The disease is known by many names, some of which are Melting Sphirix Syndrome, Soul Core Corruption, Soul Melting, Skeleton Sphirix Syndrome and many others. It is unknown what it is caused by. Some suggested that it isn’t even a disease to begin with, but a symptom of the divided gene that occurs sometimes, like any other type of corruption the Divided grifix face.

✦ It only affects Divided Grifix.

✦ It is chronic (so it can not be healed), but it doesn’t kill the host. However, depending on how quickly it advances, some grifix may live to the point where their entire soul is corrupted by it and they become soulless bodies. That rarely happens though, because it usually takes longer than a grifix gets to live.

✦ It is a genetic disease and it can be passed on from parents to offspring.

✦ It causes the sphirix’s skin, meat and organs to “melt” until there is only the skeleton left. As grifix can feel pain when their sphirix is injured, this will cause a lot of phantom pain for the grifix. It can sometimes be agonizing, but rarely. In very advanced stages of the disease, the bones will melt as well and eventually the sphirix will be completely gone.

✦ It causes magic to spill or bleed through the eyes, nose and mouth of the grifix.

✦ The grifix often dreams of their sphirix in their unmelted state and that is the only time where the patient feels at peace so they tend to sleep a lot.

✦ In the advanced stage of the disease, after the sphirix fully melts, dreaming is the only way to meet the sphirix. Patients in this stage may even refuse to wake up, and it is a sign that their soul is almost gone.

✦ Once the soul is gone, they won’t be able to dream anymore, and their consciousness will be completely faded away. They don’t act on their own anymore so they can’t chew or swallow on their own. They can walk because of muscle memory, but they need to be led around by a caretaker or they will just stand and do nothing.

✦ There is a belief amongst grifix that once a grifix’s soul has fully melted away they will never be able to go to the afterlife, that their soul is completely gone. They also believe that the soul will never heal, so if someone dies with their soul in the early days of decay, it will remain in that painful stage for all eternity. There are legends of mothers killing their children when they are diagnosed with this disease, as they do not wish their child’s soul to live in suffering for all eternity.

Prisoners during Umbra's reign were treated very poorly. Those were grifix that committed crimes against the King, but those crimes were often just speaking up against him. Their feet would be chained up, sometimes their feathers were plucked out as a way to mark them as criminals. Sometimes if a grifix said something against the king, their whole family would have to pay for the crime. It depended on different things, such as whether the family stood by their side or how bad the crime was. Often those grifix would even be condemned to die. 

But if two grifix that had an egg were condemned to die, they would only be killed after the egg hatched, so the egg wouldn't die. The baby, or if those grifix had any children, would be kept alive in the dungeons, as a way to "pay off" their parents' crime. They'd be used as test subjects for spells and torture devices. Those born there have limited speech ability, sometimes they don't have a sense of identity or understanding of things such as gender so they are entirely androgynous. Their sphirix often fades away from abuse, and repeated usage of the gem covering lotion that causes the sphirix to disappear. Some remain with no sphirix for the rest of their life. Sometimes their magic solidifies around ghosts that come and go, and there's plenty of those in Umbra's dungeons, that are haunted by all the dead prisoners. Rarely, some ghost will permanently become a grifix's sphirix. 

Most of those prisoners don't get to live for long, but if they're old enough they will be forced to become Umbra Warriors.

The natural transition of a grifix’s biological gender is mostly influenced by the grifix's own perception of self. As they grow older, that becomes harder to change, or it changes slower. In the case of a genderfluid grifix, however, that wouldn't be the case, as their perception of their own gender would change quite quickly. But physical changes would still take a longer time, like a few weeks at least, as that is the speed the magic can work at. So if the genderfluid grifix changes their gender more often than that... they would constantly be transitioning, and never fully male or female. That would also be very soliciting for their magic, since transitioning absorbs a lot of magic continuously until it's done. Unless if this grifix has really powerful magic, it would wear them out and they might end up constantly sick.

This happened in the past and the healer found many ways of dealing with it, in order to help the grifix.

One way is a certain potion that acts similarily with that used on abandoned eggs, and it causes the body of the grifix to use external magic instead of their own. But that turned out to be quite dangerous as the grifix can end up being affected more by other’s perception of them and it can have really weird unpredictable results. If used long term the grifix might actually become someone else entirely.

More safely to use, there is a potion that simply stops the body from morphing from one gender to another, and it simply remains stuck often in a more androgynous state which allows the grifix to simply change their gender expression without having their bodies morph with it. This way their mind doesn’t impact their body so much anymore and their magic isn’t drained so much anymore. It is generally a pretty good option for most.

These potions are unknown to the divided grifix. They are known by Everfree Village healers and Frozen Empire medics, as for the Lost tribe and the Forbidden Colony it is uncertain as of now.

During the Magic Glow stage, all magical progress is accelerated so the transition is as well. However the Magic Glow stage requires a magic boost of some sort. Some grifix can learn how to achieve it through training or by having very intense emotions but all it does is stop the body from properly regulating the magic flow and if overused it leads to serious health issues, so inducing it every time one needs to transition would be rather dangerous.

Note: Night Glow does NOT accelerate transition, only Magic Glow.

Headmaster: ??

Icho Springs is a medium sized Entertainment House, operating in a traditional manner. They don't have much special about them, it's a very regular house with the regular traditional japanese aspect. Entertainers play traditional instruments, dance, serve ginkgo tea and tell stories to entertain their guests, and for a special fee you can book them for private meetings in the house's guest rooms. 

The house has an inner yard with a small teahouse in the middle. The teahouse is placed on a small island surrounded by a pond with golden koi swimming inside. Above the teahouse grows a big Ginkgo tree, rumors saying that it was planted by the founder of the House, who used to be a Herbalist. But if any herbalists were to set paws in that place they would quickly see that there is nothing keeping that tree alive, and any plant would wither in those conditions. A knowledgeable scholar would quickly identify it as a mere magic manifestation, and they would be able to tell that the koi fish swimming in the pond are also nothing more than that.

The house mother is an old, kind Entertainer. While she will greet customers with a friendly, kind smile, she can also be very harsh to them. But to her Entertainers she is the kindest, and will always lend them a shoulder to cry on. 

Icho Springs is different from other Entertainment Houses in one subject. Entertainers here are allowed to keep their children. The house mother says that in her 50 years of serving the house, that has never affected the house's earnings, and she finds it a cruel practice to take the children from their mothers. Because of this, Icho Springs is one of the only Entertainment Houses that isn't made entirely of orphans. The consequence? Entertainers have their mothers, so they all find it weird to refer to the House Mother as "Mother" so they all call her "Grandma".

This is because when she was young, she had an egg and the previous House Mother took it from her. She often wonders what happened to her child. So she made sure no other entertainer in her house would have to go through that.

Before the Great Cataclysm 

I'll cover this bit in the Grifixverse Canon series when I get to it.

After the Great Cataclysm

Klugetown was very far from the core of the Great Cataclysm, therefore it was almost untouched. With almost the entirety of ponykind extinct, and all the pony settlements crumbling to the ground, it became one of the biggest cities in the world. It is by far the biggest port in Equestria - every single thing that you can find for sale somewhere has at some point passed through Klugetown. The name of the city can be found on every single thing in Equestria (kinda like “Made in China” is in our universe)

The place is still unchanged, though much, much bigger and more crowded. People build up, down, sideways, anyhow they pleased. It’s a lawless place, nobody is in charge, no authority.

The only thing keeping those creatures in check is the fear of the “Storm God”. Legend started from the memory of the Storm King, a tale that parents used to tell their cubs in order to frighten them. Now that’s forgotten, but sea storms are still very much real, and very terrifying, especially in such a poorly built place. A Storm almost always tears homes down - but it only takes a few days for new structures to be built in place. That’s why the place is ever changing shape. 

Because of the fear of storms, they started praying to the “Storm God”, and now live under the “divine authority” of a non-existent being. That doesn’t stop many from leading a life of crime, but it does stop some of them.

Klugetown is mainly populated by Klugetown Folk, Storm Creatures, Abyssinians, Orinthians and any other species that might have traveled there.