Mutagens:

Mutagens are the wild edge of alchemical ambition, the part of the craft that says, “what if we remake the body?” These concoctions reforge sinew, bend bone, graft organs where none ought grow. Some mutagens were once whispered about in polite academies as salvation: serums to adapt lungs to poisoned air or blood to withstand arcane burns. In practice they are lottery tickets with abattoirs attached. A successful mutagen can turn a man into a mountain of muscle or a scout into a shadow, but the failures birth things that scream in the night, bodies that cough crystallized bone, minds folding into glass, children born with too many joints and not enough mercy. Whole brigades have been corrupted into thudding, nearly unmanned weapons; whole hamlets have been lost to fields of runaway grafts. The line between enhancement and monstrosity is paper-thin, and those who sign for mutagens rarely read the fine print. Both trades live by three unspoken rules: someone will always sell you a shortcut, someone will always buy it, and nothing made to change flesh forgets what it was taught. Poison and mutagen markets feed off grief, greed, and fear, and they warp communities as surely as they do bodies. Where Vitae promises delay, poisons promise erasure, and mutagens promise rebirth, all three ask the same terrible favor in return. Regulators preach restraint, preachers preach sin, but the hungry, the desperate, the cruel, and the curious all find their way to the same benches. In Everwealth the lesson is bitter and simple, remedies and weapons are siblings, the one that saves you tonight may be the one that kills your grandchildren. Handle either only if you mean to live with the consequence written on your hands.