Taint
Known by many names, the taint is a periodic occurrence that leaves all who come in contact with it dead. Other names include the pestilence, the great mortality, the plague, and the black death.
Transmission & Vectors
Created by ritual and passed along in a miasma that disperses within the hour. All those who breathe it in are infected. Once infected a person becomes contagious in about 3 weeks. They can spread it by coughing or sneezing on another person, sexual contact, or touching contaminated surfaces.
Causes
The cause of this disease is the festering rot of the baalims influence in this world. The taint itself is a manifestation of their corruption touching the physical from the bounds of the astral.
Symptoms
Soon after infection a person develops headache, aching joints, and a malaise. By the end of the week fever, nausea, and vomiting set in. In the second week they develop freckle-like spots and rashes across the body. By the third week they are coughing sputum tinged with blood. After four weeks they develop pustules ranging from egg to apple size in the neck, armpits, or groin. They soon spread in random directions. In the fifth week the pustules burst and bloody rot oozes out, they begin to vomit blood. Within six weeks the infected is dead.
Treatment
If treated in the first two weeks there is a near certainty of survival, the third week brings that down to half, and by the fourth week there is no treating it.
Affected Groups
All living things can be affected by this disease, it spreads across all species and ethnicities.
Cultural Reception
Those who are believed to be infected are ostracized and made to leave their communities. Walled towns and cities have been known to close their doors to the infected, and even those suspected of being infected. Some will even resort to killing the infected and burning their bodies where they lie.
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