The Gray Wasting (/ ðə ɡreɪ weɪstɪŋ / (Aeillan: / gri: dolofonos /, Inhdric: / nai mäŋ / Huri: / moimant /))
Υρι Δολοφόνος / ناي مانت
An incredibly dangerous virus first encountered in Huria, the Gray Wasting has been known to kill entire communities if allowed to spread at all. As a result outbreaks are quickly quarantined and the infected liquidated. The first recorded encounter with the Gray Wasting was made by the Aeillan Empire under Emperor Ioannes Cornelius Kallimedes, when a recently established colony in Huria was completely destroyed by the Wasting. Since then the Wasting has been considered one of the greatest threats to society in Galisea, and any outbreaks are ruthlessly destroyed.
Transmission & Vectors
The chief transmission vector between those afflicted with the Gray Wasting is direct physical contact, particularly skin to skin, and skin to fluid contact, with fluid to fluid contact being especially deadly, but relatively rare among socially aware populations. In later stages of an infection, those afflicted being to release clouds of the disease into the air where airborne transmission becomes possible over a localized area. Direct contact with free standing disease particulates is often how the first infected come into contact with the virus but is rarely the source of person to person transmission.
Causes
The Gray Wasting, when encountered in the wild generally appears as a gray ooze and this ooze usually serves as the primary vector for the first infections. Those who come into contact with goo are the first infected with the Wasting, and spread it to others through direct contact. The Wasting's goo form is far more common and stable in dry areas, with the earliest recorded source for the disease being in the deserts of Huria, with wetter areas having a slower infection process and with the goo being virtually nonexistent and extremely unstable outside of hosts.
Symptoms
The Gray Wasting has several distinctive stages of infection, three in which the afflicted is still alive and one that occurs after the death of the victim. These symptoms are referred to be scholars as the wheezing, the lunacy, the wasting, and the release each of which give a general idea of what the general course of the infection actually is. Symptoms have been fairly stable and reliable ever since the first recorded encounter with the disease, and have not changed at all since that first encounter. The only factor observed to have altered the progression of the infection is the environment with infections in wetter climates slowing progression. Symptoms begin to be exhibited within a week of initial infection.
In the first stage of infection, those afflicted by the Gray Wasting do not exhibit outward signs of having been infected with the virus, and appear to be relatively normal. These early infections look to most outside observers as a fairly standard case of a minor disease such as a cold or mild flu. Afflicted persons are seen to cough, with the noted absence of phlegm. Many have also been observed to possess headaches, and are reported to be suffering from minor pain. Towards the later phases of this stage of infection, those afflicted begin to have blood in their cough, which escalates into the second phase.
In the second phase of infection, usually starting two weeks after initial exposure, there is a marked deterioration in the cognitive abilities of the afflicted. This begins with increased paranoia, and loss of memory as well as in almost all cases increasingly all-encompassing progressive amnesia. As the condition of the infected person continues to decline infected people have trouble speaking or otherwise interacting socially with others, and in certain cases those infected persons become extremely hostile, and generally outright violent towards others, and indeed for some infected this is as far as the disease progresses before they are killed to prevent them from harming others. The infected become less directly dangerous however as the second stage of infection progresses into the third.
In the third stage of infection, usually a month after initial infection, the afflicted begin to exhibit extreme physical symptoms. The wasting targets the musculature and skeletal system of the infected, with the infected becoming noticeably weaker at a rapid pace. The infected becomes noticeably weak and frail within a few days of progressing to this stage. After another few days, the infected generally becomes incapable of even mild physical activity, and bones can be broke with only moderate pressure. Given the lack of activity of the infected, they frequently die from starvation, dehydration, or even exposure shortly after becoming unable to walk. A rare few who survive lose the ability to breathe and die regardless. Throughout the whole of the third stage of infection, the skin of the infected increasingly takes on a gray, ashen tone, and It is from this stage of infection that the Gray Wasting gets its name. Regardless, a few days after the death of the infected the fourth stage the release begins within the bodies of the infected.
In the fourth stage the Gray Wasting reproduces itself, finally consuming the rest of the body of the infected and causing the abdomen of the afflicted to burst with disease particulates filling the air in dense clouds referred to as the "Gray Mist". These clouds themselves become highly dangerous vectors for infection. The rest of the infectious particulates begins to congeal into the gray goo that caused the initial infection. The only organic material that survives the Gray Wasting are particularly dense concentrations of bone such as teeth, and even those are extremely brittle and susceptible to destruction.
Treatment
Treatment of the Gray Wasting has proved especially illusive in the many centuries since the first recorded encounter with it. Standard medical treatment has proven ineffective and indeed, exposure of would be caretakers is almost always a vector for further infections. Some reports have indicated sufficient electrical shocks have been effective in combatting the disease, however, these shocks are often lethal on their own, killing most people subjected to them. Conventional wisdom stresses that since treatment is impossible the most effective method of dealing with the afflicted is quarantining or liquidating infected persons and burning the bodies as well as using fire to destroy most of the possessions of the infected.
Prognosis
The prognosis of those afflicted with the Gray Wasting is grim. In the centuries since the initial contact with the disease was made, only a handful of persons have survived being infected with the disease, and the number of those who came into contact without contracting the Gray Wasting themselves is in the low thousands at best. It is generally accepted that coming into conflict with the Gray Wasting is extremely dangerous at best, and a Gray Wasting infection is considered to be lethal with almost absolute certainty.
Epidemiology
An outbreak of the Gray Wasting almost always is sourced to somebody coming into direct contact with particulates. From there the spread of the disease is usually dependent on the level of contact that the infect have with others. As transmission from person to person usually requires direct contact initial spread is quite slow though the release of gray clouds into the air rapidly spreads the condition. Once a community has seen roughly one out of twenty infected, it is generally too late to prevent community wide transmission, and it is recommended to isolate or destroy the community.
History
The earliest known recorded instance of the Gray Wasting can be traced back to the Aeillan expansion into the Huri Deserts during High Imperial Period. In the year EA 82, a group of colonists hailing from the upper Tyros founded a new town in Huri desert near a known source of minerals. This colony reported discovering a strange substance shortly after opening the first mines. Within weeks, the town was fully infected with persons reporting to be 'withering' by official sources with many bodies being reduced to gray dust and bones. The final report was written by Imperial Army soldiers, who had been called into the town to investigate a mysterious plague, they found a ruin, with only a handful of violent ill survivors. In the report it was indicated that the army detachment liquidated the surviving infected, burned the town to the ground, and within Imperial records, the town was struck from the official record.
No further records would be written of the wasting for nearly two centuries after the initial report, and it was believed the disease gone extinct. In AE 271 however, a major infection of the Wasting ocurred sweeping most of the Huria region, and even penetrating well into the Aeillan Empire, and Inhdara. Several communities were outright destroyed as the disease managed to spread, due it is believed, to particulates and the oozes being transported on the overland trade routes. Inhdric records indicate no less than fifty thousand fatalities from the wasting, and the Aeillan Empire lost over a million. Records from the Huri are sparse, but the depopulation of several Huri tribes would indicate a similar impact. Inhdara managed to contain the wasting relatively quickly and isolate the affected communities, though those communities were destroyed. Aeilla was more severely impacted with even the city of Recton being completely depopulated (only recovering in the post Imperial period), and it is widely believed that the outbreak of the wasting marked the beginning of the Late Imperial period, and the start of the decline of the Aeillan Empire.
Since the events of AE 271, there has never an incident involving the Gray Wasting that has reached nearly the same extent as that outbreak. However, the Wasting has become endemic to several regions particularly in Huria. In that time, several communities, most notably mining communities have been impacted by the Wasting. As knowledge of the disease has spread in the centuries since the events of 271 AE, fewer outbreaks have lead to the complete infection of a town, though several larger outbreaks have caused significant issue. The Wasting has slowly become less common in the Post Imperial era, and almost no major outbreaks have occurred since AR 400, and a decreasing number of minor outbreaks have occurred. Still the fear of the Wasting remains, as many worry that another major incident involving the Gray Wasting could occur at any time.
Cultural Reception
Given the highly deadly nature of the Wasting, the reaction of people to those infected is reliably hostile. As somebody infected with the wasting represents an existential threat to themselves and the wider community, it is common practice to isolate or kill infected persons to prevent the spread of the Wasting to others. Such reactions, particularly the latter, ironically tend to result in greater infections. On a wider scale, knowledge of an infection in a community is almost certain to cause a panic, especially if it is not immediately contained. There are also many superstitions regarding the infected, claiming that the bones of the deceased are guaranteed to become part of an undead creature and as a result bodies of wasting infected are burned in every society that has seen many Gray Wasting infections.
The Grey Wasting in 5e DnD
The Gray Wasting can be contracted in three ways. Direct contact with particulates, direct contact with the infected, or inhalation of airborne particulates. A character coming into contact with the Gray Wasting must make a Constitution save (DC 15 for inhalation, DC 20 for contact with an infected person, DC 22 for contact with the grey goo) or be infected. The infection has three distinct stages: Stage I: The infected character cannot lose levels of exhaustion while infected. After 4d4+4 days, progress to stage two. Stage II: As stage one, but the infected character also loses one point from their Intelligence and Wisdom score every two days to a minimum of 2. These lost points cannot be restored unless the infection is cured. Every three days, the character must make a Wisdom save (DC 15), they gain a new madness from DM's choice of madness table, this madness cannot be removed unless the wasting is cured. If a character fails the save by five or more, they cannot identify other people, and treat all other creatures as hostile. After 4d4+4 days progress to stage three. Stage III: As stage two, but they also lose one point from their Constitution, Dexterity, and Strength score every two days. Points lost this way cannot be restored until the Wasting is cured. If a character's constitution is reduced to zero in this stage of infection, that character dies. Characters that die while infected with the Gray Wasting disintegrate over the course of a few days leaving only bone and clouds of infectious particulates. They cannot be restored to life by casting Raise Dead, Resurrection, or Revivify, but may be resurrected by other magic.Curing the Wasting
The Gray Wasting can only cured if the infected person is subjected to Lightning damage equal to the number of days they have been infected times five. Ability scores lost to the wasting and madness can be removed by casting Greater Restoration on somebody who has already been cured of the wasting.
In response to the prompt Write about a disease with an unknown origin in your world. How do people treat it?
