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Chapter 8: SORCERY S MIND
ful magic hone in on an intended target, the wizard can
also forsake other attachments and thereby narrow the
field. Sorcery rarely checks that love is reciprocated before unleashing its hateful energies.
The ramifications of these manipulations are never directly fatal, but often so terrible the wizard wishes they were so.
Misfortunes
Once settled on its targets, vengeful magic alters fate
to rain misfortunes upon them. Whether aware of sorcery’s spiteful eye from beyond Khitus or not, victims
must deal with some hardship visited upon them.
The misfortunes are listed from most to least common.
Bear in mind that these maladies affect the target, and
do not depend upon the offending wizard’s proximity or
regular association as a trigger at the start of said hard
luck, unless the target for misfortune is specifically the
wizard in question).
Direct/Personal Misfortunes
These misfortunes affect a wizard and/or her closest
connections & associates.
Fall: Stairs become treacherous in the darkness. Worn
paths become more slippery in rain or in haste. A fall
scrapes skin, gashes elbows or knees, and rips clothes.
From any height, a victim falls to the ground, life suddenly extinguished and limbs and neck bent more severely than normal for such a fall.
Animal Attack: Feral predatory beasts wander the
world, protecting territory with fang and claw. Lizards
and snakes protect themselves or their young when
stumbled across. Tamed beasts of burden become unruly and break loose, trampling the unwary or worse.
Even loving pets can turn feral, driven to savagery in a
single terrible instant.
Venture Failure: A long-planned, successful enterprise
collapses suddenly. Business opportunities dry up, key parties lose interest, or objectives shift and become somehow
less important than when the venture began. The emotional energy put into the quest is spent without result,
leaving only depression and profound disappointment.
Amnesia: Recollection eludes the victim. Simple matters slip the mind, such as the locations of key objects
or people’s names and ranks. Loved ones and acquaintances seem like strangers. Apparently alone and in a
strange place, the victim may appear mad and may try
to escape back to more familiar places, but, of course,
such a place may no longer actually exist.
Sickness: Common illness grows more intense or prolonged. Wheezing coughs become raspier, sneezes increase in amount and force, and chills and aches never end.
A person so reduced falls into complacency, as do caregivers, when symptoms never abate, regardless of treatment.
Personal and professional matters suffer inattention, as the
victim slowly becomes a bed-ridden invalid.
Spurned: Without warning, one’s truest love loses interest. Where there were once warm, reciprocated feelings, there remains only cold disdain. Familiarity has
bred contempt. Emotionally abandoned, the victim experiences depression, self-doubt, and rage—the gamut
of suitable reactions to a love spurned. Prior to acceptance, the victim uses all means to repair the relationship gone wrong.
Drunkenness: The temptations of liquor or other intoxicants become too much to resist. Indulgence leaves
a victim concerned only with further inebriation. Fortunes are spent and lost, responsibilities shunned, and
personal relationships strained or abandoned. With suffering come lies and theft, or any actions that will keep a
victim immersed in a sea of drunken abandon.
Sleepwalking: The peace of night becomes a deadly
odyssey of unconscious wanderings. One emerges from
the bedchamber to seek random places or even dark,
mysterious, or dangerous location, such as graveyards,
desert wastes, or wicked forests. No earthly cure can stop
these midnight meanderings that are certain to one
night lead to injury or death.
Accidental Poisoning: Unknown allergies arise,
blotching the skin or constricting the throat. A combination of spices or foul meat could incite sudden sickness or even death. A wicked brew meant for someone
else finds its way into the wrong goblet.
Infertility: A young woman’s life-giving womb grows
dark and barren. Attempts to bring a child or heir into
the world go inexplicably for naught. A living babe succumbs tragically to unseen forces and withers. A magicinduced stillbirth dashes anxious expectations.
Disfigurement: Innocuous wounds leave permanent, horrid marks upon the body. Simple cuts turn to
wicked scars that stretch the flesh in inhumane ways. A
maiden’s face blotches with sores or becomes strangely
misshapen, damaging its beauty. Unnatural warts and
growths appear on the flesh. Bones twist against one
another beneath the skin, damaging the shape above.
Withered Limbs: A favorite of vile sorcery, a limb
grows twisted and useless. Fingers twist and knuckles
swell grotesquely in arthritic agony. Fingernails blacken
and fall off leaving weeping sores. A leg shrivels to lame
inadequacy, its muscles weak, the knee buckled or left
hopelessly rigid. An arm contorts into a knotted limb
that can no longer reach beyond the body.
Coma: The victim becomes a living corpse, alive but
absent from the world. Any sickness leading up to this
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