Homunculus

The following information pertains to the continuity of Moonsong. As such, the wording may sometimes seem more flowery than normal. This is intentional.

Homunculi are, simply put, people conceived through thaumaturgical means, and are thence born fully grown and retain a young-adult appearance for their entire lives. The circumstances of their conception and existence are considered highly controversial by popular consensus around Álm, and most belief systems consider the process of creating them (an act known as tacquin) blasphemous and severely punishable. Outside of Towerward Danadur, where Golden Danar, who are women in their totality, reproduce thaumaturgically, homunculi are prevalent in situations of mass forced labour.

Homunculi are fully conscious, self-aware beings capable of self-decision from the moment they are born. Their personalities and appearances are as varied as those of any other ilk. However, their lives are staggeringly short, only reaching about two decades before the onset of a kind of programmed decay known as the death process.

Tacquin

Tacquin is the act of creating a homunculus. There are many forms of tacquin, usually involving the insertion of thaumaturgically prepared semen into a vessel appropriate for the size of the fully grown offspring. These vessels may be artificial, like a large urn filled with a liquid mixture of 3 parts water, 1 part salt and 1 part potash, kept at body temperature by a small fire or the light of the tower, or natural, such as a sufficiently large living being, the developing foetus therefore acting as a helminth feeding from a host.

Death process

The death process is a programmed death event that occurs around the 20- to 24-year mark for every homunculus. Onset symptoms include alopecia, odontolysis (detachment of teeth), and onycholysis (detachment of fingernails), gradually becoming worse during a period of two weeks at most. At the three-week mark, ataxia, mass haemorrhage, and organ failure ensue. Late-stage death process begins at the five-week mark, and is marked by necrosis, akin to frostbite, of large swaths of flesh, followed promptly by death at the sixth week.

Death process may only be reverted through powerful feats of thaumaturgy, such as pacts. It is otherwise irreversible and unpreventable.