Spatzimaus
First Post
Piratecat said:
Well, there's the psionics method, there's the undead method (possession), and there's the outsider method (plane of Dreams). But just to be different I'd make the entire problem non-magical. The following has been done before, but I'm sure you could find some interesting take on it.
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There's a fungus. It breeds like crazy at specific times (say, at night), sending spores out on the wind. Where the spores land on the skin of animals (especially in the hair of people or mammals), the fungus takes root. It's a pretty small organism, to where you'd have to know what to look for to find it. Once it's found a stable place to live, it releases a chemical into the host's body, altering the brain's biochemistry just a bit. It's not powerful enough to actually take over the host completely, but it can nudge them in the "right" direction. The upshot of this is, the host begins to hallucinate in specific ways.
Now, it's not a stable situation; the goal of the fungus is to kill the host after it's had time to establish itself. And, it wants the host to die alone, close enough to others that the spores can reach new hosts but far enough away that the corpse won't be immediately found. So, it attempts to drive its host mad, causing him to isolate himself from friends and family. At night, when the host is asleep, the chemicals have greater effect, so the first sign is nightmares. De ja vu will start during the day, and once the serious hallucinations start the host will withdraw in fear. Eventually, he'll go mad and sooner or later, this'll lead to death, at which point the fungus uses the corpse as food for the next wave of spores.
The fungus itself isn't telepathic or intelligent, but it tends to activate any latent telepathic abilities in people in minor ways. and use this linkage to connect the various fungal colonies in the area. The upshot of this is that any hallucinations seen by one host will also be seen by other infected hosts in the area. If person A's colony makes him see a pink elephant, the other infected will also see the same pink elephant. But, once person B thinks the elephant grew wings and left, it'd leave for everyone. This also means many of the nightmares will be shared among multiple infected people, an early warning sign (and yet another reason the colony wants the host to isolate himself).
Since the fungus is more like a parasite than a disease, you can't just cure it with a spell; casting Heal will balance the target's biochemistry, effectively resetting the clock, but it won't remove the fungal colony. Cure Disease/Heal don't remove the "infection", any more than they'd destroy a cat you're holding in your arms. In fact, since it's just dumping a chemical into your bloodstream, it'd be a lot like getting drunk, or maybe like being poisoned.
Anyway, since it's not magical, undead, or intelligent in any way, it shouldn't be trivial to detect. Removal would probably just involve immersing yourself in some chemical. Now, if you really wanted to take this further, make a group of Druids with some custom fungus-controlling spells and an immunity to its effects. Or, add a psionic creature whose infection has caused his telepathic abilities to go out of control.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
