Blood Sickness

Fatal illness: the legacy of Cataclysm

Black Calendar: Two Hundred and Eighty Third Winter-Year

Under the Black Sun all things withered and even those things that lingered often held their own internal fire in the wasteland. This Soul Fire, invisible to the eye, kindled in all the lands touched by Sky Weapons. The burning souls of the unknown dead continue to smolder where the living dare not tread lest the all-consuming inferno (the never-ending blaze) consume them...

To escape this "Soul Sickness" one dare not look into the baleful fire. The body must be properly prepared. As the Oldsiders taught, we scour the sea rocks for weeds and extract the "Eye o'Dye" to guard against the glare of unseen flames and teach our bodies to reject the fire.

— Laradan Chronicles of Black Sun

The Blood Sickness is a degenerative disease that originates from the Age of Poisoned Sea and Sky. The toxins unleashed during the Cataclysm have long been recognized as dangerous pathogens and Blood Sickness is but one of the many illnesses attributed to the legacy of that terrible event. Blood Sickness, however, is recognized by many disparate cultures as one of the most insidious of these diseases, for it nearly always brings a swift and fatal end.

Additional names

Soul Sickness, Afterdeath, Red Death

Transmission & Vectors

Blood Sickness is contracted through exposure to Badlands of Cataclysm or materials taken from quarantined Badlands. According to the toxic shamans of Larada, the fires of Cataclysm ignited the very souls of its victims, transfiguring them into ever-burning spectral shades that haunt the lands in which they died. Blood Sickness (or "Soul Sickness" as the Laradans call it) occurs when these spirits pass into a host body and kill the soul with ghostly fire. Transmission is instantaneous and the onset of symptoms occurs within hours.

Causes

The cause for Blood Sickness maintained by the Larada is consiststent with the beliefs of Zoners and Pachucese. All myth-science pertaining to Blood Sickness concurs on one fundamental fact. The fires of Cataclysm left something behind and that something causes terrible disease and death in everything it touches.

Symptoms

Blood Sickness begins with headaches and nosebleeds caused by internal bleeding. The Laradans explain this by describing how the epidemic fire begins to peel soul and body apart. Continued, direct exposure to the infection vector can kill in a matter of hours, but even those who remove themselves from the infectious object or zone are doomed. Without treatment the disease causes acute internal hemorrhaging and eventual organ failure.

Treatment

The only known cures for Blood Sickness are found in ancient records of Precursor and Visitor medicine. The Trinity Pump Station is believed to be one such location where these miracles of myth-science were performed in the Age of Poisoned Sea and Sky.

Prognosis

Blood Sickness causes near-universal mortality. Even those who survive the onset of the disease are so lamed by their illness that death soon follows anyhow.

Prevention

There are no known cures for full-blown cases of Blood Sickness. There are, however, some cases in which limited exposure to infectious material can be counteracted with timely preventative measures. The Toxic Shamans of Larada have prescribed such a treatment involving the enteral ingestion of salts derived from sea plants. They administer these extracts in a red solution referred to to as Eye o'Dye and witnesses have marveled at its efficacy. Indeed, Laradan rangers treated with Eye o'Dye have been known to wander for miles into the Great Mid-Western Badland without suffering any long-term deleterious effects.

The new alchemists of Pachuco City have pioneered their own novel treatments for Blood Sickness in response to the latest Vril Invasion. They have their own medication similar to Eye o'Dye as well as a blue elixir which they claim can be given as an emergency response to unexpected Badland exposure.

Epidemiology

Though the Blood Sickness is fatal in humans, there are certain Badland muto tribes that have exhibited immunity to the disease. These muto outriders, such as the Fire Bloods of the Vril, carry the "unseen fire" and spread it to those they encounter. This occurred at the Battle of Farport, when the Vril Cave Master known as Pacui spread his Blood Sickness infection to a group of Merikan explorers via his caustic, mutated blood.

Type

Genetic

Origin

Mutated

Cycle

Chronic, Acquired

Rarity

Rare