Fever Pelt

Fever Pelt is a contractible illness that causes a visible or invisible pattern on the pelt to harden its skin until it cracks away in a loud and painful manner, revealing an unnatural underhide called a Hex. The skin is said to tighten and shrink, pulling away from the surrounding skin and becoming so stiff that it cracks away when moved. The Hex underneath can be any type of color, material, lumency, or have another feature to it. Most often it's simply a material already on the body, such as bare skin or bone, but can also be leather, metal, crystal, rock, etc. Often Faults feature bright or luminous colors and feel quite raw when exposed to air. After recovering, this new hide slowly heals identical to the surrounding hide until they are indistinguishable, unless the Fever Pelt is itself a pelt marking. Wielders will often create patterns on the targets hide rather than randomly peeling it away, though it's still a terrible pain. Those who suffer from this attack will recover, however, on each subsequent Eclipse Night the pattern will reveal itself once more.

## Fever Pelt, Contracting

If a Dyre with this ability attacks you on Eclipse Night, they may attack using Fever Pelt. Your OC will be sick with it for the rest of the night. If they have 5 VP after the event, Fever Pelt becomes permanent (until removed) and will always activate on Eclipse Nights. If you have more VP, you can upgrade the Effects of the illness (E1-5).

#### **Effects**

* **E1.** Hex are a fur pattern when not activated. (5)
* **E2.** Hex are a material besides skin. (12)
* **E3**. Any offspring of this illness have a 50% chance of having pelt markings in exact or very similar pattern to their parent's Hex. (25)
* **E4.** Any offspring with Fever Pelt have a 50% of it having a Hex. E3 Required. (25)
* **E5.** Upon a trigger occuring Fever Pelt can Hex outside of Eclipse Nights. (25)
* E6. Any offspring with Fever Pelt have a 30% chance of having the Fever Pelt Subelement. E4 Required. (25)

==

Fever Pelt, Illness ==
As the name suggests, Fever pelt makes you feel as if you have a fever. Tiredness, lethargy, haziness, odd dreams, and insomnia are common. This can generally be combated by being up in a high place and staying off the ground, though the symptoms come and go and generally aren't debilitating. However, sometimes Fever Pelt is responsible for a period of days or weeks where the affected succumbs to a kind of hibernation before recovering again.

On Eclipse Nights, those with the illness are unable to sleep and can become quite restless and discomforted.

## Fever Pelt, Cure

This is similar to or the same as an ancient illness that is recorded in Grimyte history and in other creatures in the same time period. The cure for this illness is told to be inducing a deep sleep for several moons. Because of this, it was uncommon for the illness to be cured unless it was life-threatening, as the notion of bi-moon Eclipses and long nights wasn't present at the time.

## Design

Hexes can have any pattern on the body. The complexity of the design depends on the extent of the attack.

**Corrupted OCs:** If the pelt has an unnatural color it must be a color available to you.

**Non-Corrupted OCs**: If the Hex is an unnatural color it may be any color unless you have some other magic color type such as a custom rune color, a glyph, etc.

Hexes appear "beneath" the skin as it peels away to reveal it. The skin hardens and reveals the Hex, which feels raw as it's exposed. Keep this in mind when designing complex shapes.

Hexes can glow and dim during flare-ups.

If you have a material like metal, keep in mind it won't make great armor and is painful to touch. The Hex material will be raw skin unless you use E2 to pick another material.

Hexes are invisible when the pelt covers them, but as the pelt hardens and shrinks it can take on the hex pattern. Select E1 if you want the hex patter to be visible on the pelt when not activated.

## Flares & Triggers

Fever Pelt's hex is revealed on every Eclipse, but it also has an external trigger. This is up to you, but must be viable. Usually an emotion or something like use of an element/being attacked can be a trigger. If a hex is already activated, any further triggers can cause it to "flare up". This is usually seen as glow or brightness, but can also encompass the hex over-peeling itself, bleeding, becoming painful. Some are even said to screech or appear to melt. You can incorporate flare up effects with features of your element as well, such as becoming hot or smoking.

## Fever Pelt, Subelement

This subelement is simple to use. Make a !100 roll and follow the chart below. Automatics make it so you don't have to roll depending on how injured the target already is, but that doesn't mean they can't fight you or prevent you from giving them a Hex. Only use Automatics if the player has already worked out PURCHASING this illness with you. Otherwise you need to roll. You cannot Hex a single target more than once unless it's a scratch hex.

* 0-20 Scratch Hex
* 21-30 Palm-sized Hex (Pretty Roughed Up Automatic)
* 31-80 Thin-line Hex Pattern (Badly Beaten Automatic)
* 81-90 Thick-line Hex Pattern (Deep Wounds Automatic)
* 91-100 Large Area Pattern (Major Injuries Automatic)

A scratch Hex is just a scratch or bite dealt by yourself. Palm-sized is about the area of a hip. Thin lines mean the Hex doesn't cut through much skin. Thick line means large patches of skin are Hexed. Large area just means the Hex is laid over a large area of the body, such as down the back or along the flank. Limbs only count as a large area of more than 30% of the limb is peeled.

If you are attacking a character who already has a Hex, use the roll outcomes to determine what category their Hex would be considered (ask Heck if unsure). That will be the category you need to roll for in order to attack their Hex. You can attack it by re-Hexing the area. This won't change its appearance, but will make it hurt an awful lot. Alternatively you can force a flare-up. You can also still use scratch Hexes and roll for them, but these are temporary unless the player purchases them.