Sterility

Sterility

Sterility is the opposite of Fertility.

Sources

Sources of Sterility are often places devoid of life: barren islands, salt flats, frozen mountain peaks, even the vast and otherwise empty depths of space.

Sterility is both a source and natural consequence of corruption. One of the prime examples of this is how tea can be rendered extrasterile by oversteeping, a process that is to some a corruption as it is to others a consecration.

Effects

Places affected by sterility tend to be barren and abandoned, and are often unable to sustain life. In extreme cases, preternatural phenomena such as dark mists and vapours may manifest seemingly out of nowhere, accompanied by patches of black and grey lichen and moss, which, though not alive, yet grow. This is usually accompanied by a characteristic smell of tea.

Stepping foot in such a place usually spells doom for whatever poor soul has had the misfortune of stumbling upon it. If that person happens to be extrafertile, their fertility may cancel with the surrounding sterility, often resulting in a violent explosion and, sometimes, the cleansing of the place.

Other places have been known to suck out fertility and sterility alike from those who enter them, paradoxically more rapidly the more extrafertile or extrasterile the person in question is; however, certain individuals seem to have devised a means of circumventing this effect, some with more success than others: Pliny the Elder is said to have survived by the skin of his teeth a venture into the catacombs below Mount Vesuvius, while Nuck Chorris braced the terrible depths of Grigory’s Abyme unscathed.

Uses

Users of sterility seem to be able to tap into the fundamental forces governing the universe: Sterility Techniques often entail compressing or expanding space, with some even making use of the strong interaction.

Prominent users of sterility techniques include Nuck Chorris, King Arthur, and Tim McLeod.

Interactions

Sterility interacts with Fertility as described here.

Sterility is negated when coming into contact with Virility, with seemingly no effect beyong the two simply ceasing to be.

Ferility does not interact with Anility at all.