Document: A transcript of "Anti-Tulpa Warfare: The Basics" made by Master Sergeant (rtd.) "Thunderclap" Mao, Ex-commanding officer, First Heavy Infantry "Thunderbolt's Fists". [Text edited for brevity and clarity]
Listen up, maggots! This here's a Tulpa. You've got your cockpit, your body, and-
[Interruption from the audience]
What do you mean "what's a Tulpa"? Spirits damn it, do they teach you nothing in combat indoctrination? Fine. Have you ever seen one of those weird-ass street performers control a puppet with bending? A Tulpa's like that, except a few thousand times larger and much more likely to ruin your day. Oh, and the puppeteer is a dozen or so murderous rakshasa. Now, the 'Shasa being demons, they have a few peculiar abilities beyond the ken of us humble mortals. Namely, if they have access to a willing bender in our world, their bending in the Spirit world can influence the elements in ours. We call these intermediary benders Locii, or pilots if you can't understand big, fancy words. At the heart of each Tulpa swarm is one, or two, or a dozen bending Locii. Now each Locus (singular of Locii, for you idiots in the back. Sorry major) can theoretically provide 'Shasa control over any number of Tulpa, regardless of element. However, the strain of having so many demons shunting energy through a human body can and will lead to a very unpleasant death. There was this one time; a fairly minor engagement on Lungfish Bay. My team had taken out five Locii, and so the 'Shasa tried to use him to control 250 water Tulpa at once. His cockpit was broken open, so I saw how he died. Let's just say human tissue does strange things when you put too much chi through it.
[Interruption from the audience]
Oh, his blood flash-froze and then he turned himself inside-out. Not the worst I've seen. There was this Earthbender who accidentally detonated all the bones in his- Right. So. If you knock out all the Locii in a swarm, you can break the 'Shasa control over the Tulpa. So how does one knock out a Tulpa? Well, I've got to go back to what I was saying before Private Shithead here interrupted me. So. Tulpa. Three major components, unviersal to all. Cockpit, body and core. The cockpit holds the pilot, andi s normally located near the head or eyes of the Tulpa. Just shoot at the glowy bits. The body is the combination of elements and elemental materials that let the Tulpa fight. Their composition varies widely. Air Tulpa are made of everything from light metals to wood and even plant fibres. Earth and Fire Tulpa are generally made of... well, earth and rocks, although in the case of fire Tulpa those materials will generally be superheated and partially melted. They usually have some sort of original, pre-made body, but it's covered up by whatever extra materials they've managed to assemble. Water Tulpa are the most organic of the four; they're formed from sculpted coral, mud, and conglomerations of plant material and other biomass. Seaweed and damp sludge. Anything porous. Though they all have the same internal structure, all Tulpa look vastly different. No two are completely alike. I saw an Earth one once covered in semi-precious stones. Its head was a single block of quartz the size of a house. Took five days of constant artillery fire before the rock even started to crack.
[Interruption from the audience]
Quartz is a mineral, not a stone? Well you can go [redacted].
So, regardless of the element or formation of the body, the most important part is the core. It's a solid ball of very, very dense heavy metals, roughly one-and-a-half to two meters across. We're not entirely sure what exactly the metals are, but they are not healthy for you. Trust me on this one. Constant exposure to a deactivated Tulpa core will give you volcanic shits the likes of which you would not believe. Suffice it to say, the core is what makes a Tulpa a Tulpa. You can destroy the cockpit, cripple the body, but if you don't kill the core a powered Tulpa will not die. If you damage it, the Tulpa will do one of three things. First, it might outright deactivate. Second, it will go berserk, lashing out randomly. In this state, any further damage to the core will deactivate it. Finally, and most dangerous of all, the core might overload. And go bang. With a lot of force. If you can get one Tulpa in the midst of a swarm to explode, you can sometimes get chain reactions of explosions that'll kill everything. Word of advice, though; the bit about 'unhealthy'? Still applies to a detonation. Don't go near the blast area if you can. It creates these dust clouds that cause surface burns and really nasty internal bleeding. The dust also seems to disinfect wounds, but don't go slathering yourself with it unless you're seriously gonna die of an infection; it slows the healing process and hurts like a bitch. That's how I lost my hand. So. To sum up. To deactivate a Tulpa, look for the Locii and kill them. Any Tulpa that acts cautiously, or does things like take cover. That's almost certainly piloted. You kill the pilots in the same way you destroy the core- excessive firepower. If the core and the Locii aren't completely dealt with, the Tulpa isn't dead.
One time, at the South Pole, we were pinned by this big mother of an Earth Tulpa, because that fuckwit General Fao Pai Mei-
[Interruption from the audience. Fao Pai Mei II and his entourage have stormed out]
-Hah. Had neglected to supply us with nearly enough PAC shells. So our waterbenders undermined the ice sheet and sunk the damn thing. We chucked depth charges at it until it stopped moving. Then we made the stupid decision of assuming that just because it wasn't fighting meant it was dead. Then, two weeks later at the Battle of Glacier Lake we got attacked by a mountain-sized cloud of gravel and sea salt. The moral of the story is- Kill the core. Always, always kill the core. Use bombs, shells, Bending- anything. You kill the core, you kill the Tulpa.
Let's look briefly at how Tulpa fight. I can't give you anything beyond generalizations, because each Tulpa is unique, but there are a few techniques and moves that seem to be common across each element. Earth Tulpa will almost always generate localized seismic disturbances. Earthquakes, Private Shithead. They won't heart you, but they'll throw off your aim and stand a really good chance of trashing any nearby field fortifications. Fire Tulpa, since they're always made at least partially of earth, can do that too. In addition, they seem to be fond of reverse firebending. Instead of burning a target, they'll suck out all of its head. They can get so cold that the air itself freezes. Then they're left with a shitload of leftover heat, and the burning happens. It's a hell of a one-two punch. Water Tulpa; well, this is less common, since it generally only happens when they're out of the water, but they have this super-high-pressure saltwater jet. Doesn't look or sound threatening, but it's erosive enough to punch through sky iron plating like paper. Lastly, the air Tulpa and their pressure cannons. They use this way more often than the other elements. It's some kind of vacuum generation; they suck all the air out of a space, and when the air around it collapses inwards, it superheats and explodes. Nasty stuff. And they can use it with surprising accuracy at very long ranges. That's all I can give you. You'll learn some helpful tips in Double-A-Two [AATu, Advanced Anti-Tulpa Training], but nothing more than tips.
We don't know how many 'Shasa are required to control one Tulpa. We don't know if and how they're made. We don't know how big they can get. And we don't know if there is such thing as a purely fire-element Tulpa, as opposed to an earth/fire hybrid like you usually see.
That's all I got.
[He stretches, and turns to the door]
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm 98 years old, my bladder is full, my hip is killing me and the latrines are that way. Stand between me and those toilets and I will end you.
Oh, right. DIS-MISSED.
[Mao died three weeks after this address, of apparently natural causes. This was his last official lecture]
DOCUMENT ARCHIVE:
ANNOTATIONS:
COMMENT THREAD CLOSED AND LOCKED.
REASON: Bitching about Fao Pai Mei. Really now, mortals.
-~0X0~-
So turns out that university is busy. Who'd a thought it? This is really just to tide you guys over, maybe sate your appetite a bit? I hope? Chapter 10, tentatively entitled 'The Wilted Lotus' is about half-finished, but I'm also gearing up to work on stuff for NaNoWriMo so I have no solid idea of when it'll be finished. Look for me on FictionPress if you want to see the original writing I'm working on, when it's done.
Oh yeah. Happy Halloween!