TheConsumption

The Consumption is the counterpart to the Contagion, in the canonical setting. It is the nemisis of civilization, the unmaker of learning. Many mortals would tell you the Consumption has always been; Perhaps it has, but savants tend to speculate that it found origin in the early days of the System just after the Terraformers vanished.

Over the 12,000 years that the System has been inhabited, some 22 empires have risen and fallen into dust. Of these, 18 found destruction within the Consumption, a horrifying disease that causes those afflicted to waste away in agony. The consumption is a lingering illness, so one might expect to survive for several years after contracting it. Those afflicted are struck sterile almost immediately, and blind shortly thereafter. Other senses are affected over the course of the disease, causing even the finest food to taste as bile and the most lyrical music to sound like a cacophany. Many afflicted by the Consumption kill themselves, unable to endure the agony of life.

The Consumption travels through unknown vectors. Nobody is quite sure how it spreads from world to world. A cure has never been devised. In the modern era, the Consumption is thought to be relegated to Arbos. While few would be so bold as to declare the disease defeated, modern authorities are skeptical that the disease could escape the Verdant World.