Infectious Laughter

Bah! Sure, it sounds funny, don't it? Something to get a good chuckle about over your beer, that right?

Sorry, sorry, I know you wasn't saying nothing, and you didn't laugh, it's just that's what most do when they hear about it. If it gets brought up, it's a race between people to who can make the jokes first.

Those of us who made it through it have to sit and listen to these people talk about hyenas, and dying laughing, and worst medicine. We sit and we listen to them and we remember our families and friends who didn't make it through. We remember them not able to breathe - their faces turning red, then purple, tears streaming down their faces, choking on their laughter. We remember watching from the outside, unable to comfort them for fear of getting it ourselves. We remember the children who died, and the children who survived but will never laugh again.

We sit and we seethe, biting down on the need to hit back. Because we've done that, too, and things get worse. We get told, can't you take a joke, and some are just getting an extra dig in, and some don't realize til after they've said it and laugh at being accidentally clever. We get told that we survived because we don't have a sense of humor, or they died because they did. Some wit'll tell the rest of them to settle down and stop with the jokes - they're killing him, or us, or whatever, and they all break down laughing again. Then they'll point at each other and tell them they'll die from it if they can't calm down.

You tell me - if you watched through a window as your wife held your dead son, his face a ghoulish rictus stretched tight, her starting to giggle before reaching up and tearing her own throat out, would you take it well when someone said to lighten up? Would you see the humor in it? Well if you would, you're a better man than I am. They deserved what they got - and so do I. The ones who didn't were the ones who died then. The ones just living their lives, taking joy when they could, until they died choking on laughter. I'll die choking on a noose, but if it gets me back to them, it'll be worth it.

— Evan Artif, condemned man
Galvon, Sulaean Empire, 1 hour before dawn, Festivus 3, 862 Af.

Transmission & Vectors

Infectious Laughter spread through hearing - those exposed to the laughter of one suffering from the condition risked coming down with it themselves. This was initially thought to be airborne, as the people of Sulae had experience with diseases spreading through the air and it followed a similar pattern. When rigorous masking did not prevent the spread, they began searching for alternate vectors. Representatives from Sulae traveled to Galvon to investigate, including several assistants. Four of those assistants were cleaning an area when a victim stumbled in - three of the four contracted the disease while the fourth, a elderly woman who had gone deaf, did not. This led them to the conclusion that it spread through sound, and they began quarantining victims in sound proofed rooms, eventually ending the outbreak.

Causes

The cause was never definitively determined, although it is widely accepted that followers of Rosarum were responsible. The most accepted theory came from a Dean of Kolero dedicated to research into diseases and curses. Agreeing with the consensus that it was magical in nature, he disagreed with the curse supposition, demonstrating the inability of the priests to eliminate it through divine magic. He claimed that it fit his long-held theory about disease and its nature as the body's reaction to evil spirits possessing the body of the sick person. His claim was that these spirits multiply inside a body, and when too many of are present the body's functions are disrupted. In this particular case, he claimed that the symptoms were caused by the spirits attempting to break out of the persons lungs, and that the diseases was contracted when these spirits entered through the next victims ears.

The church of Rosarum denies any responsibility for the disease, calling it slander by the Kolerans.

Symptoms

The disease initially presents with the victim laughing more than normal - comments that might have received a smile receive a laugh, for example. Over the course of about a week, the symptoms become worse. Victims start laughing at increasingly inappropriate situations, with many seeming to find humor in the deaths of their fellow patients. There are moments of lucidity between bouts of laughter, although they decrease in frequency over time. During those moments, victims have been asked the reason for the laughter and they all answered that in the moment everything the saw was funny enough to deserve it, and they could not recognize that it was not until they returned to lucidity.

In four known cases. victims were able to control the laughter through force of will and survive. All other victims went into uncontrollable fits by the seventh day. Once they entered the final stage, the victims started to convulse with laughter. They lost control of their limbs and generally fell wherever they were. Unable to breathe due to the laughter, tears streaming down their face, they would slowly suffocate while continuing to laugh. The skin darkens from the lack of oxygen, and the laughter finally stops when the victim dies.

Treatment

Surviving the disease was a matter of will. Those few who survived did so by isolating themselves and preventing themselves from laughing. One survivor explained that he did so by repeatedly imagining his friends and family being brutally tortured, quashing his ability to laugh. That survivor was later found to have killed dozens both before and after the disease outbreak, bringing his method of survival into question.

Prognosis

The likelihood of survival is almost nil.

Prevention

Isolating victims prevents the spread. Victims can be tended by those with advanced hearing loss. Ear plugs made of cotton and wax were tried but found to be acceptable protection when encountering those in the early stages, but ineffective if the victim is in the final stage.

Cultural Reception

The areas affected by the disease had a massive cultural shift due to it. Prior to  the disease occurrence, the area was home to the Boffo School, the Bardic college dedicated to comedy. While the school itself was not impacted directly, the disease was responsible for the school shutting down when they could no longer recruit students to attend. Many have fled the region, leaving it with a fraction of the population from before the disease. Those who travel to the area describe it as humorless, and travellers are advised to stay away. Those that still travel to the region recommend that people do not laugh at anything while there, as it marks people as outsiders which has turned into a dangerous thing to be.

Type

Magical

Origin

Magical

Cycle

Short-term

Rarity

Extremely Rare