Afflictions are diseases and parasytes of a supernatural nature. Infections that change a creature fundamentally. Each Affliction is transformative and requires special treatments to cure them, if treatment is possible at all. Nearly all Afflictions are deadly to their host and once they reach past a certain stage are near impossible to cure.

While Afflictions are considered deadly and lethal to their hosts as stated above, this is not exactly the truth. In fact they are such a large problem due to the fact that the hosts bodies tend to not fully die. See Afflictions don't simply kill their host, but instead change them on a fundamental level. Turning their subjects into something monstrous and foreign. In fact, a majority of creatures classified as monsters in Shattered Sun are created by the later stages of untreated afflictions. Some Afflictions, like the Consumption, can outright kill their host and take over the body. Yet many are insidious, infecting the mind and changing it into something foreign.