Permians are a variation on Perditioners, created when a Solar Archon spawns the capstone of the Perditioner's body rather than an Archmother. They trade much of their abilities in direct casting and terramancy for a vastly improved knowledge in the creation of abundant caches of energy. The term for a group of Permians, ranging from a binary for two up until a plurinary for more than five.

Perditioners - Permians

Permians, surprisingly, lose a fair amount of their height and mass as they ignite and their bodies adjust, shrinking down to "just" 52' (1585cm) tall. They maintain many of the features of their unaltered siblings; particularly the cape of blister mass that covers their backs. However, the Perditioner's other distinctive traits, that being their horns and the trunk-esque structure on their backs, are replaced by a large set of antlers and a number of elongated antler-esque protrusions that run over their backs. When using their magic, the Permians' equivalent of a globe appears over their head, between their antlers.

Permians, like other titans, rarely see a role in direct combat. Their power is rarely well-served against a direct threat, and as such, they mostly focus on altering the worlds they inhabit for smaller puppets, though they are far from defenseless if something manages to draw enough of their ire. They largely work with direct energy manipulation and storage, though unlike something like Thresholds, Permians prefer to create external caches that they can then manipulate.

Permians, being solar puppets, seem to exist in some level of higher energy state than most puppet types. While they are capable of recognizing their power and enforcing self-restraint, they also have a certain playfulness about them, to the point where they are occasionally described as getting "zoomies" similar to other terrestrial mammals. They will usually try to find places that are out of harm's way before indulging in this periods of active play, but if no such safe space presents itself, they may simply frolic more carefully amidst their fellows.

Permians share quite a bit of epigenetic scaffolding with their direct siblings, however some of their tissues bear a striking resemblance to that of a Threshold's interstitiary layer responsible for stepping down received arcane currents. Despite this, Permians display no ability to absorb magic directly, suggesting that such tissues perform an internal or even homeostatic purpose.

While outside observation might suggest that a Permian's antlers share material similarities to the antlers of Anchorages, the materials have very little correlation; Permians rarely conduct any significant current through their antlers, which instead seem to exist to help them maintain their structure despite their sustained high energy states.

Permians lack much of the direct spellcasting abilities that their siblings do, instead preferring to manipulate energy in more raw and fundamental ways. However, they do have some surprises, detailed alongside their more typical abilities below:

• Astral Flares: A Permian's most basic energy creation and manipulation ability, which typically precedes anything more complex. These large flares of pale red or golden light streak across the sky, representing colossal amounts of energy being moved around at the Permian's whim. Permians occasionally display an unprecedented gentleness when using this skill to transfer energy, to the point that they can recharge a single Agent's depleted energy without causing any damage, while also having the raw energy throughput to noticeably amplify a Cambrian's energy output or regenerate lost Seraph rings.
• Arcane Caches: A Permian's butter to the bread that is their ability to manipulate raw magical energy. This allows them to condense, solidify, and stabilize large quantities of magical energy into a compact form. This energy takes the form of shimmering blocks or blobs of gold, dense enough to fully recharge a drained Totem with a mere pound of the substance, while also maintaining an only pleasant warmth to the touch and being safe for puppets to ingest. In smaller quantities, the material can also be completely transmuted into other forms by Wisps and Weirs, effectively allowing a Permian to indirectly conjure masses of earth or ice depending on what is desired.
• Radiant Consolidation: With an enormous amount of energy already stored as functional caches, a Permian can ignite the caches into a long-burning stars. Curiously, burning in this way seems to generate extra energy from nothing, at a roughly six to one ratio of power out to power in. These artificial stars can last for a surprisingly long time; enough that they can be used as the basis for small "shellworlds" made of dirt and water surrounding an energy cache core.

I can't say I've ever had any one of my children pose any significant danger to myself, but Permians can be a bit too rowdy for their own good sometimes. Talk to them just the right way, and they might just turn into big excitable puppies that the other titans then have to entertain until they calm down. It's most certainly endearing, but it can also be problematic when they're the third largest sorts of children I have!

Permians are a bit silly, to be absolutely frank. I mean, they're basically minmaxxed Perditioners, going all in on energy manipulation and creation. Their stats reflect this; upped magical strength, reduced everything else, including durability. They need some more safe spaces to work in, but they can create a lot of energy and mass from nothing by sheer magical grunt.

Of course, elephant in the room: Like their siblings, they're named after horrible things^TM. This time it's the Permian extinction, though their names don't exactly line up with their inspiration this time around. I just needed another punishment-themed P-name.