Benedict Jacka

A look at the ways in which sigls can be worn on the hands and arms.

Rings

Traditionally the second-most popular location.  Setting sigls into a ring requires a little more work than stringing one on a necklace, but it’s still a very easy job for a jeweller or machinist, and can be done at home by any drucrafter willing to learn the basics of handicrafts.

A very good all-round choice that provides many benefits with few drawbacks.  While not quite as secure as a necklace, rings are still difficult to steal without the wearer noticing, and while they can slip off, this doesn’t happen often.  Locating a sigl on a finger also gives it a great deal of flexibility;  a drucrafter can move a ring around as quickly as they can move their hand, making a ring setting ideal for any sigl which you might need to use either on yourself or someone else.  The fact that a ring can be held at arm’s length also makes this a natural choice for offensive sigls that you’d like to discharge at a safe distance from your body.

A final, less obvious advantage of rings is that they allow a drucrafter to naturally separate their essentia flows by channelling their personal essentia down the respective finger, making them ideal for beginner and intermediate channellers who might lack the precise control required to channel essentia into one of two sigls side by side.  Even advanced channellers (who do have that kind of control) often appreciate the convenience of this.

Rings do come with some issues.  They’re relatively easy to spot, and while a drucraft ring with an inset sigl looks very similar to a regular ring with an inset gemstone, an expert eye can often tell the difference, potentially giving away more information than the wielder might want to. They can also be vulnerable;  while it’s not common for a ring to be smashed or crushed, it does happen, and while sigls are tough, they’re not indestructible.  In practice, this isn’t usually too big a concern, since if your fingers are being exposed to some impact capable of crushing metal or aurum, you’ve probably got bigger things to worry about than whether your sigl will be okay afterwards. 

In practice, though, the most common reason not to put a sigl into a ring is when the sigl type is best activated from somewhere other than the fingers. Any kind of sigl designed to be centred on the wielder (such as an invisibility bubble) wants to be on the torso, not on the limbs. If it were practical or effective to wear an invisibility sigl in ring form, drucrafters would probably do it. 

Bracelet

Drucrafters who for whatever reason aren’t comfortable with having their sigls visible in ring form, but who still want the flexibility of being able to move the sigl around on the end of their arm, may opt for a bracelet instead.  Since a bracelet has the whole wrist to support it instead of a single finger, it can be made much thicker and heavier than a ring, making it a good deal more secure.  Bracelet-mounted sigls are also much easier to conceal, by pulling down one’s sleeve or by twisting the bracelet so that the sigls face inwards.

The main drawback of this location is that the wrist is nowhere near as dextrous as the fingers, making a bracelet-mounted sigl somewhat harder to aim.  As such, it tends to be preferred for sigls that affect the drucrafter (such as shields or barriers) or ones that don’t need very precise targeting (such as searchlight-type effects).

Glove/Gauntlet

Some combat drucrafters eventually start to bump up against the natural limits of carrying their sigls in ring or bracelet form (usually because they’ve reached the point where they’ve got more combat sigls than they have arms or fingers).  At this point, they have a choice;  cut back on their sigl loadout, or get something bigger.

Sigl gloves or sigl gauntlets are items of protective wear designed to carry a large number of sigls into a dangerous environment, and as such are usually made out of tough materials – thick leather and chain mail are the most common choices, sometimes with metal plates.  Wearing a sigl glove is the drucraft equivalent of showing up somewhere dressed in body armour and carrying a gun – it’s effectively announcing that you’re expecting trouble (possibly because you expect to be the one starting it).

Essentia channelling is very short-ranged.  To channel through a sigl, a drucrafter needs that sigl to be very close – preferably, touching their skin.  This means that if you plan to make a habit of using sigls, you’re either going to have to hold them, or you’re going to have to wear them.

The ‘hold them’ option is not recommended.  Using a sigl freehand is not usually dangerous (except in the case of particularly aggressive combat sigls) but it’s a great way for it to get lost.  Sigls are tiny – a regular C-class sigl is only a third of a centimetre across – and if you try to carry one in your pocket, then you’re likely to either drop it somewhere really inconvenient, have it get lost under a bunch of other, bigger things, or both.  This is especially the case if you have to use the sigl under pressure – if you’re in a rush or in danger, trying to fish out something barely bigger than a match head and use it without fumbling and dropping it is a recipe for disaster.

For this reason, if you’re a drucrafter, it’s convenient to find some way of wearing your sigls on your body in such a way they’re both secure and conveniently accessible.  It should come as no surprise that – after thousands of years of practice – drucrafters have come up with many, many ways to do this.

Here are a few of the more popular methods.

Necklace/Pendant

Probably the oldest and simplest way to wear a sigl;  just loop a cord, string, or thread around your neck and hang the sigl from it.  You still need to figure out some way to fix the sigl to the cord, but this isn’t usually too hard.

The biggest advantage of this method is security.  It’s really, really hard to steal something that’s hanging from someone’s neck and under their clothes – in fact, unless they’re in beachwear or a low-cut top, you probably won’t be able to tell that they’re wearing a sigl at all.  Items worn on a necklace also conveniently tend to hang around the middle of the wearer’s chest, which is an ideal location for many Life and Matter enhancement effects.

The main drawback of the necklace method is that, while potential thieves can’t see a sigl worn on a necklace under your clothes, neither can you.  This isn’t usually an issue if you’re only wearing one, but once you start stringing more than one together, you can start running into issues where you lose track of which sigl is which, meaning that you could channel essentia into one sigl when it was meant for another (quite embarrassing if you’ve got a combat sigl mixed in with several others).  This also makes this location less than ideal for most Light sigls, which tend to need to be uncovered to work – you can get around this by having windows cut out of your clothing, but that tends to negate any benefit from wearing the sigl under your clothing in the first place.

This location is also a bad choice for any sigls designed to produce harmful effects, for fairly obvious reasons.

Belt/Waist

A somewhat less common variant of the necklace approach, where the sigl is set into a belt buckle or worn on a band or chain around the waist.  Not as secure as a necklace, but has the advantage of being closer to the wielder’s centre of mass, which can matter for sigls that project a field – these often have a sharply limited range, so wearing them at the chest can mean the sigl doesn’t reach down to the drucrafter’s ankles and feet.  The question of whether certain Light or Matter sigls are best worn high on the waist vs. low on the abdomen is a perennial argument amongst drucrafters.

A handful of the vast quantity of medical Life sigls in current use.

Mending

Type:  Triggered
Appearance: Pale green, sphere
Rank: C to B+

Although all medical sigls are inherently specialised, the Mending sigl is the closest thing there is to a general purpose first-aid solution, designed to keep a patient alive until more specialised medical treatment can be administered.  Mending sigls are commonly referred to as first aid or responder sigls, since they’re intended for use by paramedics and other emergency workers.

Mending sigls are designed to treat bleeding, especially internal bleeding.  Although human beings can die in hundreds of ways, in the case of accidents or emergencies the most common reason for death is lack of oxygen supply due to blood loss, and this is what mending sigls are intended to prevent.  Mending sigls stimulate production of platelets and coagulation factors while boosting the body’s natural regenerative functions.  The sigl is only designed to treat life-threatening bleeding, not any other kind;  bruising, for instance, is also caused by internal bleeding, but mending sigls are very specifically tuned not to help with bruising, or any other non-lethal conditions.  The reason for this is that Life treatments consume a certain amount of the body’s energy, and if a patient is on the brink of death, forcing their body to prioritise healing non-essential damage may kill them.

Even with this safety feature, mending sigls can still be dangerous if used too aggressively or swiftly.  As such, even mending sigls (which are probably the safest and most idiot-proof of all medical sigls) are not recommended for amateur use except in emergencies.

More powerful and specialised versions of this sigl are used by medical drucrafters;  all drucraft emergency rooms will have one.

Painkiller

Type:  Continuous or triggered
Appearance: Dark green, teardrop shape
Rank: D+ to C

A reverse-enhancement sigl that serves the purpose of an analgesic, suppressing or blocking the parts of the nervous system that detect and transmit pain signals to the brain.  The pain is still there, the subject just doesn’t feel it.  Comes in continuous forms meant for long-term pain relief, and triggered versions intended to be used as a complement to other medical sigls during surgical procedures.

Carries the same benefits and drawbacks as other analgesics.  Pain is unpleasant, and suppressing it can make a patient’s life a lot more comfortable.  However, it exists for a reason;  when you don’t feel pain, you can get hurt very badly very quickly, and not notice until it’s too late.

Triggered versions of this sigl are usually employed by medical assistants to doctors.  Continuous versions are usually used by elderly wielders with chronic ailments, or by particularly psychotic combat drucrafters who want an edge in a fight and don’t care much about long-term consequences.

Rebuild

Type:  Continuous or triggered
Appearance: Light green, sphere
Rank: D+ to C+

A sigl that repairs damaged muscles.  Comes in acute-triggered versions (designed to be used in exceptional circumstances), steady-triggered versions (intended for regular use) and continuous ones.

The triggered versions of this sigl tend to be somewhat more powerful and are designed to fix accidental damage, whether that damage takes the form of a pulled muscle or just the regular micro-tears caused by vigorous exercise.  In either case the function is very similar;  by boosting the body’s natural regenerative functions, the muscle recovers much more quickly than would otherwise be the case.  In either case it’s assumed that the user will be a medical professional.

The rarer continuous version of this sigl is designed to boost the body’s muscular regeneration to a lesser but more sustainable degree, so as to work 24/7.  It’s used by people in professions that are sufficiently physically demanding that they’re expecting to overstrain their muscles all the time – athletes, soldiers, participants in extreme sports, and so on.  The idea is that by running the sigl constantly, they can rapidly bounce back from their regular strains and minor injuries, and build muscle strength in the process.

Reinforcement

Type:  Continuous or triggered
Appearance: Green, teardrop shape
Rank: C to A

A sigl that can be classified either as medical or enhancement, depending on one’s point of view.  The Reinforcement sigl enhances the body’s immune system by boosting white blood cell count.  (White blood cells are the ‘standing army’ of the immune system, hence the sigl’s name – it makes the body ‘send out reinforcements’).  As with the previous two sigls, this one comes in triggered forms intended to be used selectively by medical professionals, and continuous forms intended to be worn by the wielder and used for an extended period of time.

Generally regarded in medical drucraft as a sort of ‘shotgun’ option:  it has a pretty good chance of helping to stop an infection, even when the drucrafter doesn’t actually know what the infection is.  As such, it has the reputation of a sigl mostly used by people who don’t really know what they’re doing.  Despite this, the sigl is a very broadly useful one and is a safe first option for treatment in about 90% of cases.  (In the remaining 10% of cases the patient has an autoimmune disorder, in which case supercharging their immune system will either make them much sicker or kill them outright.)

Life sigls are generally divided into ‘medical’ and ‘other’ categories.  This article will look at a small sampling of the latter.

Strength

Type:  Continuous
Appearance: Deep green, teardrop shape
Rank: D+ to B (rarely higher)

The most basic of all enhancement sigls, the Strength sigl enhances the wielder’s muscular system, letting them lift heavier weights, hit harder, trek around more easily while burdened, and resist strains and similar injuries.  The weakest D+ ones usually translate into an effective increase to the wielder’s strength of 10% or so, while C-rank and B-rank versions come in at around 30% and 70% respectively.  In theory A-rank and even S-rank versions can be made, but this is usually not considered commercially viable – few customers are willing to pay what it would cost to push their strength any higher.

Can be shaped as a triggered sigl, but repeatedly activating and deactivating the sigl is very disorienting to a wielder.  As such, commercially produced Strength sigls are always made continuous so that the wielder has time to become accustomed to their new baseline.

An extremely common sigl sold in hundreds of varieties all around the world.  Often tuned to boost certain types of muscular activity at the expense of others – some users will be looking more for endurance, others more for fast-twitch performance.  Individual brands are commonly named after mythological heroes or monsters from the country in question.

Occasionally, shapers will attempt to produce localised versions of this sigl that boost only certain muscle groups.  While in theory this can allow for a much more powerful enhancement, in practice the unbalancing effect tends to cause more problems than it solves.  The human muscular system is quite finely tuned and many muscles that might seem non-essential in fact provide an important stabilising function.  As such, most mass-produced strength sigls use regulators to spread the enhancement evenly throughout the body.

Reflex

Type:  Continuous
Appearance: Green, teardrop shape
Rank: C to S

The cousin to the Strength sigl, the Reflex sigl optimises and enhances the nervous and circulatory systems, while also increasing adrenaline production.  The effect is to greatly increase reflexes and reaction time.

Much more complex than the Strength sigl, and considerably more risky to use.  The human body is not really designed to be constantly on high alert and pumped with adrenaline, and heavy use of this sigl is terrible for long-term health.  Drucrafters who intend to make use of this sigl are well advised to spend considerable time training with it, so that they can adjust quickly to the sigl being activated and deactivated – the alternative (keeping the sigl active all the time) is a good way to end up with crippling health problems.   

Despite this, the sigl remains popular.  Simply being able to react faster than an opponent is a potent advantage, and in a dangerous situation the difference between reacting in half a second and in a quarter of a second can be life-saving.  As such, this sigl is common among drucrafters expecting to get into combat.

Cat’s Eye

Type:  Continuous
Appearance: Pale green, sphere
Rank: D to C

A sigl that enhances the human visual system, improving the eyes, optic nerves, and visual cortex.  As the name suggests, this sigl is most commonly designed so as to improve low-light vision, but other versions focus more on general visual acuity instead (in which case they’re more likely to be named after a falcon or an eagle, rather than a cat).

For obvious reasons, this sigl has to be worn on the head.  Headband versions are the simplest and thus the most common, though shapers who prefer a more subtle approach may design the sigl so that it can be worn anywhere touching the skull, allowing it to be hidden by the drucrafter’s hair.

The effect of this sigl overlaps somewhat with the Darksight effect from the Light branch.  Darksight has a much higher ceiling of effectiveness – the Cat’s Eye sigl is fundamentally limited by the capabilities of the human eye, and since humans do not have the inherent low-light vision of an owl or a cat, there’s only so much a Life enhancement can do.  However, some drucrafters find the more ‘organic’ improvement of a Life enhancement more comfortable and intuitive to use than the Darksight effect, which can easily overwhelm a drucrafter who doesn’t know how to interpret the extra parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that they’re suddenly seeing.

Stun

Type:  Triggered
Appearance: Green, sphere
Rank: C to C+

One of the rare Life sigls designed to be used offensively, the Stun sigl attempts to suppress neurological activity in the target’s brain and nervous system.  The effect is something like delivering a split-second power cut to a computer, knocking the target out and forcing their brain to ‘reboot’.  The subject will immediately start to recover as soon as the effect ends, but this can take several minutes.

Although powerful, the spell has its drawbacks.  Firstly, to be fully effective, the spell has to be delivered directly to the brain or upper spinal cord, which means touching the target’s head, back, or (ideally) the back of the neck.  Secondly, like all effects designed to knock a person unconscious, there’s always the risk of running into someone with some medical condition that’ll cause unexpected side effects.  In rare cases this sigl has been known to cause brain damage, especially in the elderly.

However, by far the biggest weakness of this sigl is that since it involves channelling essentia directly into the target’s body, a drucrafter with sufficient control over their personal essentia can resist it by concentrating their own personal essentia in such a way as to blunt the attack.  This isn’t quite as big a problem as it sounds, since channellers with this level of control are rare, and even if they do have a sufficient level of control, they may not recognise the threat in time to counter it.  However, the fact that it’s theoretically possible for a drucrafter to completely negate an attack from this sigl simply by standing still and concentrating really hard has so far prevented Stun sigls from ever becoming really popular.

The fourth of the branches, Life essentia gives drucrafters the ability to affect living biological systems.

Capabilities

Life effects work quite differently to Motion, Matter, or Light.  While Light and Motion effects tend to operate on a straightforward conversion basis (turning essentia into energy or vice versa) and Matter drucraft affects physical properties, Life spells either enhance or inhibit biological systems.  A typical Light spell is something like ‘create a light on X wavelength’.  A typical Life spell is something like ‘strengthen this particular system in this particular living creature in this particular way, which creates about a hundred secondary effects, only a few of which are going to be obvious’.

To do anything useful, a Life sigl has to focus on one bodily system or subsystem to affect.  Some of the more common choices are:

• Circulatory system:  Pumps blood, transporting oxygen/nutrients around the body.  Affects endurance and general body efficiency.
• Muscular system:  Enables movement, affecting strength and speed.
• Nervous system:  Processes sensory information and co-ordinates movement.  Affects general body operation and reaction speed.
• Respiratory system:  Exchanges gases between the air and the blood.
• Immune system:  Defends the body against infection.
• Urinary system:  Eliminates waste and regulates fluid balance.

Simply listing the systems like this, however, makes Life drucraft sound much simpler than it actually is, because every one of the above systems is interdependent with all of the others, and making a change to any one of them will cause knock-on effects (often unpredictable effects) to everything else.  This makes Life drucraft far more complicated in execution than all of the other branches, and potentially much more unpredictable.  Life drucraft research is notoriously difficult, and nasty accidents are common.

Strengths and Weaknesses

The most common way that Life drucraft is used in practice is to create a sigl that picks out one particular bodily system and enhances it.  Effectively this ‘turbocharges’ the system, allowing it to function better or more quickly than it normally could.  Muscles can lift a greater weight, blood can oxygenate more efficiently, nerves can process input faster.  With a properly designed sigl, almost any aspect of a living body can be improved;  to an outside observer, a Life-enhanced drucrafter just seems better than a normal person in every way.

By selectively enhancing elements of the immune, circulatory, and regenerative systems, Life drucraft can be used to treat injuries.  Life spells can’t instantly heal wounds – there’s no way for a body to quickly seal up a tear or re-set a broken bone – but they can make a body repair itself far faster than it could do by itself.  Powered by essentia and guided by a skilled medical drucrafter, a body can heal damage at ten times the speed it would do naturally, and with no lasting consequences.

The key word in that last paragraph, however, is ‘skilled’.  More so than any of the other branches, Life spells require the drucrafter to know what they’re doing.  Enhancing the wrong system, or picking the right system but enhancing it in the wrong way, will make things worse than if the drucrafter had done nothing at all.  As such, skilled medical drucrafters are always in high demand.

Finally, as with most drucraft effects, Life spells can be used in reverse, suppressing or weakening a bodily system instead of boosting it.  In theory this would mean that any Life sigl would have its mirror-image version that harms instead of heals, or debilitates instead of strengthens.  In practice, however, this is rarely done, for the simple reason that medical Life sigls are always in such high demand.  Every Life Well used to make a harmful sigl is one that isn’t being used to make a medical sigl, and given how much people are willing to pay for good health, this is rarely a good deal for the shaper.

Associations

Life essentia is associated with (unsurprisingly) life – vitality, fertility, reproduction, health, and endurance, as well as with rulership and dominion.  Its associated celestial body is Jupiter.

Distribution

The country with the strongest Life Wells is India, though Brazil comes a close second.  The two of them combined account for the majority of global Life sigl production.  Other countries with strong Life resources include Nigeria, Russia, Ghana, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.