The Blight

The blight is a magical substance now found in numerous places around the world that when coming into contact with a living being, triggers an illness that kills plants and transform animals and humans into Blight Monsters.

Transmission & Vectors

There are two ways to become infected with the blight. The first most brutal way is by coming into direct contact with naturaly occuring Blight. Upon infection, it may take as little as 2 hours for the person to fall ill, start transforming, dying as a result of the infection before being reanimated by the blight itself.
The second way to get infected is by being attacked by a Blighted Monster. As they are controled by the blight, they will try all it can to infect a non-infected person. Since they are stronger and faster than normal humans, and they dont feel pain, it may be hard to fend off their attack.

Causes

Blight is a magical substance that originates from the Thiber Plateau. It is very dark in appearance and does not reflect any light. In its natural state, it resembles very dark pool of liquid, but it has no reflexion and is not affected by wind and objects falling into it do not cause the surface to ripple. Instead the object lands on the surface and stays there until it is absorbed by the pool. Fire will affect it as the black mass will try to move away from the flames. The substance is flammable.
Any living being, including all humans, except Soulmages, can be infected if they are directly exposed to the blight by touch. The blight does not need a cut in the skin to enter the body of the victim as any prolonged contact (more than a second) allows the blight to seep through the skin, enter the blood of the person and infect them.

Symptoms

When a person becomes infected by direct contact, the changes arrive very fast. Upon infection, it may take as little as 2 hours for the person to fall ill, start transforming, dying as a result of the infection before being reanimated by the blight itself.
However, if they are infected by a bite, scratch or other method by an blighted individual, it may take them up to a month for the first syptoms to appear. The delay directly corolates with the height, weight and age of the person. Small children and the elderly will succumb to the infection much sooner than most grown adults.
During this period of time, the only way to maybe know if the person is infected or not is to look at their blood as it will begin to turn from red to black sometimes weeks before the first visible symptoms appear. By the end of the month, However, the first symptoms will inevitably appear. Once they do, the mental and physical state of that person will rapidly deteriorate.
Day 1 and 2 The first syptom that is usualy felt is a headhache, closely followed by a fever. These symptoms will perciste and become gradualy more intense over the course of the next few days, which in the case of the fever, usualy results in death. But, before the person dies, their bodies will begin to change under the influence of the blight
The blood of the person by this point has fully turned black. If a cut is made or already present and bleeding, the blood will quickly evaporate into the air, transforming itself into a black mist that is highly infectious if inhaled. Once the person's blood fully turn black, the changes in their body accelerate tremendously, to the point were they can be seen in real time. The first obvious change for an exterious point of view are the eyes.
Days 2 to 5 Over the following hours and days, the scelera will slowly turn from white to yellow, then a greenish brown before settling on dark grey while the irises will lose their original pigmentation and turn black. The pupil will remain dilated even in a high luminosity enviroment, giving them the appearance of having very large black eyes. This does not affect their vision in low light enviroments by they will start to hate any bright source of light at this point.
After the eyes begin to change, the nails of the person will also go through similar colour changes. The skin also begins to lose its pigmentation, instead turning to a dull greyish colour. The hair on the person's body will have all fallen off by that point. After the skin turns and the hairs are gone, more serious changes occur with the physiology and anatomy of the person.
Their teeth will begin to grow longer and sharper, iciting a large amount of pain. This pain makes them scream, which eventualy results in their jaw bone dislocating. when it does, it also begins to elongate itself to accomodate the new set of larger and sharper teeth and allows them to open their mouth way larger than before. However, in doing so, the skin that makes up their cheeks is ripted appart, leaving the side of their mouth visible. This is an extremly painful process for the person as by this point, they are generaly still fully self-aware.
The last major changes before the person dies for good is in regards to their ears and nose. Cartilage in both of these places, and particulary the ears, will then begin to disintegrate while the skin covering it rots away very quickly. Its been reported that most patient in this stage can feel the cartilage moving on its own at it disolve into nothing. However, despite the loss of both their ears and nose, their smell and hearing abilities are not impacted and if fact, in most cases, become sharper.
After Death By this point, the person dies. If the body is not burned or drowned, it will be reanimated by th blight within minutes. The now Blighted monster will then start to senselessly and furiously attack everything that moves around them, in an attempt to infect other humans or even other animals, such as dogs, cats and horses, just to name a few.

Prognosis

There are no known treatement of this illness, nor any known methods to slow down its progress. Once a person is infected, their dead is inevitable.
If the person is not killed before sucombing to the infection, they will be reanimated and further transformed into a monster, who will seek to spread the infection as much as possible.

Affected Groups

All living beings, except Soulmages, can be infected by the blight. The plants will simply decay and be transformed into more blight mass, while animals and humans will be transformed into Blighted monsters in order to spread the infection further.

Prevention

The best way to prevent infection is to stay away from any source of blight and midigating any contact with an infected person. Both fire and water can be used to get rid of blight. Blight is flammable and also disolves itself in water. In low enough concentration, the water is also not infectious. Blighted monsters also stay away from any source of light, including the sun, so exploration of blighted regions should be strictly reserved for during daytime.

Type

Magical

Origin

Magical

Cycle

Chronic, Acquired

Rarity

Extremely Rare