The Blood Curse
Carrying many names to itself, the Blood Curse is a notorious disease that causes afflicted individuals to invariably twist and transform into monstrous beasts. These beasts are driven by an incessant urge to slaughter and maim anything within sight. With each indulgence of violence, those afflicted are left twisting into more abhorrent forms, leading them on to a vicious warpath into becoming an apex killing machine.
Elves and Fianni call it wendigo sickness, mostly due to its association with the Wendigo and its insatiable craving for flesh.
Some humans also call it the Beast Curse or tie it in with Lycanthropy, due to the two diseases being closely related to one another. It isn't uncommon for those afflicted by this curse to simply be referred to as Beasts due to the effects it carries.E
Transmission & Vectors
The curse earns its name due to how rapid it spreads through blood. Just one contact with the blood of the infected risks a victim becoming a beast themselves. Worse yet, even if a victim were to suffer the most dire appalling of wounds, the curse causes their body to remain alive, twisting their forms into a malignant, hateful creature that only desires to kill and maim.
The second blood seeps into a victim's body in any way; be it eyes, nose, mouth, or open wound, they're inevitably doomed to become the creature itself. For this reason, even though the beasts cursed by this are always driven to slaughter, it is still exceptionally infectious due to those that survive their harrowing attacks often rising as new beasts just moments after.
Symptoms
The curse earns its name not just from the volatile nature it carries, but the effects it has on their blood. Blood blackens from the curse, becoming a roiling, heated mass. This shows also often shows as a bulging network of blackened veins coursing beneath the skin, though fur growth often hides these features whenever the curse advances to its next stage.
The blood is also caustic and roiling, and if spilt, will steam in noxious fumes that sicken those that inhale it. Too much contact with the blood can cause it to eat away at the flesh, inevitably leading towards further spread of the curse.
Common Symptoms include:
--The blackening of the sclera, and dilation of eyes. The irises also often turn a bright, glowing yellow.
--Growth of fur, though this isn't universal amongst beasts. It is actually noted that particularly strong beasts often shed their fur and develop scales.
--The lengthening of nails into claws, or pronounced canines.
--An insatiable bloodlust.
Aside from these common symptoms, the symptoms of the Blood Curse always varies drastically from person to person, typically depending on the amount of violence they commit.
Treatment
While there is no known cure for the curse, it has been long proven that resisting the urge to give in to the cravings provided by it will cause carriers to be asymptomatic; including even the common symptoms typically associated with it. Unfortunately, those afflicted are almost always driven mad by the urge to kill.
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Though it is a closely guarded secret, the Slayer's Guild actually carries a rite of passage where the newly anointed hunter drinks of the blood. This allows them to not only sense other beasts, but to combat them with the same ferocity that they commit. It is a solemn fact that anyone joining the Slayer's Guild is doomed to twist into a beast by the end of things, though one Hunter need only kill two beasts to make that trade worth it.
Prevention
Those afflicted by the curse are inevitably doomed to be twisted into the beasts that brought it to them. However, the Slayer's Guild and the Church have long since agreed to eradicate any source of it that happens to be within their sights.
History
The Beast Curse first occurred shortly after vampirism became an epidemic amidst mankind. It began in Mordencrast, where the peasantry was left infected with this debilitating disease that, at first, was often seen as simple mass hysteria. Unfortunately, this curse spread into a proper plague, leading to most of the country side being ravaged and curse ridden shortly thereafter.
The curse also lifted the veil vampiric nobility carried, due to peasants carrying the curse managing to repress their urges just long enough before they were fed upon by members of the Volteroy Family. Vampirism, as it turns out, is not able to cleanse, purge, or change the curse's course in any way; those unlucky few that drank from the afflicted became afflicted themselves.
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This occurred due to Zzath's hatred towards humanity. After his cult was forced to grant nobility his gift of Vampirism, they were promptly put to the sword shortly after the discovery was made. Zzath lashed out, formulating the Beast Curse as a means to smite those that wronged him -- in this case, humanity, though the disease has spread far across the world, the hateful serpent God only relishes in the destruction it causes.
Cultural Reception
For the most part, people afflicted by the curse are avoided at all costs. They're feared, and often hunted the second symptoms are even suspected to exist.
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The Slayer's guild often frequently attempts to 'treat' the disease by looking for any afflicted that haven't succumbed to their bestial urges. They are taken under their wing and taught how to hunt other beasts, so that they may hide their condition and act as solemn guardians over the disease's spread.
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