Diseases

Medicine in Exalted

Mortals do not possess great Charms such as Contagion-Curing Touch or other gifts of the Exalted, but that does not mean they are helpless in the face of disease.

Even the smallest of mortal villages has access to a wise woman or spirit caller. These mortal healers include in their repertoire the ability to make alchemical healing potions as well as rituals to fight illness and purify people of disease. Many mortals have minor charms, rituals or talismans that can soothe illness and cure disease (usually a one-die bonus). Such medicines, in slightly different variations, are found all over Creation.

Since the beginning of time, disease has been one of the most feared enemies of civilization, as dreadful as war, as terrifying as the Abyssals. In some lands, children are so likely to die that they are not even given a real name until they reach a year of age. In others, healers will not treat the old when they fall sick, believing it to be a waste of time and medicine. In all lands, healers of any sort are welcomed for their compassion and their skill.

Most illness are minor things: summer fever, winter colds, a day or two of the flux. Any healer or person with medical skill can ease these common illnesses and shorten their duration to a few days. All Exalted are completely immune to these common ailments and fevers. The diseases that follow are not those simple illnesses.

There are many customs—proscribing the eating of cloven-hoofed animals, one handful from every 10th bag of grain must be tested on a hot griddle, sex with a non-virgin woman is forbidden to all but her husband—which are intended to prevent disease from taking hold in a kingdom. The Immaculate Order has extensive dietary and purity laws that all worshipers are supposed to follow, as do most other religions. These customs and laws often break down in times of war and unrest, when natural disaster strikes or in crowded, uncivilized conditions such as refugee camps or city slums.

Although the Exalted are immune to disease, the consequences of disease can be deadly. When half an army is down with the flux or the plague is decimating a nation, disease becomes as dangerous as invasion. The chaos and violence that follows an epidemic may require that the heroes of legend take a hand in returning the countryside to health and safety. While mortal healers do not have the powers of the Exalted to cure, they are very familiar with the types of disease common in their area, as well as how they spread and what medicines may assist in treatment. A wise Exalt consults with the local healers when dealing with an epidemic.

Catching and Resisting Diseases

Virulence

The character's player makes a (Stamina + Resistance) roll for the character to attempt to avoid infection when exposed to the disease.

Untreated Morbidity

The difficulty of the (Stamina + Resistance) roll the player makes for his character to survive the illness when he is not treated by someone with the Medicine Ability or if the healer's player fails her (Intelligence + Medicine) roll.

Treated Morbidity

The difficulty of the (Stamina + Resistance) roll made when the character is successfully treated by someone with the Medicine Ability.

Difficulty to Treat

The modifier applied to the (Intelligence + Medicine) roll to successfully treat the illness. This is also the modifier applied to the difficulty to manufacture a talisman against a disease or a draught to cure it. If a patient is drinking a successfully made draught, his player rolls under the treated morbidity even if no one with the Medicine Ability is available.

Diseases of Compassion

Disease strikes first at the most vulnerable: the weak, the young, the old. Then, those who offer aid might find themselves the next victims as disease spreads to the caretakers: mothers, healers, priests and the compassionate who cannot bear to leave someone to die. Others wrench the heart of the compassionate through deforming or crippling their victims, leaving them to suffer for weeks, months or even a lifetime.

Leprosy

Virulence: 1	Difficulty to Treat: 3
Morbidity: 5	Treated Morbidity: 3
Symptoms: Sometimes called the ghost disease, leprosy is fairly common in shadowlands and otherwise rare. Lepers are a fearsome, heart-wrenching sight—the living rotting away like the dead. The early symptoms are no different from a mild illness: fever and weakness, muscle aches and exhaustion. Then, the more severe symptoms begin: numbness as nerves begin to fail, then the patient's ability to fight off illness weakens and he risks infection from every cut and bruise. Eventually, parts of the body die and fall away, leaving the victim vulnerable to secondary infections such as gangrene.
Duration: Leprosy begins two weeks after exposure, with gradually spreading patches of numbness, starting with the fingertips and face first. Then, over the next few months to a year, the skin goes white and bloodless. The disease takes a long time to kill its victims. Properly cared for, lepers can live for 10 or more years—leaving them to wander the world as mutilated objects of horror and pity.
Vector: Leprosy rises in places of despair: crowded refugee camps, the slums of the poor and the sunless shadowlands. Lepers are most likely to pass their disease to those closest to them, their loved ones and their caretakers—those who share their beds, their homes and their food. Leprosy lingers in the clothes, bedding and homes of lepers, and this is why they are often isolated in their own communities.
Treatment: Lepers must be kept safe from dying of secondary infections through cuts they cannot feel. Treatment is long, lasting several months, while the leper is given tinctures to purify the blood and warm the sluggish circulation. Ginseng and ginger are common ingredients found in draughts against leprosy. The skin must be kept clean with distilled alcohol or tincture of iodine. The organs of limb-regenerating lizards are included in draughts to encourage the body to regenerate lost parts. Purification rituals must be performed to cleanse the leper's home and to prevent the spread of the disease.

Consumption

Virulence: 2	Difficulty to Treat: 3
Morbidity: 2	Treated Morbidity: 1
Symptoms: Consumption begins quietly, with lethargy and low fevers. It can weaken the muscles of the body, leaving the victim lame or twisted. It can also attack the lungs.
Duration: A wasting disease, consumption leaves its victims to suffer for weeks or months or even years as weakened, crippled and vulnerable wretches. It is a subtle slow-moving disease, taking several months to appear after exposure. Sometimes a victim can seem recovered, only to fall to the disease months or years later. Mortal analysis of the corpse reveals cysts within the muscles or lungs of a victim where the disease lies in wait.
Vector: Consumption is found in slums and prisons, crowded places where despair is strong and compassion weak. The poor and mistreated suffer the wasting disease in disproportionate numbers. Some carry the disease without falling ill and can pass it to their friends and loved ones. Those who have consumption in the lungs pass it readily to others. The disease does not linger in clothes or homes.
Treatment: Tinctures to strengthen the body and will are used to combat the disease. Goldenseal, ginseng and the seaweed hailoi are used in the draught. Mallow or licorice is used to soothe the wracking cough.

Malaria

(Houserule), copied from Exalted 1e

Virulence: 3	Difficulty to Treat: 2
Morbidity: 3	Treated Morbidity: 2
Symptoms: Malaria causes fatigue, fever, chills and copious sweating. These symptoms ebb and flow at regular intervals as the disease progresses. The repeating nature of these symptoms — in either two- or three-day cycles — is the chief way malaria is diagnosed. Cases of malaria can be of varied severity. The worst cases include disorientation, high fevers, dehydration, stomach pain and internal bleeding that often proves fatal.
Duration: Malaria has an incubation period that varies from a few days to several months. Once symptoms begin, a case will last between one and four weeks. Exposure to the disease does not provide immunity and, often, those infected with malaria will suffer from occasional bouts of the disease for the rest of their lives.
Vector: Malaria is caused by the bites of infectious mosquitoes. It is a tropical disease with outbreaks occurring most often in or near swampy conditions. Once infected, the victim is not contagious to others.
Treatment: The best treatment is to avoid infection. Treating the skin with ointments that discourage mosquito bites, wearing thick garments that cover the majority of the body and avoiding swampy, tropical areas are all effective ways to avoid malaria. The disease that would be eradicated if the marshlands were drained often hinders building projects in swampy areas. Once a case of malaria has begun, bed rest, clean water to offset dehydration and herbal preparations to reduce fever are the best treatments. Certain bitter-tasting barks have proven more effective than other remedies in reducing fevers and the disease’s duration. Malaria can be treated by the Contagion-Curing Touch Charm with 2 or more successes.

Yellow Fever

(Houserule), copied from Exalted 1e

Virulence: 2	Difficulty to Treat: 4
Morbidity: 4	Treated Morbidity: 2
Symptoms: Yellow fever is characterized by a fever, muscle aches, headache and a yellowish tinge to the victim's skin and the whites of the eyes. The color is distinct, but it is characteristic of several other diseases, thus making diagnosis difficult. The fever usually lasts for only a few days but, in the worst cases, returns accompanied by vomiting blood, delirium and bleeding from the nose. Yellow fever has a relatively low death rate, with only 15 percent of its victims dying because of the disease.
Duration: Yellow fever has an incubation period ranging from three days to two weeks. The initial fever lasts for three days. For most, this is the end of the disease. Past infection does not provide immunity from contracting the disease again.
Vector: Yellow fever is caused by mosquito bites. Warm, marshy or jungle areas are particularly likely to harbor disease-carrying insects. The best defense is to avoid being bitten while traveling in areas likely to be contaminated. Methods of avoiding infection include ointments rubbed into the skin to discourage bug bites or the use of thick clothing that covers the entire body. Once infected, the victim is not contagious to others.
Treatment: There is no cure for yellow fever. Treatment commonly includes making the patient comfortable and trying to reduce the fever while the disease runs its course. Yellow fever can be cured by the use of the Contagion-Curing Touch Charm with 2 or more successes.

Diseases of Conviction

These diseases steal away the will and the wit, leaving even the strongest and most determined helpless, or they pervert the very beliefs of a community, bringing death and madness instead of security.

Hysteria

Virulence: 4	Difficulty to Treat: 2
Morbidity: 3	Treated Morbidity: 1
Symptoms: This disease always takes numbers of victims at once. They might turn on each other and riot or hunt down and destroy those they have decided are the enemy. The disease itself is not fatal, but the way it stirs up fears and unnatural rage usually results in death for those the hysterics target. Early symptoms are extreme agitation, strange fancies and fears, paranoia then increasing violence.
Duration: This disease spreads as swiftly and unstoppably as rumor. When an innocent is murdered, a famous trial is corrupted or the fear of a faerie invasion rises high, outrage and terror might call the spirits of hysteria to the population. An entire town can be infected in as little as three days.
Vector: There is always a single source of contagion in hysteria. It can invariably be traced to one early victim who spreads the disease through her community. From there, it takes those closest and spreads exponentially through even casual contact such as conversation. The more people infected with hysteria in a community, the worse the disease is. In times of chaos, such as the period since the disappearance of the Empress, hysteria appears more often.
Treatment: The mortal cure involves finding the key sufferers and curing them, usually through isolation, calm and quiet, as well as the administration of herbal remedies containing opium, marijuana or codeine designed to calm the mind and will. Zenith and Midnight Exalted have a powerful influence over those suffering hysteria, either to halt the course of the disease or to turn the delirious minds to the Exalt's use. Note: Contagion-Curing Touch will not cure hysteria.

Sleeping Sickness

Virulence: 2	Difficulty to Treat: 4
Morbidity: 5	Treated Morbidity: 2
Symptoms: Found only in the dry South, and sometimes called the wanderer's disease, it steals away its victims' strength of will. Victims are first struck with fever, joint pain and itching. The physical symptoms continue but are joined by sudden and unpredictable mood swings. Victims become lethargic alternating with bouts of violence. In later stages, victims barely open their eyes, and even the most urgent drives of their oaths or conviction will not move them to raise a hand or speak. Finally, they fall into a deep stupor and die.
Duration: The initial symptoms appear within a month of infection, and the entire course of the disease usually takes only a few months. Particularly strong sufferers can survive for up to a year in the last, stuporous stages, though.
Vector: Travelers who do not heed the warnings of the locals about clean clothes and bedding are likely sufferers of this disease. Sleeping sickness usually appears in the wet season, when the air is damp and full of insects seeking blood, but the precise source of the disease is not known.
Treatment: Draughts made to banish parasites work well with this disease. A draught is always bitter with wormwood and the rank stink of demon-banishing incense. Natives in areas where sleeping sickness is common burn citronella in their homes day and night, and this seems to help keep the disease at bay.

Diseases of Temperance

These diseases arise when people are intemperate in their desires, whether it's the greed of eating polluted food or water or the lust of sharing a bed with an unclean lover. The diseases of Temperance are the diseases of lax morals, unclean habits and unrestrained urges.

Cholera

Virulence: 4	Difficulty to Treat: 2
Morbidity: 3	Treated Morbidity: 1
Symptoms: Cholera kills quickly through fever and a watery, constant diarrhea that dehydrates the body. Children and the elderly are particularly vulnerable.
Duration: The disease appears within hours of drinking contaminated water, and the course of the disease lasts for no more than a couple of weeks. It can easily incapacitate an entire army in less than a week.
Vector: Also known as the flux or the bloody flux, cholera is a disease that appears when the spirits of the waters have been offended. Defiling wells, allowing goats to drink directly from a river or stream, permitting criminals to bathe in open water—all of these can bring the flux to a land.
Treatment: Mineral salts and quantities of pure water support the patient until the disease runs its course. Draughts are made of goldenseal, comfrey root or the mucus of the giant swamp snail. Purification rituals, as well as rituals to appease the offended water spirits, will cleanse the water of the flux.

Syphilis

Virulence: 3	Difficulty to Treat: 3
Morbidity: 4	Treated Morbidity: 2
Symptoms: The first symptom is a painless sore, which heals in a few weeks. Aches, pains and intermittent fever are common symptoms of the disease. Over months to a few years, it eats away at the sufferer's ability to control their limbs, resulting in a peculiar stiff legged walk, then it attacks the mind. The first effects are increased lust and decreased self control. At the end, syphilis eats away at the body and minds of the victim, leaving them paralyzed and, eventually, mad.
Duration: The sore appears a few weeks after exposure, but disappears within a week. The next set of symptoms can appear months later, depending on the general health of the victim. Those who are poor, frequently ill or often wounded will progress through the disease quickly. Those who lead otherwise healthy, exemplary lives might not progress in the disease for years. However, all are carriers of the disease and will spread it to those they take into their beds.
Vector: Sometimes called the whore's revenge, syphilis appears when people have been unchaste. The disease is prevalent in cities—among prostitutes, adulterers and the careless—but due to its subtle nature, it is found among the homes of the wealthy and the poor alike.
Treatment: Prevention is the best cure for syphilis. Patients are also treated with draughts containing mercury, a treatment nearly as dangerous as the disease. The cure can be applied at any time, but any nerve damage already done, such as paralysis, will not heal.

Typhus

(Houserule), copied from Exalted 1e

Virulence: 4	Difficulty to Treat: 4
Morbidity: 4	Treated Morbidity: 3
Symptoms: Typhus develops slowly, beginning with a cough, high fever, sore throat, headache, fatigue and other influenza-like symptoms. Sometimes vomiting and diarrhea accompany the other symptoms. As the disease progresses, victims begin to bleed internally and their organs fail. Organ failure, coupled with secondary infections such as pneumonia, is what kills the victims of typhus.
Duration: Typhus develops quickly in children but slowly in adults. Either way, the disease lasts until it kills the victim.
Vector: Typhus comes from ingesting contaminated food or water. How water and food become contaminated with typhus is unclear. Areas with better sanitation and less crowding are not as likely to suffer outbreaks of typhus. Once infected, victims can sometimes be contagious to others through handling water or raw foods that are then consumed.
Treatment: There is no reliable cure for typhus, though if it is caught in its early stages several different herbal elixirs have proven effective in staving off the later, deadly symptoms of the disease. Typhoid can be treated by the Contagion-Curing Touch Charm with 2 or more successes.

Diseases of Valor

The diseases of Valor can infect even the bravest souls with cowardice or berserk madness. These are the diseases found on the battlefield, in the hunter's camp and in the aftermath of war.

Rabies

Virulence: 2	Difficulty to Treat: 4
Morbidity: 5	Treated Morbidity: 3
Symptoms: It begins with a bad hunt or an animal attack. The bite wound might not look infected, but soon, a fever appears, which rises to delirium. The victim begins to act as a crazed animal might, foaming at the mouth, hallucinating and, finally, dying.
Duration: The first symptom, intense thirst, appears within two days, and the disease moves quickly from there to high fevers. Delirium begins within a week, and most victims are dead within two.
Vector: All hunters know that some spirits of slaughtered prey can enter the hearts of men and drive them mad. This is why the rituals to placate the spirits of slaughtered prey are so important. But, even so, hunters, ranchers and hound masters might find themselves taken with a mad animal spirit, particularly if a hunt has gone wrong and the prey fights back or if a rancher mistreats his animals. Animals that live near the Wyld are particularly likely to carry rabies in their bite.
Treatment: Successful application of wound-cleansing unguent will prevent this disease from taking hold. Draughts containing wolfsbane or leopard's bane are sometimes used to drive off the animal spirits, while white willow or aspirin is used to control the fever. Strong restraints are also used to keep patients from attacking their physicians.

Plague

Virulence: 4	Difficulty to Treat: 4
Morbidity: 5	Treated Morbidity: 4
Symptoms: Plague begins with fever, diarrhea, a red rash that turns black and a swelling of the glands. The fever is uncontrollable and rises until the weakened victim suffers delirium and dehydration. Eventually, the overtaxed body fails.
Duration: Within a day, the first symptoms appear, often mistaken for other less deadly diseases. The rash appears within a week, and the blackened glands a few days later. Death follows in about 14 days from the onset of the first symptoms.
Vector: The feared follower of war and woe, plague is drawn to misery and chaos, when the rats outnumber the survivors of a siege and the dead lie unburied in the streets. It is passed from person to person and also hides within blankets, clothes and other goods that a plague victim might have touched. Should the plague spread to the lungs, it becomes a swift moving and deadly disease easily transmitted through the air that can leave cities dead and kingdoms desolate.
Treatment: Fire and isolation are the most common treatment of plague. Draughts successful against it are rare and expensive. Very few people recover from the plague on their own. Only the Great Contagion is feared more than this disease.

Disease Template

Virulence:	Difficulty to Treat:
Morbidity:	Treated Morbidity::
Symptoms:
Duration:
Vector:
Treatment:

See Also

• Great Contagion