The Soulshivers
The insidious curse that affects all Free-willed Undead
Transmission & Vectors
The Soulshivers has not been proven to be capable of being transmitted through any known method(Air, Liquid, Physical, Etc.), but a very popular superstition and commonly held belief is that the Soulshivers will come quicker to those wounded by mindless or evil Undead. The Soulshivers is a curse that is damnably insidious in its work, and while it is remains dormant for most of an infected patient's unlife, it begins to become more and more active the older the infected grows, finally taking root and becoming active after centuries of unlife.
Causes
The Cause of Soulshivers is thought to be related to the nature of Intelligent Undead, whose souls are bound and shackled to their rotting physical shells in an unnatural perversion of the natural order. The beginning of the Soulshiver's cycle is thought to be the moment an Undead such as a Venau Knight is created and brought into this world, as even from the moment a soul is bound to a rotting corpse it struggles and quakes to free itself and return to the river of souls in the outer planes...and while it has no transmission vectors that are known and is believed to be incapable of traveling at all, its omnipresence in the core of every sentient Undead make it a terrifying and inevitable curse.
Symptoms
The symptoms of the Soulshivers are manifold and many, but the most common symptom is a slow and insidious breakdown of one's mental and moral principles and values. Where once an infected may have been shining and chivalrous, after the Soulshivers take hold in them they inevitably begin a slow slide into debauchery, evil, and death...and worst of all, this rarely, if ever, seem unnatural to the infected; often the infected sees their new mindset as an 'awakening' and a realization of 'how things have always been'...meaning that, in time, they will decay into ruthless killing machines that slaughter all living creatures indiscriminately as corrupt and vile mockeries of their former selves, who now hold no care for their former friends, allies, or family.
More common symptoms of the Soulshivers include whispers inside one's head that never leave and perpetually crawl within one's mind, periods of 'Mental Shutdown' where infected do little but 'zone out' and stare into space, memory loss regarding both one's time as alive and as an undead, hallucinations of intangible hands that sprout from nearby surfaces, a loss of mental capacity, and a growing disdain for living creatures or particular goodly or moral Undead creatures.
Treatment
There is no known cure or way to alleviate The Soulshivers once it has taken hold. However, a particularly strong-willed creature with a strong soul can resist the onset of The Soulshivers for a variable period of time...often, this delay buys them decades and sometimes centuries, but incredibly strong-willed infected can rarely cope with the disease and endure for centuries on end...though, all inevitably succumb to the disease's clutches.
Prognosis
The inevitable course of The Soulshivers is the ultimate decoupling of the infected creature's soul from its body, leaving its body with only splintered fragments of who it once was as the body turns into a malicious, evil creature that slaughters the living indiscriminately.
Affected Groups
The Soulshivers affects exclusively Undead, and among them it only targets those with free-will and sentience...most commonly the Venau Knights are the creatures who suffer the most at the hands of this insidious curse.
Hosts & Carriers
As it is omnipresent in all sentient Undead, there are no hosts or carriers of it aside from the aforementioned Undead.
Prevention
There is no known way to prevent infection altogether aside from being a living creature(As the curse only preys on sentient undead). However, it is possible to delay and stave off the effects of the curse by having a strong mental fortitude and stronger will...having such will allow one to hold onto their sense of self for longer and thus prevent total body-soul decoupling for many decades and even centuries, rarely.
Notably, another way to prevent the onset of the Soulshivers is to become a being such as a Lich or Graveknight, or any being who binds their soul elsewhere into a physical object to attain immortality. Such a process is generally successful in staving off the onset of the Soulshivers, though because of the astronomical cost and rarity of such a process being used, it is not viable as a mass cure.
Epidemiology
The Soulshivers is a curse that does not pass through a population in a traditional sense, and as such it is not prone to outbreaks, epidemics, or pandemics. Instead, it is simply an assured fact of life for undead with sentience and minds of their own, as guaranteed as the rising of the sun each morning.
History
The Soulshivers is a curse that dates back as far as the Venau Necrocracy itself, and was said to afflict the first ever Venau Knight ever crafted by Barkhan the Eternal himself...while the curse may have existed before this, a lack of centralized government for undead creatures and a lack of unity amongst them has left little record of cases recorded before the founding of the Venau Necrocracy, but many scholar posit that the Soulshivers have existed far longer than the Necrocracy.
Cultural Reception
Much like how Humans view their elderly, those who live long enough to come down with the Soulshivers are seen as ancient and venerable elders that have grown so old they have begun to decay. They are often given the opportunity to retire from active duty if they serve as a soldier or as a warrior, and given the chance to relax and spend their twilight years in peace and comfort as much as is feasible...however, some forgo this and prefer to continue their lives until their dying day. When the Soulshivers begin to take hold more and more, the afflicted are commonly laid to rest and given another, 'final death' and laid to eternal rest so they may be remembered as the being they were, and not the evil abomination they would become. These premature deaths prevent the effects of the Soulshivers and let the body of the infected rest.
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