Curse users… a topic that isn’t quite well defined.
They’re people that touched an elemental magic cube, giving them the ability to embody its power and quite literally turn into it—their personality and irides being changed by it as well.
Now, knowing that they can freely change from their curse form to their original body, why exactly can’t they use the former to modify, heal and rebuild themselves better than any amount of magic energy could? After all, both forms should be transmutable given that they can switch between them.
Here are my hypotheses:
- It would require anatomical knowledge that they do not have.
- There is an innate difference between the curse user’s body and created elements in curse form.
Which leads me to my next points:
- The simplest of the two and my personal favourite, it still has its issues.
- What prevents them from acquiring this anatomical knowledge? They’re immortal unless killed, surely a few would have spent their time developing the medical field.
- Why would magic differ from it and use overall user intent to heal instead?
- Since they have an immense amount of magic energy, what stops them from using it like mages do and greatly heal themselves to the point of full-body restoration?
- While the argument that body and “casting” (whatever we can call it) are different can be reinforced by how Cazal and Morden were able to use their curse outside of their form, a few problems arise from this idea:
- As their “casting” would differ from their body, nothing would prevent them from using it as a protective shell.
- This would be capable of being used to nullify their Achilles’ Heel: the sea and its salts.
- This would make curse users virtually unkillable as they would not be harmed by attacks which hit it.
- This would prevent side-effects such as Randal’s ability to sense from trees as they would not be part of his body.
It’s a question that others and I have been asking ourselves in the super-secret tl3 chats, so I thought of publicly sharing my thoughts on it to maybe get answers, hoping that we’ll one day see Godrick the Grafted in the world of Arcane Odyssey.
P.S: Sorry for the bad formatting and constant edits.
As the lore is currently built, they 100% should be able to.
My understanding is that they never truly stop being in their curse form.
They ARE the curse, by all means, they do not fall under any medical understanding of ‘human’.
Given their nature, they honestly shouldn’t even bleed, atleast not blood.
If cazal can replace his flesh with wind and then turn it back into flesh, that means he can create flesh from nothing but magic.
If he can turn his entire body into wind and remain as he is, then that means he doesn’t need flesh in the first place.
Every time a curse user enters and exits their curse form, they are literally giving themselves an entire new body twice.
By all means this means they should be able to reshape their body however they please in either form.
If they have scars they don’t like. Gone.
Missing limb? Back. (See: Averill)
Too short? Become tall.
Overweight or underweight? Nuh uh.
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doesn’t averill lose his arm and then remakes it out of light
Yeah… that’s an oversight on my end because I don’t know AA’s lore despite having played it.
Still, it makes me wonder if that could have been vetconned since Cazal doesn’t fix himself, but at the same time he could just be a weirdo/using it as a tactical advantage.
We never got anywhere near Averill getting the light curse in AA before it exploded from FE.
The fact that Devourers, instead of vaporizing them, simply remove their curse in an unsafe manner, kind of ruins this idea.
For here my understanding is basically that the curse being ripped out is about the same as if I walked up to you and tore out your heart.
(not that I believe I am anywhere near capable of doing that, just a hypothetical lol)
You’re gonna be alive for a lil bit but that isn’t gonna last.
The story kind of shows contrary, since Beringer survives for days after his curse is removed, and with only medieval medicine he manages to survive a pretty long time considering the cauterized hole in his stomach, which is probably the only reason he died.
Just give him a nice regen potion and he’d live, it’s just that they didn’t want him to live.
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Isn’t Cazal’s corpse in Nimbus Wilds in a ravine and cave ?
That’s the mage of life iirc
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she saved skyhall from famine when it first ended up in the sky
I haven’t read any replies yet so apologies if this is already said, my personal theory is because human anatomy and magic aren’t the same, like you can’t replace a missing heart or brain with magic, sure you can make them in the shape of magic but they wouldn’t have the functions of those things. Which is why we only really seen magic arms (Cazel) since those don’t have any complex inner workings unable to be replicated by magic. Another idea is that you can’t mix them, as in a magic heart wouldn’t be able to connect to the rest of the body to pump the blood necessary for the body for example
Cazal calls himself a ghost.
He is not a ghost, he’s the wind curse holder.
I think he doesn’t have his wind arm out at all times for style/looks? Or maybe because it actively uses energy to be there, so it’s more energy/cost efficient to only summon it when need be (like taking our pinky)
Any curse user can completely replace their body with their magic.
Enter: General julian cutscene where he turns his entire body into glass, crashes into you, and then reforms from the shards.
For a solid moment general julian was literally a pile of broken glass.
Maybe being in their element forms also uses energy to be in? Or maybe this is just something that can’t be explained by science and logic. It is magic, something that isn’t natural and follows its own unexplained rules
The crystal curse user (Ormolu) has been in his curse form for what is implied to be centuries nonstop with no external supply of… anything!
If it takes magic to maintain curse form, the ambient magic is plenty enough.
Hm, fair enough, maybe that was a case of the curse itself taking control? If we’re going on the theory that curses have their own personalities, then maybe the reason why Ormolu was fully in his curse form for centuries was ‘cause it no longer was him? Just spitballing possible ideas here rn lol
Maybe that’s also why curse users don’t permanently stay in their curse forms? Because if they do then they’ll lose themselves and become vessels for the curse to puppeteer?
I’m going to say that probably isn’t it and its probably much more of being trapped in a cave for centuries with no human contact, food, water, anything.
Morden proved that curse users can still feel hunger pains, but in their nature, curse users don’t necessarily need to eat.
Soooo imagine sitting at the edge of death by starvation and dehydration alone in a box for a couple centuries and tell me you’d be recognizable as a person on the other end.
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