The Baronial Chronic Disease Post

Way back at the beginning of this blog I wrote about disease in the Barony. It is a bogey man, a sort of societal great enemy, and also ambiguously a divine extermination weapon - diseases are thought to be the remnants of God's war with the chaos at the centre of the planet. This is why there are more diseases the further in you go, why the bedrock itself weeps and howls, and why petroleum forced up from the deepest geological depths is the primary medium for their spread on the surface. 

As described in that post, Baronial diseases are frightening, virulent, and extremely lethal. I have been noodling with a large scale dungeon project recently, and have been struck with the thought that painful and frightening death only captures a portion of the horror of illness and bodily incapacity. I suffer from chronic illness, and being alienated from your own body, ground down with pain, incapable where you used to able, having a sense of your own reduced life expectancy, etc., are recurring staples in my writing practice.

Related reading is the excellent The Right to Maim, by Sikh-American academic Jasbir Puar. This book, and the related Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times, are some of the biggest single influences on my creative work. They certainly only grow more relevant. 

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Chronic Illness

You can be infected with disease (of any type) for days equal to your CON score, and expect a full recovery without chronic complications. If you are ill for longer than this, every day you remain so prompts a CON save. For every failure, you lose a point of max HP and roll on the table below. 

Magical healing and anti disease effects (such as the Little Saint's Lay on Hands) are not effective against these second-order consequences of infection, and neither are curatives and other medications - they represent the breakdown, overcompensation, misalignment, and scarification of the biology (especially the nervous and immune systems) of the infected person. Magic that actually regenerates limbs and tissue might have a better effect, but there is precious little of that in the Barony (none in my games, unless you're questing for the fruit of the invincible heroes or something). 

When I find myself working as a labourer on construction sites I often think about the timeframe in which this kind of work can be viably done by someone with chronic illness. An adventurer in a similar position, who has by their mettle made a bit of coin, might consider retirement. 

Chronic Effects

1. You take +1 damage from all sources. 
2. When you accrue fatigue, it occupies two slots instead of one. 
3. You lose an additional d3 max HP. 
4. You always take fear damage equivalent to all other damage, and never take fear damage from any other source. 
5. You only ever recover HP from rest when in a safe, comfortable bed. 
6. The effects of privation (of rations or sleep) are twice as pronounced. 
7. Reduce each of your physical stats by d3. 
8. Reduce each of your mental stats by d3. 
9. You never win initiative. 
10. You have a resting -2 to AC. 
11. You test to panic whenever you take fear damage - your panic threshold is effectively 0. 
12. Your max templates are now 3, and if you have 4, you lose your 'highest' template (randomise which if you have multiple of the same 'level').