And when it comes to DnD, there are 3 things which I feel don’t do this properly. Diseases, Potions, and Poisons. In my many years of learning 3.5 in high school, I never once used a disease from the source books. They were boring. They were just real diseases. They didn’t do anything new or *mean* anything.
I started to follow this train of thought as I try to expand what I do in games. I’ll be honest, I mostly do NPCs. That’s what I use 99% of the time. I like to talk. I’m getting better at including combat, but I still don’t use traps, poisons, diseases, or any of the other obstacles that are present in the real world, and very often in a fantastical world.
Today we’re going to talk about diseases. 6 of them. The BIG SIX of my world, and maybe you’ll find one to use in your world. These are all my way of looking at real diseases and trying to translate them. The horror. The isolation. The pain. I like to write about things that personally scare me. That’s the root of horror. So yeah...let’s dig in.
Cuernosis
Also known as the Demon’s Disease. It’s a fairly common disease that has sprouted up recently, which causes the cells to multiply and harden in strange patterns. The outward effects of this are the horns which grow, usually from the head, but not always. They always grow in pairs, and can reach a length of 12 inches. To cure the disease, the horn must be sold to a demon, who will then find a new host for the disease. No one is sure how it started.
If the disease is left unchecked, horns grow on the inside of the body until something is punctured and the patient dies.
Auto-Engrosia
This disease only affects humans, and can show signs starting as young as adolescence. It begins small, around one finger tip. It would take luck to see the signs at this point, but the finger tip is no longer under your control. And when the disease is left unchecked, it expands down the fingers and outwards to the others until the entire hand is no longer under your control.
Amputation is the first step. But that rarely works, as the disease is not in the limb itself. It’s in the brain. And without intervention from a mage, the disease will spread up one side of your body until it reaches the brain itself, where it will then have full control of your motor functions, leaving your conscious mind trapped in shell that is no longer its own.
Those fully taken by Auto-Engrosia will not be discernible from the general public. Your neighbor could be living with it. Your friends. Family. The only way to know is to present the inflicted with something draconic. The closer to a real dragon the better. Because those taken by Auto-Engrosia will stop at nothing to be eaten by a dragon. There is no known cure, only safety nets that a wizard can put in place, such as simulacrum, resurrection, and permanent paralysis.
The Elven Curse
Named such because all elves are cursed with it. It is why they must stay in the woods. It keeps the curse at bay. Half-Elves can be carrier but cannot be affected by it. Humans and other races are in danger of getting it if cursed by an Elf (or Half-Elf).
To put it simply, this disease affects all internal organs, animated them and turning them into animals. Intestines turn into a giant centipede, liver turns into a large toad, heart flutters into a bird, bladder into a mess of butterflies, brain into a giant crab. You will be alive and feel everything as this happens, even as they try to escape your body. You will stay alive until those animals are killed, as they are your organs.
There is no cure. But you can live with this disease by capturing the animals and taking care of them.
Aquarium Disease
This disease changes the lungs. They can no longer breathe oxygen and must breathe water, like a fish. If you are not submerged in water you will suffocate. But it doesn’t stop there. You will just wake up one day like this, and as the disease progresses you will need to breathe deeper, and deeper water. A pond will suffice, until you’ll need a lake, and then the sea. Until you’re sunken to the seafloor and are left to die.
There is no known cure, but on the seafloor you may find something...
Carnal Dementia
This disease affects the elderly. It replaces their memories with either fake memories, or just memories that are not true of their life experience. It starts as a slow growth, little dips into another personality, until eventually the patient is no longer who they were before. They have a new name, a new personality, a new life. They want to get out of the hospital and find this new life, but no one has been able to follow a patient to their destination, and most families are reticent to allow their grandpa/grandma to go wandering the world like an adventurer.
Mage Liver
This happens from the constant exposure of potions to your liver. The organ itself begins to grow technicolor, as the remnants of all the potions are soaked up. You see, when a mage makes a potions (or anything) it's impossible for a little bit of themself to *not* get put into it. So as the liver absorbs these potions, they are also absorbing little parts of mages, alive or dead. You have nothing to fear from the living ones. But the dead ones...they will infect you through the liver, granting you spell slots of their old spells. This in and of itself doesn’t sound that bad. But if you cast them, or begin to learn more, all of that energy is going to the dead mage. Every spell learned is imprinting their brain onto yours. Every spell cast is teaching *your* body *their* movements. This is the resurrection long-game. This is immortality.
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