Mindfire

Mania-inducing illness afflicting Firewalkers

Mindfire is a mental illness associated with the discovery and use of psionic talent. Such abilities are recognized in the very young and never lead to Mindfire madness and mania. The onset of the disease and its effects are associated with the age of physical and mental maturity, at which time the subject experiences a loss of personality and rational self control. Legends that tell of the decline and fall of the lost Precursor kingdoms of Orad and Urzen tell of episodes of mass delerium in which dozens of psionically gifted individuals suddenly became gripped in an insane state of murderous pyschopathy.

Transmission & Vectors

Mindfire is a genetic condition associated with the mental talents of psions and firewalkers. It is believed that whatever power infuses these psionically awakened subjects, whatever the source (and there are many theories regarding this topic), inevitably overwhelms the individual human ego and unleashes the dionysian id of unrestrained human passion, desire, appetite. These uncontrolled impulses compel the subject to act upon every whim or unbidden thought in destructive outbursts of uncommon malice and cruelty.

Causes

It would appear that the disease does not take hold until the brain reaches maturity in adulthood. Some postulate that only the mature mind is capable of tapping the deepest wells of psionic power and that once these depths have been mined the subject's consciousness falls victim to the unleashed torrent of power.

Symptoms

The early signs of Mindfire represent as heightened sensitivity to supernatural as well as mundane stimuli. The mindfire victim begins to feel keener responses to sensations and emotions of all kinds. They may demonstrate feelings of an intense emotional nature and soon thereafter demonstrate signs of depression. These highs and lows of passionate feeling become increasingly acute until the sufferer loses all sense of control and begins to violently lash out at others.

Treatment

No treatment exists. Mindfire victims are preemptively banished to the jungle wilds before their symptoms present.

Prognosis

Records indicate that those mindfire victims that do not die due to reckless self-endangerment eventually experience a series of seizures including serious cerebro vascular accidents that finally culminate in fatal stroke.

Cultural Reception

The various Zoner cultures live in constant fear of the mindfire legacy, the final decline of wondrous utopian civilizations that had somehow survived the Cataclysm. The madness of the first firewalkers had swept these great empires from the face of the earth in only a few generations, and for centuries the inheritor cultures of Eldenterra had hoped the last of the firewalkers had perished with their doomed people.
The current resurgence of firewalkers among the various clans and states of the Forbidden Zone has fueled a growing state of panic that may lead to more desperate measures than banishment for unfortunate firewalkers.

Cycle

Chronic, Congenital

Rarity

Rare