Grayplague

The Plagueborn are a people (if one could even call them that) with a tough lot in this life. Poor souls having done nothing wrong but either got sick or were born sick. Yet to be treated worse than lepers would drive almost anyone to fanaticism. - Origins of the Cult of Rot, Tesserve c. 123 PS

Transmission & Vectors

Once the infection has taken a hold its host, one of two things happen. The host almost always dies a swift, painful death, fungal spores sprouting in their lungs and erupting over a few days from their chest, mouth, and nose. These fungal clusters would spore in turn, spreading the contaminant into the air and any nearby sources of water, where it will either infect new hosts or sprout more fungus once it's found fertile ground in which to do so.
If the host survives the infection -- and how this is possible is still the subject of much debate -- they are changed nonetheless. A sickly pallor comes to the skin of survivors, turning it a dry, ashy gray slate, though now the infection is now only transmissible via genetic reproduction. Despite not a single case of Grayplague being transferred from a Perfect Host (coloquially, Plagueborn) to anything, the prejudice remains, and the Plagueborn people have suffered much at the hands of those who fear another outbreak. In recorded history to date there have been but two outbreaks of the Grayplague, both begun via divine ritual. The fungal colonies whose hosts become inert for almost any period (sometimes as little as week) tend to become inactive and die off on their own, drying to a hard gray tissue and eventually becoming harmless dust.

Causes

Whether the spores of the Grayplague find their way into the respiratory or digestive systems of the host, they have an uncanny ability to make their way into the heart, lungs, brains, and livers of the victim. Once it's found its way to the vital organs it begins to rapidly reproduce, sprouting into large fungal colonies and destroying the host body. The spores seem to require a warm, wet environment to foster its colonies, and so most creatures with neither circulatory systems (such as dryads or constructs), or creatures able to keep their bodies particularly cold (such as certain Ice-Kin to the North) are able to fend of the growth of the spores into full fungal colonies. How long the spores can live on within the bodies of ill-suited hosts is largely unknown due to a lack of scientific research.

Symptoms

Symptoms vary widely depending on whether the host is what is classified as a perfect host and a non-perfect host:
i. Perfect Host: A perfect-host is so named due to the startling ability of a creature to assimilate the Grayplague into its being. Certain organisms are capable of completely resisting almost all life-threatening aspects of the Grayplague, going so far as to avoid even an initial fever in reaction to the infection. It seems as though the Grayplague is able to perfectly suit particular hosts (and what makes these hosts so particular remains unknown), merely adapting them to what's commonly referred to as "Plagueborn". The symptoms of a Plagueborn are wide-ranging and varied, though there are some typical reactions to assimilating the Grayplague.
The skin or scales, musculature, and sometimes even bone of the host will take on a deep gray appearance, often developing a rougher texture and greater strength with a reduction in flexibility. The eyes or sight-organs often take on a vibrant, milky quality, like a shining opaque liquid has filled them. While intellect seems largely unaffected, most creatures tend to take on a more defensive social stance, shying away from contact. Some specimen have even exhibited behaviour going as far as leaving towns or cities in favour of the wilds. Popular men or women who have lived their whole lives in the city may find themselves shunning their friends and family and leaving town, often fatally.
ii. Non-Perfect Host: While the persecution of Perfect Hosts is often referenced as a great crime, non-perfect hosts suffer a fate at least equal in terms of suffering. To anyone unable to assimilate it, the Grayplague is lethal. Barring but a few expensive and painful divine rituals to cure it, anyone who contracts it is resigned to a painful death at the hands of rampant fungal colonies growing within them.
Fever is the most common first symptom of an outbreak in the host's immune system, often quickly followed with bloating, vomiting, and difficulty breathing. As the symptoms progress over the course of 3-5 days, intense pain in the head followed by long bouts of unconsciousness or in some cases conscious blackouts begin to occur. Antisocial behavior similar to that exhibited by perfect hosts may occur as well, though these will progress further in non-perfect hosts, to the point of paranoia, and even full-blown delusion and hallucinations. Within a week, the fungal tissue will have grown to a point where it painfully tears through the skin and begins destroying the host organs. The host has usually lost almost all cognitive reasoning at this point, and will lash out violently at attempts to aid it. Skin splits and the victim either dies from the pain or from its air passages/blood flow being completed cut off from the foreign bodies.

Treatment

Many, many treatments for Grayplague have been attempted since the first plague nearly 1500 years ago. While there have been only two major outbreaks, the Plagueborn continue on almost as a species unto themselves, and treatments for the perfect hosts have been extensive. Never has there been a documented case of a perfect host being cured of their affliction. Despite coffers of gold being emptied, entire religious organizations banding together for a unified cause, or the most powerful sorcerers trying to rid a body of the alien fungus, perfect hosts seem to remain perpetually untreatable.
There have, on the other hand, been a few documented cases of non-perfect hosts being cured before they are completely consumed by the affliction. Shortly before the Sundering, during the second outbreak, a powerful cleric of the Iron Circle, sworn to the Source, devised a ritual cleansing and was able to cleanse a number of afflicted. Though historical accounts of this vary, the generally accepted range of people cured is between 60 and 100.

History

The first recorded outbreak of the Grayplague took place almost a century before the second outbreak, which occurred at the time of the Sundering. The first outbreak was spearheaded by one woman who had seemingly discovered a long-forgotten earth spirit known as The Rot. Bargaining with The Rot, she was promised great power if she were to accept his boon. Its widely accepted that his gift of The Rot was the first spores of the Grayplague virus. The woman, by the named of Shelava, became the Avatar of Rot, his chosen champion on the mortal plane. As most powerful beings of the time, The Rot had the potential to ascend to godhood, and while scholars are largely unsure why he chose a mortal avatar after so long -- considering he is regarded as one of the oldest entities on Chir -- this ascension is often cited.
Once Shelava had been given this power, the first plague erupted with a virulence never seen in another disease, magical or otherwise. Tens of thousands fell victim to the Grayplague, and while most died swiftly, many survived to become the first generation of what would be called the Plagueborn. A loathed people, they were regarded as the source of so much pain and suffering they were shunned from almost all society. Many were persecuted with horrible prejudice, and while they actually posed little threat to anyone, many of them managed to reconvene outside of most cities, where they were able to wait out the worst of the pogroms. Only Torvarald, headed by the Iron Circle, was confident enough to give the Plagueborn refugees a temporary home, earning much disdain from the citizenry. Though the Iron Circle held most of the world's most pre-eminent sorcerers, the general population was discouraged from the use on unsanctioned magic, and as such much of the population were simple laypeople living in the continent's centre of trade.
Their discrimination against the Plagueborn persisted, even as the initial outbreak on non-perfect hosts was mostly contained within the city. A night of violence occurred after the disease had been almost entirely quarantined, when Shelava herself appeared within the city walls, and hundreds more people began to get sick. A battle erupted between The Rot's Avatar and the Iron Circle, with the council of magi able to eventually subdue and destroy the Avatar. The latent effect of her magics, however, meant even more succumbing to the Grayplague. The battle resulted in a riotous mob attacking The Shale, the district where the refugees had been living. The battle between the healthy citizens of Torvarald and the Plagueborn lasted two days before the sorcerers of the Circle and the registered magisters who reported to them were able to quell the violence. With the end of hostilities and the death of the Avatar of The Rot the first outbreak was contained and shortly died out.
It would be less than a century, however, before it returned. The self-named Cult of Rot, led by one Althamae Taeldor, a Plagueborn who was born into the illness in Torvarald, found a way to resurrect the disease. While he founded the Cult of Rot and discovered a way to start another outbreak, it is widely accepted by scholars that his actions were not sanctioned by The Rot, for reasons which remain unknown. What is known is that from the Cult a new Avatar was chosen by The Rot, though the new Avatar seemed almost entirely uninterested with the propagation of the Grayplague. The new Avatar, once a street urchin known simply as Smidge, would go on to be a driving force in the founding of the official Church of The Rot and would actually play a part in the dismantling of the Cult of Rot.
Before the Avatar was able to, the second outbreak occurred from within Torvarald. Similar to the first outbreak, violence and distrust against the Plagueborn erupted, even though most of them had lived peaceful lives after being born with the illness. The Circle once again acted to prevent the violence and contain the outbreak, though that first required targeting and destroying the Cult of Rot. Through no small effort, the Cult was uprooted and the source of the disease was ended, though the continued presence of those afflicted by the Grayplague in the city took more time to contain. The second outbreak of the Grayplague is regarded by many scholars as one of the driving factors for Torvarald falling to agents of the Outsider in the time just before the Sundering.

Type

Supernatural

Cycle

Chronic, Acquired & Congenital

Rarity

Extremely Rare