Written by: Ethan "JB" Goldman
Milk Team Six, in position, ready to execute. This mission, educating the masses on the where's, whys and how's of Spider Milk Extraction and Refinement. The stakes, minimal, the resources, lower. Odds of victory: certain.
Beginning mission.
Spider Milk, known by the scientific name Lac Aranea is a oft misunderstood substance, considered “Dangerous” or “Gross” or “Why we shouldn’t we just murder and eat all the Spiders”? However Spider Milk is one of the most powerful and versatile substances in all the Nine Realms Plus Several Others. It brings death, power, and everything in between, which is of course, everything. However how do you harness it, why would you use it? And most of all… just WHAT is a Spider Milk anyway.
To first answer this question we must contemplate the void, as we always do, look not to what a spider milk is, but what it ISNT, the answer is in the absence as always. Spider Milk is NOT a milk, its a spider milk, spiders don't have milk that would be ridiculous on the very face of it, and why would Norlund be ridiculous?
Of course the answer that MANY believe is that there simply isn't a answer, and that Justari is simply playing a little gag upon the world, even though Justari isn’t from Norlund so that would be a weird statement… However I believe the answer is much deeper, I will provide two answers, and I will state for the record I believe both are true in a 20/80 percent ratio.
All spiders who are milkable serve the huntsman, the huntsman, sporting beast of the hunt he is, created a material that is incredibly useful that is only found on spiders to encourage humans to attempt to kill his very servants. The key is attempt as spiders are ambush predators. Thus the spiders are granted the opportunity to catch prey and be pray and the hunt in both its forms are venerated and his power known.
Spider Milk represents the liquid concentration of divine will. The Milk Gland actually exists on two different plans the divine and physical, unlike the God who exists only on the divine except in cases of avatar, and the Spider who exists only in the physical plane. From the Milk gland divine ichor can be transmuted to physical essence and allow the god to cultivate their minions as extensions of its own power. While this is normally presented in a Halo, blood, or other stigmata, because of the nature of the spider as a entity of poison and the Huntsman entity as a figure of death, this meridian forms within the venom gland, allowing it to be harvested before the milk dissolves within the body. This is why the milk can only be harvested from a dead spider, a living spider is already harnessing their Milk Meridian.
This may seem unusual, however it is correlated within the uses of milk. Milk, once properly extracted and contained within a patented spider milk storage vial, has many alchemical uses.
The first is perhaps the most easily to understand which is reintegrating within a living body. Because Spider Milk is inherently a medium between divine and physical magic, it can be reintegrated into a physical medium to impart divine abilities. Of course spider milk is toxic because of its natural ties to death essence meaning if not transmuted into different properties the milk will simply kill you. Fortunately, perhaps as according to the Huntsman’s will, Spider Milk is not a fully formulated magical essence, thus it is far easier to shape into a palatable form when compared to other magics such as TitanX. Simply put by shaping the magic using a holy rune, such as the symbol of a anvil, the magic will be shaped by the appropriate god and provide the direct, uncultivated blessing of that god as the milk opens your own Meridians to that gods divine magic. Of course with greater time and longer efforts one can truly and more permanently tie ones body to the divine form of the god buuuuut that requires being in Norlund and hanging out with dinosaurs and having fun, so I cant imagine that will ever happen again.
To fully understand how this works you need to understand that in Norlund there are three key elements that permeate the world and thus stain its chi. There is Death, symbolized by red, Rebirth that is symbolized by yellow and of course, Blue, which is symbolized by the color blue. Blue Chi is blue chi, I don't know how I can simplify it more, its like, the manifestation of the realms artificial influence, the inherent blueness of steel and arcane magic? Listen its okay if you don't understand, but that's a whole other article and this one isn’t really gonna do numbers anyway because I didn't put a gods symbol at the front. NOW of course there is muddled chi representing the secondary fusions of these traits, Violence, aka Blue and Death, Yggdrasil, supported by Life and Death, and finally 3 Path Stuff supported by Rebirth and Blue. By using the appropriate milk color and shaping it into a holy symbol that magic will not only permeate the users skin in the appropriate shape, but this appropriateness allows the magic to better absorb into the divine sigil created, thus forming a artificial meridian binding the milk’s power to your skin and allowing it to pull into the rest of your body and your own personal Soul. Fortunately they aren't permanent huh?
Second is, with the appropriate Yggdrasillian wood, (which, because the intense magic within the wood, can only be gathered by complicated entreatments to the spirit or most commonly, carved from the remains of Yggdrasil that form after disasters (Which Norlund was filled with)) one can imbue much more complicated benefits. The reason for this is simple, because Yggdrasil is the world tree, by shaping that trees wood with divine magic, shaped by moral desires, Yggdrasil interprets the message as a divine command, and acts according to the request. Essentially these scrolls are small Interventions, using the ink of the gods to mimic a divine seal. However because the divine stain Norlund so heavily, it can be said even the most secular magic in Norlund is a divine act. Such is the way of things. Naturally the wood needs to be bigger for dinosaurs then human, and if a dinosaur one was used on a mortal the Hero would be unlikely to survive the saturation, but that goes without saying does it not.
Lastly is Spider Milks last use as a chemical reagent. As Spider Milk exists in two planes by using Spider Milk one can incorporate unnatural levels of flavor and subtly that take a properly trained pallet to appreciate. This naturally produces arcane phenom because the chemical process is also accompanied by a astral process within the Upper domain.
Hopefully this instructional guide has increased your understanding of the nature and power behind spider milk. Remember while spider milk requires death it DOESNT require rendering, so make sure to take care of your spiders as they take care of you. I have seen similar spider milk like glands in other species but um, it can be weird harvesting them. The closest thing for a human is blood magic but everyone gets really judgmental about that one, Milk is a lot better and there isn't a Milk Witch who gets empowered by every use of spider milk. That would be whacky.
Anyway I hit 3 pages so I am done with my boast.