#askaffliction

[loominggaia]

Can mermaids pass as normal humans with makeup and hair die?

I think covering those scales with makeup would be difficult, but not totally impossible. Maybe with enough of that putty stuff movie crews use for special effects, they could pull it off.

They would also have to wear contacts, because the mermaid's curse turns their eyes a very specific, unnatural shade of blue, and the whites of their eyes get a slight blue tint to them as well.

As for their hair, dyes actually can't adhere to it because of its water-repellent properties. While normal human hair absorbs and holds on to water for a long time, mermaid hair only briefly absorbs it, then quickly repels it as soon as its squeezed. This is how mermaids are able to quickly transform back into their terrestrial forms when they leave the water, by just squeezing their hair to dry it.

If they want to color their hair, they have to do so with magic potions or spells. They can also put on a wig for a quick disguise.

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[loominggaia]

Can a mermaid become a lycanthrope?

Yep! It's possible for mermaids to also contract lycanthropy, and when they do, they have a unique beast form that looks crocodile-like.

I don't have art of this currently but it's something I've had on the list for a long time. It will be added to the main lycanthropy article. I don't have names for these aquatic beast forms or a final design yet, just some very rough concepts so far.

Aquatic werewolves are particularly dangerous because water does not slow them down at all--in fact, they swim even faster than they run! This is not the case for terrestrial werewolves, who aren't very graceful swimmers.

Like other Aquarian creatures, aquatic werewolves dehydrate quickly. They tend to seek bodies of water as soon as they transform, hiding in creeks, ponds, even sewers and swimming pools to ambush their prey.

Aquarian peoples are mostly safe from terrestrial werewolves in the water, but aquatic werewolves remain a serious threat.

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[loominggaia]

Fey can contract vampirism, commoners can contract lycanthropy. Is there an equivalent horrible supernatural disease for gaians?

There is, and it's the jackass curse! Those afflicted with it are called "skinwalkers".

This curse can behave differently depending on the mage who casted it. In some cases, gaians are cursed to turn into animals at random. In other cases, it's specific triggers that cause them to transform, like saying certain words or performing certain actions. Typically they will turn into an animal for a few minutes or hours at a time before changing back. They may or may not retain their humanoid intelligence as an animal, this also depends on the mage who cursed them.

Unlike vampires and lycanthropes, skinwalkers can't pass on their curse to other people. This affliction can only be contracted directly from a mage's spell.

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[loominggaia]

are there diffrent vampire strains

Good question! Lycanthropy has slightly different strains that have evolved over time, but vampirism is different. Because vampirism is purely a magic-based curse, it does not evolve like viral or bacterial curses. The strain of vampirism that vampires have today is the exact same one that they all had thousands of years ago.

The curse itself doesn't change, but it does produce different types of vampires depending on the victim's species. For example, vampiric limniads are very different from vampiric elves, almost like they are different species. Not just in appearance, but in the way they function as well. Vampiric elves burn in sunlight and gain strength in darkness, but vampiric limniads are the opposite.

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[loominggaia]

If someone is turned into a vampire by a cecaelia do they have to eat their brains to turn back?

That's a really good question, I never even thought about that...I'm going to say yes, in the case of vampiric cecaelia, the victim must eat the brain to be cured.

I'm making this decision because cecaelia have two hearts, they only need one to survive, and they can regenerate their whole bodies, so the cure would be too exploitable otherwise.

Ultimately the cure for vampirism requires that the "parent" vampire (the one who turned their victim) dies. The only way to destroy a cecaelia is to destroy their brains, so it makes sense to me. Thanks for the question, this really made me think!

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[loominggaia]

How does mermaidism work? Are human girls the only ones affected or is all girls regardless of species?

Prepubescent human girls seem to be the only ones affected by the undine's cursed song, though on very rare occasions, a human boy will be affected too.

The reason isn't known, but Athenaeum researchers suspect that the undine are singing at a very specific frequency that just so happens to affect human girls in this way.

As people get older, the range of frequencies they can hear diminishes, and girls are known to have slightly more sensitive hearing than boys. Also, humans have their own unique sense of hearing that is not as keen as an elf's, but not as dull as a gorgon's, for example. They hear the song at just the right frequency to hypnotize them.

It's worth noting that deaf children are completely unaffected by the undine's song, which supports the Athenaeum's theory. But ultimately the song is a magical effect, and it's the very nature of magic to defy logic, so reports are inconsistent.

Studying any kind of magical phenomena makes researchers want to tear their hair out for this reason...

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[loominggaia]

Can vampires drink blood from kids?

Short answer: yes, but it's not ideal.

Long answer: Kids can't become vampires because they are not strong enough to survive the early stages of the disease, so if a vampire bites a fae child, it's basically a death sentence for that kid.

But when vampires don't want to turn their victims, they just harvest their blood via an incision and bottle it. However, a vampire can't get very much blood from a child without draining them to death, so using them as "bloodbags/cattle" is considered a waste of time.

Sometimes in a desperate situation, the children of heavyweight species are considered (ogres, minotaurs, centaurs, etc.) but they are not convenient because they will only grow bigger and stronger with time. Vampires prefer to keep weaker victims that they can easily overpower, like humans and other fae.

Overall, children just aren't very worthwhile victims for vampires. But that's not to say vampires never prey on them, because they still do from time to time. Kids are much easier to kidnap than adults, so a desperate vampire is more likely snatch one for a quick feed.

A full drink will kill the average child, so when vampires snatch kids, they do it knowing they will have a body to deal with afterwards, and that just makes things more complicated. Dead children get a very strong reaction from the public, and this paints a bigger target on that vampire's back, so it's still not an ideal way to feed. Vampires prefer to draw as little attention to themselves as possible.

I imagine hunting children is a "last resort" situation. Easy prey in a pinch, but too high risk for too little reward.

This subject actually comes up in the story "Eat Your Heart Out". A vampire named Dario ends up with an infant after kidnapping its mother to feed on her. Dario is so disinterested in the baby, viewing it as such a waste of his time, that he doesn't even feed from it. Instead, he sees more value in feeding it to his pigs, which he uses for meat to feed the "bloodbags" in his dungeon. I think this is how most vampires regard mortal children.

There are also more righteous vampires, like Zeffer, who resist their bloodlust and refuse to hunt children out of principle. Sadly vampires like him are far and few between...Vampiric bloodlust slowly corrodes any virtues they had as mortals and claims most of them eventually.

(Hence while vampires are considered "evil" by default. Nobody contracts vampirism thinking "Oh boy, I can't wait to murder children!" but...given enough time, most of them find themselves doing just that. Because they're desperate for blood and it's an easy solution, at least in the moment.)

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