Black Scrawl

The Black Scrawl is a widespread, incurable disease.

Characteristics

The Black Scrawl manifests as patterns of black letters that swirl around the skin of infected individuals. The disease causes pain throughout the entire body and ultimately leads to death.

Heads up! Important plot details for NieR may follow. Read at your own risk!

The source of the disease is not publicly known. However, in reality, the Black Scrawl is not a pathogen; it is actually an unexpected error that causes the corruption of a Replicant upon the relapsing of their corresponding Gestalt.

Similarly, while a cure is not publicly known, the Song of the Ancients claims that the Black Scrawl can be cured after Grimoire Weiss collects each of the Sealed Verses. However, the disease cannot actually be cured, and collection of the Sealed Verses is required to activate the system that returns all remaining “healthy” Gestalts to their Replicants before they relapse.

Due to her Gestalt being suspended in a half-relapsed state, every incarnation of Replicant Yonah will always be infected with the Black Scrawl. As the disease has no cure, Yonah dies to the Black Scrawl after the events of NieR. Even if Replicant Nier had surrendered his body to his Gestalt and Grimoire Weiss fused with Grimoire Noir, the same fate would have occurred.

The Prince of Facade's predecessor fell ill with the Black Scrawl and died, leading to the title of king being passed down. Ursula was also afflicted with the Black Scrawl, the progression of which can be seen throughout her side quests.

Trivia

• The Black Scrawl resembles the magical black runes that emit from both The Dragon and the The Giant in Branch E of Drakengard during the final battle in Tokyo.
  • The four Angelic Script letters seen as part of the Black Scrawl are Aleph, Cheth, Gimel and Thes (or A, C, G, and T). These characters represent the DNA nucleobases of [A]denine, [C]ytosine, [G]uanine, and [T]hymine, indicating that the Black Scrawl represents the breakdown of a Replicant's DNA.
• The Black Scrawl may be a reference to the Black Death, a deadly disease and historical epidemic.