Tower Sight

Transmission & Vectors

Exactly what transmits this disease (though it isnt certain to modern healers if it is a disease, some postulate that it is a magical curse) is unknown. There has been speculation that it can be contracted by touching objects exposed to what scholars of arcane history call 'Dawn Magics' - artefacts of significant age, most commonly, or those fashioned from the teal-white crystal, leviquartz.
Given that the affliction seems to happen relatively at random and not in any frequent concentration among workers who quarry leviquartz daily, the conclusion that it is a side-effect of proximity to the material has been called into question in recent years, as more findings about the condition are published and discussed among academics.

Causes

The highest concentration of victims are found living in the immediate proximity to the various Skytowers that dot the continents of Asperyon - given that the towers themselves are fashioned of leviquartz this lends itself to the theory that the stone is the cause of the disease, but this is unverified.

Symptoms

Tower Sight is often hard to diagnose in it's early stages - the victim will grow restless and complain of disturbed sleep and report particularly lucid dreams of other locations in Asperyon, even if they have never visited them in the waking world. Over time, the victim becomes slowly less and less active, going from restlessness to prolonged periods of almost coma-like sleep.
After several weeks to around three or four months of gradually declining restlessness a pale film grows over the eyes, blinding the victim as their dreams become more powerful and longer - this pale white colour is where the condition gets it's name. Though they are still clinically sane they often express the wish to remain asleep, favouring their dreams over their waking reality, and report travelling great distances in their visions or witnessing historical events play out.

Treatment

Treatment is often a losing battle, as the victim often stops wanting to seek a cure, but greater restorative magics - whether it comes from the natural world via a druid or at the divine hand of a cleric or paladin - have been found to offset or begin to counteract the spread of symptoms. Attempts to heal have only been met with full success in the early stages, before the afflicted becomes bed-bound.

Prognosis

If a victim begins the restorative process before they become bed-bound, they can make a full recovery in cases where the individual has a particular strength of will to resist the pull of their visions. If not, then how long they have depends on what healing they can afford. In cases where the illness is allowed to take its course, the afflicted has at best four to six months before they no longer have the energy to move around and perform normal tasks, requiring a caretaker to bring them food and water.
They will eat and drink in tiny windows of wakefullness maybe once or twice a day, but otherwise display extreme lethargy as the white film spreads from their eyes down their skin in spiralling patterns. At this stage they may talk at length about what they see in the moment, but will not remember it, and have trouble remembering the names of those immediately around them or events in their recent past - eventually this progresses to a complete lack of memory.
The person will no longer recognise loved ones, loses what education they had, if they were lettered, and does not recall the life they had before. They may speak in languages they did not previously know when they wake up, or respond to other names for short periods of time, describing lives lived by others and seen through their eyes. At somewhere between six to seven months, without the support of a dedicated healer, the victim will fall completely comatose and likely waste away entirely as they are no longer able to eat or drink. The majority of the time, when it does not end in a full recovery due to being caught and treated quickly enough, the condition ends either in a death by natural causes or a fatal overdose applied by a healer as an act of mercy-killing.

Epidemiology

Thankfully, the condition does not appear to spread from one person to the other - though there have been occasions where multiple people have caught it at the same time in the same location. It occurs on a case-by-case basis and each person's odds of survival are almost entirely down to their own willpower and the provision of magical healing.

Cultural Reception

The reception of Tower Sight (and even the frequency of it's diagnosis, compared with natural blindness) varies from culture to culture. Those with stricter martial traditions - most often humans - see it as a weakness and are often either swifter to heal it or swifter to provide a quick end to the afflicted, for fear of it spreading, especially since the exact cause of the condition is unknown.
It is most common, and most accepted, among the wood elves. Rather than shun those afflicted with Tower Sight they will often instead revere them as people blessed with a window into the divine - trading their normal sense of vision for a more supernatural one. Elderna Tower plays host to an entire cadre of these 'sages', who are healed for as long as possible to maintain the middling stage of the disease. Those studying their visions record each one as they wake and report it, and this process can go on for months or years longer than the usual prognosis for complete deterioration. The elves believe some of the reported visions to be glimpses of the future, even though they rarely if ever make sense to those living in the present.

Type

Divine

Origin

Magical

Cycle

Chronic, Acquired

Rarity

Rare