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Comic Books
Sometimes there's someone following you. Sometimes you're all alone. Sometimes the world screams loudly, and others just whimpers and moans. But your burning pain is a constant thing, fierce and enduring... like your cold desire to share it with anyone you meet.
— Hellblazer: The Horrorist
"Other mistakes: assuming that Malak, walking from Iran to India, would move at a human pace. Or that he would do human things on the way. Everyone saw the hole he made in Tehran. The hole he made by presumably disassociating atomic bonds in proximate space. Or, as one wag in the office put it, killing things by looking at them. It appeared that he could extend that field of destruction around them. And that it tailed behind him, somewhat like the tail of a comet is imagined to do."
— Reddin, Supergod
Music
I can't even keep a cactus alive when I'm present
When I'm gone, it's a groundbreaking botanical epic
From desolate to Little Shop of Horrors in a second,
It's weird knowing life thrives more when you exit!
When I'm gone, it's a groundbreaking botanical epic
From desolate to Little Shop of Horrors in a second,
It's weird knowing life thrives more when you exit!
— Aesop Rock, "Tuesday"
Tabletop Games
In the wake of the Avatar Storm, the number of Marauders in the world has decreased dramatically. Still, one will occasionally find herself drawn to the energy and power of Las Vegas and end up wreaking havoc for a few days before she can be contained or temporarily stabilized. Case in point: word has it that the opening of the Luxor resort in 1993 coincided with the arrival of a seemingly ordinary tourist. All he did was walk through the atrium, play a few games and leave. But afterwards, the Luxor suffered from a massive number of problems, from busted pipes that caused 20-story waterfalls inside the atrium, to a broken monorail, to guest rooms filled with nothing but lamps or televisions or chairs. Just his presence was enough to disrupt the flow of reality — imagine if he'd actually performed any sort of magical effect!
— Mage: The Ascension — Fallen Tower
If a mage flirts too much with disaster, disaster may decide to follow him home and take up residence. In the case of too many trips to the Underworld, the mage may find that some of his life force gets left on the other side of the Gauntlet, and to make up for it, his body pulls the life force from nearby sources. In the presence of one with the Spark of Death, plants wither and insects die. Although the mage can be in the presence of others without harming them, others will feel a subtle but uncomfortable chill when in the presence of one with the Spark of Death; any person the mage is in close physical contact with for more than half an hour suffers one level of bashing damage as the mage's body drains the other of life force. Those already injured cannot heal in the presence of a mage with the Spark of Death. Anyone sharing a bed with the mage will start to show signs of sickness until the person leave the mage's presence long enough to recover. If the mage does not feed this hunger by being close to some living thing for at least an hour a day, then the mage himself begins to sicken and die.
— Mage: The Dark Ages — Core Rulebook (revised)
Whatever the case, a place frequented long enough by the followers of Baal tend to accumulate certain signatures: elaborate carvings appear on and around abandoned caverns and rock faces; snippets of conversation in alien and ancient tongues are overheard by passers-by; hideous deformities are seen in livestock, and stillbirths soar in the region; milk goes sour overnight, and bread refuses to rise. The longer the Baali remain, the more pestilential the signs of their presence become.
— Vampire: The Masquerade — Clanbook: Baali
You exude the spiritual blight of death. Insects die if they fly too near you, while most small plants shrivel and die within a foot of your presence. Even trees take on blight in the places you touch. Larger animals, including humans, suffer one level of lethal damage for every hour they spend in close proximity to you. Such damage has no outward sign, manifesting as inexplicable weakness. This nepenthe also sets mortals and even vampires ill at ease. Unlike the Flaw Touch of Frost, you really do leave a swath of desiccated grass and leaves as you pass.
— Description for the Hand of Hades flaw, Vampire: The Masquerade — Player's Guide to the High Clans
As repugnant as Slugtongue is at first-hand, the signs of his passing are just as disturbing. With a single whispered phrase, he can unleash the power of blight upon the land and those that defend it. Ravenous living hurricanes of skull-headed locusts whip and tear across the crop-fields, reducing them to shocking ruin in seconds. Rivers of virgin meltwater turn to bile at the sound of his gurgling, phlegm-choked laughter. With a single word, the skies fill with writhing clouds of transparent maggot-things that rain down into freshwater lakes like a living hail. Storehouses full of golden corn and sheaves of barley are opened to reveal nothing more than rotting black sludge, and barrels of fine ale yield nothing more than a thick gruel of infected spittle. Each of these vile transformations is pleasing to Slugtongue, for he knows that those on the brink of starvation are soon driven to acts of foolhardiness.
Where Valnir walks, plague and pestilence follow. Wells and fountains dry up, and rivers and streams turn foul. Animals become rabid and men sicken and die. Many times has Valnir won a battle before it has stared, his fanatic Marauders cutting swathes through an army of stricken and diseased men, weakened by the onslaught of the Breath of Nurgle.
— Warhammer: Champions of Chaos Army Book (5th edition)
Little by little, Ariel was able to glean the nature of the creature she sought. No Wood Elf had yet seen the beast and lived to speak of the encounter, but the works it left behind were testament to its unspeakable ways. Where the creature walked, the fabric of the world twisted in hateful transformation: trees writhed into terrible and unnatural shapes, blacked crops bled under the scythe, and flesh reformed like clay in the hands of some crazed sculptor. Where it passed, sanity became drooling madness, and measured nobility became wanton abandon. By these works did Ariel finally put a name to the foe: Cyanathair, she called it, the Corruptor, incarnation of disorder and chaos. To his own vile kin, he was known as Morghur, Master of Skulls.
— Warhammer: Wood Elves Army Book (8th edition)
Video Games
The Exile: [about Darth Nihilus and his technique] And he used it to destroy a planet?
Kreia: Yes, and he fed upon its destruction. And it will sustain him, for a time.
The Exile: I don't understand why he hasn't conquered the galaxy with that power.
Kreia: Because it is not something that can be controlled... and it leaves nothing to conquer in its wake. And it rules him, not the other way around. It has its own will, its own instincts.
The Exile: How can anyone have that kind of power?
Kreia: Power? Do you think so? You would be wrong. There is no strength in the hunger he possesses... and the will behind his power is a primal thing. And it devours him as he devours others — his mere presence kills all around him, slowly, feeding him. He is already dead: it is simply a question of how many he kills before he falls.
Kreia: Yes, and he fed upon its destruction. And it will sustain him, for a time.
The Exile: I don't understand why he hasn't conquered the galaxy with that power.
Kreia: Because it is not something that can be controlled... and it leaves nothing to conquer in its wake. And it rules him, not the other way around. It has its own will, its own instincts.
The Exile: How can anyone have that kind of power?
Kreia: Power? Do you think so? You would be wrong. There is no strength in the hunger he possesses... and the will behind his power is a primal thing. And it devours him as he devours others — his mere presence kills all around him, slowly, feeding him. He is already dead: it is simply a question of how many he kills before he falls.
It drains the life-force from vegetation, causing nearby forests to instantly wither and fields to turn barren.
— Pokémon Violet. Pokédex entry for Wo-chien
Web Original
Following the arrival of SCP-1440 to Area 142, personnel began complaining about severe headaches and nausea. In the next two days, three of the four on-site water purification filters broke down, Area-142's hangar collapsed, causing the deaths of multiple airmen and Dr. ███ — previously in perfect physical condition — suffered a complete collapse of both kidneys and both lungs simultaneously.
