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World of the Black Woods

Weather

Air

The air of the Black Woods is mildly toxic, although this does not generally lead to ill effects in the short term for the native creatures who become acclimated to it. When becoming acclimated to it, common symptoms that tend to occur are coughing, fatigue, muscle weakness, decreased color perception, nausea, and vomiting (which turns progressively black over time). The air is believed to be the cause of unexplained deaths that may occur over the timespan of years. Higher concentrations of the toxic substance in this air occupy higher altitudes as well as pockets of stagnant air in places like some caves.

Tarfall

Tarfall is an oily black rain that falls and creates black stains on surfaces it contacts. It is toxic when ingested, but presents little more than a fire hazard if it is ignited. Tarfall stains will tend to remain until it is thoroughly cleaned or ignited. High concentrations of tarfall, which can accumulate over time on surfaces that have not been periodically cleaned, has a powerful, hallucinogenic effect on most creatures, and has been known to lead to a decreased state of consciousness.

Slimefall

Slimefall is caused by the spores of a moss-like microbe that accumulates in the upper levels of the atmosphere. When high concentrations of these spores make contact with moisture in the atmosphere, they fall as a hazardous slime-like substance. This viscous slime seeps its way through soft clay and dirt over time, where it grows into an edible moss once it has finally settled. This slime is hazardous to organic substances--it "eats away" at flesh and other soft materials. Special structures are required to limit the rate of slime seepage after slimefalls, to limit the hazard to those resting inside buildings.

Wisp Fog

Wisp fog is a purple-colored fog that is usually present in the upper levels of the atmosphere, but occasionally settles near the ground. Sentient creatures within it will tend to suffer hallucinations of increasing severity in addition to obscuring their vision. The most common hallucinations are "wisp"-like lights that flutter about the field of vision. Only those who are mentally unhinged are likely to suffer a breakdown leading to insanity upon prolonged exposure to wisp fog. For most creatures, wisp fog leads them to a state of being mentally unstable very gradually, but is otherwise less harmful than the other weather phenomena of the Black Woods in the short term.

Traps and Hazards

Haunted Houses

Human-like structures of unknown origin are present throughout the Black Woods, especially in uninhabited places where they had never been found before. Within these structures, furniture will move in a hazardous way that is lethal to living things inside the structure, such as "devouring" creatures alive. The native creatures of the Black Woods know not to approach these structures due to their danger. On the other hand, these structures are relatively safe to inhabit during the short light-season of the Black Woods, since light renders the ghostly furniture "inert". Some have taken to calling these houses "mimics".

Diseases

Darkblight

Darkblight is a lethal affliction that spreads among magic users, which are common in the Black Woods. Early signs and symptoms include dizziness, vertigo, and lack of coordination, which greatly affects the ability to use magic. In later stages of the disease, the skin on the head turns white or black and all hair falls off of it. Infected individuals usually die comatose. It is believed to spread in an asymptomatic form among non-magic users such as wagomorphs.

Fuzzy Fungal Disease

An organism called "fuzzy fungus", due to the fuzzy cottonball-like appearance of its spore packages, starts its life developing in the body of a large host. Once a suitably large host, the size of a small mammal or larger, makes contact with a spore package, spores are released that infect the skin. These spores slowly spread to the rest of the body, where they accumulate in the stomach and intestines, making it impossible to eat and resulting in a bloated appearance. By the time the gut internally bursts and the organism dies, white mushrooms will appear on the host's skin and emerge from their orifices. Eventually the skin over the gut will violently explode, resulting in the release of cotton-like spore packages which are extremely virulent while they remain suspended in the air. A single infection can spread to an entire remote settlement if spore packages are carried by the wind. Early symptoms of infection include coughing, abdominal pain, lack of appetite, and bruises that become more frequent over time. Later stages of infection are characterized by internal hemorrhaging, bloating, mushrooms growing on the body, low blood pressure, wheezing, and paralysis.

Wiltlimb

Wiltlimb is the toxic effect produced by a tick native to the Black Woods. The tick preferentially burrows into the skin of a limb such as an arm, leg, or tail. While it feeds on the tissue inside the limb, the toxins released in its saliva cause progressive numbness and paralysis, which culminates in the complete loss of the ability to use the limb. It is believed that the toxin degrades the structure of the nervous system, resulting in its destruction. Since many creatures of the Black Woods tend to have multiple limbs, this disease is often less crippling than it is to humans, but it can still reduce their ability to use magic.

Walking Hand Disease

Another tick native to the Black Woods carries a symbiotic microbe causing disease in humanoids, called "walking hand disease". When it burrows into the torso of a suitable host, the microbes result in the slow development of a hand-shaped limb from the burrowing site, which slowly begins to envelop around the tick's burrowing site. This limb begins to form its own cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, and nervous systems, taking blood and nutrients from the rest of the body to provide the building blocks for these structures. New blood vessels make it progressively harder to pump the same volume of blood through the altered body, resulting in low blood pressure. Once this "limb" is fully formed over the timespan of a few weeks, it "detaches" from the host body, resulting in blood loss for the host. This "walking hand", with the tick situated at the site of where the arm was formerly attached, begins seeking out other walking hands, where the ticks mate. Eggs are laid inside the detached limb, which provides enough nutrients for the development of new ticks. Walking hand disease is only life-threatening if two or more infections are present on the body, because not only will the body not be able to pump blood to all the new limbs, but it will also lose a lot more blood once they detach. Disembodied arms and hands, and those with numerous infections, are avoided by the denizens of the Black Woods, since they tend to be covered in the small ticks.

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White Pipistrelly Plague

A long time ago, a disease called the "white pipistrelly plague" started spreading among the formerly ubiquitous pipistrellies of the caves, turning large numbers of them into rabid zombie-like creatures. Believed by lagomorph sages to be Ikamekomi's curse on the pipistrelly race, the pestilence resulted in ecological catastrophe to their caves, as pest creatures preyed upon by pipistrellies became numerous. Pipistrellies affected by this disease lose their personalities and ability to speak, and become overwhelmed by a sense of hunger towards larger, especially sentient, creatures like lagomorphs and driderias. Their fur and flesh become discolored, turning white and pink, respectively.

Wesnoth sprites for pipistrellies affected by White Pipistrelly Plague. The plague can result in even more monstrous, horrific deformities.
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Elona sprite of a former human female, transformed into a black bee. Wings, a bee abdomen with a stinger, antennae, an extra pair of arms, and black woolly mane around the neck are features common to members of most races transformed into black bees.
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Ordinary younger sister (imouto), and a younger sister transformed into a black bee
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Black Bee Blight

The Black Bee Blight is a disease caused by a commensal organism residing inside the stingers of the black bee race. Black bees have a strong desire to spread this disease among other humanoids. Once a suitable host is infected, they begin suffering symptoms such as fatigue, muscle weakness, drowsiness, delirium, and loss of coordination. Through mechanisms, possibly magical or divine, that are poorly understood, their body slowly transforms into the body of a black bee, and the commensal organism that is the agent of the infection begins accumulating where the stinger will form. Some will not survive this infection, dying in a comatose state. Those that recover are considered to be full-fledged black bees, feeling stronger than ever before and ready to begin spreading the infection themselves. While being stung is the most common way to become infected, "black honey" produced by black bees may also contain a large enough amount of the disease to cause infection. Black honey, which is considered a delicacy throughout the Black Woods, is illegally trafficked across drideria and sleipnirian society. There exist little-known methods of purifying this black honey to reduce the risk of infection.

Neirisylvian race (frogiroggi) transformed into a black bee
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The "Hollowmice" have no organs and are composed completely by furred, reanimated flesh, animated by magic
Hollomus Plague

The hollomice spread a disease of a magical nature through their bites. The site of the bite wound will tend to grow discolored grey fur, and sometimes a hollomouse head that will require amputation, since this head will be the site of a new infection. Infection only spreads rapidly on dead hosts, whose flesh is reshaped into the form of a new hollomouse, rapidly growing fur and ravenous hollomus heads thoughout. On living hosts, this process is very slow and painful, and there is a few weeks before a single hollomus head on the host grows a second somewhere on the body, resulting in terminal infection. The general "form" of the host is preserved in the shape or stature of the newly formed hollomouse. Bipedal hollomice are formed from bipedal hosts, while quadrupedal hollomice are formed from quadrupeds.

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Fusionitis

Fusionitis, also known as "symbionitis" or "chimeritis", is a contagious disease affecting most animals but causing symptoms only in those in constant physical contact. The disease results in gradual fusion of two disparate living creatures into one entity, with one victim being the "submissive" partner and one being the "dominant" partner. In the terminal stages of the disease, the submissive partner is entirely assimilated as part of the dominant partner's body, and no longer has independent neurological function. Fusionitis is the reason why no creature rides mounts in the Black Woods.

Stick figure illustration of the disease process
Frog Tongue/Long Tongue Disease

Frog tongue disease is caused by an edible, parasitic algae in lakeside environments. This chronic disease results in the constant lengthening and increasing musculature of the tongue. There are no limits to the size that the tongue can grow, although a sufficiently long tongue is a maladaptive hindrance to most animals that makes speaking and swallowing food much harder. The "disease" is less harmful in frogiroggis, where it may instead confer adaptive benefits due to their more flexible, elastic tongues. Treatment is based on management of the tongue length by cutting it off when it grows too long, but amputation is painful and often put off until it is necessary. There is no commonly-known cure for this disease, and while amputating the entire tongue removes the disease, it also makes it impossible to speak, harder to chew, and harder to swallow due to the important role the tongue serves in the mouth.

Other Information about the Black Woods

Corpses

Unlike the human world, where corpses are disposed of in graves or by fire to reduce the threat of infection to human society, corpses are always left alone and avoided in the Black Woods. Wild creatures know not to approach them, and sentient creatures fear them. This is because the corpse often becomes a vessel for a disease, organism, or other hazard that manifests in the Black Woods. Depending on the disposition of the society, as well as the cause of death of a creature, a corpse is either quickly thrown into the nearest wilderness never to be approached again, or the corpse is left where it was found, sometimes resulting in the abandonment of the local area. For this reason, those that are terminally ill are expected to, or are forced into, exile. By dying away from loved ones and society at large, one reduces the risk to them and allow them to be "let go of" more easily. Even if someone dies of relatively natural causes not related to the risk of living in the Black Woods, there exists a fungus that infects all living macroscopic organisms that begins growing rapidly on the corpse of its dead host. This edible fungus is not dangerous on its own, but has a powerful odor that attracts predatory scavengers from miles away. Most creatures would do well not to attract these predators if it can be helped.

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