Phantom Whisper
"The patient will suffer from auditory and visual hallucinations and will have difficulty determining reality from fiction. Most alarmingly is the reported consistency of the hallucinations, leading many to believe there is more to the whispers than the musings of the age-addled mind."~On Magical Diseases
Transmission & Vectors
The disease appears to be non-communicable and seems to strike randomly as no demographic outside of age can be used to reliably predict probability of affliction.
Causes
Many believe that the disease is simply the result of the soul remaining in the mortal body for longer than it was intended to. This disease almost exclusively impacts humans , who, on average, live notably longer than they did in the past whereas elves now live far shorter lives. The disease is almost exclusive to those over the age of 70 though patients as young as 50 have been reported.
Symptoms
Those afflicted with the disease will experience acute auditory and visual hallucinations, known as whispers and phantoms respectively. The patient will start to lose the ability to distinguish the phantoms from real people and will slowly lose their ability to function in society as a result. Most sufferers of the disease only survive for a few years after displaying symptoms but this is more due to the fact that only the elderly are effected than any effect of the disease itself.
Cultural Reception
Most societies treat those woth the disease as simply crazy old men and women, either locking them in assylyms or keeping them with extended family members. Xinu and Ma mystics are thought by many outsiders to be afflicted with the disease but studies have not been done to prove one way or another.
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