Crysplit

Causes

This condition occurs spontaneously in beings with susceptible skin. It manifests when the blood stream is gathering at one specific place in the body. There is no known cause as to why such disproportional bloodstream concentrations would take place, but apparently it is not that uncommon.
This results in little bumps on the skin to form which causes the afflicted person to experience quite a bit of pain from the pressure. Usually, the affected patient will recover from those bumps if they position their body in a way which makes it easy for the concentrated blood to continue flowing e.g. a person who has a bump on their arm is advised to keep their arm up as often as possible to help the bloodstream flow to the lower part of the body. The longer the bump persists, however, the more it ends up merging with the lower skin layers.
When the skin can't contain the amount of blood current, it breaks, resulting in the blood stream that's already mixed in with the skin to stay glued to it. Once it dries, which can happen pretty fast, it looks like a crystal on the patient's skin.

Treatment

These crystals can be surgically removed. It's a very sensitive process however, since the treater in question needs to make sure the patient doesn't lose too much blood while removing the crystals from their skin. They also need to make sure that every last piece of crystal is out of the body, as once its formed, it can grow back quite quickly.

Prognosis

As long as the patient has access to a qualified medic, the chances of recovering from crysplit are decent. The longer the patient waits for treatment, though, the further these crystals can spread, making it more difficult to extract them safely without complications. As soon as the crystals are removed, the skin can heal properly.
If there is no way for the patient to get professional treatment, the crystal will grow bigger and further by fusing more blood with more healthy skin. Soon, the person won't have enough of their healthy blood current left to sustain their body, causing it to slowly die.

Affected Groups

As a general rule, this condition only appears in Gotkin with light skin. As researchers from Nex found out, this is due to their skin being easily penetratable. There have also been sights in animals with a skin structure that's considered similar to a light-skinned Gotkin, but these are usually very rare. Some medicinists speculate that this has nothing to do with the animals being less prone to developing this condition and instead propose that the pain caused by the crystals forming on the skin is so painful that they are barely able to move, thus less likely to leave their home and staying out of sight of the common eye. This theory has yet to be proved, however.

Cultural Reception

Nex uses people who have this condition as crystal farms for their jewellry. They make sure not to remove the whole crystal so the condition continues to grow more crystals. Since the crystals are just a part of the natural bloodstream however, this causes these poor people to slowly bleed out and die as a consequence.

Martensians usually scoff at people with this condition in their home country as lighter skinned Gotkin are already being branded as "Weakhides". In their minds, the fact that they're the only ones affected by this condition confirms this mentality.

In the rest of the world, crysplit is treated like any other illness that needs to be cured. Since this condition is not contagious in any way, the people around them will most likely not shun them. However, there is a possibility for friends and family, or anyone who worries about their health, really, to treat them with kid gloves, even after they've been treated. Some might think of their skin to be more frail than others and thus, try not to touch it too much, lest it might break again. Although a gesture made with kindness in mind, a reduction in physical contact by the people around them might lead to feelings of frustration and loneliness.

Type

Physiological

Origin

Natural

Cycle

Chronic, Acquired

Rarity

Rare

by Wikimedia Commons

After being properly cut, this is just one of many shapes the extracted crystals can look like. This particular crystal came from a brightear. It's not uncommon for brightears to have more than one color of blood current, resulting in beautiful swirls in this morbid stone.