Ok I don't know what made me think of this, but last night I started picturing like...the concept of sickness arising from being too close to or even just viewing some kind of eldritch being. Not traditional "eldritch madness" but more like. eldritch exposure disease, if that makes sense. Delirium and disorientation, hallucinations, nausea, fevers, unbearable weakness, emotional trauma from the experience and either straight amnesia about the event or inability to verbally recount it without completely shutting down or having a panic attack. Imagining a fantasy or sci-fi world where these entities are a known presence, and almost everyone knows somebody who's succumbed to this sickness occasionally. Villagers bringing a shaking, semiconscious traveller into their neighbour's home with a grim we've got another one. A city where the things are a rare sight, but can lurk in dark, remote places when you're least expecting it; someone encountering one in a dark alley and blacking out, awakening hours or days later shaking on the cold ground, feeling like they've been hit by a truck and unable to remember what was real and what they hallucinated.
Idk I just think that would be neat.
