Crimson Crying is a rare neurological condition caused by prolonged exposure to a Mythek Vortex. It attacks the nervous system of the afflicted. Its clearest signs are a shift in eye color to vivid crimson and tears that stain the skin.
The symptoms vary. They include sudden, intense episodes of anxiety and dread and a fever-like illness. The fever can be treated, but the psychological symptoms are far harder to address, and the fear episodes often drive erratic or outright violent behavior.
Two further signs are consistent enough to be diagnostic. The first is a heavy, unlifting fatigue that ordinary rest does not touch and that persists for as long as the disease holds. The second is a specific and characteristic paranoia: sufferers become convinced, in episodes, that they are turning into something monstrous and that the people closest to them intend them harm. The conviction is strong enough to override judgment while it lasts, and afflicted individuals have been known to refuse aid, food, or medicine from companions on the strength of it.
Sufferers who do not recover on their own eventually undergo a monstrous transformation, a profound change in their very being.
Causes
Crimson Crying comes from extended contact with the particles and light a Mythek Vortex gives off. The vortex releases microscopic particles, invisible to the naked eye, that the body takes in by breathing or through the skin over long exposure. Its light also carries an unusual spectrum. Scholars believe the particles and the strange light together disrupt the nervous system, and that this disruption is what produces the condition. The exact mechanism is still under study.
Treatment
Treatment options are limited. The spell lesser restoration eases the fever and flu-like symptoms and steels the sufferer against the disease’s progress, though it is no cure. The deeper psychological symptoms remain beyond it.
One cure exists. It was invented and refined by Nana Tulla, a druid of the Sapphire Weald, and it is the only preparation known to halt the disease outright rather than merely ease it. Its value is sharply limited by timing. The dose must be administered after contraction and before the end of the patient’s next long rest; past that point the window closes, the dose is wasted, and the disease runs its course unchecked. Since the earliest symptoms are easily mistaken for ordinary exhaustion or fright, a great many sufferers pass the window before anyone recognizes what they have.
The preparation is also difficult to make. Tulla can complete no more than two doses in six hours of work, which makes the remedy impractical against an outbreak of any size. A written recipe exists, so the cure is reproducible in principle rather than a personal secret, but it remains little known outside the Weald, and healers and scholars elsewhere continue to search for treatments of their own.
Prognosis
Outcomes vary. Some afflicted throw off the disease; the crimson leaves their eyes, and only faint stains remain on their cheeks, like dried red tears, fading after a few months. Others lose the struggle, and the condition ends in a monstrous transformation that, once it takes hold, is irreversible. Which way a sufferer turns is decided over the course of the illness.
Prevention
The only reliable prevention known is to limit exposure to a Mythek Vortex, the established source of the disease. Avoiding its light and wind lowers the risk, though the vortices are unpredictable and hard to avoid. Across Rolara, sages and scholars continue to study the vortex and the condition through arcane research, experiments, and the compilation of case histories, hoping to find better prevention or, one day, a cure.
History
Crimson Crying was first observed in the town of Three Falls, at the summit of Mount Origin. Mount Origin is widely regarded as the source of all magic, in both literal and metaphysical senses, and it is where Aetherite crystals form, believed to be raw magic made physical. It is also where Mythek Vortices appear most often. The frequency of vortices near Three Falls is thought to explain why the disease first emerged there, and it points to a direct link between the vortices and the condition.
Details
Type: Neurological Origin: Magical Cycle: Chronic, Acquired Rarity: Rare