Spinerot
Spinerot is a brutal disease endemic to Maloruno. Its cause is unknown to the people of the planet, but the fear of this horrendous curse lingers in every culture and civilisation. Spinerot causes a slow, gruelling death, where the spinal vertebrae rot, crumble, and break into tiny pieces, digging into the body and organs.
This disease affects all vertebrate animals on Maloruno. It is the No. 1 killer of runos, the only sophont species on the planet.
Symptoms
What to Look Out For
Spinerot is a very slow disease, symptoms only appearing several months after contraction. The first symptom of spinerot is the body slowing down in all forms - limited mobility. The spine slowly begins to collapse, forming a hunched back around the thoracic vertebrae. Later symptoms include pain, bruising, and bleeding around the spine. Up until this point, spinerot can be cured.
The disease becomes uncurable once patients begin vomiting blood. Fractured bones pierce organs, especially the heart, resulting in vomiting blood and other liquids found in the body. As the disease worsens, vertebrae separate more, fracture and snap even further, eventually piercing skin and scales.
History
Spinerot has been present in runo culture and mythology since the first written languages were invented. Depictions of spinerot-afflicted runos can be found in cave paintings and other primitive artworks across the Southern Hemisphere.
According to ancient texts, spinerot was once an extremely rare disease, possibly affecting just a couple of runos every year. Despite this, it was seen in almost every other vertebrate species fairly commonly. Spinerot once existed west of Bridge, but has since decimated populations in the Heartlands.
Presently spinerot is seen more commonly in runos than other species. Evolutions of spinerot began targeting runos around a thousand years ago, and have grown more powerful, with a 99% fatality rate.
Before I knew it, my daughter was gone. This plague has been hunting us since the dawn of time, and I'm tired. I've lost family, friends, everyone around me to this disease. I want this pain to end.
Curing Spinerot
Despite the cause of spinerot not being known, runos were able to create a cure. Unfortunately, the cure requires the milk of a female white tiger. Runos and white tigers are sworn enemies, centuries old, so acquiring this milk is near-impossible.
The cure was discovered after a group of runo expeditioners discovered an abandoned baby white tiger, atop a large mountain. The tiger was brought back to the campsite, fifteen miles south of the mountain. For the next five years it was raised by the group, thinking they could exploit the tiger and use it to infiltrate the Northern Hemisphere.
On a white moon six years after the tiger was rescued, it disappeared overnight, howling towards the skies as she fled to the mountains. She returned just over a year later six cubs on her back. The group welcomed the tiger and her cubs, and the bond between friend and foe grew stronger than ever.
Six weeks after the tiger had returned, a member of the group fell ill with what they later found out to be spinerot. At one point, in a fit of pure pain and desperation, and a lack of water available, he drank the milk from the white tiger. In just a week, all pain had subsided and the man regained previous strength and posture. After his death, the skeleton revealed his spinal vertebrae had fused themselves back together. Scars of over three hundred fractures covered each bone.
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