Random inspiration
Today's Oglaf had a new-to-me tag above it "disrespect magical books, get papercuts"
That sent my mind off on a tangent.
The first (and most obvious) was "vampire books". Which led to memories of books in comics and stories that got activated by blood.
That led to it having to be *fresh* blood. And having blood be a trigger for or magic items/symbols/etc.
This seems to be an area worthy of exploration.
It also led to the idea of hidden needles in the hilt/grip of weapons to draw the blood to activate the spell (or more likely, curse).
That led to the idea of the needle injecting something like green slime.
After a bit of thought, I realized that for best results you'd want something more fluid (to spread via the veins), a bit slower to act, and that dropped tiny bits as it travelled.
Call it pink slime. It'd be thin enough to get picked up by the blood, even in capillaries, and flow with the blood as droplets.
It'd leave behind cells or smaller droplets as it spread. They'd latch onto some tissue and start growing and (mostly) releasing new droplets in to the bloodstream.
When the concentration got high enough to indicate that they'd spread throughout the host, they'd switch to attacking the surrounding tissues aggressively.
So the unfortunately person/creature would feel a tiny prick, then be ok for a period of time from minutes to hours. and then start dissolving into goo as the slime attacked all thru their body.
This entry was originally posted at https://kengr.dreamwidth.org/1146674.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
That sent my mind off on a tangent.
The first (and most obvious) was "vampire books". Which led to memories of books in comics and stories that got activated by blood.
That led to it having to be *fresh* blood. And having blood be a trigger for or magic items/symbols/etc.
This seems to be an area worthy of exploration.
It also led to the idea of hidden needles in the hilt/grip of weapons to draw the blood to activate the spell (or more likely, curse).
That led to the idea of the needle injecting something like green slime.
After a bit of thought, I realized that for best results you'd want something more fluid (to spread via the veins), a bit slower to act, and that dropped tiny bits as it travelled.
Call it pink slime. It'd be thin enough to get picked up by the blood, even in capillaries, and flow with the blood as droplets.
It'd leave behind cells or smaller droplets as it spread. They'd latch onto some tissue and start growing and (mostly) releasing new droplets in to the bloodstream.
When the concentration got high enough to indicate that they'd spread throughout the host, they'd switch to attacking the surrounding tissues aggressively.
So the unfortunately person/creature would feel a tiny prick, then be ok for a period of time from minutes to hours. and then start dissolving into goo as the slime attacked all thru their body.
This entry was originally posted at https://kengr.dreamwidth.org/1146674.html. Please comment there using OpenID.