Wood Warts

Causes

Inherited through the family bloodline and emerges at random throughout its members.

Symptoms

• Tumorous skin growth beneath surface layer
• Stiffness in the wrist and ankles
• Decreasing blood flow
• Increasing pressure on skeleton structure
• Immobilization of the hands and feet
• Tumorous growth breaking the skin and covering extremities

Treatment

The afflicted might try to soak he most effected areas in a alcohol or salt bath; but this may do nothing. There is no treatment that can permanently remove the warts, as they will even grow back even if cut out.
If a limb becomes too unwieldy, then it might be amputated.

Prognosis

1. Childhood Stage
   • Flat wart-like rises on the skin
   • Pinkish-red bumps on the upper and lower extremities, and face
2. Middle Stage
   • One to many cutaneous horn-like lesions
   • Slightly scaly, red-brown macules on the face, neck, and torso
3. Late Stage
   • Development of thin malignant strips of tumors over just beneath the surface of the skin

Affected Groups

Those with the disposition to the disease tend to live within pockets of Salt Side around Karwansa, Kiniby and Cuit areas with the notable peoples on the border regions of the Shadow realms carrying the majority of those afflicted.

Hosts & Carriers

Just because a shadow person, or someone of related descent, is unaffected is no cause for relief. It is known that tumorous skin can emerge suddenly in the family members of Tinged, Krix, those living on the Coyoacan Peninsula and other regions bordering the Realms.
From this insight, it is widely accepted that wood warts restricted to certain families whose blood are mixed with that of the Shadow Realm.

Prevention

Careful study of a family's genealogy for previous afflicted relatives. Thereafter, it is dependent on the potential parents if they want to take the chance.

History

There have been two variations of this disease: the fast and the slow.

Slow Variant

Slow is what is most spoken of in the valley. Being so afflicted is miserable for the victim, as horns of the wood-like tumors grow over joints, and even overtake the face. People of this kind as dubbed as "Wraiths".
However, it is often a boon for the victim's family because the bark peeled off is mostly soft and as resilient and more pliant than real wood. Such that it is sold as a commodity in both scams and honest transactions.

Fast Variant

Blessedly, the fast variant went extinct hundreds of years ago (it killed its victims too quickly to spread).
Its nature evident in the remains of petrified trees as part of the Deeper Swamp, where erect and fallen timbers trace facial remains and fingered branches.

Cultural Reception

Bark Harvest

Wraith Wood

In spite of the slow disfiguration, it can actually be quite profitable for families of someone disease-struck by providing a steady source of wraith wood to sell over a period of time.
The lesions are allowed to grow to an appropriate length, then carefully peeled off and stored in a moist environment to maintain pliability. For the part of the wraith removed, given time, the wart will regrow over the gap and be harvested again.

White Wood

Within the debts of the Deeper Swamp, there is a full area of fallen and still standing timber of a pale and rough texture. They are all that remain of the Fast wood wart variant.
Whereas Slow metamorphosized the skin moving outward, Fast metamorphosized bones and internal organs which left internal imprints of what-once-was, like a fossil. Looking at the cross-section of a trunk shows positions of the hearts, lungs, stomachs and other structures of the body.

Type

Genetic

Origin

Mutated

Rarity

Extremely Rare

Places with the Occasional Case