Black Blight
The Black Blight, also known simply as "blight", is one of the most catastrophic afflictions to follow the Battle of the Second Sun. It affects the area surrounding the Darsal Sea. While not harmful to most higher forms of life Black Blight is a known source of taints and mutations in flora and fauna. Black Blight is cultivated and maintained in some lands, mostly for growing blightwood and the production of Tanukian Wood.
Transmission & Vectors
The blight transmit through an unknown mechanism that reacts to changes in the weave. It embeds itself deep into the soil, staining it black and giving the condition its name. Flora absorbs the blight through the soil and pass it on to animals and bugs. Affected species can be identified by black veins on the skin. Physical contact is not required for contraction, and even sealed environments get easy contaminated when in areas stuck by the Black Blight.
In the past it was suggested that this mechanism is of divine design, mostly due to the nature of its creation. More recent research suggests that the mechanism controlling the spread is entirely magical, as it has effectively been contained by The Ponderer's presence.
Affected Groups
The blight mostly affects soil and flora but also small animals and bugs. Most sepienant creatures show no symptoms or reaction when in presence or even in handleing of the blight, with the exception of tieflings and most outsiders.
Most tieflings are mentally susceptible to the blight. While not showing physical symptoms such as blackend veins and skin, they exibit feral behavior and tendency for demonic ramblings. Those with genasian origins also show extreme degradation in their connection with their respective elements, leading to various physical afflictions raging from migraines to blindness and more. Most of those effects however, both in tieflings and in the genasi, begin to appear only after years of prolonged exposure. While this makes the material somewhat safer to handle, those affliction went unnoticed and were barely researched in the past, leading to entire tiefling and outsiders communities to be decimated around the Darsal Crest.
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