Possession (所持 Shoji) is a class of sorcery in Wild Hunt; one which allows sorcerers to transplant their core (soul/mind) into the core of another living creature, be it human, yokai, or animal. Artificial intelligence, such as androids and homunculi can also be possessed by sorcerers. Sorcerers who've learned to use possession are called Possessors (所有者 Shoyū-sha.)
Due to the very nature of possession sorcery, whereupon a possessor takes ownership of someone else's body (usually) without full consent, and because of the dangers possession can bring about, it has become an outlawed class of sorcery and listed alongside fellow forbidden magics as one of the black arts. And while a vast majority of the world looks down upon the use of possession as a social taboo, there have been certain cases where it has become a necessary evil. One example includes the popularity it receives among yokai, who sometimes feel the need to rely on possession to escape their sensitivity towards essentia. Others may end up using possession to escape those who may be hunting or persecuting the possessor, or to perhaps overcome a disability their own body may be suffering from.
Typically, when a possessor enters the core of another being, their whole body will vanish without a trace; and vice-versa, upon exiting the body, they will resume the same form they had before performing possession. When within the core of another, the possessor must assert dominance in order to gain control of the host body. This can create a power struggle with the host if the original body owner decides to resist or reject the possessor. Should the possessor lose the fight for the body, the possessor can be forcibly ejected back out into the natural world. On the other hand, if they succeed in dominating the host, they can assume full control of the host body and its functions. More advanced usage of possession can allow the possessor to assert further influence onto the host body, which can cause it to mutate in appearance to mimic the possessor's true form. This is explained by the fact that a person's physical appearance is merely a reflection of their internal core, and so depending on the core of the person, their appearance may result in any number of ways. After leaving or being rejected by the host, and should the host have had his looks altered by the possessor, they will begin to change back to how the host once looked over time.
A glaring disadvantage possessors must learn to cope with is the fact that if something lethal were to afflict the host body and inevitably kill the host and its core, the possessor risks dying alongside the host. This is because a core cannot function in the physical world without something like a body or any appropriate substitute to keep it tethered to the living world. That and because the possessor must still share the same core as its host; therefore, should something happen to one being, the same will happen to the other. The possessor and host become two halves of the same coin for as long as they are conjoined. Should one die, the other will too. And as a similar result, the possessor will become unable to assume full control of a dying body unless immediate medical care is given to the body.
Furthermore, to avoid death while possessing a body, the possessor must quickly leave the host core before the moment of death, which can force a possessor to choose between dying and holding onto the host or living and leaving the host to their untimely fate. In addition, while possessing a host body, whatever the host's senses pick up, the possessor will sense them too. This includes the sensation of pain, hunger, exhaustion and other unpleasant experiences. Use of technology and sorcery can be applied to nullify this weakness, but it may also hamper and weaken the possessor in unexpected ways; such as making the host body go blind to avoid painful imagery, with the risk of being unable to see anything at all. Or numbing pain, but being unable to gauge how much damage has been taken.
Known Users of Possession Sorcery[]
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