The Madness of the Gods

Abigail stared at him not a month ago he had been a healthy 20 year old human solider in the prime of his life but now he was just a shell, a husk of his former self. He did not eat, he did not sleep all he did was pace and wander the halls of the Royal Academy of Medicine. None of the doctors knew what caused the illness and there was no known cure to it; there was nothing that Abigail could do for the man who had saved her life on the battlefield.

Causes

No one knows the cause of the Darkness, just that usually it seems to arise from particularly traumatic circumstances contacted to the use of magic

Symptoms

The symptoms of this disease can be very different depending on the person who is affected

Treatment

There is no know cure of the illness, there have been various things that have been tried and some have managed to deal with the symptoms for a while such as magical spells to bind the madness or magical items to ward off the worst symptoms; but there is no known permanent cure to the illness.

Prognosis

The prognosis of this disease is eventual death. From the time the voices begin the magician usually has between 3 weeks to 8 or 9 months until they lose control of their magic and it becomes fatal.

History

The first documented case of the disease comes from elvish history, it is said that when the world was young there was an elvish princess who was attacked by the edges of the Font of the Gods. She drew on the power of the Font in order to defeat her attackers, however the power was too much for her and she brutally killed her assislants. When she was found by her retainers she was returned to the Capital however when she came to she was not the same.
She claimed that she could hear the voices of the fallen gods, this is where the name of the disease came from. She slowly started to descend into madness and lose control of her magical ability. After several months she finally lost complete control of her magic and she lashed out at her attendants before several of the Royal Guards had to kill her.
This has continued to plague magic users over the years, typically there is an uptick in the amount of magic users who suffer from this during times of great wars or strife. This was one of the reasons for the founding of the order to find these people and either treat them or keep them locked away from the rest of the world.

Cultural Reception

It depends on what Kingdom you are in as the views towards this vary greatly between the different kingdoms, however they are all varying degrees of negative. The Dwarves believe that this is a curse on those who use magic due to their nature distaste of magic, and that it is a punishment from the Gods. Humans fear these people because of their inability to control their magical powers; they are usually either killed or shunned from society. Elves are the most "tolerant" those afflicted with it are sent to the Order to watch in these final days.

Type

Mental

Cycle

Chronic, Acquired

Rarity

Rare

Affected Species

• Humans