Intensive Care Units & Ilnfections

[Rechan]

I don't know where I saw the suggestion, but it was too evil and perfect for one of my campaigns for me to not nab it. However, I need a little assistance fleshing this out.

I need help putting the finishing touches on a fiendish disease.

The disease, called Forsaken Tongue, is spread by sound. An infected individual only speaks Abyssal (and if they don't know that language, then they don't understand themselves or anyone). Anyone who hears the infected speak must make a fort save (DC 14) or contract the virus.

Any creature that is immune to diseases, but can still talk, is unaffected by the disease but must make a fort save when exposed; if they fail, they are still a carrier (but do not suffer the effects of the disease).

Remove Disease must be used to clear up the virus.

My PCs are in a thrice-abandoned, fiend and nasty-infested town in the middle of a forsaken desert, cleaning the place out for some refugees who are going to be placed there soon. There's a ship with their main supplies just off shore, that they return to periodically.

I need help with the following things:

1) The effect. Sure the virus spreads through sound, but what does it do to you once you have it? Simple wisdom drain? Turn you into something?

2) What should be the initial thing they encounter that exposes them to the virus? An undead carrier? The virus contained in an abandoned health clinic that the klepto rogue opens to loot it? A demon intentionally exposing them? Since it's spread by sound, it'd need to be something that could speak it.

3) Incubation period?

 

[I'm A Banana]

1) The effect. Sure the virus spreads through sound, but what does it do to you once you have it? Simple wisdom drain? Turn you into something?

Well, my train of thought runs like this: why would the fiends WANT you to be speaking Abyssal all the time?

I'd just make it degenerate until it was uncontrollable: you HAD to gibber, constnatly, in Abyssal. And the thing that talked through you was the virus itself. As your ability score drops, you loose control of yourself to the virus, which starts forcing you to speak when you're around other things that might catch it. Since this is fantasy, the virus might even have an agenda of it's own -- it wants to kill someone, capture, someone, etc, so it's looking to be spread to the right individual. It leaps about, getting as close to that person as it can.

I wouldn't make it transformative, just fatal.

2) What should be the initial thing they encounter that exposes them to the virus? An undead carrier? The virus contained in an abandoned health clinic that the klepto rogue opens to loot it? A demon intentionally exposing them? Since it's spread by sound, it'd need to be something that could speak it.

A classic move is to have them stumble upon someone who is infected, though since the virus is sonic, I think you'd be missing an opportunity to have it be spread by a bard. Just think, there's a group of about 4 mooks and their leader, who plays the flute while they try to kill the PC's. The leader is playing bardic music, standing back from the crowd, and the mooks are screaming gibberish at the PC's. This buffs the mooks and infects the PC's at the same time. Everyone wins!

3) Incubation period?

It is my devout belief that all incubation periods should be "you wake up and you're infected." Anything more and you just risk forgetting about it.

 

[blargney the second]

There's something similar to this in the Creature Collection I. I think it's called Slarecian Mind Virus or something like that.

Edit: Also, have you read Snow Crash?

 

[Rechan]

Well, my train of thought runs like this: why would the fiends WANT you to be speaking Abyssal all the time?

It may not be a creation by fiends themselves, but just a native virus. Outsiders don't have to be medium humanoids; the disease itself could be a fiend.

I'd just make it degenerate until it was uncontrollable: you HAD to gibber, constnatly, in Abyssal. And the thing that talked through you was the virus itself. As your ability score drops, you loose control of yourself to the virus, which starts forcing you to speak when you're around other things that might catch it. Since this is fantasy, the virus might even have an agenda of it's own -- it wants to kill someone, capture, someone, etc, so it's looking to be spread to the right individual. It leaps about, getting as close to that person as it can.

AHHA. I can couple this with something else I saw in another thread.

The infected individual has a black tumor grow on their face. As they lose wisdom, the tumor gains sentience, and then they begin struggling for control of the infected person's body. The sentient tumor may be the thing with the agenda; using the victims to accomplish something.

Though given that it's a DC 14, most PCs at least are going to fight off the virus before it gets that bad.

A classic move is to have them stumble upon someone who is infected, though since the virus is sonic, I think you'd be missing an opportunity to have it be spread by a bard. Just think, there's a group of about 4 mooks and their leader, who plays the flute while they try to kill the PC's. The leader is playing bardic music, standing back from the crowd, and the mooks are screaming gibberish at the PC's. This buffs the mooks and infects the PC's at the same time. Everyone wins!

The problem is, as I said, they're in a deserted town in the middle of a wasteland. It's full of demons, monsters and shaggy baboon goblins. So the question would be why everything else in this town hasn't been infected all ready by the Bard and his Mooky Mooks.

Edit: Also, have you read Snow Crash?

Yes.