Blooming Grove Sickness

Blooming Grove Sickness is a primarily Gaoler subspecies. It was established by the user Alfamangle July 17, 2019. The original thread currently stands at 5 pages.

## Lore

*The lifecycle of a Myosotis Fox, and by extension, the symbiotic relationship with the Myosotis. Normal foxes wander into the Blooming Grove, they inhale the seeds from the flowers, have their pelt change colors as the flowers start growing on their pelts to spread the seeds further. These foxes tend to stay in the Blooming Grove as the flowers provide a secondary food source.*

*Recently, the spores have been latching onto dragons, specifically gaolers. It is unknown why exactly it made the jump, but it is speculated after dragons have slaughtered the foxes in numbers, it jumped to dragons as a form of self-defense, and specifically gaolers as they had no natural way of fending off the seeds.*

*After inhaling the seeds, a dragon's fur will start to turn green and get strange patterns as flowers start to grow on them, withing two to three weeks, the flowers mature and start releasing seeds to infect others. It is not inherently lethal, but those who believe different may spell the end.*

*Infected tend to stay in small communities with other infected to halt the infection.*

### Progression of the Sickness

*It begins with a seed latching onto a dragon’s fur, feathers, or scales. There, like a burr, it will cling and start to take root. To keep the seed from falling off the fur, and not completing its life cycle, it roots itself into the dragon’s skin.*

*After a few days, the base of the dragon’s fur/feathers/scales will start to turn green. Over the course of a month, the dragon's body will become green. By this time, leaves should have sprouted around the original seed.*

*About one month and two weeks in, the original pattern will start being replaced by rosettes, or any of the other patterns. There should be a bloom near the original seed at this point, the leaves should have spread further out.*

*Three months in and almost all of their original pattern has been replaced, and the flower has bloomed, other blooms may have appeared over the dragon at this point. They, at this point, are now infectious.*

### The Rotting

*They know, they hide, they know the damage they can inflict, they’ve most likely seen it happen to their families, their clan. It could be their fault, they could’ve been the victim of their own kind, not knowing that they could do.*

*He knows, and the dark cave is where he stays, afraid of himself and what he’s seen. He coughs, this time it was blood. His feathers have been falling out for weeks now. He tried again to scrape all the fungus off of him, it doesn’t work, it never works, it hurts, he can’t continue. He lays down on the dirty ground, resigned to his fate. His ribcage was showing, he hadn’t eaten for weeks. He shouldn’t have visited Vikko. He would’ve been outside, out playing in the glowing forest he called home. There is no reason to dwell on the past, he knows this. He closes his eyes.*

*He opens his eyes, he can’t see, he felt around where his eyes used to be, he feels goop. He coughs again, going into a hacking fit. He’s too weak to get up, he closes his eyes again.*

*In a cave lies a skeleton, holes dotting the bones, withering fungus clinging to the last few remaining bits of marrow. Long since dried blood covers the cave floor. The air is dusty, cold, and makes you want to cough.*

### The White Rot

*The white rot fungus, the name referencing the original animal the fungus made the jump from, latches onto anything it can take hold of on a dragon. Much like the burrs of the Blooming sickness, its mycelium roots taking hold, and starts taking the nutrients from a dragon.*

*First it starts with hunger, and coughing. Then the falling off of feathers, fur and scales, mushrooms growing all over spreading their spores. Then weakness from starvation, and consuming of muscle and skin. After which it targets organs, leading to the victim’s death.*

*Once a Rotting has died, it begins to consume the corpse and eat the bone marrow. It releases its last spores, eats all of its food resources, and dies of nutrient starvation.*

### The Wilting's Tale

*It’s been so long. He doesn’t have long left. They’ve had so many funerals, they can’t keep up and have stopped digging graves. In front of him lies the body of the second to last of his clan. He weakly pushes the body into the pile. He doesn’t have long, he lies down in the pile. He Shouldn’t have let that dragon in, they knew he was suffering. They thought they could let him in. Dacot sighed, it was his fault, he was the one to say it was a good idea.*

*After a bit, their flowers fell off, they thought this dragon was a blessing, they didn’t notice the mushrooms, he wished he had. Then their fur darkened as the stranger dropped dead. Then they started to rot and drop dead. There was nothing he could’ve done.*

*Dacot cries, he cries for what he has lost, and for what he has done. As the moons starts to descend into the earth, the last of them are gone.*

## Variants

### The Unfortunate

*Those who were infected by others, not as infectious, they will rarely be seen in clans. They, instead of having the normal pink flowers, have blue flowers. Some do have pink flowers, but never have Jaguar and Rosette. They like to hang out in isolated clans, like the first before them. They are the most common type.*

### **The Lessened**

*If modern breeds have prolonged exposure to one of The First, or the Blooming Grove itself, they could turn into one of The Lessened. Leaves start to grow on their hides with blossoms intertwined.*

### **The Rotting**

*A dragon rotting from the outside in. They have a bunch of white fungi growing on them due to the spores from the living barks of wood's parasitic fungus latching onto dragon's skin and eating them. They have their fur, feathers, and or scales falling out. The Rotting tend to be shoved out of even clans of those affected by the Sickness as it could spread to them and wipe them all out. The Rotting tend to stay together in caves and places where nobody can get to them and slowly rot away.*

### **The Wilting**

*The worst of both, Wilted are those affected by the sickness that had the White Rot onset upon them. It tends to spread in naive blooming clans that let in a Rotting. Their Blooms fall off first, then start to rot away.*

### Blooming Crows

*Whether it be conquest or living, Effuvials are not immune to seeds getting caught on their feathers. And thus leaves sprout, buds bloom, and seeds get caught on their claws. For those who wish to live in nature, some believe this is a blessing by the Gladekeeper herself welcoming the plague to rid her land of the competition. They do as they normally do, attack, infect, war. But for the fortunate, or unfortunate few, who survive a Blooming Effuvial’s attacks it does not stop there. The seeds stuck on their claws bloom in their bloodstream, causing strokes and leading to death. After many generations of crows living in the grove and the surrounding area this has led to unique behaviors. Blooming crows tend to live in a tight knit group, believing living in large, loosely banded communities leads only to destruction of the flock. They use stealth and camouflage to hunt down their prey. Bloooming crows do not usually don themselves with gold or most jewlry, as it would give their position away if it were to make a noise, thus only the leader of the group tends to wear gold. They tend to look down upon their effuvial brethren as weak and as filthy vermin.*

## Scries

The FirstThe UnfortunateThe LessenedThe RottingThe WiltingBlooming Crow