Moon Fever
No. Spreading Moon Fever is of no interest to me. Spread bloodier, grey death, leper and influenza. But not that disease. It disgusts me in more ways than you can comprehend.
Plague, imperial goddess of pestilence and blight during Ascension of her newest Chosen One.
Moon Fever is a terrible and eldritch supernatural disease that is believed to be connected to Pentagram. Its outbreaks often happen in faraway towns and villages in areas believed to be plagued with the supernatural dangers of worst possible type. Sometimes used to 'soften up' local resistance prior to daemonic incursions into Real World, and sometimes simply to decimate completely random communities for no noticable reasons.
While in modern times there are both ways to deal with it and proper protocols to avoid further spreading during the contaiment attempts, it is still extremely deadly and quite often occuring disease. Mostly because it tends to attack faraway communities that do not possess suitable infrastructure to counter its spread, with the epidemy itself sometimes either ending or at least having long time to spread before proper authorities can react.
Transmission & Vectors
It is believed that Moon Fever spreads in a supernatural way slightly similar to bloodier. It works by infecting human minds via Dark vector, in this case sight rather than latent psionic links. In other words, when infected enters a non-infected person line of sight, the Fever reaches the observers' mind together with visual input. Its direct transmission vector is a sight of a face of an infected. It doesn't matter which part and for how long - if you see it, you are an infected too. It can also be transmited by magical farsight as long as it works on a basis of visual feed - for example a long range echolocation is not dangerous. What is much more frightening is that if magic or technology is used to create more or less perfect 'copy' of such face, it will be possible to catch moon fever by seeing it, with only paintings and drawings being safe to watch.
What's more not only the disease itself but also a stage is transferred, meaning that when face of infected of stage III enters line of sight of non-infected, they will automatically jump all the way into stage three themselves, their symptoms worse and the disease more virulent due to lack of 'adaptability' gained by surviving earlier stages.
All outbreaks begin from a single patient zero that always has no idea how he catched the disease due to wide and irreversible amnesia that sometimes borders on complete mindbreak. Thus it is believed that the 'true' patient zero is an unknown type of Pentagram servile daemon that uses amnesia to erase all traces, making the Imperium unable to track it and eliminate the problem at its very source. It is simply impossible to target supernatural being of such power that actively attempts to hide itself, despite multiple attempts and help from other daemons.
Infected number 64 (name: Romulus Julius, stage II) managed to escape containment in yet undiscovered way. He also somehow managed to avoid soldiers guarding the hospital in which we tried to isolate the infected. He tore down his blindfold - it was held in place with magic, but I believe that rage caused by full moon allowed him to muster enough strenght to achieve that - and began running blindly through city streets. Several hundred citizens were infected and entered stage II themselves, leading to riot. Forces of 101st. Infantry Division under my command managed to contain the situation - with great help from local garrison - however the overall death count reached approximately 1500 citizens, with 1453 new infected of stage two. Thus I am forced to inform that with current manpower and resources assigned, succesful containment is impossible. If we won't receive sufficient military support before next full moon I'll be forced to lower the risks to both my men and the rest of the city in the most obvious and easiest way possible.Raport of officer assigned to outbreak in central Itavia.
Causes
I hate being assigned to moon fever outbreaks the most. I have nightmares about faceless people attacking or stalking me.Confession of 101st. Infantry Division soldier.
Despite prolonged investigations no existing pathogen was connected to the Moon Fever. It is, however, possible that it works by forcing preexisting viruses to mutate into some highly magical ones causing the symptoms. Finding the truth is impossible due to lack of ability to observe viruses (that exist as a hypothesis for local medicine). Despite this, due to the fact that it is so 'alien', the common belief is that it is purely supernatural.
The disease itself can affect literally every existing sentient specie, including wild daemons and weaker servile daemons. Only Astral Cores (Platinum Rank up), Chosen Ones and stronger servile daemons (approximately from Gold rank up) are immune, and neither suffer any symptoms nor are able to pass it unwittingly. There also exist ways to prevent catching this diseases, including covering infected faces (or, to be exact, instructing them to do that on earlier stages and incarcerating them in a proper way on later stages) and using special magical googles that are able to filter out facial features, preventing infection while giving all people around a completely faceless look.
Symptoms
Moon Fever possess two separate sets of symptoms that occur alternately according the current moon phase. First set is called New Moon Set while the second is Full Moon Set - both names fittingly describe which moon phase they are attuned to. Such dependance is also a source of the name of this disease.
New Moon Set:
Somnolence, lack of energy, general weakness of the body, narcolepsis, lowered body temperature and phobias - those already existing are made much more severe during new moon period, also new ones can be temporarily aquired (with claustrophobia and agorapobia being the most common). The appearance of new phobias isn't connected to the fact of having (or not) preexisting conditions. Also more than one phobia can be aquired - with record to date set to 63. Full Moon Set:
Insomnia, agression, increased energy, hallucinations (both auditory and visual), headaches, increased body temperature and acute paranoia. In case of preexisting paranoia, insomnia or agression the effects can be EXTREMELY increased - records include death from lack of sleep despite being given several times deadly dose of sleeping pills, with senseless killings happening often if victim isn't incarcerated during late stages. There are also additional, unconnected symptoms, besides they all tend to change or dissappear between stages, with full description in Prognosis.
Somnolence, lack of energy, general weakness of the body, narcolepsis, lowered body temperature and phobias - those already existing are made much more severe during new moon period, also new ones can be temporarily aquired (with claustrophobia and agorapobia being the most common). The appearance of new phobias isn't connected to the fact of having (or not) preexisting conditions. Also more than one phobia can be aquired - with record to date set to 63. Full Moon Set:
Insomnia, agression, increased energy, hallucinations (both auditory and visual), headaches, increased body temperature and acute paranoia. In case of preexisting paranoia, insomnia or agression the effects can be EXTREMELY increased - records include death from lack of sleep despite being given several times deadly dose of sleeping pills, with senseless killings happening often if victim isn't incarcerated during late stages. There are also additional, unconnected symptoms, besides they all tend to change or dissappear between stages, with full description in Prognosis.
Treatment
There is no cure for Moon Fever. There are drugs (alchemical in nature) and certain religious rituals that are able to make symptoms less severe and increase the chance for survival (and lack of remaining aftereffects), but it cannot be cured completely by any means (with becoming Chosen One of any gods being the sole, but extremely rare, exception).
What's more, the increase in chances occurs mostly by lowering the chances of accidental deaths due to disease symptom (like making the hallucinations less malevolent and prevent it from causing indirect deaths).They do not lower the chances of death due to disaese itself. Thus the most common way of treating infected is quarantine together with treating symptoms, thus increasing the survival chance slightly while decreasing the overall ammount of infected.
There are however drugs (and rituals) that are capable of reversing stage progression, giving the infected much more time to adapt to the disease, lowering chance of severe aftereffects while making less severe aftereffects (and survival as a whole) much more probable, however due to their rarity and cost they tend to be last resort.
Prognosis
Stages
Stage One
First stage lasts from first New Moon to the end of full moon cycle (the period between infection and first New Moon sometimes considered Stage Zero, during which the disease isn't contagious). Standard sets of symptoms, including visual and auditory hallucinations, small amplitude of temperatures (35-38C), with agression requiring some initiator. Infected is more or less normal, however when he is 'triggered' towards agression or anger he will react much stronger than he would normally do.
Stage Two
Second starts right after the first one and also lasts for one full moon cycle. Body temperatures changes varies between 34 and 39C, hallucinations began to have malevolent character, for example seeing some sort of 'forms' that observe the infected from every shadows with (according to paranoia - with some undetermined but malevolent intentions). Agression during the Full Moon does not require any sort of trigger, but only during the night - making the infected suffer from permanent night rage, that can, and probably will, lead to murder if he won't be detained.
Infected also suffers from the inability to recognize other people - even faces of his family members seem somehow 'alien'. He also becomes incapable of recognizing his own reflections in mirrors, on water surfaces and so on. Mages and sorcerers lose ability to cast spells - most of them gain it back after recovery, but they are never as powerful as before. Old Magic practitioners end up the same, while aura masters' power becomes heavily unstable and can backfire terribly.
Stage Three
In third stage the Moon Fever reaches its zenith. Agression is permanent during the fullmoon. Temperature varies between 34 and 41C. The ability to differentiate reality from hallucinations is lost compeltely. Hallucinations are also extremely terrifying and sometimes even malevolent, for example causing death by hiding a deep ravine from eyes of the infected. Infected see all sentient species as faceless. Taking a peak into any reflective surfaces (even when it is very far and shouldn't really be able to reflect anything 'visibly', like seeing a sea from the top of mountains many kilometres from it) means either permanent berserk fury, eternal catatonia or coma and death after few days.
People who suffered from mental illnesses or skipped stages are more vulnerable, with Stage Three sometimes ending with sudden brain death or soulloss. Earlier the soulloss was wrongly believed to be a soul destruction (thus this disease was sometimes called 'soul eater illness'). Later on it was determined that it is simply a severance of connection between soul and body, most likely some sort of failsafe activated to avoid damage to soul.
End of Disease
The Moon Fever often ends in death or permanent disability. How often they occur depends on the strain of Moon Fever, with Imperium medics distinguishing about 32 different strains of Moon Fever, some of them are limited to certain geographical regions (or cultural groups) while the rest is wandering around. The most deadly is lomarian strain, killing or handicap to the point of not being able to function alone in the society in about 75% cases, while the least deadly inrithian regional strain doing this is only 25% cases. In case of every strain there seem to be no corelation between traits of the infected and survival chance, surviving being a plain lottery.
Sequela
Me? Well, you see, I went through Moon Fever as a child. We were lucky enough to be hit by a not very vicious strain though. Most people survived. I was unlucky enough to end up with a... disability of sorts. I can't really see faces. They are all blurred, no matter how much I try to focus I can't notice any details on them. Nearly forgot how my own face looks like. So... it doesn't really matter to me that your face is disfigured.
Certain inhabitant of Karadia while confessing his love to his future wife.
Because sometimes there are happy ends.
Only 5-20% of infected fully recovers from Moon Fever, the rest dies or suffers crippling or non-crippling disorders - in most cases permanent but weakened and non-progressing versions of certain symptoms. For example being very sleepy (on a border of narcolepsia) during new moon, oraz having problems with recognizing faces, forcing them to rely on recognizing voices rather than faces.
20-40% suffers a crippling disadvantage, in most cases in a form of a single third stage symptom remaining permanently. For example permanent berserk rage during Full Moon or completely inability to recognize other people or going into coma after seeing his own reflection.
10-20% suffers something similar to death, for example permanent brain death or soulloss, forcing mercykill due to no chance of recuperating.
Sometimes unique aftereffects remain, in few cases even beneficial. However it is immensely rare.
Those that once survived Moon Fever become more or less fully resistant to future infections, regardless of strain. The 'more or less' refers to rare cases of secondary infection that, however, has much weaker symptoms and survival rate of around 95%.
Hosts & Carriers
It is believed that the disease is carried by an unidentified - and very ellusive - servile daemon of Pentagram, that then targets singular inhabitant of town/village of choice. It in unknown way infects the target, then erasing all memories that might bring any light on his/her/its nature, sometimes accidentally removing most contents of brain, before leaving to target another place.
Prevention
No vaccine exists. General protocols in case of outbreak include people barricading in their houses and a group of masked people (city guardians, volunteers, adventurers or soldiers) delivering food while waiting for help to come. The help in most cases takes form of a detachment of Imperial Magic Guild alchemists and 101st. Infantry Division as helpers, all of them properly equipped and trained to deal with such situations while having lower chance of infection than unprepared locals.
The easiest prevention, however, is simply closing your eyes. When you do not see anything you can't see the face of infected, thus you can't get infected yourself. Problem with that method is that it makes avoiding or fighting down enraged stage 2 and stage 3 patients rather hard, which is why they should be incarcerated as fast as they can.
Epidemiology
We received a pidgeon from village of Alta. According to local priest that doubles as herbalist, there is an outbreak of unknown disease with symptoms similar to early stage Moon Fever. I suggest immediately issuing a quarantine. Yes, I've already sent proper notice to Imperial Magic Guild, I expect a team of specialists to arrive withing three weeks, we must now ensure that it does not spread before their arrival.
Provincial governor to local ruler.
Most of the far away villages have at least one or two retired adventurers or soldiers around with more or less general knowledge about the Moon Fever, even if they lack proper herbalists and healthcare. The biggest problem is always the very beginning, with infection spreading like a wildfire before people understand what is happening and introduce proper preventative measures. This makes tight-knitted communities especially vulnerable, with infection ratio sometimes reaching 100% within a span of minute if they have extremely bad luck and the infection starts during some sort of public celebrations.
History
Moon Fever in most cases causes small, regional outbreaks, decimating small communities on the verge of civilization. However, due to proper quarantine measures it very rarely spreads farther than through local clusters of settlements - while infection spreading through local fair taking down whole region at once does happen, it almost never goes any further. This is caused especially by generally low mobility of population (serfdom and peasants closely tied to the ground they work on paradoxically highly decreases the risk of epidemy spreading far), but also by spread of teleportation that allows the warnings to reach other towns before the infection.
Its existence became a wide spread knowledge following the most deadly case of Moon Fever epidemy that decimated Kingdom of Lomar during the few months prior to its eventual demise at hands of Nythrathril, believed to be a major subject of Pentagram, further ensuring the general belief of Pentagram being behind this disease (After all if even Plague, goddess of diseases, epidemies and plagues wants nothing to do with it, it speaks much).
In Lomar the disease killied or impaired approximately 70% of seven millions citizens within a span of four moon cycles, therefore becoming one of deadliest plagues in history. However it is believed that it managed to kill so many because of originating from multiple patient zeroes, the disease spread intentionally by Nythrathril to soften the kingdom before destroying it. Despite the kingdom completely ruined and most of its government documents long lost, adventurers and imperial organizations that research it managed to identify at least 27 patient zeroes, most of them infected to coincide with major events (like fairs, or festivals) which allowed to quickly spread the most virulent strain of Moon Fever throughout Lomarian population.
What happened in Lomar should teach you one thing. Humans cannot stand up to gods. If any of you has such level of dangerous ambitions, you should stop daydreaming. There is and always will be something above you. Lomar had hundreds of magicians, some of them stronger than most of you can hope to be, and all it needed was one movement of Pandaemonium. No more tiring than lifting a finger. And bam, they were dead They are things that cannot be done, threats that cannot be stopped, battles that cannot be won. We are just mortals. And you damn better remember that fact.Teacher of Imperial Magic Guild to future magicians.
Moon Fever is one of these diseases that we might probably never learn how to cure. This, however, doesn't mean that there was no progress. Earliest epidemics were in most cases 'solved' by destroying infected villages with magic from safe distance to prevent the further spread of infection, which was dreaded as one capable to destroy souls of mortals. Today we know enough to be able to prevent its spread it by less... firm means, which is the best indication of progress the Imperium of Karadia achieved in past millenias. But, perhaps, one day...
Alchemy teacher to his students.
Cultural Reception
Cultural reception of Moon Fever isn't really different from any other heavily infectious diseases with high mortality rate. Some try to help, others try to flee, most pity the infected.
Type
Supernatural
Origin
Divine
Cycle
Short-term
Rarity
Rare
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