Shadow Touched Children

Ancient History Before the Dawn, long passed. Or is it?

"To say that I felt horror, would be an understatement. There is a reason we pity the Shadow Touched Children. We speak about them as if they are already dead. They, that change, that person that was, the gods never meant us to feel this fear. It goes beyond the worry of mortality, it... That disease, it's steeped into all your being. Those that dwell on the Tree, you are but ticking clocks, awaiting your genetic call from the Shadows. And, well. You've seen what happens. Trust not a shadow, no matter how much it looks and sounds like someone you know."

Transmission & Vectors

The effective means of the Shadows Touch is manifold. It all is the same disease, spread through a transparent miasmic vapor that clings to the skin, or any surface really. It matters not to the vapor if the surface is too hot or cold to support life, it clings and remains infectious. Clothes, hair, skin, metal, water, sweat, bone, magma, ice; it remains. One need only breath in the vapor or touch something or someone already infected, and the transformation is inevitable.

The only issue is this, there are no outward signs of infection until the Shadows have called to the infected. One can remain infected for decades, spreading it without knowing there was ever a risk. That is until one of the Eight Shadows calls to the infected area and the "rebirth" begins.

One should avoid any area where other infected are, or anywhere a current battle with the Shadows are taking place. The air they breathe out from their own lungs is the root of it. Making highly ventilated areas particularly hazardous. Woe be upon those who are caught in the wind around anything that has ever touched the vapor (A particular slap to the face of Vilorlith, who is the Goddess of Air and Skies). Not being a living infection, it remains communicable indefinitely.

Symptoms

• Stage 1: There are no outward or even inward signs. Meaning the soul and mind are untouched at this stage, this stage is entirely undetectable. Being the stage where the Shadows had intended for the disease to spread unhindered among the gods' children. This is also the stage that has the highest rate of infection for the aforementioned reason. Serving only as a staging ground for mass corruption at a time of the Shadows choosing.

• Stage 2: The infected will lose all sense of pain and remorse. Developing an apathetic disposition toward nearly everything, including the need to eat, sleep, or maintain themselves. This is the beginning of a rapid transition, taking anywhere between a few minutes to a few hours. This truly is the point of no return for any infected that are not in the Beacon Sanctuaries powered by The Quartet themselves. The Shadows have called.

• Stage 3: The Infected will begin to mutate and typically become violent toward anything around them. Painfully sprouting extra limbs, changing skin colors, growing feathers/scales/fur, appendages taking on new shapes, horrible deformations occurring to the body as the Shadows command the body to fit a specific purpose.

• Stage 4: If the infected has been deemed useful by the Shadows for whatever purpose they need. They may or not keep their sentience at this point, being given back a warped sense of self and intelligence. Effectively the Shadows have warped entire swathes of infected into new species, with their own unique genetic makeup. Sometimes they are allowed to keep their previous memories as well.

• Stage 5: Propagation. While this disease is made the most evident in mobile creatures, it is not limited to it. The miasma infects everything ubiquitously. Plants, trees, fungi, bacteria, virus, pathogens, animals, they are all infected, warped and twisted. The Question one must ask is this, if this is all you have ever known, is it strange?

Treatment

There is no hope. Once changed, they cannot be changed back. The Shadow Touched are damned.

Affected Groups

The problem is this: it is a unilateral fact of life on the Great Tree. Though no one knows it, save for those in The Elsewhere, everything is infected. It has been built into the genetic code of every last thing that walks/swims/flies on the Great Tree. Should the Shadows ever find the Queen of the Fae, they would have an unfathomable army of creatures at their disposal. They have kept this piece of armament to their chests, should they ever need it again. Otherwise it remains as a strange piece of genetic anomaly unknown to modern science, dormant, waiting.

Show spoiler

Though the Shadows were not without their faults either. Prideful monstrosities they are, laying claim to the Quartets Children had become a pastime for the Eight Shadows. Bhal had claimed Vilorlith's children as his own, calling them Goblins. Azu had claimed Syn's children, calling them Mistwalkers.

Hosts & Carriers

Literally everything and Everyone that is not directly on the plane of The Elsewhere.

Cultural Reception

They are something of an open wound never allowed to heal by the Fae, Fairies and Giants. The Brownies would be included, though because of a certain Shadow, Vilorlith's children are effectively extinct. The Shadow Touched as something feared to the core by the Quartet's children, the mere presence of them can cause a new wave of infection that only death will put them out of their misery.

A mix of pity, fear, and mourning. A strange feeling of being lost, melancholy palpable in the air. They watched in horror as their brethren, their sisters, wives, husband and children were taken from them. Changed before their eyes, and forced to put them down. Only to have the threat of infection on themselves linger the entire time. What would be the point, what would be the reason if they were infected only to be turned at a moment's notice while they were fighting for their lives against something that was supposed to be one of them? Their own flesh and blood?

During the War with the Shadows, they effectively employed the use of the disease in a two fold system. A form of mental torture on the Quartet and their children, and a constant swelling in their own ranks.

Type

Divine

Origin

Divine

Cycle

Chronic, Acquired & Congenital

Rarity

Common

I walked down to the bow of the ship, shivering from the salty spray that assaulted the ship at all hours now. The creaking had taken on a strange rhythm to it in the last few hours as we neared the shores of the Vilathric range of volcanoes that framed the western shores of Glaious. Mother Syn had ignited the hearts of the mountains to flush out the Shadow that hid in its bowels.
We were ordered to hunt the Shade and its minions by the Great Mother and root out its evil. Our ship was well prepared for the serpents, the tentacled monstrosities, the void creatures that rose from nowhere and everywhere. The ship was clad in heavy glowing steel, blessed by the Quartet, cannons fitted to level the mountains we sailed toward. I had no doubt in my heart that the sails would hold, I had no doubt that the armor would hold, I had no doubt that the maps I made were wrong. 
I stood at the prow of the ship and watched as the clouds that held still over the Pass came nearer. The ship shuddered as the current pushed us forward, and broke the top of a subsurface spire. I only stared on as the objective came closer. A light snow of ash began to fall on the ship, so I ordered the crew to keep the ship clear of ash. “I don’t want our keel any lower, I don’t need some horror clawing its way topside, or capsizing us.” 
-Recounting from Taneth The Navigator during the final days of the Quartet. Extra Chapters The Dawn of Truths : Contact in Great Tree Origins: Before the Dawn

We had managed to avoid the spires when my first mate had loosed his grip and pointed out to the sea toward the bow. A black figure slinking back under the surface of the water with barely a ripple. “What was that?” He asked.
“I’d take a gamble and say that was one of the Shadow’s minions, hulking beast that thing is.” I said, my nervousness showing just for a moment.
“Did… did that thing try to move the ship?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t doubt it, you saw it before me. What did it look like?” I asked him, grabbing his shoulder. He was shaking, but not from the cold. 
“Taneth, I don’t have words for what I saw. Eyes, blackness, maybe it used to be a whale? But, why did it have teeth, and there was a mind behind its eyes.” He stammered out.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him we probably never would know. The Shadows did things to the Quartets' creations, changed them. Casting a glance to the range of volcanoes, I didn’t want to think of what we were going to have to fight. It likely was a whale that this Shadow had claimed, odd. They were fond of distorting the living, bending them to whatever motive they had at the time. 
-Recounting from Taneth The Navigator during the final days of the Quartet. Extra Chapters The Dawn of Truths : Contact in Great Tree Origins: Before the Dawn