Plagues

Plagues
Rules
Section:	Encounter Rules
Summary:	Plagues are magically enhanced diseases that can spread among the populace rapidly, which can be difficult to cure
Condition
Condition Name:	Plagued
Effect:	You have been infected by a plague and are now at risk of spreading it until you are cured.
Duration:	Until cured
Common Sources:	An infected person spreads a plague to you
Common Cures:	The Remedy ritual

The spells of Novitas do not cure diseases. So, when an illness becomes magically charged removing it can be very challenging. We call these magically enhanced illnesses plagues.

Description

A plague is an illness that has been magically enhanced to be more potent. There can be many different effects for plagues, some might even have duplicate effects. Once cured a particular plague will never affect the same character again, but the character could be affected by a different plague with the same effects.

Each plague is given an item number even though it isn't an item. This is to allow players to more easily look up what the plague does if they need to do so.

Each plague will have a drawback they cause, a trigger that causes the plague to spread, and criteria for it to be cured.

Generally the cure will be the Remedy ritual, though it may require one or more additional special ritual components to cure.

A sample plague's entry: Frailty Plague. While affected by this plague you are capped at 1 Might and Accuracy. Trigger: physical contact with an infected person. Requires a Remedy ritual with a sprig of Madweed to cure.

The Plagued Condition

A character with the Plagued condition has been infected with a plague, a magically enhanced malady. The plague will have an item number describing it. That description will include a drawback (the negative effects of the plague), a trigger that causes you to spread it to others, and a criteria that will allow you to cure the plague. Most of the time the cure requires use of the Remedy ritual.

Plagues last until they are cured, they do not expire due to time. Once you have been cured of this particular plague you can never be infected by it again. A cured character can use the trigger that spread the plague to spread the cure to other people infected by the same strain of plague.

While this may not be the most immersive thing, imagine magic is involved. Without this rule every time you wanted to cure a plague only requiring a specific flower that blooms once every thousand years you'd have to gather every last character infected or the plague would spread forever more. And if the plague took multiple events to find a cure and a player who had it was missing that event they would be doomed to have the plague forever.

Your character does not know the details of the plague, even though you the player needs to know how it works. Only characters who cast Diagnosis on someone with the plague should understand the trigger and how to cure it. Recognizing the drawback of the plague will vary from plague to plague depending on how obvious the effect is.

Categories: Encounter Rules