Puppets are semi-independent creatures spawned by Hyacinth in states of duress (most commonly as a response to physical pain). While puppets appear to be entirely separate from Hyacinth in physical space, they are connected by a powerful psionic bond that leaves them in a state of neurological dependence on Hyacinth directly. As such, a puppet's state of being is reliant on Hyacinth's: If Hyacinth is asleep, for example, all their puppets are asleep. If Hyacinth were to die, all their puppets would also die. In this way, they are closer to limbs than independent entities, although puppets do display independent traits when idling. While different puppet types have unique group identities, when addressing multiple puppet types as a collective, a group of them is known as a horde, an army, or a clan.

Puppets come in several different categories with wildly varying traits and abilities. Their sizes also vary quite a bit as well, ranging from barely pony sized Deltas to towering Praetors that nearly match Hyacinth themselves. The most general grouping of puppets is largely by their 'psionic weight'; that is, the amount of psionic impulses they trade with Hyacinth on a usual basis. Psionic weight can be grouped together in three major categories: Light, Heavy, and Superheavy.

In each puppet's page is an at-a-glance table describing their approximate stats, special abilities, and personalities:

• Commonality is a measure of a puppet's likelihood of being spawned from its parent. If a puppet is not spawned by Hyacinth, its source will be in (parentheses).
• Titan Puppets use special spawning rules outside of normal Commonality, which is replaced with Components for them. This is the amount of spawns that are required to amass all the pieces of a Titan.
• Durability is a puppet's approximate durability relative to its size. If two puppets have the same durability score, the larger of the two will be able to take more hits.
• Strength is a set of three scores (physical, psionic, and magical) describing a puppet's approximate raw power. These scores are provided as general approximates and references, and may not fully represent a puppet's abilities (for example, Anchorages have low raw stats, but compensate with buildings).
• Specials are a puppet's actual unique abilities, summed up as concisely as possible. These summaries are generally elaborated on in the main body of the page.
• Personality is a puppet's general behaviour when left idle.

Light puppets are characterized by low psionic weight usage, nimble physiques, and often a greater reliance on tools or other peculiarities than larger puppets. Light Puppets also are generally more commonly spawned by Hyacinth, and tend to foster better cooperative abilities than larger puppets, which rely on their brute strength. This minimal weight and high versatility makes them valuable support troops, as well as providing a handy ability to comfortably fill in empty spaces in Hyacinth's army in timelines where their psionic weight is more readily limited.

There are three types of light puppets Hyacinth has access to:

• Manipulators
• Tricksters
• Deltas

Heavy puppets have middling psionic weight usage (generally double that of a light puppet on a per-unit basis), with bulkier physiques and more robust natural abilities. Compared to lighter puppets, heavy puppets tend to make less use of tools or trickery and rely more heavily on their natural biological grunt to get things done. Their increased psionic weight also seems to reflect a corresponding increase in mental capacity, though different heavy puppets use this increased acuity in a variety of ways.

There are three types of heavy puppets Hyacinth has access to:

• Reconcilants
• Howitzers
• Mesosae

Superheavy puppets have very high psionic weight usage (generally four times that of a light puppet on a per-unit basis), with extremely heavy forms and often an overall greater physical complexity to boot. Superheavy puppets effectively double down on rules established in Heavy Puppets, making great usage of their natural abilities with minimal outsourcing or external tool usage. Superheavies are relatively rare spawns, even compared to heavy puppets, but are generally forces to be reckoned with even with minimal support.

There are three types of superheavy puppets Hyacinth has access to:

• Praetors
• Totems
• Anchorages

Titan Puppets are extremely special puppets who begin spawning in response to certain traumatic experiences rather than common stimuli. Titans, as their name implies, are colossal creatures with immensely powerful abilities, tempered only by their fleeting rarity and sluggish nature due to their size. Titans are not spawned all at once like normal puppets, instead being "built" over hundreds of spawns.

There is one type of titan puppet Hyacinth has access to:

• Perditioners

Many puppet types can spawn lesser puppets of their own, often to fill vastly different roles than their hosts or as augmentations to the host's natural capabilities. These are collectively known as "subpuppets", and range quite wildly in function. Universally, however, subpuppets are generally quite small, and decidedly simpler than most normal puppets.Their psionic weight is weathered by their host puppets instead of by Hyacinth directly, hinting that psionic weight is not as simple as linearly feeding up through Hyacinth's brain mass directly.

The exact usage of subpuppets versus just more regular puppets has been debated quite some time. Subpuppets vary wildly in use: Howitzers utilize their Heralds as extensions of their senses and combat potential, and only ever rear a single Herald each; Totems coalesce Wisps out of magical energy, making expendable spirits into something enduring and self-replenishing; and Anchorages would be nothing without Serfs to build and operate buildings on their antlers, to the point where each Anchorage always spawns with one Serf. Reconcilants are the strongest case for the use of subpuppets however: They can support a significant amount of subpuppets (in excess of half a dozen per Reconcilant), and their body plan does suggest that they amplify the host's psionic capacity. Why Reconcilants are the only puppet type to make use of a variety of subpuppets is unknown.

Across Hyacinth's puppet types, there are six different varieties of subpuppets:

• Imps
• Arrays
• Pustules
• Heralds
• Wisps
• Serfs

While technically still falling under the umbrella of subpuppets, there are five different types of elementals that can be summoned magically instead of being spawned psionobiologically. With the exception of Agents, all of said elementals are spawned by Totems. The five varieties of elementals are:

• Envoys
• Delegates
• Consuls
• Agents
• Brokers

Spawning

Puppets come about in a variety of ways, be it biological spawning or magical coalesence/conjuration. While the spawning method does not usually influence a great deal of the puppet's function, it is nonetheless an aspect of their physiology.

Biological Spawning

Most puppets and subpuppets start their life as a stem cell-rich liquid slurry, contained within a flexible, but durable shell known as a pupa. The puppet's body receives instruction psionically rather than chemically, allowing a puppet to fully form in a timeframe of roughly 3-6 seconds. Curiously, all puppets start as the same size of pupa; the shell expands rapidly to accommodate the new puppet's size as its cells multiply, being fed psionically by the larger host. This effect can be very minor for small puppets (Deltas, Tricksters) or massively exaggerated for large ones (Praetors, Anchorages). Once the shell expands as needed, it rapidly hardens, becoming a friable husk that even very physically weak puppets can break out of.

The spawning process is very similar for a Reconcilant's subpuppets, though its pupae start far smaller (usually about two fifths of the size of a normal pupa). The variety in type and size of Reconcilant puppets warrants the appropriation, but it is not the only type: Herald pupae are effectively just adapted Howitzer shells, with more give and replacing the pyrochemical slurry with stem cell slurry. The spawning process is also massively accelerated, with Heralds almost "snapping" into full shape in 2-3 seconds, mid-flight.

The spawning of Serfs is very poorly understood; they simply seem to appear over time when an Anchorage's housing structure has psionic vacancy. The fact each housing structure can only host up to four is assumed to be part of the process. The most common consensus is that housing structures house some organ or apparatus for creating new puppet slurry, which naturally develops into Serfs over time.

Arcane Spawning

Arcane spawning is generally divided into coalescence (the merging of several preexisting magical creatures into a larger, more sustainable form) and conjuration (the transmutation of raw magic into a sustained entity).

Coalescence is only used by Totems for the sake of creating Wisps from smaller spirits, it is an especially unusual form of puppet creation as it is generally not spurned by any sort of active neural activity. Instead, Totems seem to treat it at least partially as a response to spirit overcrowding, as the mental strain of a single Wisp is generally lesser than the 8-10 spirits needed to make it.

Conjuration is also only used by Totems, and it is the method by which they create their Elementals. Like coalescence, there is a psionic component that binds an Elemental to the larger psionic body, but conjuration's magic cost is generally far higher up-front.