Plagues in your setting

1. Plagues in your setting

   #1

   Every Rp world needs some nice juicy plagues. Post down yours.
   
   God's Death
   
   God's Death is a plague that is carried in the blood of birds and the fleas that live off the birds. Normally there is no contact between these fleas and human beings, but as a bird host die, these fleas are forced to seek alternatives - including humans!
   
   The infection then spreads to everyone who had any contact with the diseased. Those infected feel themselves penetrated by a pain throughout their whole bodies and, so to say, undermined. Then there developes on the thighs or upper arms a boil about the size of a lentil. This infects the whole body, and penetrates it so that the patient violently vomites blood. This vomiting of blood continues without intermission for three days, there being no means of healing it, and then the patient expires.
   Not only all those who has speech with them dies, but also those who has touched or used any of their things.
   Three days is the longest an infected can possibly survive.
   
   It is named Gods death since some religions belive the plague to be a punishment from God/Gods.

2. Plagues in your setting

   #2

   Spotted Plague
   
   Spotted Plague is a highly communicable disease the occurs in the vicinity of the Deepwood, and other deciduous regions of the Midlands. It is spread by ticks, especially those born by deer and other prey animals. The victim begins to exhibit odd signs for two or three days, headaches, bouts of dizzyness, and mild nausea. At this point, administration of curative magics and alchemical healing and cure potions will eliminate the disease. The victim is not yet spreading the disease.
   
   After three to five days of being infected by the tick, the victim will begin to break out in small skin lesions. These pustules will be painful and swollen, often itching as well. The pus is highly infectious, and will transmit plague to those who come in contact with it. Vomiting, intense body pain, and fever can only be reduced by the strongest healing magics, and cannot be counter acted by commonly available curative potions. A special curative potion designed to specifically counter this plague could work, but must be made for the most current strain of the illness.
   
   After 7 days, the victim will either enter the final stage of the disease, or they will begin to get better. The final stage is marked by bloody discharge, hallucination and muscle spasms, ending in death. The corpses of the victims are virulent for two to three days after death.
   
   In the Deepwood, an outbreak of the plague can decimate small communities, but as the plague has a slower period of incubation, and limited transmission, it can be contained, and the Midlands has only had two epidemics of Spotted Fever.
   
   In RY 1135, 22,000 people in the area of Lynwall and Jericho perished as result of the plague. Another 15,000 wore the small scars of spotted plague for the rest of their lives. Only the action of the Imperial Wizardry and the containment by the Queen's Guard prevented the plague from spreading further than it did.
   
   In RY 1207, an unknown number of people died as Spotted Fever broke out in six seperate locations, including two areas that are known to be outside of the general area of the disease. Zhalan, in Angbad suffered losses in excess of 50% of the population, and the independent province of Caldwell, long isolated from the Midlands lost 4 out of 5 of the populace. These were the worst hit as neither area had any experience with the Spotted Plaugue. The Deepwood province, most often effected by the illness suffered minimal losses, and is was later discovered that the Deepwood outbreak was secondary, caused by cityfolk escaping to the countryside. The instigator of the outbreak was never discovered.

3. Walkers Plague

   #3

   Arth has no germs, just molds. There are no plagues or real illnesses there. Kerren had a pretty alien plague early on. But I do have a nice plague I borrowed from another source.
   
   This plague is actually a parasite. It effects the brain, central nervous system, the heart, and the lungs. The parasite seldom kills its host, but infection leads to chronic tiredness and difficulty thinking clearly. People can live and function with an infection nearly forever. Those effected breath out "spores". People who breath in near an effected person, breath in the spores which hatch into the parasites. Since you can live with the parasite for quite a long time, the infection rate for a population is nearly 100%.
   
   Upon death, the parasite begins to "assist" the host. Some time after death, the parasites begin to restart the heart and work around various bits of damage. The target is able to walk about and is quite immune to most pain. The host has suffered a bit of brain damage by this point, so they are not high functioning. In fact, the immunity to pain requires the host to be seriously traumatized (head removal and serious bloodloss) or burned (parasites do not handle high heat well) to stop them. The hosts begin to search for living beings to "bite", so some of their parasites can jump ship. Those who are not able to "jump ship", motivate the host to eat the brains and other nerves of people (so they can have more fuel).
   
   In an effected population an outbreak that begins upon a non cremated death can explode into a massive problem as "Walkers" begin to shamble about in search of new hosts or food sources.
   
   Note: Most walkers will "hide" by day, to avoid overheating in the sun.

4. Aninchorra plague

   #4

   Only hours after infection the infected starts to have delirium, hallucination and sharp muscular cramps, quickly followed by yellow and black vomit. The excreta is a black pulp of blood with lumps in it. After three hours the body is covered with obscene black boils, terrible red rushes and ghastly blue pallor.
   At the fourth hour the disease causes lumps of flesh to fall of, revealing a milky green pus. The pain of this desease is so great that the infected is constantly awake. If they pass out because of the pain they wake up only minutes later by an even greater pain. At the sixth hour the infected are either mad or dead. Nobody survives longer that 8hours. The bacteria keeps eating the body days after death. The plague remains contagious as long as the skeleton is covered in flesh. If undisturbed the plague can eat an entire body in less than three days.
   
   The carriers of this plague is actually an extremely rare flower which blooms at full moon only. It grows in rough mountain terrains. But when it blooms this flower releases flower dust which contains the bacteria of the Aninchorra plague. The chanses are slim that any unfortunates should be nearby at the time. But if someone is infected and travels to a city within two hours,
   this Flower born disease will prove to be one of the most virulent killers.

5. Plagues in your setting

   #5

   Orcrot
   
   Orcs are known for their love of war, but not for caring for their wounds. This is normally fine, as their blood contains numerous anti-bacterial agents to protect them from infection. However, these same agents are what cause Orcrot.
   
   Orcrot is a brownish mold-like fungus that lives off of blood. Orcrot starts when the first spore touches the wound. That spore is fertilized by the agents in the orc's blood, and soon the wound begins to grow a large brown patch. This patch emits hundreds of spores, making nearby orcs particularly susceptible. Also, although the spores can only grow on orcs, if the blood of another species touches the fungus, that creature can also become afflicted.
   
   A single patch of orcrot is not fatal, but additional patches will rapidly drain the host of its strength. In game terms, a creature of average health should be drained in about 20 weeks, minus 1 week per additional patch.
   
   Finally, restoration. Orcrot needs lots of blood to survive, so if a patch is on an appendage, merely tying a rope or tourniquet around the appendage to give the victim "Pins and Needles" (i.e. put the limb "to sleep") will kill the parasite. On the body or head, however, it must burned off. This is relatively easy for a talented healer, but can be dangerous to an untrained one.
   
   Burning Death
   
   The Burning Death is a plague which affects almost every race, primarily elves. Sages speculate thet this is due to the Elves' having so much of the "Fires of Life."
   
   The Burning Death is caused by bacteria which inhabit the blood stream, so blood is how the disease is transmitted. Any open wound which touches infected blood has an 85% chance of recieving the disease.
   
   The symptoms of the Burning Death are few, but they are deadly. The disease causes the person's body temperature (normally 37 degrees Celsius) to rise by two degrees every day. This is initially not so bad, but eventually causes the victim's skin to burn from the inside, which is, of course, excrutiatingly painful. Eventually, after slightly over a month, the victim's blood begins to boil, which rapidly kills the afflicted.
   
   As the cause of Burning Death is a bacteria, medicines have been made to deal with this plague, but is mutates frequently, thus new medicines are always needed. Also, the extreme heat will kill the bacteria as well, so the corpse of a person who dies from Burning Death is not contagious. Also, if, somehow, the afflicted can be given protection from the heat, the bacteria will die before the death of the victim.

6. The Plague of Lord Aars

   #6

   This horrific disease cut a bloody swath through Media, Aradash, and Carmania during the period after the Casterian War, when the armies of those nations, exhausted from the vicious fighting against the Casterians on the very border of what is contemporarily termed Ageratos, began to return home. The plague is commonly believed to have been created by King Harn-Dan of the Casterians, a sorceror of no small note; the natural philosophers of the Parsic Empire maintain a theory that it was born from an infusion of Underworld elements in the natural elements of the battlefields, causing the soldiers to breath in the air of death and creating this necrotism.
   
   It's name comes from Lord Aars of Taastrin, one of the major elector-lords of Aradash, the first noble victim of the plague (as is the Aradashi tradition, peasant losses to the plague are not acknowledged as having occured- their society is highly elitist). In Aradash, the plague was not wide-spread (or at least was not reported as such; the counts may not include many of the peasants who died from it), while the population of Media was nearly halved. By the time the sickness reached Carmania, the worshippers of Amalias had recieved many horrific tales of it's depredations in Media and many of the larger cities were prepared, with holy defenses and rituals performed by Amalian Magi, though much of the southern countryside was quite significantly struck.
   
   Surprisingly, it seems that the Plague was ended there. The Median and Carmanian policies of sealing ports during the period of illness (one generally attributed to the little known Median logistical genius Uistheca of Paliar, tragically slain by the plague which helped to stop) stopped the disease from spreading north into the ports of Parakonia, Arachosia, and Tsartis; the sparsely-populated Carmanian-Mysian border stopped almost all transmission westward; and the Gedrosian Desert sealed off the affected areas from the south, though there was a small amount of mortality in Parsis, especially in the capitol, Suza, where a Median trading caravan, unknowingly infected, spread the disease.
   
   Little is known of the symptoms of the Plague of Lord Aars- that which can be reconstructed from the texts of Magi and doctors of the time is vague, and makes frequent references to such strange ailments as "worms of the innards", "paste bones" and "parchment of the flesh". It seems that the sickness spread from within the body and caused it slowly to disintegrate until the flesh and skin itself sloughed off the body, leaving only pulpy masses of organs and soft, spongy bones.
   
   There is only one known cure for the Plague of Lord Aars, and it is an extremely expensive and uncertain one- the affected must be swathed in honey and breath the fumes of a fire made from latar-leaf and goldroot while a Magus speaks prayers and makes invocations.

7. Mundane Plague

   #7

   This plague was called the Omen Plague or the Star Plague. It now known by the common name of the Shaking Death. To set the stage, the stars were aligned in all the wrong signs. Everyone new something bad was going to happen. When winter set in hard and early, they thought that was it. They were wrong.
   
   The Ducks and Geese were flying south early on. Their population had swelled over the last five ideal years. The sky was thick with them, as were the ponds. People were taking them down to stock their larders and to have one more round of fresh meat before the winter.
   
   Centuries later, the pieces were put together. At the time, nobody knew. The Ducks and Geese were the carriers. It was carried in their feces and their bodies. Those that hunted the creatures, were near the ponds or resting places, handled the bodies improperly, or -for a few- ate the flesh were the first infected. They passed it on to others.
   
   Precursor symptoms
   It appears to be your basic minor flu. The victim is achy, warm, their eyes water, their nose runs, they cough, and they might have minor tremors. The precursor symptoms last for about nine days, plus or minus for the constitution of the victim. It then appears the target gets better. They feel fine, though unbeknownst to them, they were still infected. And they could infect others.
   
   Note: Spell Caster could not cast spells because of their symptoms and seem to hit them harder than most
   
   Everything seemed normal. The early flu with the hard onset of winter, with everyone being inside or together, seemed perfectly natural - to be expected. Though the Flu did seem to hit The Demi-Humans hard, it was not too unusual. Some of the harder hit, the mystically inclined, were physically frail, so it seemed expected. It all seemed in line with the ill-alligned stars.
   
   An infected person was nearly symptom free for three to four weeks. Many thought they were completely cured.
   
   Plague Symptoms:
   The symptoms start as before, but with an increase in shaking. The Palsy is an infection in the para-sympathetic nerve channels of those who can channel magic. While a few frailer mundanes have symptoms, only those with latent or manifest mystic channels are effected. The channels cause feedback, preventing any spell casting and causing the physical nerves to misfire. The energy backups that result exacerbate the flu like symptoms. The longer the symptoms persist, the worse they all get. Death occurs from respiratory distress, manna block fever, or sheer exhaustion, within three weeks, but in as few as three days.
   
   The results were devastating. In the Human Population, 98% of the wizards and mages died that winter. The few that didn't were mostly ascetics and hermits (almost all of them died within the decade). The latents are hard to calculate, but given the lack of Gift in the population after the winter, it was 75% fatal. Even those of clerical persuasion were targetted, expiring at a 55% rate. This created the power vacumn that changed the balance of powers and made way for the various reformations and revolts that occured in the next three decades.
   
   In the Elventi Population, with its inherent magical nature, the disease was only 60% fatal, 100% fatal among the adepts. However, it effected the birth rate. Those affected, but survived, became infertile at a 98% rate. (Magic is part of the Elventi reproductive ritual.) This is the reason for the Final Elventi Exodius so they could die at sea into the setting sun.
   
   The Dwarventi Population should of been immune given popular wisdom. However give the close quarters that Dwarventi live plus the magical resistance and metal empathy abilities (which are magical), the death rate was 99%. The population was too diffused to successful continue resulting in the extinction of the Dwarves.
   
   The Goblin and Orcenti races, while not magical, seemed succeptable to the physical symptoms. Given the squallor they normally lived in, they kept infecting, mutating, and re-infecting themselves. Entire tribes and nests were wiped out due to sickeness and fever induced homicide.
   
   The world became a very different place that winter. The world became Mundane.
   
   This would make an interesting campaign background. You could start play the previous year or so, the watch the results of the Omen Winter. Society will change radically, and in such chaos PCs could be beacons of hope or grease that makes the wheels roll.

8. Plagues in your setting

   #8

   These are all really great. Now I feel bad because (discounting lycanthropy) all of the plagues I use are comparatively mundane: ergot, botulism, malaria, etc.

9. Plagues in your setting

   #9

   Haha, yeah I agree with you man, after any kind of disease that I could encounter in any of the games I've played, wow these things blow them all out of the water, they are incredible. Great job guys. *claps*

10. The White Plague

    #10

    Some 50 years after the notorious Black Plague, the lands of Icathia had an even more deadly visitor.
    
    The White Plague was highly infective, it spread through almost the whole population. Luckily, only about 10-15% of people were killed by the plague itself. Further victims came later due to starvation (as nigh to anyone had at least mild symptoms, and many serious symptoms). The White Plague has put not only a sharp end to economical growth, but also to war preparations of several baronies, so it actually saved lives... a few maybe. The Plague has mostly hit the Human race, the other races had only minor losses.
    
    The White Plague can have a slow offset, but rare deaths within one week from the first symptoms have been observed. The victim looses partly or completely bodily pigmentation, leaving the skin very sensitive to the sun. The less lucky (mostly those having a specific blood group, but that is not known) found their skin slowly rotting, even decomposing and dieing in horrible pains. The victims, while unable to move in the end, can clearly think and perceive what happens to them.
    
    The healing process was significantly aided by herbs and magic, but no certain cure was found.
    
    
    The Sun Disease
    
    While much of the population are immune to the original White Plague, it still lingers on. This weaker variant is transmitted trough blood and sexual intercourse, the victim slowly looses pigmentation and it usually takes a decade or two until the secondary effects become terminal. Due to its slow onset it takes the role of early AIDS from our world (the affected people and minorities hide it as able). It is easy to mask it in early stages.
    
    There is a hope the virus will mutate some day to be safe for its host.

11. URU Plague

    #11

    The URU Plague is like the flu, it comes in new varieties every few years. Every decade or three it becomes seriously dangerous. No one is sure on the exact origin of the URU plague, but it is named after one of the Great Dark Lords that first took advantage of it and its victims.
    
    The plague will sweep across a population. Everyone will catch it. People show the symptoms of being jaundiced and their skin will settle between jaundiced yellow and a putrid green tone. For most it is an terrible cold with fever that lasts 7 days. The weak and the young will often die from it. However, for a percentage of people it is more... much more.
    
    For those that are considered "tainted" (after the fact), they are transformed. In under three days, they become one of the "tainted races". Their body begins to roll and shift, almost visibly before the eyes. Their faces will strech and be distorted... especially as new fangs grow in. Most who are tainted manage to escape as most of the people around them are too weak to stop them. These victims form small tribes that eventually merge with other ones, making for deadly tainted nations.
    
    Note: Elven victims become High Orcs, the most deadly of the tainted races. Low Elves (Forest and Desert), as well as Humans become Orcs mostly, but Goblins and other foul critters are possible. It all depends on the "strain" that comes through that year. Dwarves become Hobgoblins, their most hated foe. Insert the tainted races of your choice and setting. Transformed people can function as a "born" member of the Tainted Race with no signs that they were ever "normal".

12. Plagues in your setting

    #12

    The Fire Blossom Plague
    
    The Fire Blossom Plague is a terrible disease which has ravaged the lands of the Southern Sea for centuries. Periodically, this contagion will blaze through the southern lands, usually from west to east (the common conjecture of it's provenance is that it comes from the Great Western Wilderness). The disease thrives only in the hot, wet climes of the Southern Sea; lands such as Bithynia and southern Izada are often decimated during the Fire Blossom's cycle.
    
    The first signs of the disease are purplish-red blotches along the ribs and pectoral region, which deepen to blue-black, bruise-like leathery spots after a few days. When the disease is first contracted, the victim experiences a short period of fever, after which there are no symptoms other than the rash of spots.
    The second stage of the disease generally begins during the hottest, wettest months of the summer. The black blotches widen and rise into fleshy tumours which itch abominably. When scratched, however, they crack and flake away, becoming the eponymous "fire blossoms", staggeringly-painful wounds which have the appearance of daisy-shaped crimson blisters, and which engender further blotches (the seeds of even more fire blossoms) around them.
    The third stage of the disease occurs near the end of the long southern summer- the fire blossoms have now spread to all parts of the body. By now the victim generally cannot walk; most attempts to move result in crippling pain and profuse bleeding from the fire blossoms. The victim begins to cough up blood at this stage.
    The fourth and final stage occurs after the end of the summer season. At this point, the victim is wasted and immobilized by the disease. The victim coughs up pieces of the organs. This stage lasts little longer than a month, and ends in an excruciating death.
    Fire Blossom Plague is spread through the air. The coughs of the victim, as well as the broken fire blossom wounds, dispatch a bloody mist which tends to hang around the victim. Breathing in the vapors of this mist can spread the disease.

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