Magic System / Worldbuilding in Alchemised
I've been doing a bit of a deep dive into the world of Alchemised and the magic system, so I thought I'd share a few fan theories and symbolisms of mine that I've noticed+collected over the past few months here in case it helps others appreciate the world more too.
1. Lumithia and the Great Disaster: it's hinted that the events of Alchemised take place in the far future, 1786 years after a celestial body made of an extraterrestrial substance, lumithium, collided with the moon/Luna and led to the fires and floods that almost wiped out humanity during the Great Disaster. (Ch. 33 when "Lumithia faced Luna in a celestial battle ... Lumithia bestowed the gifts of alchemy upon mankind").
The asteroid became Lumithia and its fragments fell to earth from the impact and congregated in the Novis mountains. The post-flood world map suggests the story takes place in current-day Europe and North Africa, with Khem being Egypt. Luna is quoted to look like a "broken piece of pottery" in the sky. Etras is current-day Italy which explains Helena Marino being Sicilian.
2. Lumithia and Why it Allows Alchemy: (From a sci-fi angle) Lumithia/lumithium is an extraterrestrial substance that bestows alchemists with the ability to transmute metal. Being exposed to lumithium causes wasting sickness in the mines, suggesting it is a radioactive substance that allows people to gain the ability to alter proton-neutron ratios for transmutation (or something along these lines). This genetic ability is passed down to future generations of miners. I think SLY also said during an Insta AMA that Alchemised is at its core a sci fi with fantasy elements, told through the lens of religion and alchemical/pre-modern scientific times.
For what else is magic, but science we don't yet understand :) thank you Arthur Clarke third law yet again.
Bodies also determine resonance, when an Undying's talisman is placed into a lich body, they get whatever resonance the lich had before. Supports the theory of how alchemy is imbued biologically from lumithium. Also found it interesting that after the nullium bomb, necrothralls couldn't be re-animated unless they pumped fresh, non-nullium infected blood into the bodies. Would be curious to see the limits and roots of alchemy if SLY ever publishes another novel in this universe.
3. Ascendance and Abeyance: I originally assumed Lumithia orbited the earth once a year in a simple elliptical, but after some background reading, typically orbital paths are conic sections with Earth at the "focus" point instead of the center. So Lumithia probably follows a highly-elliptical, 6-month orbit twice a year. Each orbit produces 1 Ascendance and 1 Abeyance. The orbit is also phase-locked with full moons at perigee (April/October, Sun-Earth-Lumithia alignment), and new moons at apogee (January/July, Sun-Lumithia-Earth alignment).
Ascendance (full Lumithia moon when she's closest to the earth) is a shorter period of days because Lumithia is deep in Earth's gravity well and whips past quickly. A mass of lumithium being so close to the earth makes alchemists feel moon drunk for a few days.
In contrast, Abeyance (new Lumithia moon) is a longer period of several months when Lumithia is far away from the earth at apogee. Because she is farther form earth's gravity well, the distance is longer and therefore we get an entire trade "season".
The Great Disaster also implies tides far stronger than current-day earth which is why they haven't been able to explore beyond the Known World. A lot of the coastline was also erased during the Great Disaster and during Abeyance low tides you can walk along the stripped beaches. I also did some tidal force equation calculations but won't bore y'all with those here.
4. Khem: means "dark soil of the Nile Valley", and is indirectly the root of "alchemy" and "chemistry".
5. Obsidian Death Energy: When Helena makes the obsidian blade, she traps the "death energy" of a dying/deceased person. This kind of interrupted soul/death trajectory is the only thing that can kill an Undying. Only a soul can kill another soul, like how only diamonds can cut other diamonds.
6. Why Undying are Necromancers: My theory for how the Undying are able to become necromancers, is that the Undying creation process traps 9 sacrificial souls around the phylactery and prevents them from fulfilling their death trajectory and spiritual absolution. This trapped energy can leak out and could allow for necromancy. Wagner says they never found out why Undying could use necromancy, this is just my theory.
7. Helena and Titanium: Helena's resonance with titanium is very fascinating. As a modern/post-industrial metal, it is very corrosion-resistant and strong without being too heavy. I like how it symbolizes that she represents a newer age, doesn't bend easily (titanium absorbs stress instead of dissipating it), meaning she's able to hand stress for a long time, but will inevitably break if pushed too far. Also a metal frequently used in medical fields.
8. Guns: I was wondering why there were no guns in Alchemised. After some thought, I concluded that in an alchemical world the path dependency of metal innovation probably diverged a lot from our real life world. Early steam and combustion engines typically failed because of poor metallurgy, but Ferron method was able to create steel pressure vessels and piston cylinders etc that allowed for trains.
But since Paladia banned weapons research, countries like Hevgoss had to innovate with non-alchemical methods. Typical weapons innovation historically went bombs > cannons > guns. Cannons and bombs don't require the ultra-fine precision that firearms do (precise barrels that withstand repeated ignition). So alchemists in Paladia used what worked best for their abilities (transmuting blades) instead of innovating on firearms and creating guns.
9. Lumithium vs MoLianShi: My theory is that Lumithia’s composition is quite heterogeneous and when she collided with Luna, the impact caused different materials to eject at different times.
Lumithium came from brittle outer crust and was scattered first, forming a strewn belt over Eastern Europe, but not Western Europe / Hevgoss. Materials that transmit/amplify vibrational resonances tend to be crystalline, brittle, and lower density, while materials with high damping coefficient and more energy absorbent are denser.
Molianshi, by contrast, came from the denser core and was ejected later, falling over the Far East as the Earth rotated ~1 day later. Because core fragments were heavier and more compact, the strewn field was much tighter and is likely why molianshi was only found in a few specific regions of the Eastern Empire.
10. Undying Procedure: (this is copy-pasted from an older comment of mine on another post).
Animancy arrays have 9 points. Before the procedure, Morrough has already tethered a piece of his own soul into a shard of his own bone.
There are 9 sacrificial victims that stand at each point of the array. Morrough cuts open the chest of the Undying and places his bone in. He tethers the Undying's own soul onto this bone as well (this is where the Undying's soul is first unseated). The array is activated and the energy rips out the sacrificial victims' souls. Their souls are drawn out like threads and Morrough winds them around the shard of bone to stabilize both his and the Undying's souls, tying them together.
The bone (Morrough's soul, Undying's soul, sacrificial victims' souls wound around like cocoon) is now the "phylactery". Morrough breaks off a small part of the bone/phylactery, coats it in lumithium, and places it back into the Undying-- this is the "talisman". Morrough places the main phylactery (with the 9 souls wrapped around) back into his own body.
The phylactery is like the primary anchor that Morrough keeps. The Undying will "die" if the talisman is ripped out. If this is the case, Morrough can always break off another shard and try to re-spawn them, but the second talisman won't be any smarter than a necrothrall.
After Ivy brings them Kaine's phylactery, Helena first unwinds the sacrificial victims' souls from the phylactery and frees his soul from it. She uses Atreus' soul as the new thread to stabilize his soul inside his body once more, at least until his body remembered what it's like to have a soul. Undoing the Undying procedure requires another sacrificial soul (in this case, Atreus').
The procedure is basically a series of soul untethering and tethering steps!
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As always, please feel free to correct anything I got wrong.
I'm not an astrophysicist or anything, but I do love exploring hard magic systems so this process has been quite a treat.