So we've established it can be done though it's rare. I'm sure there are upsides and downsides to it, which I'm curious on as well.
Obvious Downside, is once you have one created, it's kinda hard to change or redo. So it has to be perfect the first time. Granted, it'd be pretty hard to disarm someone whose got a spell work of a blasting rod on their arm instead of on a foci.
So, next bit of questioning comes down to speculation. How do you get it done? Does it have to be done by someone else? Does that person have to have the talent to put it in? Can someone else ink you and then you put power into it? Does it have to be a special kind of ink? Surely with tattoos being as old as they are, there has to be a reason that so far we've only seen one or two people do it at all.
What advantages could there be besides the obvious, what drawbacks? And what problems about how to go about it? I'm hoping for full theory here.
I've given it some thought because my fanfics are treading this water. My take is that a practitioner should design the tattoo and have someone else apply it. Otherwise you end up with shoddy work that's more prone to error. But the professional has to be the best, no mistakes can be made, and they have to be trustworthy, because they're going to know intimate details of your crafting.
It'd probably require the work to be done in an empowered circle, to prevent any pain-induced magical incidents. If the professional is using modern equipment, it'd need to be protected as well. But if the practitioner needs to imbue the tattoo with power as they go, while still in the circle, then it'll probably require them to either use ancient tattooing methods, or an abundance of time and equipment.
Pros
- You can't easily be disarmed (unless they, you know,
disarm you).
- You can travel lighter and easier.
- Unless they know what to look for, or it's not as uncommon as we think, enemies might not realize what they are.
- Passive spells (wards, protection) can be running at all times using just kinetic energy of movement.
- Energy could be stored in a well-designed reservoir tattoo.
- Metals (inherited silver, iron) and plants (wolfsbane, hawthorn root) known to weaken or hurt supernatural creatures could be used in the ink itself to hurt them if they touch you (although not all of that would necessarily be good for the bearer, either).
Cons
- You'll probably have to refresh them regularly due to wizard healing.
- You'll have to have someone you trust that much to help you.
- A scar could disrupt your entire system (best case the casting fails, worse case your arm blows off).
- Limits that might be pushed with an object that's expendable can't be pushed with body parts.
- The physics probably wouldn't change so the strain (heat, pressure) would be on the flesh.
- Improvements in the spell wouldn't be easy due to their permanent nature.
- Extensive tattooing is going to alienate or isolate you from certain areas of modern society, so your occupation could be impacted.
Workarounds (most of which will be spoilers for future fanfics of mine)
- Have a master or apprentice tattoo each other for reliability and trustworthiness, even if there's a slight dip in quality.
- Magically prepare sheets of henna tattoos that can be applied prior to battle, but wouldn't be present all the time.
- Use ultraviolet ink in the tattoos to cut down or eliminate visibility in daylight, but know that they'll glow in blacklight (and for cool effect, while casting)
- Have an artistic sidekick that can repair damaged tattoos with careful precision.
- Have overdeveloped designs to compensate for heat/pressure, channeling that energy into a reservoir (belt buckle-type but in tattoo form) that could be tapped when cut off from magic.
- Use shakra point beliefs (canon in the series thanks to Bob) as baseline for tattoos using power inherent to everyone.
