The Boneplague
The Boneplague was a vicious disease created by the Greater Demon, Baal'zure, which ravaged Southern and Middle-Eidos for three years, from 264 to 267, before being put to rest in Klaarta Dunn.
Transmission & Vectors
The Boneplague could be spread both in the air and by physical contamination with an infected living thing. There were few recorded examples of individuals immune to the boneplague; animals and sentients alike carried it with equal virulence and generally equal symptoms. Only one known exception was rumoured to exist in Klaarta Dunn - an Elvish cleric woman who supposedly had the ability to dispel the plague in infected individuals and cleanse herself of it as well. However, records on this cleric are sketchy, and her name was not known.
Causes
In 264, just after the Spellbreaker-Staldor war reached a head, a fragile peace was brokered between the two factions. The Spellbreakers and Chantry, however, not satisfied with this resolution, opted to try and weaken the fledgling Staldor Empire by another means - propagating a plague of magical origin by providing a few resources to some backwater cultists, and then they would monitor the spread of the plague. It was intended to travel no further than the Staldor territories, making it evident to the people of Eidos it originated there, and to sow distrust between the inhabitants of the continent and the Staldor people. However, the cultists, unbeknownst to the Chantry, formulated a pact with the Greater Demon, Baal'zure, whose particular fascination with plagues and disease made him interested in adding his own touch to the plague. Where it was meant to only kill those who it touched, Baal'zure gave it other properties that made it far more dangerous and virulent. As a result, the plague spread far beyond what the Chantry had intended, and posed a legitimate threat to all of Eidos.
Symptoms
Those afflicted by the boneplague would have calcified growths manifest on their bodies, particularly at joints. These growths would be hard as bone - hence the name - and would also, paradoxically, be the most prone to passing on the disease. They were closer to hardened boils than actual bone, as was later discovered. Earlier symptoms would involve tiredness and pain at the joints; by the time a joint had calcified, it was already too late to treat or cure that particular victim.
Treatment
Though no vaccine or panacea was ever developed, cleansing magics - due to the plague's abyssal origins - would slow down and, in quickly diagnosed individuals, potentially eliminate the plague. However, it was exceptionally difficult to tell exactly when an individual had the plague, whether they were a carrier, or whether it they were on the brink of the point of no return. Most treatment involved nullifying the pain of the individual and then putting them out of their misery before the plague could advance to its more dangerous final stage.
Prognosis
Those who were unfortunate enough to neither receive treatment nor a merciful death would die in agony as their joints rotted and necrotised as they still lived. Then, not long after, the body would be put back into motion. The calcified growths would now act as armour on a reanimated corpse, which would seek to bite, scratch, or otherwise contaminate the bodies of more victims to spread the plague further. With this calcification these "zombies" would be especially difficult to quell, being resistant to decapitation or amputation. The only reliable way to deal with an individual prior to or after their reanimation was burning, either by magical or conventional means. Once Baal'zure was banished, however, all current victims of the plague at that time who had not progressed to the final stage suffered ill effects but generally recovered. Those at the final stage could be treated, but generally died of fever, and were not reanimated.
Type
Supernatural
Origin
Magical
Cycle
Chronic, Acquired
Rarity
Unique
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