Item from The Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss
A small doll used as a sympathetic link to a living person, enabling malfeasance — the art of harming someone at a distance through the principles of sympathy. Feared and forbidden.
A mommet is sympathy's darkest practical application. With a strong enough link — blood is best, hair will do — a sympathist can channel heat, cold, or physical force through the mommet into the target's body, regardless of distance. It is the reason grams exist and the reason the University forbids malfeasance under penalty of expulsion or worse. Devi is rumored to use them to enforce her loans. Ambrose used one against Kvothe, heating it slowly to simulate a killing fever. The principles are simple — any student of sympathy understands the theory — which is precisely what makes them so dangerous. Knowledge, once taught, cannot be untaught.
A crude figure of wax, clay, or straw, roughly human-shaped. To function, it must incorporate something from the target — blood, hair, a piece of clothing — creating a sympathetic link between doll and person. The cruder it looks, the more unsettling its purpose.
Also known as: mommet, sympathetic doll