The Creep
Corruption or The Creep afflicts untrained and abusive shapers primarily. A corrupted shaper can be identified by a darkening of the skin, often with a faint purple hue. This coloration appears on the shapers extremities beginning at the finger tips and progressing across the hands and up the arms overtime. Accompanying this the veins under the skin often darken becoming visible through the skin. When a corrupted shaper manipulates The Ebb their veins will glow with a varying intensities of purple light. Typically the Creep is a short lived affliction as it consumes the reckless shaper's body in the end, scattered ash is the only remains of their physical form.
Though there are a few cases where experienced or gifted shapers were tainted by corruption.
Corruption can even manifest when the Ebb is focused on healing wounds, darkening the injury site and the area around it.
One might ask if a population that was taught to pluck and pull at the elemental energies that make up all of reality, what would stop them from misusing that understanding?
For Alyerian, the answer is Corruption. A simple answer, that is complex to understand.
Everything has a source, an origin. In this universe that is Prima, an impossible black substance that is all things and nothing simultaneously. Prima fills and is the universe. Urbis is born from it, master of it, and its representative in all realms. No mortal can touch Prima, for they will be unbound.
Part of a population's awakening or training would be to educate them on the impact of throwing the system out of balance. That underneath the elemental cycle that brings order lies a universal force that unmakes everything. Prima, All things spring from it and return to it. Draw too much power from the Ebb and the void fills with this unlimited and unrelenting force. The Ebb or elemental cycle not only nourishes the natural world but also gives it structure and meaning. Without that Ebb, disorder, mutation, desiccation take over. The Primes introduced Alyerian's to the Ebb to improve their lives and to save Alyeria itself. Urbis, like Prima itself, desires uniformity, neutrality...a return to origin.
Corrupt shapers that survive talk of a rush or cool sensation when the corruption takes hold. An innate abstraction of the void. Or the Inerta - elementally inactive.
As such, within large and small populations, the manipulation of the Ebb is monitored. Only some are allowed to use it. In small communities not governed by larger cities a recognized individual is granted permission by the leadership to weave the Ebb. In larger cities, shapers are not only extensively trained but licensed to shape the Ebb. Those that develop talents naturally are encouraged to seek training and certification in most cities. Depending on the country these encouragements can be relaxed with consequences for rampant abuse or laws that strictly restrict shaping like in the Southern Kingdoms. The underlying reasons are disruption of the natural order. Unfortunately, the direct impacts of this abuse have been seen during and in the aftermath of large conflicts and wars.
Type
Magical
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