What the curse does

[lostpsalm]

tl;dr:
▪︎ magical pollutants throughout body, present in active and inactive states.
▪︎ hair and nails grow out black. his hair's naturally gray. think this is something add might be able to tell? the curse isn't changing the amount of melanin. can't change it with dye.
▪︎ when inactive the pollutants lack all physical presence, but are detectable by any supernatural means.
▪︎ the pollutants get irritated and slowly turn active by calling on his magic powers. it's worse when he's using his hairpin as a focus for his power.... aka what he always does.
▪︎ this doesn't do stuff Right Away, it builds momentum first, peaks, then fades off. You know, like the structure of a story.
▪︎ the peak of an episode is heralded by arrythmia.
▪︎ active state causes pain, and will seem to 'attack' parts of his body seemingly at random -- this isn't it spreading, it's what's already there coming back into physical existence. this will do all kinds of random shit.
▪︎ an ink-like black ichor (in the greek, rather than medical sense-- this is 'Immortal Being' ooze) is slowly produced in one place or another in his body all the time, but hastened when curse is active. the ichor has to be expressed to get rid of it, and LOOKS like swollen bruising, from the outside. it smells like ink and somewhat blood. higher ichor production is associated with anemia, dizziness, fatigue. it seems to be forming, somehow, from his blood, but will sometimes fill up his stomach or sinuses.



Even though what Rennuid's suffering is a curse, there's a lot about it that's essentially a medical condition. In his 'canon' setting, it's incurable by mortal means, and evolves new symptoms as it progresses, ultimately getting very...uh..leprose...y. he's not at that point yet for the sake of my icons.

BUT in roleplay I think it's funner if there's something that can be ultimately done about it, with tinkering and effort. Kinda like Elsword, Rennuid's not in range of the thing reinforcing what's wrong with him anymore. It can run out of steam if it's fought, because it's more of a "active grudge being held against him to death" than a set-it-and-forget-it situation. 

What you never wanna wear in the doctor's office.... interesting. 

So there is! Actual physical... build up? Residue? in rennuid's body from the Eldritch Monster he used to be entangled with. I think of it kinda like heavy metal poisoning,  but like... in a way that it only starts messing with you if something happens to wake it up for a while.. it's something that COULD be completely harmless to him, but sometimes CHOOSES not to be.

...Have you heard that myth where LSD stays in your spine and can kick in again if it takes a bad enough whack? Imagine that, but in addition to your spine it's if you use magic too much, or had a dream that was too vivid about your evil monster ex, and instead of having a sudden trip it feels like you got Actual acid spilled on the inside of your skin and your heart's pounding like a motherfucker and if you tried to use a spell, it'd be like you slammed on the gas from 0.

My man's got magic forever chemicals. Allegory's influence is responsible for a whole lot of things going on with him-- most mundanely it's the reason his hair is black, it gives him his powers, pings as a Weird Vibe inside him, makes animals hate him...

Something like chelation or some kind of cleansing bullshit could help remove the residue, though this is over 70 years of metaphysical build up we're dealing with. 

Okay so breakdown on symptoms

☆ - body hurty. the more liberal rennuid is with the use of his powers, the more he pays for it, later. I would say what's notable about this is there isn't any single way he always feels this pain. It's narrative pain. It's literally whatever most poignant at the time, because he got cursed by a literal sentient word meaning "reason something happened."

It occurs generally the next day, or after the adrenaline wears off in dramatic cases.

☆ - even tho the pain can always vary, it isn't from nowhere. There's always something literally wrong producing it, whether a sudden deficiency or somthing more dramatic like, that burning means you actually have a burn forming on your skin even tho literally nothing could have done that.

He's got one of those frustrating whack a mole conditions where just when you think youve got it figured out, it finds a new domino it can push down. This is part of the reason rennuid's resigned to the idea there's nothing to be done about it-- he's very exhausted wtih treating symptoms as they arise, he gets good at it, and then they stop and it's some other part of him going wrong now.

☆ - arrhythmia, usually preceeding or when something brief and sharp is happening; burn appearing from nowhere, shooting pain in an organ.

☆ - unstable powers linked to how severe his other symptoms are presenting.

☆ - bouts of dizziness and fatigue.

☆ - large patches of "bruising" on body, that are actually pools of black ichor that will not go away unless expressed. These can get pretty big, and sometimes are located in deeper tissue. This is the same exact Freaky Goo that was the monster's blood, and that its body always dripped with. It smells strongly like ink, and a little like iron, maybe(?) from Rennuid's blood getting in it when you have to cut him open to get it out. So....... it smells like ants.

If you dilute it, you can actually use it as ink. Neat!

☆ - sometimes the ichor will run out of his eyes or he'll cough it up like he's got the consumption you know how it is

☆ - anemia associated with when he's got a big one of those ichor pools in him. Is it.. his blood turning into that...? It might be his blood turning into that.

☆ - some loss of appetite. this usually happens before he starts coughing stuff up, so...its....in his stomach when that happens, probably...

☆ - hair color changed to black. Also his nails.