integrate into their being and become an extension of their will.

Once implanted, the harness needs to be activated. In order to activate the implant, the Transcend must enter proximity with a Tor fragment, whereupon the implant becomes active by absorbing a small piece of the entity. It is noted that the volume of the piece needed to activate the harness depends on the power of a user's Void Core; for First Stage all the way up to fully fledged Transcends, the volumes needed do not pose much risk, and is not enough for immediate and total corruption. For Outer Gods, however, the volume of Tor mass that would be absorbed through the process would immediately corrupt them, in spite of them having Void Cores that are usually powerful enough to resist direct corruption from Tor. Activation is an extremely dangerous affair, due to the inherent risks of being in proximity to Tor fragments. When done without heavy supervision, being caught by a fragment and becoming a blightling is common. While inactive Tor Harnesses are implanted in virtually every citizen of the civilizations that comprise the Weave Remnant, actual activations are very rare and only done on a select few; military, trading and diplomatic personnel alongside those in occupations where encountering Tor fragments is a non-negligible risk.

With an active Tor Harness, a Transcend's abilities become able to permanently harm and destroy the pieces of Tor, and they become much more resistant against its influence, being able to purge Tor's essence from their Void Cores by channeling the combined Void/Tor power through them. This ability, however, is not without its limits; even most minor shards of the Scourge are able to corrupt a Transcend trapped within its grasp faster than they can purge it from their Void Cores. A Transcend with an activated harness also exhibits traits and abilities possessed by Tor blightlings. Implanted Transcends become extremely resistant against Void based abilities and reality warping, the exception being the same Tor/Void powers that they also use. Reality anchors are also notably less effective, requiring ones that are dozens of times stronger than ones used against normal Transcends to fully suppress a harness user. A harness Transcend can also use the same corrupting power as Tor, converting beings into blightlings by fully engulfing and saturating an entity with their Void/Tor power. Against other Transcends, this also allows wiping or stripping away their minds without needing to use an Opal Light.

For combat against alpha blightlings, Harness users are able render them pemanently dormant fairly efficiently. A few casts of a Harness user's abilities is all that is needed to take down most blightlings. These dormant blightlings can then be interred in a prison universe where others can be prevented from waking them from their slumber.