Witchblight
The rampant, incurable disease spread in the wake of the Demon Queen's downfall, which strikes in the cradle and turns its victims into bloated monsters
"My baby! Give me back my baby, you monsters! It's just a fever, you...you can't do this!" "...Ashen Coloration and light bruising present around the neck and along the spinal ridge. Signs track for early-stage Witchblight Infection. Medicae Sergeant?" "Stop ignoring me! That's my daughter! She's just...it's just a fever!" "Right away, Sir Knight. Let's see...confirmed signs of bulging liver, likely approaching rupture point within 48 hours. Corneas have softened to point of nonfunctionality, and pupils are unfocused - clear signs of infection establishing control over and subverting subject's Psyche. Muscle mass increased by 192% from base - skin will split within a week. Skeletal Structure overgrowth sign of imminent physiological restructuring into combat form. Prognosis-" "No, you can't! Please! Don't take me away! Let me-" "Family Removed - and subject confirmed infected with 99% certainty. Recommend we prepare Blackship to recieve subject for transport to induction site." "...thank you, Medicae Sergeant. I...need a moment. If you...don't mind." "......affirmative, Sir Knight. Take all the time you need. But, Sir Knight, if I may?" "Yes, Medicae Sergeant? Speak freely." "Many of our order no longer weep for the infected nor the dead. The fact you yet wet your eyes for them is not a weakness. Sir."
Transmission & Vectors
Despite the centuries since the disease's discovery, exact details of the disease's transmission vectors remain somewhat of a mystery - once it has taken root in a given creature(Hereafter referred to as "Infected"), there is an incubation period during the disease's early stages when the disease is not yet contagious; however, once the disease fully takes root in the Infected and enters its mid to late stages, the disease becomes highly contagious through all vectors that are known - most notably, airborne, as the infected will quickly begin emitting clouds of infected air into the surrounding area once they enter the mid-stages of the disease. However, all vectors at this stage must be watched for - blood, food and water once contaminated, airborne, and even simple physical contact.
Before it takes root in an Infected, however, the disease remains a frustrating mystery - it seems strike with no regard for political boundaries or nationalities, and as best as can be determined has no care for the Planet's wind patterns or weather in general, striking even where no touch of the disease has been seen in centuries or even at all; cropping up almost at random in patterns that sometimes stretch the resources of the Knights of the Blighted Gate to the breaking point.
Of note is the fact the Witchblight seems to strike at female creatures more often than males at a rate of roughly 70-30 in favor of females - though, when male subjects are infected it is usually just as bad if not worse.
Causes
Though the exact specifics of the disease's cause isn't perfectly known, the general cause behind the appearance of the Witchblight is all but confirmed to have spread in the aftermath of the defeat of Dahmunara Worldthrone - either on purpose as part of a failsafe mechanism to spread suffering into the world should it somehow manage defeat her, or as some sort of unknown consequence of the damnable Nuyang Ritual that she was attempting to enact across the entire continent before her downfall collapsing and tearing itself apart in the wake of its creator's defeat and subsequent sealing at the hands of her enemies.
Whatever the case may be, the disease likely entered the atmosphere in the immediate wake of Dahmunara Worldthrone's defeat through one of these previously described causes(Or another even more mysterious cause) and, after spreading itself far enough across the land of Zheng-Kitar, began to crop up in various populations across the continent as a surprise "Mystery Disease" - and in short order, became an unsurpassed plague epidemic of such cataclysmic proportions that it took the formation of an entire dedicated Knight Order known as the Knights of the Blighted Gate to handle the rampaging disease and all of its afflicted. Given broad discretionary powers under all the land's governments to achieve this, it was largely thanks to these Knights that the land of Zheng-Kitar stands in the modern day at all - without them, it would have collapsed to plague and disease long ago.
Otherwise, the disease seems frustratingly resilient - it has appeared from the highest reaches of the Shenchuan Tundra to the deepest canyons of the Great Gyatsoshin Desert, and thus seems almost immune to environmental factors; as if it simply spontaneously appears in populations across the continent. Any more details, if they exist, are likely a closesly guarded secret of the Knights of the Blighted Gate.
Symptoms
Once the disease has taken root, it is quick and almost admirably efficient in its work - symptoms of the early stages manifest quick along the Spinal Ridge or similar conduits for the nervous systems in non-Human species as the disease races along the host's body to reach the brain. Other symptoms during this period include abdominal pain as the Infected's organs are overclocked, stretched to their breaking point, and repurposed to provide the necessary chemical and adrenal cocktails to serve the other symptoms of the early-stage infection - namely, general aches and pains as the Infected's muscular and skeletal systems are reinforced and mutated to provide up to 300% more strength and durability. Finally, as the diseases reaches the middle stages, jaundicing of the skin and softening of the eyes as both are slowly cut off from the body's systems and broken down for more raw materials.
The telltale symptoms of the mid-stage infection of witchblight are gruesome to say the least - during this stage, the eyes soften to the point of liquefaction as the Infected's skin splits and falls off the body to make room for rampant overgrowth of the muscular and skeletal systems as the Witchblight repurposes its host towards its own ends; making the Infected as suitable for violence and physical carnage as possible as the infection spreads. During this stage, the Psyche of the Infected is all but suppressed by the infection - the brain or similar organ is at this point entirely mutated and metastasized with physical mutations of the infection, and the old personality of the Infected is all but nonfunctional except under extreme duress or when the mind manages to reclaim control of its body for limited periods of time; during these times of reclamation, suicide is not uncommon for the stronger-willed infected as a result. During this stage, the infected are extremely dangerous, extremely hostile, and extremely infectious - clouds of noxious gas often emit from these beings as mutations wrack their body and begin to twist them away from their old form, making them increasingly unrecognizable to any who may have once known them. Bone growths sharpen to a razor's edge and protrude from the skin to assist in violence, the joints burst and snap to be more flexible, and generally the Infected descend into mindless violence in short order.
End stages of Witchblight infection have not been seen in centuries - at this stage, the mindless violence of the Infected comes to an end as the infection fully metastasizes throughout the host body and gains control of the Infected's mental processes; what was once mindless violence becomes more ordered and intelligent, and the increasingly intelligent Infected begin to move with disturbing efficacy and teamwork as their bodies begin to diversify into various other specializations such as combat forms, infector forms, landshaper forms, tank forms, and so on until the infected resemble little more than an army of mutated monsters, their bodies completely unrecogizable in every capacity. At this stage, what few records remain of the times of the rampant Witchblight Plague tell tale of the Atlen levels of infected areas becoming increasingly unstable as more and more Infected begin to gather and organize(See Glossary of Zheng-Kitar for definition of "Atlen"), leading to larger and larger wild magic zones and eventually a complete deadening of magic and atlen at large within the infected zones. Old records of the time even paint them as moving with a singular, gestalt intelligence towards unknown purposes, but such was never confirmed.
Treatment
As best as can be determined by all the brighest minds of Zheng-Kitar for centuries, there is no cure for the Witchblight as its' touch inevitably leads to death and horrific mutation - the only treatment is death, which is seen as the ultimate mercy. However, common practice for the Knights of the Blighted Gate is to confiscate the early-stage infected and return them to their fortresses surrounding the Blackgrave Isles in continuous attempts to find a cure for the disease.
For Infected at the mid-stage onwards, however, death is the only solution - studies of these latter infected are highly dangerous and are often discouraged outside of the fortresses of the Knights of the Blighted Gate, and transportation of such creatures is deemed not worth the risk.
In incredibly rare circumstances(Rarer than one out of ten thousand cases), the infected subjects seem to stabilize in the early-stages and seem to require no further treatment - however, study of these rare cases has shown they remain infectious and prone to mutations and violence to smaller degrees, which has led to the modern-day practice by the Knights of the Blighted Gate that sees them abandon these children on the shores of the Blackgrave Isles to die. These rare infected are the subject of the most zealous hunts by the Knights of the Blighted Gate, as they often flee into the wilderness to hide and escape the grip of the Knights who seek to capture them.
Prognosis
The Witchblight is invariably fatal - and if the diease progresses far enough, will invariably transform the infected into malformed, mutated horrors hellbent on death and destruction.
Affected Groups
All creatures and ethnicities on mainland Zheng-Kitar are affected equally by the Witchblight save the island nations of Tarthus-Tetsu and the Jugeum Union - who escape infection only by virtue of their distance from the mainland and the strictness of their immigration policies during the times of the Plague.
Hosts & Carriers
Interestingly, only sentient creatures seem to be capable of being infected by the Witchblight - and among them, Humanoid or Humanoid similar or adjacent creature being affected most frequently.
Prevention
Most frustratingly, there seems to be no known method of prevention for the witchblight, despite well over a dozen supposedly "verified" cultural practices said to stave it off - much to the chagrin of the populace as well as the Knights of the Blighted Gate who police the infection's spread.
Epidemiology
While in most situations when the Witchblight appears in a given population or area the surrounding residents are quick to call the infection in to the proper authorities for the good of all nearby, the biggest risk of outbreak remains in areas with poor living conditions and low societal standards - in these places, improper living conditions and lax standards of medicine as well as policing can often lead to the infected being left to rot or being misidentified as suffering from a different malady; both of which can lead to outbreaks in very short order. As well, in especially close-knit communities, starting points of outbreaks can often form from the very real and very tragic yet understandable desire of parents or loved ones to delude themselves to the truth of the infection's nature, refusing treatment for as long as possible in the hopes of the disease "going away" on its own. These cases, while tragic, typically become even more so as entire villages are thus consumed by infection and must be purged with extreme lethality to prevent further infection.
History
The first recorded outbreak of the Witchblight Occured some 400+ years before the modern day in the year 4078 ASK; barely some 78 years after the fall of Dahmunara Worldthrone and the capitulation of Worldthrone Castle. The outbreak is said to have begun in the lands of modern day Danzou, in the poorer districts of the shanty cities outside the area's larger population centers - and it was from these initial infections that the outbreak occured. These outbreaks, initially disregarded off-hand as an especially nasty flu, rapidly worsened into a full on critical mass outbreak that saw entire armies of Infected shambling through the streets and across the countrysides, destabilizing entire swathes of the area as the Atlen in entire swathes of countryside fell out of balance, causing massive ecological collapses as entire Kami populations vanished overnight as Atlen levels dropped in areas as big as a hundred miles wide.
These initial outbreaks escalated into full on Zheng-Kitar wide plagues and outbreaks now collectively known as The Ten-sun Outbreaks that only ended during the waning days of 4089 ASK, when the newly-formed Knights of the Blighted Gate devised a masterful strategy to use the nature of the infection against itself - staging a brilliant defense at the now legendary Battle of Pushkin's Gap where fledgling forces of the Blighted Gate's Knights met the untold thousands strong army of the Infected there in that narrow pass and held the line against a blistering offense for nearly a full week as the late-stage infection's Atlen-destabilization properties drove the entire fifty-mile wide patch of land on which the infected horde now fought upon into complete extinction as Atlen - the essence of life and magic itself - completely collapsed and rendered the area inhospitable. In this way, the infection was forced to effectively "burn itself out" once it was deprived of enough biomass to sustain its ever-expanding war machine. This victory was pyrrhic, however - the complete and total collapse of Atlen in the battle area took well over a century to stabilize and sent the surrounding ecology into absolute chaos for decades afterwards, causing monster populations to surge across the continent until the atlen concetrations of "ground zero" could return to habitable levels.
Ever since, the Knights of the Blighted Gate have been elevated into a extra-judicial organization free of any political oversight and given free reign to police the outbreak of the Witchblight across the continent; a role they have taken to so extraordinarily well that it is entirely thanks to their hard and tireless work across centuries since that the disease has largely become a minor but tragic footnote in many communities - a thing that takes the lives of occasional children or young men and women but nothing more.
Cultural Reception
In the modern day, knowledge of the Witchblight has been burned into the cultural Zeitgeist of all nationalities and ethnicities across Zheng-Kitar such that it is common practice in almost all ethnicities to ostracize those infected and report them with all haste to the proper authorities, lest millions die in a march of the infected.
Type
Physiological
Origin
Magical
Cycle
Chronic, Acquired & Congenital
Rarity
Rare
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