The Blight

Illustration by Christian Quinot

**The Blight** is a highly virulent disease caused by a hivemind of parasites, created during *Novea* by Mother Night. She was killed before she had the chance to unleash the disease on the world, leaving it contained for many years.

## Stages

### Stage I: Necrosis

Minor necrosis across the body begins to occur within days, or in severe cases hours or minutes, after infection. This continues over the lifespan of the Blighted individual, and can be used as a visual indicator of the infected.

### Stage II: Calm Infection

When the disease is again ready to spread from its new host, the infected will feel an intense desire to be around life as much and as closely as possible. This allows the disease to quickly spread with minimal damage to its new hosts.

### Stage III: Violent Infection

As the disease progresses, the infected's mental capacities begin to be overtaken, and they will appear insane. The disease has become less virulent by this stage, so the Blighted begins to grow violent as a way to spread the disease more easily.

### Stage IV: Death

Eventually, the necrosis and toll of the parasite results in the death of the host. The parasite is still able to thrive on the corpse for several days, spreading to anything that interacts with it.

## Spread

### 59 PM: Akasha Discovers the Blight

Prior to the events of *Relidon*, Akasha Akari and her team became the first creatures to make contact with the Blight in nearly 400 years. Akasha ordered that the disease be studied to see if it could be weaponized. As time went on, Akasha began showing symptoms of the disease, and began making efforts to discover a cure for it instead. After two years of limited success, Akasha once again contained the disease and fled Novea to try to prevent it from spreading to the plane.

### 85 PM: The Fall of Vaask

In 85 PM, the NEWAR virus infected the robotic defenders of the city of Vaask, causing them to attack the city and its citizens. In the chaos, the containment set up by Akasha twenty years ago were breached, and the Blight was unleashed upon the plane. Between the panic already being caused and the amplified growth of all things on Novea, the Blight spread like wildfire. In a matter of weeks, nearly everything still surviving in the city's walls was infected with the Blight.

### 91 PM: Shadows of Vaask

After many years of spreading across Novea, the Blight was running out of suitable hosts. The city was filled with the Blighted, and it had spread a ways into the forest, infecting the wildlife nearby. What few creatures still clung to life were largely out of reach of the disease, hiding deep in the forest or the wastes of the plane. Thanks to the research of Eos Akari, it seemed that a cure for the Blight may even be possible.

Eos assembled a team to infiltrate the heart of Vaask and attempt to destroy the Blight, but during their attack Xaro Tarax returned to Novea and quickly became infected by the Blight. Seeing a new way to spread, the Blight consumed the planeswalker and fled.

### 92 PM: Ophorio

The Blight's new host knew of a plane of reflection, where the Blight's efforts to spread may be immediately doubled. The Blight planeswalked to Ophorio, and attempted to spread across the plane's jungle. It would find it initially harder to spread on Ophorio, losing the increased growth from being on Novea, and having a much lower population density. Instead, the Blightmind relied on the powers of its host, manipulating emotions to offer promises of power to the elves and lizards. Soon, they would willingly become infected with the Blight, creating an army of Blighted.

On Oirohpo, the Blight would not find itself reflected, but rather Xaro. The angel likewise used his emotional influence to bring up an army of his own. When the two mirrored planes merged, Xaro's reflection attempted to fight against the Blighted original, but the host fled to Tirvana, the biggest plane known to him, before taking major damage, returning the reflection to its forgotten state.

## Infected Planeswalkers

* Akasha Akari
* Xaro Tarax

## Planes Visited

* Novea
* Edarin
* Itsk
* Ophorio
* Tirvana