The Profane Art of Reflection: A Treatise on the Forbidden Craft of Cloning
By the Hand of Chancellor Valthorin, in the Year of the Waning Moon
Foreword: The Sin of the Gods
The art of self-preservation is the highest pursuit of the mage, and to defy death itself is to touch the face of divinity. But the gods are jealous, and they do not suffer mortals to wield such power without cost. The act of cloning—known in ancient tongues as Ex Umbra Vitae—is an affront to the natural order, and thus, it has been condemned by the Council of Magi, outlawed by kings, and burned from all respectable tomes. Yet knowledge is an insidious thing, and the thirst for eternity cannot be drowned by mere decree. Those who seek the path of Reflection must be prepared to pay its price.
The Rite of the False Womb
To create a Reflection, one must find a vessel of new life—a mother who stands on the precipice of birth. The child within her is but an ember of being, an unformed whisper of a soul. It is weak, malleable, and can be snuffed out with but a breath. This child must be sacrificed, its essence erased before it may enter the world. In this void, the magus may impart a fragment of their own being, a shard of their soul imbued with their magic. This act of profanation binds the magus and the newborn in an unholy tether, forging a duplicate in flesh.
The Ritual Components:
- A mother in the final hour of her labor, her body and soul split between life and death.
- A dagger bathed in shadow, which has feasted upon the blood of kin.
- A vial of the magus’s own essence, harvested through a night of fasting and incantation.
- A chalice of stillborn ashes, mixed with wormwood and grave-dirt.
- The incantation of Sanguis Reflectus, chanted in the tongue of the First Sorcerers.
The Execution:
At the moment of the mother’s travail, when pain wracks her body and her cries reach the heavens, the dagger must pierce her womb, severing the life within. As the blood of the unborn spills, the magus must pour their own essence into the vacant husk, whispering the forbidden words:
Ex umbra, lux. Ex morte, vita. Ex me, tu.
The transformation is instant and irreversible. The newborn emerges not as the child it was meant to be, but as the Reflection of the magus—a perfect vessel, young and unknowing, yet bound by the same arcane signature.
The mother, in most cases, will perish. Her body, having been used as the gateway for this perverse creation, is seldom strong enough to survive the passage. Some say this is the gods’ vengeance; others, that the soul of the child, in its dying wail, curses the mother to follow.
The Purpose of Reflection
Those who commit this atrocity do so for two primary reasons: preservation and defiance.
- A Vault of Flesh: The Reflection is the magus reborn, but empty of will. Its body may be harvested as needed, its limbs replaced, its organs exchanged. If the magus is struck by disease, his Reflection may offer him new lungs. If he is blinded, fresh eyes await. This is the secret of longevity among the hidden sorcerers, the reason some among us do not wither with time.
- The Echo of Immortality: So long as the Reflection lives, death is not absolute. The magus may fall, his body broken, his blood spilled—but the soul-fragment within his clone remains tethered to the world. Through ritual, through sacrifice, through secret words whispered in the dark, he may return.
Thus, to slay a true master of the arcane, one must not only strike him down but also scour the earth for his Reflection and snuff out the ember that keeps him tethered to life. This is why those who practice Ex Umbra Vitae guard their creations with vicious secrecy.
The Damnation of the Reflectors
Despite its power, cloning is a practice of the condemned. The gods despise it, for it mocks the cycle of life. The people fear it, for it breeds monsters in the guise of men. And the law hunts it, for those who wield it may cheat the very hands of justice.
There are whispers of sorcerer-lords who have ruled for centuries, of children who grow to manhood only to be slain in the night and replaced anew. There are stories of bodies found with their chests torn open, of secret chambers lined with half-formed reflections, waiting for their moment to be called. And there are legends of mages who, despite being burned at the stake, rise again from the shadows of the world, forever defying the grave.
Yet those who walk this path must beware. The soul was never meant to be divided. Each clone takes a sliver of the magus’s true self, weakening them with every act of Reflection. Some believe that the more times one is reborn, the less of themselves remains, until at last, they are but an empty husk, a shadow without a soul.
To master death is to invite something far worse.
The Final Warning
To those who would take up this art, know this: the power of Reflection is not a gift, but a curse. It is a betrayal of the gods, a crime against the soul, and a pact with death itself. The price is steep, the cost inevitable.
And in the end, even the mightiest of magi must ask themselves:
If I am split among bodies, torn across lives, then which of me is truly me?
Let this knowledge be buried with the bones of the fallen, and may those who seek it be damned forever.