Mystic Armor

Figured for today's entry I'd expand on an idea I've been toying around with a lot for my favored original setting. Basically, suits of entirely magic-based powered armor. I'll confess I only finalized the idea after reading about WH40k's Space Marines :P




In hidden vaults deep beneath the fortress of Karak Vida, Sir Brevick the Staunch, Knight of the Fourth Circle and Captain of the Order of the Blue Oak, walked with his son, Frederick. In silence they walked down the dark corridor, at the end of which a single light illuminated an oaken door. This door was covered in elaborate metal trimmings, depicting a great silver oak tree surrounded by mountains, with a sun disc of gold directly above. The echo of the lock clicking open raced down the stone corridor.

Within was a torch-lit circular room, its space mostly taken up by three thick columns. In alcoves set in to the columns, and completely ringing the room, were dozens of suits of armor. Frederick walked past his father, slowly circling the room, mouth slightly open. Each suit was different – different styles of plate, different colors and trimmings, some with incredibly ostentatious helmets, shoulderpads, and chestplates, others simple suits with complex patterns etched into the seams. Here was one painted matte black, with sinister eyeholes in a featureless helmet. Here was one with ox horns set into the helmet, and a gold-plated falcon covering the chest. Each, however, was solely of metal plates, with tight, articulated joints, and each was terribly large. He turned to his father.

“These are the mystic armors of our order,” his father told him, “given to us by the Empress herself, over a thousand years ago. I brought you here so you could...get acquainted with them.”

“I already have…armor…” Frederick said, aware of how absurd it sounded. The subtle arcane energies that flooded the room were dulling his senses, he thought. He couldn’t take his eyes away from the suit before him, its ruby-stained plates and golden etching, though he couldn’t imagine ever being big enough to fit in it.

“The suit of adamant chains you have now is fine for a Knight Apparent, son, but it does not compare to these artifacts. Some day, I am sure, one will find you worthy.” Frederick wasn’t quite listening, though. Sir Brevick spotted a slight flickering of light in the jewel in the center of the breastplate, which slowly spread outwards through tiny channels covering the armor, like rainwater filling desert riverbeds. He smiled.

------

Though enchanting armor to enhance its protective qualities is no rare idea, the legendary suits called mystic armor are in a class of their own. Each is alive and self-aware (though they can rarely actually talk), and each chooses its wearer. The first requirement, of course, is that the wearer have at least a modicum of magical ability, as the complex, powerful layers of enchantment that suffuse the armor cannot be powered simply by ambient mana: the wearer must provide direction and mystic force. Beyond that, every suit is different, naturally*, and chooses its wearer based on unique criteria. Many, especially newer suits, are actually rather mercenary, believing they belong to whoever can claim them. Others accept only the strongest warriors, or those possessing some particular virtue. A few actually prefer weak and flawed individuals, the underdogs and the doomed, viewing such people as being more needing of them. The suit’s personalities are inconsistent – a few are made with carefully tailored personas, but most start as blank slates and base themselves off the quirks of their various wearers.

So, say you are lucky enough discover a suit of mystic armor and are chosen to wear it. The first of the suit’s powers you will notice are a unique telekinetic sensitivity - each plate is able to move through the air under its own force (as supplied by the mana of the wearer). The primary purpose of this is to enhance the wearer’s strength – the suit moves in unison with the wearer, adding its magical force to the wearer’s strikes and movements. There are many other possibilities, however – the suit’s owner can don it in a matter of seconds, for instance, by having the plates simply fly in to place. The suit itself can levitate in thin air, without any sort of leverage, though whether this pans out as slowed falls and a light step or outright flight depends on the suit and the power of the wearer. At least one eccentric user took to launching her gauntlets at distant foes while shouting “Rocket Fist Attack!” And of course, the suits are able to assemble and walk around under their own power, provided they have some powerful source of magic to draw from. This usually renders the armor not much stronger than a normal human, but they’re occasionally pressed into service as decoys. There are tales of suits worn by exceptionally powerful users which retained enough residual mana after the wearer was slain to seek revenge on their former master’s killers.

The second notable power the suits have is that despite being spiritually charged with sturdiness and unyielding force, they are surprisingly mutable. Almost all suits of mystic armor follow the same basic pattern. They are full suits of plate armor, but while even the heaviest mundane armor relies on loose chains and plates to cover complicated joints like the shoulders and groin, mystic armor is always nearly-seamless, with ingenious articulated hinges that allow a full range of movement. Furthermore, the plates are rarely less than an inch thick, much heavier than normal metal armor. This would make them incredibly cumbersome if not for the suit's telekinetic power, but with this boon wearers of mystic armor can be downright nimble. Beyond this basic style, however, suits vary tremendously, as they are able to slowly alter their own forms to match their wearers, like they base their personalities on them. There’s the practical application – over the first few hours of donning a suit the wearer will notice it fits better every second, as the plates warp and mould themselves to his body and movements. Moreover, the suits are able to radically change their appearance in accordance with the master’s wishes – the armor’s style changes to match that of the wearer’s home country, crests and symbols related to the wearer’s allegiance or beliefs slowly form, and so on. Ancient suits tend to be incredibly ornate and rather mismatched due to having accumulated several lifetimes worth of passions.

Of course, all this would mean little if the suits were not able to protect their wearers. Fortunately, they more than excel at this. Almost all suits of mystic armor are made out of adamant, if not of some genuinely miraculous substance, and all are further reinforced by an active enchantment that increases the strength of molecular bonds in the plates, making the armor significantly stronger than should be possible. They also have a version of a common spell called the magician's mantle folded into their steel when they are forged. This creates a sensitive field of loosely manifested mana around the suit, which reflexively condenses and manifests as a counter-force against anything dangerous that enters it. Thus incoming bullets are bounced off an invisible field, heat is generated in areas of extreme cold, and electrical discharges are diverted by magnetic fields. The mantle can even ward off poisonous gas and seal itself against radical pressure differences. Because the suit's physical form already provides exceptional physical protection, many users have their mantles ignore physical damage altogether, using the mantle solely as a sort of environment suit. Because the mantle must constantly have more mana flowing in to it to replace that which manifests when "under pressure," having this happen while the wearer is, say, in a vacuum would be disastrous. Like with the regular magician's mantle, the field will occasionally create visual distortions and displays of "waste light" when they activate. Most suits are designed to minimize this effect, but a few exaggerate and tailor it, creating brilliant thematic auras when struck.

Finally, the interior portions of the suits have an enchantment that lets them synch up with the wearer's body. The suit monitors the wearer's body and can intervene, doing things like stabilizing critical wounds, accelerating healing, detecting and counteracting poison and disease, filling their bloodstream with oxygen if they can't breathe, and so forth. This can be one of the suit's more sinister abilities, as while they also have the ability to regulate hormones and chemicals to enhance strength, focus, and general combat abilities, this can be used to directly manipulate the wearer's emotions. Few suits are actually willful enough to resort to such matters, but many users are very wary of this ability. The suits of armor are usually designed so that they can only communicate with their wearers on an empathetic level - making them audibly talk is difficult, and letting them psychically communicate would, combined with their hormone control, allow them to completely dominate their wearers. There are rumors of immortal tyrants and warlords who were actually suits of mystic armor, jumping from wearer to wearer and dragging their hosts around like fleshy mana batteries. But those are just legends, right?


*Concept: it is impossible to make enchanted items based on a standard template, as the item and the enchantment must be in synch, and it is very difficult to cast spells with factory-level precision.

Hmm, didn't really go in to much about their origins. I didn't really have one in mind, though, I was just working on the concept. Worldbuilding is quite fun, I like being able to play with ideas without worrying about the narrative and how it fits in and whatnot. I may do the same tomorrow.