Diseases

Medicine in Exalted

Mortals do not possess great Charms such as Contagion-Curing Touch or other gifts of the Exalted, but that does not mean they are helpless in the face of disease.

Even the smallest of mortal villages has access to a wise woman or spirit caller. These mortal healers include in their repertoire the ability to make alchemical healing potions as well as rituals to fight illness and purify people of disease. Many mortals have minor charms, rituals or talismans that can soothe illness and cure disease (usually a one-die bonus). Such medicines, in slightly different variations, are found all over Creation.

Since the beginning of time, disease has been one of the most feared enemies of civilization, as dreadful as war, as terrifying as the Abyssals. In some lands, children are so likely to die that they are not even given a real name until they reach a year of age. In others, healers will not treat the old when they fall sick, believing it to be a waste of time and medicine. In all lands, healers of any sort are welcomed for their compassion and their skill.

Most illness are minor things: summer fever, winter colds, a day or two of the flux. Any healer or person with medical skill can ease these common illnesses and shorten their duration to a few days. All Exalted are completely immune to these common ailments and fevers. The diseases that follow are not those simple illnesses.

There are many customs—proscribing the eating of cloven-hoofed animals, one handful from every 10th bag of grain must be tested on a hot griddle, sex with a non-virgin woman is forbidden to all but her husband—which are intended to prevent disease from taking hold in a kingdom. The Immaculate Order has extensive dietary and purity laws that all worshipers are supposed to follow, as do most other religions. These customs and laws often break down in times of war and unrest, when natural disaster strikes or in crowded, uncivilized conditions such as refugee camps or city slums.

Although the Exalted are immune to disease, the consequences of disease can be deadly. When half an army is down with the flux or the plague is decimating a nation, disease becomes as dangerous as invasion. The chaos and violence that follows an epidemic may require that the heroes of legend take a hand in returning the countryside to health and safety. While mortal healers do not have the powers of the Exalted to cure, they are very familiar with the types of disease common in their area, as well as how they spread and what medicines may assist in treatment. A wise Exalt consults with the local healers when dealing with an epidemic.

Catching and Resisting Diseases

Virulence

The character's player makes a (Stamina + Resistance) roll for the character to attempt to avoid infection when exposed to the disease.

Untreated Morbidity

The difficulty of the (Stamina + Resistance) roll the player makes for his character to survive the illness when he is not treated by someone with the Medicine Ability or if the healer's player fails her (Intelligence + Medicine) roll.

Treated Morbidity

The difficulty of the (Stamina + Resistance) roll made when the character is successfully treated by someone with the Medicine Ability.

Difficulty to Treat

The modifier applied to the (Intelligence + Medicine) roll to successfully treat the illness. This is also the modifier applied to the difficulty to manufacture a talisman against a disease or a draught to cure it. If a patient is drinking a successfully made draught, his player rolls under the treated morbidity even if no one with the Medicine Ability is available.

Diseases of Compassion

Disease strikes first at the most vulnerable: the weak, the young, the old. Then, those who offer aid might find themselves the next victims as disease spreads to the caretakers: mothers, healers, priests and the compassionate who cannot bear to leave someone to die. Others wrench the heart of the compassionate through deforming or crippling their victims, leaving them to suffer for weeks, months or even a lifetime.

Leprosy

Virulence: 1	Difficulty to Treat: 3
Morbidity: 5	Treated Morbidity: 3
Symptoms: Sometimes called the ghost disease, leprosy is fairly common in shadowlands and otherwise rare. Lepers are a fearsome, heart-wrenching sight—the living rotting away like the dead. The early symptoms are no different from a mild illness: fever and weakness, muscle aches and exhaustion. Then, the more severe symptoms begin: numbness as nerves begin to fail, then the patient's ability to fight off illness weakens and he risks infection from every cut and bruise. Eventually, parts of the body die and fall away, leaving the victim vulnerable to secondary infections such as gangrene.
Duration: Leprosy begins two weeks after exposure, with gradually spreading patches of numbness, starting with the fingertips and face first. Then, over the next few months to a year, the skin goes white and bloodless. The disease takes a long time to kill its victims. Properly cared for, lepers can live for 10 or more years—leaving them to wander the world as mutilated objects of horror and pity.
Vector: Leprosy rises in places of despair: crowded refugee camps, the slums of the poor and the sunless shadowlands. Lepers are most likely to pass their disease to those closest to them, their loved ones and their caretakers—those who share their beds, their homes and their food. Leprosy lingers in the clothes, bedding and homes of lepers, and this is why they are often isolated in their own communities.
Treatment: Lepers must be kept safe from dying of secondary infections through cuts they cannot feel. Treatment is long, lasting several months, while the leper is given tinctures to purify the blood and warm the sluggish circulation. Ginseng and ginger are common ingredients found in draughts against leprosy. The skin must be kept clean with distilled alcohol or tincture of iodine. The organs of limb-regenerating lizards are included in draughts to encourage the body to regenerate lost parts. Purification rituals must be performed to cleanse the leper's home and to prevent the spread of the disease.

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Diseases of Conviction

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Diseases of Temperance

These diseases arise when people are intemperate in their desires, whether it's the greed of eating polluted food or water or the lust of sharing a bed with an unclean lover. The diseases of Temperance are the diseases of lax morals, unclean habits and unrestrained urges.

Cholera

Virulence: 4	Difficulty to Treat: 2
Morbidity: 3	Treated Morbidity: 1
Symptoms: Cholera kills quickly through fever and a watery, constant diarrhea that dehydrates the body. Children and the elderly are particularly vulnerable.
Duration: The disease appears within hours of drinking contaminated water, and the course of the disease lasts for no more than a couple of weeks. It can easily incapacitate an entire army in less than a week.
Vector: Also known as the flux or the bloody flux, cholera is a disease that appears when the spirits of the waters have been offended. Defiling wells, allowing goats to drink directly from a river or stream, permitting criminals to bathe in open water—all of these can bring the flux to a land.
Treatment: Mineral salts and quantities of pure water support the patient until the disease runs its course. Draughts are made of goldenseal, comfrey root or the mucus of the giant swamp snail. Purification rituals, as well as rituals to appease the offended water spirits, will cleanse the water of the flux.

Virulence: 3	Difficulty to Treat: 3
Morbidity: 4	Treated Morbidity: 2
Symptoms: The first symptom is a painless sore, which heals in a few weeks. Aches, pains and intermittent fever are common symptoms of the disease. Over months to a few years, it eats away at the sufferer's ability to control their limbs, resulting in a peculiar stiff legged walk, then it attacks the mind. The first effects are increased lust and decreased self control. At the end, syphilis eats away at the body and minds of the victim, leaving them paralyzed and, eventually, mad.
Duration: The sore appears a few weeks after exposure, but disappears within a week. The next set of symptoms can appear months later, depending on the general health of the victim. Those who are poor, frequently ill or often wounded will progress through the disease quickly. Those who lead otherwise healthy, exemplary lives might not progress in the disease for years. However, all are carriers of the disease and will spread it to those they take into their beds.
Vector: Sometimes called the whore's revenge, syphilis appears when people have been unchaste. The disease is prevalent in cities—among prostitutes, adulterers and the careless—but due to its subtle nature, it is found among the homes of the wealthy and the poor alike.
Treatment: Prevention is the best cure for syphilis. Patients are also treated with draughts containing mercury, a treatment nearly as dangerous as the disease. The cure can be applied at any time, but any nerve damage already done, such as paralysis, will not heal.

Diseases of Valor

The diseases of Valor can infect even the bravest souls with cowardice or berserk madness. These are the diseases found on the battlefield, in the hunter's camp and in the aftermath of war.

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Plague

Virulence: 4	Difficulty to Treat: 4
Morbidity: 5	Treated Morbidity: 4
Symptoms: Plague begins with fever, diarrhea, a red rash that turns black and a swelling of the glands. The fever is uncontrollable and rises until the weakened victim suffers delirium and dehydration. Eventually, the overtaxed body fails.
Duration: Within a day, the first symptoms appear, often mistaken for other less deadly diseases. The rash appears within a week, and the blackened glands a few days later. Death follows in about 14 days from the onset of the first symptoms.
Vector: The feared follower of war and woe, plague is drawn to misery and chaos, when the rats outnumber the survivors of a siege and the dead lie unburied in the streets. It is passed from person to person and also hides within blankets, clothes and other goods that a plague victim might have touched. Should the plague spread to the lungs, it becomes a swift moving and deadly disease easily transmitted through the air that can leave cities dead and kingdoms desolate.
Treatment: Fire and isolation are the most common treatment of plague. Draughts successful against it are rare and expensive. Very few people recover from the plague on their own. Only the Great Contagion is feared more than this disease.

Disease Template

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Morbidity:	Treated Morbidity:
Symptoms:
Duration:
Vector:
Treatment: