Mana Antagonist

Mana antagonists are a class of drugs that are utilized as part of ethereal disease management. Mana antagonists work by reducing the amount of available mana in a person, through various means.
Mana antagonists are utilized primarily against diseases that manifest themselves in excess mana expression, or that actively turn a user's mana against themselves. Mana antagonists, alongside mundane medicines and treatments to handle physiological signs and symptoms, have become ingrained as a part of standard medicine and are part of a variety of treatment regimens to treat diseases previously thought untreatable/incurable through medicine.

Usage

Mana antagonists are usually delivered intravenously, as the rate of which the active agent is absorbed by the body can be closely monitored and readily adjusted, which is not often available for other routes of administration.

Classes

Mana antagonists work in a variety of ways, and are classified on the method of action that they utilize to achieve the end result. The following are known classes of mana antagonists:

Category	Mechanism of Action
Porosity Attenuators	Porosity attenuators strength the boundary of the ether and the soul, making it difficult for the ether to leach in and be converted into mana.
Conversion Blockers	Conversion blockers block the soul's ability to convert local ether into mana, reducing the rate of uptake.
Conduit Weakeners	Conduit weakeners increase the porosity of a user's mana conduits, resulting in higher mana loss.
Reserve Drainers	Reserve drainers reduce the amount of mana that a user can retain within their soul.
Focal Diffusers	Focal diffusers reduce the efficiency and potency of a user's Third Eye, resulting in mana inefficiencies and ethereal expression impotency.

Known Side Effects

Mana antagonists are not benign, and carry the risk of significant side effects from regular usage. The therapeutic window for most mana antagonists is small, which necessitates close monitoring to manage side effects to an acceptable level.
Known toxic effects of mana antagonist usage include the following:

• Nausea and vomiting
• Dizziness
• Tremors
• Numbness
• Personality shifts
• Ethereal degradation
• "Third Eye" blindness

Rare but significant adverse effects include:

• Blindness
• Seizures
• Hallucinations
• Permanent personality alterations
• Nerve damage
• Hypoetheria (drug-induced)
• Permanent ethereal degradation
• Permanent ethereal loss (fatal in some species)
• Paralysis
• Coma
• Death

Access & Availability

Mana antagonists are a prescription-only drug, due to the consequences of misuse. Because of the strict dosing regimen to manage potentially fatal side-effects, mana antagonists are usually only made available to in-patients of a hospital, where the dosage and effects can be closely monitored and adjusted as needed.
Certain mana antagonists can be converted into a powdered form and readily made as a crude but devastating weapon, and thus mana antagonists are closely monitored, throughout the production, shipping, and final delivery process.

Discovery

Mana antagonists were discovered in 1873, in conjunction with the Order of St. Asha, the Mithambian Medical Society, the Mithambian Arcana Society, and the Inara Special Projects Commission.
The first mana antagonist, fyziken, was originally formulated as a first-line treatment against etherpox, as the northern communities of Mithambe were experiencing a significant epidemic of the dangerous disease in that year. When studied in clinical trials on volunteers in the first stage, it was noted that volunteers who has previously registered ethereal characteristics were observed performing at a worse level than what was previously recorded, and without other explainable cause.
Researchers debated on stopping the research of fyziken because of what they viewed as serious adverse effects, until a member of the Inaran Special Projects Commission reminded the others that etherpox is primarily a disease of mana over-expression - a disease that such a device, now termed a "porosity attenuator", could actively fight. It was decided to move forward with the testing, with stringent guards in place to ensure that patients who would receive the experimental therapy would understand that the drug carried a risk of ethereal degradation and loss.
Fyziken proved itself an effective, if temporarily debilitating, treatment against the dreaded etherpox, which brought relief and elation to the medical community. Continued research into drugs that could provide the same effects as fyziken continued, and the new line of "mana antagonists" became a worthwhile study at the Arcana Society and the apothecariums across Louthia.