Headcanon: Gembond Strains
Alright, so we all know that Gembond is at once a gene and a disease.
I’ve always had it in my head that the reason this is relatively acceptable is that gembond comes in many strains, from devastating to relatively harmless.
The one I mentioned in my last mini lorepost for Annalise, Bubonic Gembond, was simply an idea for one of the worst versions.
This form of Gembond tends to cluster around lymph nodes, erupting into large and painful buboes after an incubation period within the lymphatic system.
This strain has come to have many nicknames: glitterweep, brittlewarts, and glasspus being some notable ones. What the nicknames allude to is the nature of the “gems” themselves.
Aside from the titular buboes, Bubonic Gembond is most notable for the brittleness of the “gems”. Any movement or tug of the dragon’s skin can make one shatter, leaking out pus and causing extreme pain for the poor afflicted being.
Unfortunately, this also makes this strain especially easy to pass on to others, as if any dragons attempting to soothe or treat the afflicted manage to get it in their eyes, mouth, nostrils, etc, they are highly likely to contract the illness as well.
Bubonic Gembond was, for a very long time, notable for its high mortality rate. Clans who had a member that contracted the disease were exiled en masse to prevent an epidemic from breaking out, with every other member assumed to be infected as well.
A vaccine has recently been released that prevents the worst of the disease from taking hold in most patients, and thus drastically increased survival rate.
Dragons who have recovered from Bubonic Gembond tend to have lasting scars; their hides rarely ever heal fully.
It’s uncommon, though not unheard of, for dragons who survived the disease to develop large, opalized scars over previous affected areas.
