Manblight
Manblight is a viral disease primarily affecting human infants and children, with very little or no effect on other sentient races. It is similar to influenza, but with a very high childhood fatality.
Manblight is not the only race-biased disease, but it is the most notable of them for its strange specificity to humans.
Transmission & Vectors
Manblight is mostly transmitted through droplets, like influenza, but can be transmitted through bodily fluids as well. It is not quite as transmissable as measels or COVID, but still airborne.
Causes
Manblight affects the upper and lower respiratory systems of humans just like influenza by invading the mucus membranes and reproducing from there. Symptoms appear roughly 36 hours after exposure.
Manblight has virtually no symptoms in non-humans, but stays dormant for years (like chicken pox) and can randomly become active and transmissable again.
Symptoms
Symptoms include cough and a sore throat, shortness of breath, and fever.
In humans, most commonly human children, the symptoms can progress to intense fever, spasms, and jaundice. In non-humans there are virtually no symptoms, perhaps a light sniffle.
In humans, most commonly human children, the symptoms can progress to intense fever, spasms, and jaundice. In non-humans there are virtually no symptoms, perhaps a light sniffle.
Treatment
Manblight is usually fought off by an adult immune system with normal bed rest.
Serious cases in elderly and children can be cured with divine healing magic, but there is no (reliable) alchemical treatment.
Prognosis
Adult humans usually recover within 4-6 days.
Without treatment, manblight has a 70% mortality rate in children, and close to 100% in infant.
Sequela
Manblight leaves little physical evidence of its presence.
However, many human mages correlate their first use of magic with an early manblight infection...
Affected Groups
Humans, especially human children.
Half-elves are extremely resistant.
Hosts & Carriers
Sapient non-humans, most commonly elves and dwarves.
Prevention
Manblight can be prevented with mundane means like quarantine, mask-wearing, and sanitizing surfaces with soap and water.
A physician in the Magocratos once claimed to have invented a vaccine for manblight, but died shortly after the announcements. Their method was lost to history.
Epidemiology
Manblight is endemic and symptomless in its host population of elves and dwarves, and sporadically flashes through human populations before dying out.
History
The first recorded case of manblight was around 1300 PE, though scholars debate whether it existed before then. Manblight outbreaks have been frequent but rarely epidemic.
Manblight is notorious among cosmopolitan and upper-class human families, who interacted quite often with non-humans; many diplomatic incidents have resulted from a well-meaning diplomat accidentally killing a noble's baby with the disease!
Cultural Reception
For most adults, including humans, Manblight barely enters into conversation. Most nonhumans living in countries without human majorities will not even know of the disease, or at least not care.
However, its occasional devastating of a human nursery will near-invariably result in a years-long spike of racial animus from the affected human parents. Never quite enough to prompt a apartheid or lynching, but certainly muttered curses and suspicion towards any non-human outsiders.
As such, non-humans are often 'encouraged' to stay away from human children.
A popular rumor states that Manblight was an elven bioweapon created to slow the growth of the Magocratos. Most people don't give it credence, but a surprising number of scholars harbor similar suspicions...
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