Emptiness

The Emptiness, though a rather misleading name, is condition when a ritual that requires faith are being feared. Though it is not commonly known, due to the Irathian church is trying to keep this knowledge as a secret, some scholars have been able to find some reports written by the priest about some cases of Emptiness in Saniachad.

Transmission & Vectors

This sickness is only transmitted when faith is needed for a ritual and it goes wrong. If a person fears either the result or the power, and depending on how much fear a person produce, the more chaos it will bring to the person. But fear can spread, and therefore more people can be affected during the ritual.
There are, however, strict knowledge available to common people, and the church controls any information about this illness. But due to some of the reports that scholars have gotten their hands on, a theory have been formed, that the illness comes from fear itself if faith is needed, and might also transmitted the other way, where fear is needed and faith interrupts, though no one have been able to pinpoint any cases of fear rituals, and therefore it remains a theory that it even exists.

Symptoms

According to the different reports from Saniachad, the symptoms are different from person to person. There are two types of healing in Saniachad, the internal and the external. Internal is healed by drinking the water from the pond, and the external is to bath the part of body that needs healing.

But if a person in need of internal healing, does not believe in the healing power of the pond, they will for the first couple of seconds after consumption look relieved, but then it starts as a pain that get increasingly worse by the minutes, until the person stops moving, and the fear starts eating the person up inside in that area that needed healing. There is a very slim chance of survival if it is internal. And those who happens to survive, will be prisoners of their own body, thereby the name Emptiness.

If a person needs external healing, and does not believe in the healing power, their skin will start to redden, like if it were an allergic reaction, but a couple of seconds after, the area of the body that needed healing, starts to blacken, and slowly rot away in a very fast and painful way.

Treatment

Amputation is the only known way to remove the emptiness external, and that might not lead to survival as well. Since amputation only is possible for the non-vital parts of the body, it is very limited.

There are no known treatment for internal emptiness.

Prognosis

Most either die from Emptiness or suffer so much, that they're becoming empty husks of who they were. There have not been any known cases where this illness had a happy outcome.

Prevention

The only true way of preventing the Emptiness, is not to use fear when faith is needed, therefore the church makes sure that masses are being held at Saniachad every day. The Irathian church have been claiming to keep this knowledge from anyone else than the priestesses, the Siwal, and the nuns, in order to keep order and not make people more frightful of the healing power of Saniachad, and thereby create a circle of fear that would have a very bad outcome.

Cultural Reception

Since the people who knows about this illness does not extend beyond the scholars and the Irathian church, the cultural reception is only within these groups. But the church uses the illness in metaphors and talks about how important it is to have faith in Irath and other aspects of this religious culture.
Many in the church, however, fears these people a lot, not only because of the illness, but also because it shows the church or Irath's power are not perfect. They are therefore scared that those who survives the Emptiness will tell their story, and therefore the church forces them to undergo the Ritual of Siwal. While they hide away the other victims of this illness.

Type

Supernatural

Cycle

Chronic, Acquired

Rarity

Extremely Rare

Affected Species

• Mwahantath
• Dynbodaul