Magic Exposure Hyper-Aging
Magic Exposure Hyper-Aging is a condition that can affect Elves that practice magic with frequency for many centuries. It causes Elves, normally ageless, to age rapidly (and, in some cases, grow beards). This process is quite painful and disturbing, known to distress victims to the point of total mental breakdown once symptoms start. Practitioners of magic are warned of this disease, but most continue in spite of it. Despite it inflicting age upon Elves, this is a non-lethal condition that will not cause a victim to pass for any of the same reasons that other races would, instead they simply continue aging until they cannot do anything anymore and must be cared for, during which time if they are lucky enough to receive treatment, they will eventually revert back to their younger state.
Transmission & Vectors
The condition is spread by the magical blowback of destroyed, defeated, or countered spells, which releases particles of magic that build up over the course of lifetimes.
Causes
The disease can only be acquired by multiple centuries of magic use, usually daily. Exposure to magic takes longer to inflict the condition by a significant degree, to the point where it has only been noted to happen once.
Symptoms
Aging. That's it.
Treatment
The only known treatment for Magic Exposure Hyper-Aging is to stop casting and isolate from magic for long enough for the built up magic particles to dissipate, a process that can take a hundred years or more.
Cultural Reception
Elves more than anything else fear visible aging. It terrifies them on an instinctual level in the same way humans are affected by the uncanny valley. Elvish mages suffering from this condition are shunned entirely, occasionally banished, and before the founding of the Order of the Eye they were frequently put to death.
Type
Magical
Parent
Origin
Magical
Cycle
Chronic, Acquired
Rarity
Rare
Affected Species
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