Icewater Plague

"It is a terrible affliction one for which no known cure exists. Even in todays more modern age, as we move forward and begin to understand illness in ways we never have before, leaving behind foolish old age concepts such as leeching, or bleedings, this is one affliction that still invokes enough fear to send people into such nonsensical ideas. Old wives tales of boiling extract on the skin of the forearms, or bubbling oil, sipped so hot as to scald the tongue. None of these, however, do anything. Icewater Plague is rare, thankfully, but it is almost always terminal. We know not how or where we get it, nor do we understand how it spreads. There are theories of course, but no proof for any of them. My students, this is perhaps the one time you will hear me say this, but if you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that your patient has this accursed affliction, then know you break not the oaths of your profession if you help them die painlessly. You are treating their pain, and their condition, in every sense of the word, and doing them a true mercy and kindness. For this illness is not a pleasant way to die."

Doctor Sasha Vanis, giving a lecture at the Surgeon's University to a lecture hall of first year students, in An Pointe Thoir.

First come the chills, whenever you are not moving, they begin to set in, your body temperature dropping. You'll shiver, you'll begin to see blue in your extremities. But the cold will not numb the mind. You will feel it. You will feel every pin and every needle. You will feel your saliva beginning to slurry in your throat, in your lungs, in your mouth. Your coughs will hurt, bloody chunky foam will be brought up, courtesy of little shards of ice in your saliva. Your urine will begin to be as a slurry, and feel as if you are passing stones all the time, with bits of blood and frozen urine creating a foul smelling gelatin like substance. Your eyes will burn with fury, the lids unable to properly close, little shards of ice poking and stabbing at them if you try. This occurs slowly, over weeks. Once you hit this point, over the next few days, you will slowly freeze to death from the inside out, should you ever rest, and you will feel every second of it as your body begins to shut down, until mercifully, your heart or lungs or brain freeze. It is excruciating, suffering beyond measure, an end no one deserves. And barring direct intervention of sorcery, of magick, from a magister of the Colleges of Dulra or Meanma? You will die. Even with such help, we all know their magicks are.....finnicky at best. So you might still die anyway, or worse. Better than, in most doctors professional opinion, to just commit suicide, to avoid the suffering.  

Unknown medical student's journal

Transmission & Vectors

In truth no one really knows how it is caught, though all manner of theories exist. Some suggest it is merely what happens when a bout of hypothermia reaches a critical point. Other doctors have suggested that it is caught by eating....well any variety of wild animal. Some suggest undercooked caribou or moose meat, others still have suggested it may be from tainted water, or a particular kind of mold.

The true culprit however.... is something far more sinister, and far more vile than a mere illness or infection. It is a parasite, and is no mere local bug. This thing comes from beyond the realms of mere mortals, spawned forth from the depths of the realm of Nightmares. The Abyss. The only way you can get true Icewater Plague is if one of these little worms gets into your head.

Causes

Icewater Plague is directly caused by Fell-Squirm these little vile beasts. The truth of the illness is far worse than what most common folk nowadays know, given it is just second nature now to burn the bodies of the sick, and has been for hundreds of years. But every so often someone foolishly buries a loved one, without burning the body.

Symptoms

Icewater Illness has a variety of symptoms, and they can manifest in a variety of orders. Listed here however, is the most commonly observed progression of the disease;

• Continual falling of core temperature, only relieved somewhat by active motion, but it is temporary relief.

• Nerve malfunction, the body does not go numb from cold anymore. So you feel every bit of what is listed below.

• Loss of focus, loosing coherency.

• Extreme fatigue

• trouble relieving ones self, their bodily fluids starting to slurry

• A stinging or stabbing or prickling sensation, increasing gradually in intensity as your blood slurries, and the little chunks in the slurry begin to scratch and scrape inside your veins as it tries and flow.

• Hallucinations both auditory and visual

• Detoriarating eyesight as the fluids that make up your eyeballs begin to slurry and freeze. In extreme cases, as the fluids expand, this can cause what is known within the medical community as 'sudden orbital decompression' which is as ominous and utterly unpleasant as it sounds.

• slow onset paralysis, lossing bits of motion, ranges, until eventually your extremities no longer work.

• autopsies have revealed in the past, frostbite upon most critical organ structures, though it is not systemic. It is believed this phase begins here, where normally shock kills the patient not long after.

• Slow, excruciating death.The few, precious few, only 8 in fact, in over two hundred years of documented medicine, only 8 patients have ever survived. But even those whom survive end up losing a limb, or an eye,, an ear perhaps. There is always a price.

Treatment

None currently exists in the medical or scientific community, in truth because well, they cannot. This is a sentient, nightmare creature, from beyond reality. No medication, no drug will stop or even slow it down. An infected person, if they can find the endurance, dig deep and survive 50 days, they will survive, as the Fell-Squirm has only a fifty day life cycle.

The main treatment option is the well weaved and skilled hands of a true master mage of Dulra or Meanma, whom can attempt to vanquish the creature. The intricate details of such spell weaving are closly guarded secrets of course, as with all the arts of magick. The collegiates are nothing if not protective, proper and justifyingly so, of their knowledge.

Prognosis

"It is Icewater of that I have no doubt in my mind, and it is rather advanced, milord. You have two weeks perhaps, I would guess less. Unfortunately, all I can offer is to make you comfortable. Well that and the sound advice of getting your affairs in order."

Doctor Matthew Honivey to a wealthy merchant client in Rekarsk, 1488 SuD.

Most medical advice of the day would tell you that such patients are terminal, though of course, hiring a magister of Meanma or Dulra is always a last, desperate option one can try, should they be able to afford it. Though be warned, do not cheap out here if you are going to incur such an expense. Woven wrongly, these spells will simply kill you in a horrendously vicious fashion.

However the medical community and the magick community have always been at odds. Doctors and herbalists, and even alchemists, do not trust magick and urge their clients not to either, stating such help is always comes with an added unseen price. But naturally those wealthy enough will try to, for it is our instinct to seek to avoid death.

Sequela

Generally one must be in an extremely cold region, one tainted by the touch of the Void, and even more specifically, they will need to in some way, take in the eggs of such a creature, be it on food, or through other strange means. As to the end result, or conditions that become more likely when being contracted with this illness? Well the likelihood of excruciating death raises by a rather large percentage. This illness will also make those with lung or heart weakness all the worse.

Affected Groups

The reality of what actually causes this 'illness' is what makes it so dangerous and so feared. It doesn't have a type, or a typology. It can infect anyone and everyone, should they be exposed. So far as anyone is aware, no living being is immune. In truth, some doctors have theorized, correctly it must be said, that this can infect any number of animals or beasts.

Hosts & Carriers

None naturally carry this illness, it is caused directly by the Fell-Squirm parasite.

Prevention

Ideally? Avoid exposure to such regions listed above or to any sort of interaction with the Void as a whole. In reality, such reactions are not often by the choice of the victims. Warding talismans, real proper made ones, which are exceedingly rare, they can offer protection with the proper charms and spells. The right blessings or miracles of certain gods can offer some measure of protection. The best protection, however, stands to be avoiding the risk altogther.

Epidemiology

How it moves through a population, well this is the thing kept from almost everyone, information supression at its finest. The truth of this parasite, it is the direct knowledge of the Collegiate of Magi, the Exemplaris, and the Witch-Hunters. Given the uniquely maddening and dangerous nature of this tainted knowledge, the general populace and even the medical community are taught it is merely a very deadly disease, one passed through contact. So sick people recieve no physical contact. Culturally, it has also been ingrained, wisely, that if you do not properly burn the body of such victims, the illness will spread. To their credit, the churches and the Collegiate are not completely lying in that regard. Not burning the body, or more specifically, the head of the victim who dies rather swiftly after death will begin a process that ultimately is designed to spread not just this parasite's kin, but many other afflictions and illnesses meant to further the spread of Ignavia's corrupting influence.

History

To the medical communities knowledge, the first recorded occurence of this illness was in the year 1312 SuD. This of course is simply lacking surpressed information from the church and the collegiate. Their records, if one were to ever gain access to their private archives, tell a very different tale, explaining how this is something from even before the Sundering, so far as they can tell. In fact, if one digs deep enough they will find that in church records, buried in the archives deep in the Armory of Valor, Sir Kartheart's Grand Cathedral, they will eventually find a translated report from before the Sundering. Some things may be confused in translation. What is clear however, is that some true calamity of the Void unleashed this upon unsuspecting towns and villages, and it played a direct role in forcing the surviving Suranthi out of the region, as the parasite born undead horde was simply too much. They were not ready to defend against such a threat.

As to some famous people effected, in recent memory there have been none, though about a hundred and twenty years ago the village of Fir Hallows, on the northmost island in Lake Foljeim in the Evani Baruntacht simply.....went dark. Some six to seven hundred souls called the small lumber community home. Overnight, it seemed, the village just fell silent and dark. People whom went to investigate in those early weeks, months and years, never returned. A Witch-Hunter came to investigate the occurence some twenty years ago, and came back from the island claiming the issue was handled, but telling folk not to go to the island, for the foul taint of the Abyss was all about the isle and those poor dead souls....

Cultural Reception

People whom catch this illness are generally ostracized and feared, due to the legends, the myths, and the truths surrounding this horrifying condition.

Type

Parasitic

Origin

Alien

Rarity

Extremely Rare

Affected Species

• Viid {Dwarves}
• Gshaan {Vrock}
• Humans
• Ffiɡài {Halflings}
• Tieflings
• Nouedon {Elves}
• Feykkä {Gnomes}