#voidrot

Voidrot, as we interpret it in Sovereignstuck, is an autoimmune disorder of the central nervous system (that is, the brain and spinal cord). In fact, “voidrot” as it was known on Alternia was just an archaic term for about any psionic autoimmune disorder, but these days it colloquially refers to just one group. 

The average psionic has a brain with much stronger electric pulses than is usually needed for brain stuff. Enough so to shoot scary lasers out of their eyes or make things float. Of course, usually their central nervous system is built to handle it, and they can direct the electricity without frying their own brain (unless they overexert themselves severely).

In a troll with voidrot, this is no longer the case. They lose the ability to retain and direct that electric pulse over time and their psionic pathways can wind up frying themselves.

Without treatment, this can lead to blindness (as the psionic pathways largely end at the eyes, just look at Folykl for example) and eventual death as the troll can't even retain enough energy to live, a death sentence on Alternia where treatment is not an option, and those with the disorder are likely to be culled.

Technically speaking, on Earth C, "voidrot" (which is only really called that when psionics have it) only really affects psionics in this exact way, and the root autoimmune condition itself isn't exclusive to those with psionic abilities. 

On Earth C meanwhile, there is treatment available for it, and with that symptoms usually at least don’t include literally having your eyes turn to ash in their sockets. It'll still be a problem and threat to your health, but there are resources available for it now. The symptoms are vast and vary, since damage to the central nervous system can have... almost any neurological effect. 

Things like sparking and electrical bouts, psionic dysfunction, weight loss (as psionics already have a metabolism from hell, and the replacement of lost energy takes a lot), a lot of fatigue. Vision problems are still very likely, as well as heat sensitivity that can actually make symptoms worse (enough so that there are vests lined with ice packs to combat this), muscle problems (spasms, tingling, stiffness, numbness, even limbs just straight up refusing to work for a while), bowel or bladder dysfunction, cognitive impairment and unstable mood, all sorts of pain, when I say “almost any neurological effect” the list of possible symptoms is much longer than I can put here. 

In Tejuri’s case, symptoms vary day-to-day and relapse-to-relapse but the one of the things that causes her personally the most grief is that she used to have finer control over her psionic abilities, and now that’s no longer the case. That is to say, she can still fire lasers with enough effort but she can’t pick up or move objects telekinetically anymore, which was actually the main (and typically only) use the ability had to her.