Wizard Rot

Wizard Rot is a rare and dreaded condition which has long been known to afflict thaumatologists and other investigators of supernatural phenomena throughout the Eleven Cities. The disease is very poorly understood, partly because it is blessedly rare, though tales of it are sufficiently horrific as to blight the reputation of thaumatology as an intellectual discipline throughout the cities. Its rarity, however, make it tremendously difficult to study.

Signs and symptoms

Wizard rot is noted for the insidiousness of its onset. Its early stages are almost impossible to study because its herald symptoms mirror the human aging process so precisely as to be almost invariably entirely overlooked. All that a patient might notice is a slight greying and thinning of the hair and a very gradual decline in energy levels, particularly in the morning. It is thought that the members of the Lunar Society of Pholyos took to rising very early in the morning specifically to monitor each other for signs of the disease.
How long this process goes on is unclear due to a lack of experimental data, but the disease then progresses to a lack of appetite and a dryness of the skin, which begins to become flaky after a few days. From there cases progress rapidly to a dark lesion of the skin, usually at a single herald spot which grows from the size of a pinhead to that of a grape over the space of as little as a night. Insofar as any case of such a rare condition can be taken as typical, these spots are typically noticed in the morning. By the evening of the following day, the spot has usually developed into a large painful abscess producing a greenish-blue pus. When this abscess bursts the resulting sore fails to heal, instead spreading swiftly, producing more pus and exposing ever-increasing amounts of diseased tissue. The pain in this area is typically excruciating, and sufferers can be diagnosed by reference to the characteristic odour of the septic matter produced by the sore. By this stage a general listlessness has given way to a settled malaise that leaves the sufferer incapable of rising from their sickbed. An acute sensitivity to sunlight develops, quickly followed by blindness, the onset of which is typically less than a moon after the appearance of the first lesion. There is no record of any patient whose infection reaches this stage ever recovering.
The illness itself does not appear to be fatal, however. Insofar as the condition is understood, it seems the patient actually dies of hunger or thirst. Many sufferers regurgitate anything they consume - the sputum often accompanied by copious quantities of blood - while others appear to lose the ability to take nutrition from anything. Sufferers can thus often linger for a moon or more in their sickbed, wracked with pain, blinded and rapidly losing weight until they resemble stinking, delirious, sunken-eyed skeletons.

Cause

The cause of this illness is not known. The Brotherhood of Rooks, generally thought of as the pre-eminent physicians in most cities, do not discuss the disease unless they are asked direct questions about it. When such questions come, the company line appears to be that the disease is a risk of "investigating mysteries beyond human ken." The Rooks note, for example, that all known cases of the condition have been observed in individuals with a background in thaumatological and archaeological fieldwork. It is from this association that the condition derives its name.
Wizard Rot does not appear to be contagious, and thus it is actively feared mostly as an occupational hazard among thaumatologists. Such is the nature of the disease, however, that most sufferers are shunned by the general populace, many of whom fear infection in the manner of less mysterious maladies.

Treatment

No known treatment has ever availed against the progress of Wizard Rot. Members of the Brotherhood of Rooks have been known to contact known thaumatologists to ask them to be on the lookout for early signs of the disease and make themselves available as test subjects should such symptoms emerge. This habit is probably what has given the Brotherhood such a reputation for morbidness among would-be magicians.
The noted Epalozian archaeologist Hazwaj Karnaphan is known to have retired quickly to the local chapter house of the order upon noticing a herald spot above his right eyebrow while writing up his notes for one of his expeditions into the Empty Quarter. He never emerged from the chapter house alive and was buried in the adjoining acropolis a moon later; whatever the Rooks learned from the case they have so far kept to themselves.

Notable cases

* Hazwaj Karnaphan
* Alberr Lytogyad
* Halleryne Orbestta

Type

Supernatural