Clarificication on the Dakhor

[Apollyon]

After having read Arcanum Unbounded, something in The Emperor's Soul bothered me. It made me pseudo-revisit Elantris for answers, and I've come up with nothing. In Elantris, when the Dakhor monks show up, it describes them as having metal plates under there skin. At the time of my first reading, I assumed it was hemalurgy, but after reading Emperor's Soul, it seems to be soul stamping. Both are described as sort of defacing and twisting the body in unnatural ways, but I can't come up with an answer. Do we have a WoB or something on this?

Edited February 1, 2018 by Steeleigoldart

[Dunkum]

4 minutes ago, Steeleigoldart said:

After having read Arcanum Unbounded, something in The Emperor's Soul bothered me. It made me pseudo-revisit Elantris for answers, and I've come up with nothing. In Elantris, when the Dakhor monks show up, it describes them as having metal plates under there skin. At the time of my first reading, I assumed it was hemalurgy, but after reading Emperor's Soul, it seems to be soul stamping. Both are described as sort of defacing and twisting the body in unnatural ways, but I can't come up with an answer. Do we have a WoB or something on this?

The magic systems of Sel vary based on location, but they all have certain similarities.  The characters used in soul stamps are different from Elantrian Aons, which are different from the body forms of the Jindo chay-shan.  the Fjordell version involves altering the shape of the persons bones into fjordell characters to grant different powers, including things like strength and speed.  the altered bones themselves also tend to be stronger.  the perceived metal plates under the skin are drastically altered bones.

[Calderis]

As Dunkum said. 

Sel has one magic system with subsystems delineated by region. They are all based on forms derived from the landscape itself. Aons use Arelon as the primary shape, all Aons contain Aon Aon. Soul stamps contain a representation of MaiPon. 

Dakhor is its own subsystem, with Fjordell Runes as the associated form. 

Jindo has movement forms (kata) which are based around a shape that is presumably similar to the Jindo landscape. 

[Weltall]

Yeah, the appearance of the Dakhor monks has to do with their particular flavor of magic and what it does to them. The Epilogue has a part where Raoden (in the middle of his wedding) is musing on how there's clearly more going on in the world than he knew, between the Dakhor monks and Shuden's ChayShan apparently being another method of accessing the Dor. And he thinks specifically about how a bone recovered from one of the monks was twisted in an unnatural way, but recognizable as taking the shape of ancient Fjordell characters. No WoB needed, it's all there in the text.

More details on why Sel's magic works the way it does can be found in Arcanum Unbounded, though we aren't going to get anything like a complete understanding until the Elantris sequels are written.

Edit: Apropos of nothing, I find it extremely amusing that two of the three responses so far come from people with reputation titles of Gyorn and Elantrian.

Edited February 1, 2018 by Weltall