Nullblooded
When the World Feels Wrong
Mine is worse than others', I think. I can feel it in everything that sorcery has touched. Every wire that is connected to a plasma generator - a flameblood-powered plasma generator, every nail made of iron from a gem-based foundry, every cloud that was touched by a skyship's passing. The world is wrong, and everything in it is tainted.Originally known as Blood Sickness, a violent nauseous reaction to sorcery, this condition was thought to be an illness one could catch like the cold or the flu. Modern medicine has determined that it is actually a strange birth defect that causes the individual to reject , which has been named 'Nullblooded'. Unfortunately, due to the growing domination of magic in the modern world, those unfortunate Nullbloods will only suffer more and more.
Health and Safety
Cause
There are several theories as to what might cause Nullbloods to be born. They range from the mundane, such as an overexposure of sorcery to the pregnant mother; to the fantastical, such as one near-hysterical insistence that Nullblooded individuals are the "true" form of humanity, and sorcery is an addition. None have any basis in fact, and research into the matter has hit dead end after dead end. The only conclusion Academics have been able to draw is that whatever is responsible for determining the sorcery of a fetus must also be responsible for sometimes, for some reason, choosing none.Treatments
Being Nullblooded is impossible to cure. Even highly skilled Lightblood medics, capable of erasing even the most resilient of natural diseases, are inable to affect Nullbloods. In fact, due to their drastic reaction to sorcery, any attempt to fix their condition with Lightblood magic results in an extreme amount of pain for the patient. The symptoms of Blood Sickness can be slightly mitigated with herbal remidies, but for the most sensitive, they are inable to escape the fact that those herbs were grown with the help of Waterblood magic. Most Nullblooded individuals try to seclude themselves from the rest of the world, away from all that magic has created.The subject responded as expected to both individual and gem-based sorcerous output, with intensity ranging from 0.05 to 1.5. Curiously, the subject had no reaction to being exposed to a ████████ ███████ or an area of high Aether concentration, which had an Indus Frequency of 2 and 0.25 respectively. The subject did not have a detectable Indus Frequency.
Effects
Blood Sickness
The primary symptom of Null blood is a response to nearby sorcery, and this symptom was originally what was thought to be the whole disease. The exact response varies between individuals, but most commonly Nullblooded people experience nausea and piercing headaches. The strength of these responses can vary as well, with some Nullblooded people able to go about their daily lives with herbal remedies for their blood sickness, and others completely incapacitated by nearby sorcery. In roughly half of all reported Nullblooded cases, these reactions can progress in scale, eventually becoming lethal.Mundanity
Another feature of Nullbloods is their complete lack of other sorcerous talent. This is considered a blessing in disguise by most Nullbloods, as otherwise their own sorcery might trigger potentially deadly reactions. However, it does exclude them from a large portion of the work available in the modern age, especially when combined with their inability to exist around modern technology.General Information
Reported Cases:
400/year
Discovered:
6th Zenith, 204 SA
Life Expectancy at Birth:
30 years
Cost of Treatment:
N/A
Any accusations that our factories are responsible for the increased cases of Nullblooded children are completely unfounded. Our scientists have assured us that the very minor correlation is strictly coincidental.
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