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[Unofficial Lore] Long Pearls


Windwright

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Many legends surround the ancient traditions of the Long, but none are so well known as those regarding the Long Pearls. These artifacts of great power are produced in secret, using techniques that leave no trace on the Pearls themselves to suggest how the enchantments were done, and are a closely guarded secret. Traditionally, these are presented as gifts to reigning monarchs, and often are entombed with their owners, but they are rarely seen without a Long bearing them otherwise.

 

What is known is that each Pearl must be created, rather than found. Long artisans are furtive, but enough questions have been answered to establish that they are somehow forged from clouds and quenched in earth. The exact process is unknown, but it is said to involve all five of the Long's elements, wood, fire, water, earth, and metal. Once created the pearls are already somewhat magical, able to bend and cleanse jinxes and minor magical maladies, granting the owner a sense of good luck. 

 

These traits are further enhanced during the enchantment process, when the Pearls are imbued with their general and specific powers. These are known as the Breaths by the Long, and some known examples are:

 

Breath of Pearl - The base enchantment. This enhances the basic attributes of an unenchanted pearl, allowing it to protect against nearly every magical affliction, including most spell backfires. Alone, this is not enough to fend off directed curses, but a stronger version exists.

 

Breath of Being - This enchantment grounds the bearer's sense of self, making it harder to affect him or her with magics that ensnare the mind or cause self-doubt. It is unknown if this would have been effective against the Starswirl Curse of Lost Destinies, but most mortal magics melt away in the face of a Pearl of Being.

 

Breath of Insight - This Breath opens the wearer's mind's eye, granting them greater empathy and understanding. If the bearer is already empathetic, this Pearl can boost those skills to near-telepathic levels. 

 

Breath of Wisdom - If Insight grants empathy, this Breath grants cognition. Bearers of a Wisdom Pearl find facts far easier to recall and absorb. She will find herself recalling with perfect clarity a passing glance she shared with a compatriot, a conversation she had while only half awake, or a book she skimmed as a child. Anything she studies with this in her possession will come naturally as breathing.

 

Breath of Grace - These Pearls tap into the fluid motions of the river and the stability of the earth, allowing the bearers to react without effort to shifting balances and unstable grounds. Bearers of Pearls of Grace move with a dancer's surety, and never misstep or trip. Their body acts exactly as they mean it to, provided they have the strength and agility to do so.

 

Breath of Potency - These coveted Pearls enhance the magical strength of the bearer. All Qilin possess some smattering of spell talent, but with a Potent Pearl, a Qilin's Breath will nearly meet that of their distant draconic ancestors. Even Longma who come into possession of a Potent Pearl will find that they can exert their will on the world through Breath. It is unknown what effect these Pearls might have on a Pony, but it is sure to be notable.

 

Breath of Alacrity - These Pearls alter the bearer's perception of time. Though she cannot move more quickly, she will be able to perceive and analyse at a greatly enhanced rate, allowing her to act sooner than she would otherwise be able to.

 

Breath of Security - This Breath is simple in concept, but powerful in its own right. Secure Pearls are watched by the Long, and can quickly reach out when in dire need to plead with the Long who created or attuned it.

 

Breath of Communion - This Breath is placed on two or more Pearls enchanted together, and allows the bearers to speak to and hear one another over vast distances. It is fairly unusual for this Breath to be used unless requested as a Boon, as the Long are reluctant to create multiple Pearls at once.

 

Breath of Slipstream - Only useful for fliers, Pearls of Slipstream allow the bearer to fly with no regard for wind, bending malevolent air currents around the bearer and often making the bearer seem faster by comparison.

 

In addition to the Breaths, nearly every Pearl is given a Gift, an enchantment specific to its original recipient that usually only functions for this bearer. Rarely, someone is able to invoke the proper rites, pay the proper respects, or be close enough in spirit to the original owner to access a portion of this custom Gift, but there have been only two confirmed cases recorded, (Yu Tianma was able to channel the Gift of Ao Shenlong, and in one instance an unnamed peasant successfully called forth the spirit of the First Emperor to use the Gift of his Pearl) and in both instances the Pearl was consumed in the effort (and the peasant, in that instance, vanished immediately afterwards).

 

The only drawback Long Pearls suffer is that they can only hold so much power, and drawing on the Pearl too frequently can interfere with or even undo the other enchantments placed upon them. If a Pearl is ever fully depleted, it will decompose into its constituent mist and leave behind nothing but a pile of fine metallic dust.

 

Physically, each Long Pearl consists of a central jewel and some ornamentation, sometimes including smaller pearls or gemstones. Typically, the central gem is spherical, opaque, and with a pearlescent sheen tinged faintly with a colour that corresponds to its underlying enchantment. The ornamentation is added by the Long who craft the pearl, usually to suit the future bearer's taste or to give some insight into its more unique features.

 

Common Pearls, if such a thing can be said to exist, have a gold, steel, obsidian, coral, or wooden claw grasping the spherical jewel, with a loop for the whole thing to be hung from affixed to the 'wrist' of the claw.  Another common shape for the jewel to be is that of a teardrop or claw with a hole in the wide portion that allows it to be strung on a necklace or prayer string. Particularly powerful, ancient, or well respected individuals might have more than one such Pearl on the same string.

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OOC knowledge:

 

Pearls are made from clouds infused with all five Eastern elements. Wood is burned in a forge through which compressed clouds are sent. Steel plates are used to compress them around a stone seed, and then Long use dragonfire to cause the clouds to accept the other four elements into them. The final product is a rough jewel in the general shape it should be. It is then polished to a lustrous shine before being sent to be enchanted. At this stage they're mostly white, with grey marbling, like mist.

 

An Apprentice Long then imbues the Pearl with the Breath of Pearl, which empowers the Pearl and opens it to further enhancements. Between one and nine Long can infuse the Pearl with its final suite of powers. Generally, each Long only knows one or two enchantments as an apprentice, but can learn dozens as they grow more skilled. Each, however, can only contribute a single enchantment to a given Pearl. Pearls can also only take three enchantments, either two Breaths and one Gift power, or three Breaths. Any additional Long provide stability and power to the other enchantments.  At the end of the process, another apprentice will join the rite and add the Sealing Breath, which finalises the enchantments and causes the Pearl to take on its final colouration.

 

Communion pearls require one Long among those working to devote his or her energies to each Pearl, and they'll be required to switch from one to the other frequently through the process. The way these end up working is that it tricks the second Pearl into thinking it is the first, essentially. All linked Communion Pearls will share enchantments with one another, and must be identical in appearance once completed. Damage to one Pearl will carry to the others, except in the case that one of them is overloaded, which will destroy that one and leave the other unable to commune with that specific Pearl. Communion Pearls cannot carry a Gift, the magics interfere with the process that manifests a Gift. 

 

All Gift powers are named after their true bearer, and are unique to them. A Pearl made for Ao Yuchou would, for instance, be called Yuchou's Gift, and likely would allow her to perform spectacular soothing spells, or spells that fortify youngsters against sickness. For simplicity's sake, just assume that your character is allowed to break the rules of power levels in a very specific way while they have the Gift-Pearl, unless you explicitly have someone else's, at which point you'll need to check with them to see what their Gift would do if you could even access it at all (this should be extraordinarily rare.). This is one-per-character (per user), so an OC who has two Gift Pearls will just be able to change what minor and major Breaths are on each, but two different Celestia players might not necessarily share a Gift.

 

Feel free to create your own Breath powers on a Pearl you're given or acquire, just remember that these should be limited in scope to something a unicorn spell can replicate, and in power to something that one to seven Long can accomplish together. 

 

It takes at least four Long to imbue a Gift, and Gifts are nearly always based on the Bearer's deepest desires. Generally, if there is a Gift in the Pearl, the full 9 Long worked on it, however Pearls can have a Gift and nothing else if only 4 enchanters can be found.

 

Breath of Pearl and Sealing Breath are technically simple enough spells that Qilin or Unicorns can perform them, and a particularly clever Qilin might be able to work out how to contribute the Breath of Being or another simple enchantment, but they would lack the training to be able to synchronise this process with other enchanters in the way needed to imbue stronger Breaths, and the enchantments beyond the two core ones do require actual Breath magic, not just spellpower. This means that a Qilin could make a Pearl with a single "single-'Long'" Breath on it, but that would be the absolute limit of it, and it would require an unenchanted Pearl. Similarly, anyone with Active magic like a unicorn or qilin can begin or end the enchantment process, and provided only Long work on it otherwise it can be enchanted as normal. However, given that Pearl creation is a closely-guarded secret, this would only happen in unusual cases (aside from Imperial family, who might conceivably have learned the spells at some point). 

 

Breaths should all be internal and should generally be passive in nature, enhancing the bearer and his or her immediate surroundings in some way rather than affecting the outside world. Gifts are free to ignore this.

 

 

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Known Bearers of Pearls:

 

Long

Ao Yuchou, the Matron (Windwright) - 3 Pearls (Breaths of Insight, Alacrity, Slipstream, Wisdom, Potency, and Grace, all three also bear the Gift of Yuchou), Gift - Imbues the Matron's Soothing Breath into Lullabye Breath, allowing anyone caught in it to slip into an enchanted sleep that wards off nightmares and is incredibly restful. Works better on younger creatures.

 

Qilin

Lian - (Either 3 breath or 2 breath, 1 gift)

Yan Lanmo - small jade 'coin' token on his right horn is actually enchanted as if it were a Pearl of Being. Lanmo learned the spells from an Imperial scroll.

Yu Yue - (2 breath, 1 gift)

 

 

Canon Characters 

Unless otherwise indicated with a player's name, any version of a given character is free to create their own version of their Pearl. 

Princess Celestia - (2 breath, 1 gift)

Princess Luna - (2 breath, 1 gift)

Princess Mi Amore Cadenza -  (2 breath, 1 gift)

     Bellosh - Breath of Insight, ?, Gift: 

Princess Twilight Sparkle - (2 breath, 1 gift)

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