The Sinners Plague

Transmission & Vectors

The Original Sinners Plague was kept locked away in a several thousand year old ruins and infected an archelogical dig team from Zophor. They became infected and in turn spread the Sinners Plague throughout their nation.

Causes

Infection spread by the infected but seemingly erratic in who becomes infected.

Symptoms

For each sin there is a varient of this illness and those documented are listed as such
Envy: Difficult to identify the Envy strain manifests as paranoia and jealousy that seem to occur irrational and at heightened frequency. This is soon coupled with depression and bouts of irrational vengeance in most hosts. Many turn to murder, theft and violence upon the beings that they envy. In all cases the host feels more and more pressure on their mind this is due to an unknown fluid building up in their skull that eventually causes severe internal damage and internal bleeding. Death by Brain Haemorrhage.
Greed: The slowest of the plagues variants to kill this illness causes a growing need to surround oneself with objects of wealth and power combined with dangerous paranoia that others will take away that wealth and power. There are no outward physical symptoms until later stages as the host starts to ignore their physical upkeep, needs and even thirst and hunger as they focus only on material wealth. It is as if their mind no longer registers basic needs. Even when tended to the host's body rejects food and water akin to dysentery. Death by the host body violently neglecting basic needs.
Lust: The victim finds themselves growing ever more to need to indulge the vices of sex and physical addictions. As the illness progresses the victim suffers from a greater physical and mental need for these vices to the point that being deprived of them causes them internal bleeding. Regardless over time the victim grows frail and weak until they no longer have the muscle mass required to move and death soon occurs as their lungs collapse. Death by Asphyxiation.
Sloth: Extreme lethargy leading to long periods of rest and the slowing of heart and other organs until they cease to function. Death by Organ failure.
Gluttony: Increasing hunger and desperation to eat anything and everything edible (Cannibalism and carrion eating are not unknown) as this progresses the host loses the ability to know when they are full and if they have not died due to ingesting poison will succumb to a ruptured stomach from eating too much. Even those restrained eventually die as their body seems to cannibalize themselves from the inside. Death by hunger.
Pride:The least understood of the strains pride is rumored but yet unproven to exist if any are infected none have died. It is rumored that the pride variant causes the host to become progressively more obsessed with their own self worth and power to the point of dangerous ignorance of dangers. Death unknown as there have been no hard confirmed cases but it is suspected the victim simply ignores danger and threats to the point that they simply get themselves killed. Others speculate that the pride disease causes the host to die in ironic fashion from what they took the most pride in. Insofar little to nothing is known about this strain of the plague.
Wrath: The first of the Sinners Plagues recorded is Wrath at first its symptoms were mistaken for a type of rabies with the hosts growing increasingly more irritable and violent. Heart rate and body heat increase to uncomfortable levels as does the quickness of temper. Unsettling physical strength and endurance actually seem to be enhanced as mental faculties degree. All consumed by Wrath become a living rage induced zombie over time attacking, killing and even eating other people in their now feral rage induced state. This last stage however only lasts for eight hours as their bodies burn themselves out and their hearts explode. Death by an explosive heart.

Treatment

Being a magicaly engineered plague it was found to resist both magical and mundane healing and death was presumed certain. However due to the efforts of angelic messenger and a band of heroes it was discovered that magic that dispells, removes curses or powers that neutralize the magical elements of the plague if applied imediately before ingestion of powerful herbal remedy gives the infected a rather high chance of survival from the plague.

Prognosis

Known to very few is that there is a darker fate for all who die from the sinners plague and the true reason bodies are burned or in some cases dismembered. An unknown number of days after death from the plague the body will form a cocoon of scabs while in this cocoon a rapid genesis occurs and in a very short period of time a fully formed abomination that embodies the victims sin tears free of the cocoon devours it and whatever remains of the human who formed it to often target the hosts friends and family before they are drawn to other transformed victims to form nightmarish cults and commit horrifying acts of evil.

Sequela

At first it was assumed all who were infected became monsterous and died with no chance of a cure. However as the plague reached its height durring the quarentine of Zophor a group of heroes was able to discover critical information about the Sinners Plague and devlop a cure and destroy a known source of the plague. If other vectors exist they are not yet known nor is it known if the plague will become resistant to the cure only time will tell.

Affected Groups

Humanoids of nearly every shape and kind.

Hosts & Carriers

Any being who does not have the blood of the Kholundani nobles or the people of the first cities can become a host for the Sinners Plague and those who share blood with those lost empires are immune but act as carriers unless the illness is cured. It never seems to effect animals or planes touched with celestial ancestry.

Prevention

Piety and avoidance of acts of sin are assumed to be such by many however this is a myth. Prevention has proved nearly impossable

Epidemiology

The plague starts via intentional infection and later becomes transmited by the hosts with those of certain ancestery being immune but acting as carriers.

History

Durring the hight of corruption of the Kholundani Empire its rulers every keen on converting or cleansing other peoples developed a nightmarish plague that would target those not of their blood and transform many of them into abominations under the control of a nightmarish artifact known as the Flesh Foundry. The artifact in question seemed to call the reborn abominations of sin as well as capture the souls of those who died to the plague to power it. It is unknown if others like it were constructed but the one that unleashed the plague on the nation of Zophor was destroyed by a collaboration of local heroes and agents from the High Guilds of Arcane Magic.

Cultural Reception

Horror and revulsion is the typeical responce with a few brave healers willing to venture near the infected as they seek a cure for this living nightmare plague.

Type

Magical

Origin

Magical

Cycle

Chronic, Acquired

Rarity

Unique