The Affliction

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No one can say where the touched came from, they have existed as long as man, bridging the gap between our world and the beyond, sharing common features between them as well as individual traits. All of them toe a line between human and something else, bound by the same set of weakness's that expose them for what they truly are and diminish their abilities causing them great pain. Copper seems to burn their skin, ginger makes them sick and frankincense can render them unconscious if too much is inhaled burning their lungs like fire, these things that exist so commonly among society can out a touched if they are not careful.

Many chose to live amongst society living alongside humanity whilst others still hide in the shadows, fearing being caught. Almost all of them chose secrecy, hiding their condition where possible to ensure their safety and the safety of others. Though some among them cannot so easily hide what they are, having to stick to the shadows, to places others simply wouldn't go, their features betray what they are.

Most of the Dark touched are born that way, but there are a few who become dark touched later, Elites can make Ravages sharing their darkness through the ingestion of blood. Hideborn can create Moonsick through their bite and Mystics can pass on their gifts from parent to child.

These creatures can live an unnaturally long life, they do not become stronger over time, nature seems to maintain some form of balance even over these dark touched souls. However many never make it to an impressive age, dying through their own fault, discovery or the misfortunes of the loneliness a longer life can create.



The Sickness ────────────────────────────────────────────────
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It started on the continent, stories of people getting sick, men and women and children all, healthy and weak. This new epidemic didn't seem to have a preference, it spread in ways that defied logic, neither in the water source, nor from the fleas, or the air itself. But people became sick, pockets of them going slowly mad as something putrefied within them, withering their insides, consuming them slowly in torturous agony until they were too weak to drink, to move, to take another breath.

Then the sickness came to London, not on some plague infected ship, it did not start in some port town, but in a rural village, its appearance was inexplicable but the results were the same, over months people slowly died, no treatment seemed to cure them, as their skin became waxy and pale, their body sapped of all strength it was almost as if something was consuming them, something unseen.

Now it gathers, the sickness circling one location that seems to have remained completely immune to its touch, the Demi-Monde, a society in a more affluent part of London known for the strange people that come from its doors day and night.