Diseases

[BlackSeed_Vash]

My party is participating in a long-term siege and one of the threats I want them to deal with is diseases. But I don't want your average DMG diseases; the players are very familiar with everything core and so I want to step outside the realms known for them. The problem is, I've only found once source of new WoTC diseases so far (Kingdoms of Kalamar Player's Guide), but I want more. If anyone knows of any diseases from Wizards books, could you let me know the source. TYVM all.

 

[Ahnehnois]

The environment books (Stormwrack, Frostburn, Sandstorm) have a few diseases each, as do BoVD & BoED. XPH I think has a psionic disease or two which might work on normal creatures and are in the SRD and would probably be a surprise. MotP has simple rules for creating arbitrary new diseases (the oinoloth's throne). A few monsters have their own diseases so you could look through monster manuals.

I would also consider checking out the Pathfinder SRD for new diseases and (IMO) better disease rules overall.

 

[green slime]

I'd have no qualms about throwing together some unique diseases, based (remotely) on real life ones.

There are some pretty nasty diseases out there, they make the DMG one look benign. Cholera, dysentry, malaria, ebola, hanta, syphilis, man, just fire up your imagination, and away you go.

The trouble with fantastical diseases in the DMG is that they don't mean anything to the player, without foreshadowing, or without public NPC reaction. And they are so readily cureable in DnD.