Souleater Fleas

Souleater Fleas

Concept by Tavaer

The souleater is a tiny external parasite resembling a flea that primarily feeds on sentient beings. While they are somewhat nourished by blood, they only thrive when feeding off of the very humanity of its host, draining it away through a poorly-understood ability. It is believed they were created by a spiteful wizard in retaliation against a town that killed her familiar, and spread from there. In ordinary animals, a souleater infestation has no symptoms beyond the itching and irritation typical to fleas. In humans and other sentient beings, however, they cause a frightful transformation.

1-5 days	No symptoms beyond itching.
6-10 days	The host begins displaying traits of a furry mammal, such as fangs, ears, and tail. The traits are typically those of a wolf, but any furry mammal is possible.
11-15 days	The host continues transforming, becoming an anthropomorphic animal.
16-20 days	The host's personality begins to change, and their inhibitions lessen, and they become detached from societal behaviors like manners.
21-25 days	The previous changes become irreversible. During this stage, the host becomes increasingly bestial, until they're unmistakable from a common animal. Speech is lost.
26-30 days	The host's humanity fades entirely, and they adopt the typical behaviors and mentality of their new form.
31+ days	The previous changes become irreversible.

The stages are longer in heartier individuals, and shorter in frail ones. The transformation can be halted through a special bathing regiment involving specific herbs and a trace of powdered silver. Continuing this treatment for a week will kill the infestation, and the transformation will reverse at the same rate it progressed. The infestation can also be cured by burning *all* hair away from the host with fire, but this is both harmful to the host, and unreliable. Standard antiparasitic baths will slow the transformation's progress by half, as will intense cold. Antiparasitic magic can halt the transformation temporarily, but will not kill the infestation unless the magic's source is incredibly potent.

A lesser, species has been engineered by unscrupulous wizards as a cruel prank. These "domestic" souleaters will never cause symptoms beyond the 20 day mark, and can be killed by standard anti-flea baths or magic.