Terraphobia

Overview

Terraphobia is the fear of being on the ground. Though it is not the fear of the ground itself, the two have become synonymous.

Terraphobia is a fear that socially is not considered a fear, because of the vast number of people suffering from it. Many people consider those who freely walk upon the ground to have a disorder, though this is not the case.

Alphaworld suffers from a terrible number of people who suffer from Terraphobia. People with the fear have tendencies to stand and walk on objects that are not on the ground, eg. signs, fences, flagpoles, hedges etc. Prevalently, if a person with the phobia is on the ground, they quickly run to wherever it is they are heading. People stand on objects or run and still obligate themselves to social commitments: they can talk and mingle with friends and still be carefully balancing themselves on objects.

"Zis... disorder. I do not really understand it myself, but a gut konk on ze head and evryone seems to get all better zat quickly, hah! They fall right to ze ground!" - Doctor Chris

History

Terraphobia was first documented by Professor Van Minstryk in 1985 at the University of Scarabia. In the professor's book, Terraphobians, he does point out one benefit to the condition.

"Not only do people prefer to stand anywhere but the ground, they've trained themselves to be masters at balance, gracefully standing ontop of flagpoles, narrow fences, and even the tops of shaky trees, while casually engaging in conversation." - Terraphobians, page 23

Records for Terraphobia date back to Tribal Era. Early humans, from fossil records, have lived amongst the treetops and footprint fossils can only be found on rocks and fallen trees, i.e. not on the ground. Palaeontologists have given conclusive statements:

"With the availability of C-14 carbon dating, we have been able to determine that this new discovery [fossil records] is authentic, and that it dates back to 220CE. These are the footsteps of our ancient ancestors. " – Herby Klonkstein

Due to the aforementioned discovery, and what humans know of the Tribal Era, several conclusions can be made as to how this fear was developed. More notably, the famous evolutionist, Archils Wander, who at the 2003 Evolutionists’ Journal stated:

"It is quite obvious that the fear of ground, also known as Terraphobia can be traced back to tribal times. More significantly, the establishment of the Heritka society – the dark spellcasters of our ancient past. Humans not part of their society were attacked and put into slavery. That is when they are on open ground. If they were to be protected by the cover of the trees, then it would give the Heretika a harder time in capturing them. So as the humans learnt the ways of the trees, they became less capable at working at ground level. Being on the ground soon became their weakness, while being in the trees, the Heretika weakness, they were at the perfect advantage. Human weakness to ground induced a fear amongst the human population. This process is what we call evolution. " – Archils Wander

Terraphobia Today

Terraphobia continues to spread, while society accepts it as a usual condition and acts as if it doesn't exist. Even new comers to Alphaworld tend to contract this phobia within minutes. It is not known why this happens, but many activists fear that it is some world conspiracy by the Circle of Fire organization.

Terraphobia is only known to effect the Common Races, with the exception of Birdes.