Desul, Snails and Others Who Go Too Far

 In Desul there are those who forsake the powers of magic. Whether in a religious extreme or a clinical obsession, they strip their own bodies of the potential for magic. This involves a surgical removing of the ears and the sensory organs just below the skin around the skull. These anti-magic deafs are nicknamed "Snails," for they move slowly and often need a device to prop them up (or some would rather crawl along the ground and lean against walls). This is because they have lost not only their hearing, but their entire center of balance. The surgery is ironically magical in nature and also cuts them off from vibrational frequencies so the Snails lose an element of their touch as well. They experience injury, but they cannot feel pain. Their physical stamina is nearly limitless. They can crawl and crawl without every tiring. A Snail's body will crumple and die before it gives up on its pursuit.

They are completely unaffected by magical ability. A magical flame will have no affect on them because the 'waves' of heat emitted by the sound of the magic are unregistered by the Snail. The flames are not even visible to a Snail. Illusions do not appear in their field of vision, they cannot be cursed or blessed. Magic of all kinds no longer exists to Snails. Magic is rendered invisible, intangible, immaterial. 

Most of those who go through the extremes to become a Snail do so to enhance their ability as mage assassins. Wizard's tracks can easily be discovered when the magic shielding said tracks does not exist to their hunter. Snail assassins creep gingerly through corridors, clutching the walls, breathing loudly, mundane dagger in hand, for their target is now as vulnerable to an ordinary blade as cheese is to a dinner knife.



Children of the Gong are terrified of Snails. The Children of the Gong believe that magic is more potent the louder it is. This seems to ring true in certain situations. They construct house-sized vehicles covered in precisely-angled drums that funnel the noises of a totem through a magical sound chute that exponentially increases the totem's volume. They wear full-body armor that when struck plays a reverberating tone that is already charged with a magical effect. Devices as tall as a castle tower have been built to, in theory, magically affect hundreds of people within miles.

They are technocrats who, under the guise of advancing society, hope to gain political power. The Children of the Gong worship sound as a God.

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