Essence Scarring

When you use magic, you are gathering ambient energy all around you; you let it flow through you and you mold it to get the desired effect. But be careful, there is raw energy flowing through you, and your body and mind need to handle that or will break.

— Karlash

Every creature has a magical core, a spark of life that some would call a soul. Either trough practice or talent, some people can control this spark, to mold the world around them to their will. To do that, they combine their own magical energy with the ethereal, omnipresent energy of the world, let it pass through them and cast magic this way. This energy passing through their body and mind can damage it, leaving permanent scars that will never heal.

Causes

Essence Scarring is caused by too much energy flowing through someone's body and mind while casting a spell. This often happens to novice practitioners of the Arcane Arts - people who have little training on how to control what magic they unleash. They lose control over their magic, and unleash energy way above their capabilities and ulitmatly damage themselves.

If too much energy passes through you, it will damage your mind, burn your flesh, and might even destroy your soul. Magic is raw, powerful and unpredictable. Only a powerful mind and a healthy body can control this ancient force of nature without hurting themselves.

Training will lead to a better control, and will allow people to cast more powerful magic. But even the trained are not immune to this condition and still need to be careful.

Symptoms

Once someone has acquired Spell Scarring, their magical abilities are impeded for the rest of their life. They will never be able to cast as powerful magic as they did before and sometimes even easy magic might become hard for them.
Immidiete symptons might include internal burnings and bleeding, exhaustion, memory loss and loss of consciousness. Long term, the caster will often have to deal with brain damage, ranging from minor memory issues up to insanity, visible scarring all along their body and permanent physical and mental exhaustion.

History

This condition has been known to most spell casters for a very long time. They might not have understood how it worked, but they knew if you cast too powerful magic, it will hurt you and your ability to cast magic in the future.
During the Age of Arcanum, this condition was researched extensively, but no cure or prevention method, has been found. By now, most scholars agree that there is neither a cure nor a way to prevent this damage in any way. You can only mitigate the damage by training and caution.
This led the Everlasting Empire of the Dragon to develop one of their most severe punishements for spell casters. The exact details about their technique, has been lost to time, but they found a way to intentionally cause severe Essence Scarring in people. This way they could take away the magical powers of an individual, to make sure they would never cast any magic ever again. For them this fate was worse than just being thrown into prison or executed.

Work in Progress

This article is still heavily WIP and can change at any moment

External Copyright

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Type

Magical

Cycle

Chronic, Acquired

Cure

Currently there is no cure known

Afflicted People

Most Spellcasters have some minor Essense Scarring, but only the most reckless ones suffer it's worst effects