Manyface

You hear it don't you? You hear it! The voices! They are coming! The voices! They are coming. So beautiful! The voices!

It is common knowledge that the waters of the Great Divide are full of danger. However, most people will think of the treacherous waters of the Dead Sea or the primordial power of the God's Eye. Few but the those that make a living sailing the waves know that there are dangers of another nature. Silent. Insidious. Turning a healthy man into a walking corpse within a few days. And a real one not long after.
There are many diseases and conditions that can afflict both body and mind. The wise men of the great Rhomeian archives have documented them by the hundreds. Ranging from merely irritating rashes to all-consuming plagues that wipe entire fleets clean of life. There is not one part of the human body that can not be affected in one way or another.
Among them, however, is one that has a special place among even the most terrifying of afflictions. A disease, some call it a nightmare. Not many on land know of it and its name would seem, while strange, mostly harmless. Manyface, as the sailor's whisper, is anything but.

The Disease

Possible Causes

What exactly causes the affliction to break out is unknown. Documents and ship logs show that it has struck a wide variety of people. Age, fitness, health, place, prior illnesses, status, nothing seems to matter. A victim can be struck at any time and any place, however, most cases appear on ships crossing the centre of the Divide.

Symptoms

Excerpt from: Report on the Disease known as Manyface. Senior Archivar Myrio Egran, Regal Archive of Rhomeia.

• Stage 1: The patient notices a slight pressure behind his eyes. Minor insomnia.

• Stage 2: Increasing sleeplessness. Pressure has turned into minor headaches. Appearance 1-2 days after Stage 1.

• Stage 3: Patient barely sleeps an hour a day. Severe Migraine and slight dimming of the eyes. 2 days after Stage 2. Slight markings begin to appear on the subjects face.

• Stage 4: Migraine Symptom seems to have disappeared. Patient begins to display erratic behaviour. Further dimming of the eyes, colour barely visible. Subject observed whispering to himself. Markings darken in colour. Appear similar to flesh wounds. Onset 1 day after Stage 3.

• Stage 5: Subject had to be restrained after attacking several observers. Constant struggle against bindings, seemingly no need for rest. Screams are constant. Consist mostly of ramblings and animal-like sounds. Eyes milky white. Markings have turned dark red and have deepened, Small, round dots have begun to appear above them. Set in 1 day after Stage 4.

• Stage 6: Struggles have ceased. Patient remains calm, still restraint. Ramblings have mostly subsided, speech revolves solely around apparent voices the subject seems to hear. Slight shifts in voice range noted. His mouth has frozen in a grin that can only be described as deranged. Round markings have deepened. 1 day after onset of Stage 5.

• Stage 7: Subject lies still on his bed. Talk of voices continues, almost constant. Nearly two dozen distinct voices can be heard coming from the patient's mouth. Several still indistinguishable whispers can also be noted. Mouth like markings have broken open, revealing bone in a strange caricature of a grin. Blood oozes from almost 15 of these spots on the head alone, many more seem to be on the body, no investigation was done due to possible infection risk. Combined with the round markings above they form grotesque faces. Onset 2 days after Stage 6 began.

Patient officially declared deceased as of 7 hours after Stage 7 took effect.
Incubation period: Unknown
Duration of Disease: 8 to 10 days

Possible Treatments/Cures

Manyface, like many of the afflictions befalling seafarers, has no known cure. Any attempt at treating it, medical or mystical, has resulted in failure. Isolation and Forced Silence, which are known to dampen the symptoms of other diseases, only accelerate the process. Patients given such treatment passed away after merely 3 days instead of the usual 8 or 9.
Among sailors, there is the belief that a constant barrage of sound may prevent infection. Since all victims seem to fall prey to it during moments of unnatural silence, many sailors wear a chain of bells and upon noticing the phenomenon will start to ring them like possessed. If this has any chance of preventing affliction, however, is unknown.

Artistic depiction of the Voices dragging another Manyface victim into the abyss. Made by Gerion the Raving Dreamer.

Origin

Divine

Cycle

Short-term

Rarity

Uncommon

Divine Origins?
While many speculate as to what the cause of Manyface may be, those that adhere to the ancient Vardanian Gods believe to know the answer. According to ancient legend, there existed an ocean deity named Rodras whose cruelty made the waters of the world a dangerous (even more so than today) place for humans.
This was until a shrewd man called Amel challenged the god to a contest. As part of it, he announced that the deity would be unable to turn itself into ice which it promptly, having power over the element of water in all its forms, did.
No sooner had it done so, Amel threw a large stone at the figure, shattering the ice and with it the god into ten thousand pieces. While this made the oceans a safer place then before, the fragments of Rodras consciousness reformed into a degenerate Maelstrom of thought.
Hiding deep under the Divide it stretches its tentacles out and attempts to drag unsuspecting sailors into its abyss. This process is Manyface and the voices are a combination of Rodras own thousand splinters and the doomed souls it has dragged into its maw.

I have no idea why that particular detail interested me. It must be more than 500 logs that I've read. There is always one detail that is the same across all cases. A moment of strange silence, almost unnatural. Every single case is different in some way. But one thing remains the same. A moment of silence dooming the poor victim's soul.

— Adrian Mederin, Senior Archivar in the Regal Archive of Rhomeia

Others have theorized a connection to the Desolate Touch, an illness caused in a disturbingly similar manner which appeared after the Desolation of the North in the late 8th century DA. However, there exists no evidence for this case.