Beastmastery

Beastmastery is a form of magic that involves the summoning of monsters to aid the user. It is fairly well-known and recognised in Pirayl, and rarer in Variena.

Beastmastery works through a storage of monsters' souls inside a Beastmaster's body that the Beastmaster can summon at will. The summoned monsters are controlled directly by the Beastmaster and act as extensions of his or her self. Beastmasters feel a strong emotional connection to the monsters that they summon, and to monsters in general, that is difficult for others to understand.

A Beastmaster is born with a single monster's soul inside them, which they usually learn how to summon within a few years, usually at a time when they are put under stress somehow. The method by which the birth monster is selected is unknown. To obtain other monsters, they weaken them in battle and absorb their souls, which is apparently an intuitive process for them. Beastmasters generally know how to absorb even before they learn to summon.

Beastmasters can only summon one monster at a time, as controlling more than one monster at the same time as controlling one's own body requires a huge amount of concentration. However, Vern was able to summon three monsters at once while channeling the Shadowmaster's power through Lucia; it has been implied that this is due to some kind of affinity between Beastmastery and Harmonisation, the specifics of which are still unknown.

While Beastmastery is an inborn talent, artificial 'Beastmasters' can be made through the use of Beastgems. Maelach is able to summon monsters through this method. This artificially induced version of Beastmastery does not cause an emotional bond between the practitioner and the monster to form in the same way, so that the control of a monster is treated more like the movement of a puppet rather than an extension of oneself. As a result of this, artificial Beastmasters do not feel any pain when their monster takes damage, but they cannot lend their own strength to their monsters either - the two function as mostly independent entities. Given these radical differences, it is debatable whether such a thing can really be considered the same as natural Beastmastery.