LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY flickofthewrist)

I did not want to reveal the future plot for the Blanket Plague (so that everyone could get a nice surprise) but myself and Carol have decided against the initial thought. It is obvious that there are a lot of characters that were/ will be affected by the Blanket Plague, in general, so all of you deserve to know where this "plot device" is going. Although I would like to stress that my revealing this information will become player knowledge and not character knowledge.

As you may already know, Elliot is head of the B.P. case and is currently searching for the cause of the plague. Ironically enough, he himself is the cause of it. He and Emelie both, I should say.

The twins, Elliot and Emelie, were both born as fixities... fixity scions that is. Elliot, as a fixity, put his anti-magic abilities to good use by becoming a law enforcement official. In order to have any control over a mage abusing their magic, you obviously need to have someone that has the ability to counteract that magic. Unfortunately (and unknowingly) when Elliot casts an anti-magic spell against a mage it works just like any other anti-magic spell cast by a fixity... but with a devestating side-effect. The scion part of Elliot's anti-magic will then afterwords act as a virus (why it is referred to as a plague) slowly killing the mage's magic that it was used against. For example, if Elliot uses anti-magic to counteract a fire spell that mage's ability to produce fire spells will slowly deteriorate.

Even more unfortunate is that often Elliot's anti-magic is used even without him knowing. For example, let's say that someone within close proximity of Elliot is using a spell of some sort that might not be legal/ work correctly/ will produce an undesireable effect(s)/ etc. his anti-magic will counteract it and the mage will then experience the B.P. effects.

Also, a mage affected by the B.P. can unknowingly pass it on to other mages (thus why it is said to occur in pockets). For example, let's say the mage from before (the one effected by the B.P. on his fire spells) is within relative, close proximity to someone that is trying to conjure up a fire spell. The B.P., as said acts like a virus, will spread to that person and they in turn will then suffer the B.P. effects and can therefore then pass it on to someone else and them to someone else etc. Although, just as a side-note, if the B.P. has already claimed a magic ability entirely the B.P. will NOT spread to any other mage(s).

So, why do some mage's lose all of their magical abilities? Let me first just say that mage's losing all of their magical abilities is very, very rare. There are two ways for a mage to lose all of their magical abilities. First: Elliot, either willingly or unwillingly, simply casts anti-magic causing the mage to not be able to produce magic at all. To briefly explain why most of the mages that lose all of their magical abilities are criminals is because when Elliot tried to stop them from abusing their magic he had to cast numerous and stronger anti-magic spells against them and even had to resort to casting anti-magic spells on them preventing them to cast any magic at all (which is difficult to do, thus why he doesn't just do it in the first place). Second: The mage has caught so many forms of the B.P. that the plague has claimed all of their magic one at a time (i.e. because of the plague being able to spread from mage to mage). Both reasons, therefore, explain the rhyme and reason as to why different mages have had different (and thought to be random) reactions to the Blanket Plague.

So, where does Emelie fit into the big picture? Emelie is the one and only cure for the Blanket Plague. Emelie's scion magic, when within close proximity to an affected mage, will cause the decline of whatever magical ability effected to reverse or retreat. Although, it is important to know that she cannot reverse it if the the B.P. has claimed the magical ability(ies) completely (i.e. for her "cure" to work the mage still has to have some of that magic ability left).

Lastly: YES, ONLY MAGES ARE EFFECTED BY THE BLANKET PLAGUE. And just as a side-note if your character is half-mage the B.P. will only effect that person's mage abilities. For example, if your character is a mage/werewolf the B.P. will have no effect on the werewolf part of the character.

And just as a reminder, both Elliot and Emelie [currently] don't know that they cause/ un-cause the Blanket Plague which is why this information needs to remain strictly player knowledge only. Also, just for the sake of stating it: No, your mage cannot catch the B.P. by just touching Elliot (that is an AIDS joke waiting to happen).

*EDIT: The Blanket Plague does in fact effect other fixities. Though this is very, very rare and there has probably been very few cases (if any at all) which is due to the fact that there isn't many fixities in general.

Also, the offspring of two who have lost all magical abilities due to the Blanket Plague will have NO magic abilities. This is obviously because of magic being inherited. This has not been brought to the attention of the public yet because there has yet to be a child of two people that have lost their magic due to the B.P. Although it will be played upon very, very soon.

Please feel free to reply with any questions/ suggestions/ future plot ideas generated by this post to this post.