The Healing Rot

One of the oldest and possibly deadliest diseases on all of Engwilt, the Healing Rot causes the flesh of the afflicted to rot on their bones, creating an incredibly painful death. There is still no known cure, and healing magic as a whole - the presumed cause of this terrible disease - has a very bad reputation thanks to it.

Transmission & Vectors

How exactly the Healing Rot gets transmitted is poorly understood, despite the fact that some of the earliest surviving written records detail this horrible sickness. All that is known is that it can appear after an over-reliance on healing magic, be it of arcane or divine origin.
Scholars are still baffled towards the fact that some people seem to display an almost complete immunity to it, whilst others get afflicted after a single minor healing spell, leaving them in the dark when it comes to how exactly the transmission takes place.

Symptoms

At first, patients feel dizzy-headed and lethargic, oftentimes even refusing to leave their bed. Over the coming weeks and months, their bodies will start to literally rot on their bones, causing intense pain. This is why it is called a 'rot' - living creatures starting to rot like a corpse.

Treatment

There is no known way to heal this affliction - while there are many stories about people claiming to have survived it through the most outlandish means, these stories could never be replicated. While further healing spells are known to be able to push back the onset of the symptoms a little, the pain is said to be much higher, and as such many people resort to suicide once noticing the first onset of rot on their bodies.

Prevention

The best Healing Rot prevention is to abstain from any form of healing spell, however, many believe that praying to Tristian, God of the Healing Sunlight to absolve them of their sin - namely resorting to unnatural healing - can protect them from it.

Epidemiology

Contrary to most - if not all - other sicknesses, the Healing Rot does not move through a population, instead appearing sporadically, often as fully isolated cases.

History

Some of the oldest surviving records already speak of the dreadful Healing Rot, and many a famous hero or king has died to its merciless fangs when they tried to prolong their lives past their natural end.

Cultural Reception

The way people view this condition varies wildly between cultures and, more importantly, religions. Where mages claim that it is merely the result of imperfect spells that have to be improved to prevent it, the more religiously inclined - in first line those following Tristian - believe it to be a divine punishment for trying to defy the will of the gods.
As such, the way they are treated also depends heavily on these factors: since there is no known transmission through proximity, these people are often closely surrounded by friends and family in their final days, however there are also many cases of them being exiled to die alone in the wild instead.

The Healing Rot

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Type

Supernatural

Origin

Magical

Cycle

Chronic, Acquired

Rarity

Common