Gifts

Her skin prickled and burned, and when she managed to force open her heavy eyelids, she saw the reddish marks trailing along her arms in a unique pattern. They were still fresh. She felt panic rise in her throat, tears welling up in her eyes as he breathing hitched and she began to suffocate. A Gift. I've been infected with a Gift.

Manifestation

Gifts range from simple things like heightened hearing to more complicated and dangerous things, like manifestation of the imagination. These abilities are very varied, and similar ones can reappear or there can be only one person with this specific Gift. They appear naturally in Suplum and rarely in some other non-human creatures. A Gift can infect someone who was not born naturally with it. No one is quite sure how infection happens; it was once thought that Suplum caused the infections, and were hunted by a group called the Grayscales for centuries. This was disproved to be true, but the Grayscales still remain, often terrorizing entire villages in order to get to a single Suplum.

Suplum are born with marks that glow as they use them. For those infected with a Gift, these marks are burned into their skin when they are first infected. They can spread on those affected if the infected learn how to use their Gifts more effectively, but the marks are already at their full potential on Suplum.

Most people who are infected with a Gift describe not remembering the moment it first happens, or much beforehand. They wake up with marks burned into their skin and having an ability they are not quite sure how to control. Often those infected will seek out a Suplum with a similar Gift in order to train under them to get better understanding and control of it. Gifts are known to seep the life force out of an infected, if it is used too often. Marks burned into them become grayer the more they are used, until all color has been sucked from the marks and the skin around them. The infected, after dying, will turn to dust.

Localization

Gifts are one of the things that spread through all of Kollark, no matter the province. It is not localized to one specific area, though rumors are that they will not work in the Sacred Ground of the Ancients.