Thirst-Madness

Overview

Thirst-Madness, which the plane's own account also calls the Hunger, is the madness of the Parched. The plane takes water from everything, and a traveller who stays thinks of nothing else: where it is, who carries it, how much is left. At the end they will open a companion's vein to drink. Few who reach that point come home, but many come home from the stage before it, and they do not stop being thirsty in the mind.

Cause

The Parched is the absence of water and food, and a body there dries from the inside out, consuming itself within days without constant drink. The mind follows the body: thirst narrows thought until it is the only thought. The Veil at the Parched dries memory as well, so that what a traveller knew of home and companions turns brittle and crumbles, leaving only the want.

Who It Strikes

Anyone who goes through a Dry Gate: abandoned wells that open downwards into the plane, and desert oases that are thin places. Peoples of the water fail first. Thaluren, whose skin cracks in dry air within a day, and Kavari reach the madness soonest. Orcs, who bear short water, hold out longest, and Goblins, who bear long hunger, go further than most. The Wrought, who do not drink, are spared.

Signs and Course

Thirst comes first, then cracked lips, a swollen tongue, headache, and dark, scant water. The madness begins as watching: a traveller counts every flask and every swallow, hides water, accuses others of drinking more. Next come visions of water, which on the Parched may be its mirages, and a refusal to share. At the last the sufferer attacks for water and then for blood.

Brought home, the body recovers in days if it is watered carefully. The mind takes much longer. For months survivors wake in the night to check the jug, drink until they vomit, keep water hidden in their rooms, and grow frantic at a dry well or an empty cup. Some never again let a waterskin out of reach. Those who drank blood on the plane carry that too.

Contagion

Nobody catches it, but one traveller's madness frightens the rest into guarding their water, which hastens it in them.

Treatment and Its Limits

Water, slowly. A traveller brought out dry is given sips, not a bucket, with a pinch of salt and thin broth, kept in shade, and watched through the first nights, since a body dried that far can fail as it is filled. Afterwards the cure is plenty that can be seen: a full jar by the bed that nobody empties, meals at set hours, and kin who do not hide water or ration it in front of the sufferer. Draw Thirst gathers moisture to ease dehydration where there is damp to draw, and fails in true desert heat; on the plane itself, water magic draws every predator near. Nothing but time eases the fear.

Mortality

On the plane it often kills, by thirst within days or at a companion's hands, and Bleed-Beetles finish many who fall. Most survivors who are brought home and watered slowly live. They keep cracked skin, sometimes weak kidneys and back pain, a hoarding habit, and, if they drew blood, a guilt that does not leave.

Lore and Belief

Desert folk say the Parched has a thirst of its own and passes it into anyone who drinks there. They seal water from such places away, and will not drink after a returner from the same cup. Some believe a madman's first full drink at home must be well water, never rain, or the madness comes back with the sky. Travellers' lore swears by sealed, enchanted flasks that resist the dry, and they do help.

Delvers who cross to the Parched for its minerals tell of the companion who turned on the band with a knife for their water on the last night, and the rule since is that every delver carries their own and no one else's.

In the Medieval Era

Thirst-Madness is rare, since few go through a Dry Gate willingly, and most cases are miners after the plane's rare salts and crystals, hunters of its beasts, and the unlucky who climb down an old well. Desert and well-country healers know the slow watering from ordinary thirst on desert roads, and treat a returner's body the same way. The mind is left to family.

Where It Appears

• The Parched (the Hunger, Dehydration, the Veil's brittle memory)
• Dust-Eaters
• Surging Magic: Draw Thirst
• the Writers' Guide chapter The Planes