Disease confusion

[Geoff R Evil]

I have just been running a fight with Broo and some chars have been exposed to a disease.

There is confusion as to what type of attack this is. The rule book focuses a lot on disease spirits, noting a person killed by a disease manifests a disease spirit.

However the rule book implies there are many types of disease, including infections.

Now Broo don’t carry multiple disease spirits so each wound they inflict passes on another spirit I believe. So in fact they are carrying an infection? I assume this is not a spirit?

Reason for my question. My characters have entered the dead place where no spirit can exist (there is in effect no spirit plane here) and is forced to manifest. E.g. an elemental spirit has to manifest as its element. So if Broo carry disease spirits they are forced to lose them and be disease free as they become piles of sludge or similar. But if it’s an infection they pass on when they wound someone then this aspect of their attack is still something to fear.

So….the key question is what form is the Broo disease that it carries?

[Scotty]

28 minutes ago, Geoff R Evil said:

Now Broo don’t carry multiple disease spirits so each wound they inflict passes on another spirit I believe. So in fact they are carrying an infection? I assume this is not a spirit?

However it acts, treat the result as a disease spirit. 

28 minutes ago, Geoff R Evil said:

So….the key question is what form is the Broo disease that it carries?

The broo is a disease carrier (per Carry (Disease) RQB 93 / RBM 24). It just carries the disease, with infection caused by a disease spirit. There's no explanation of how this actually works (as it's magic), but perhaps the broo acts a disease spirit vortex and its carved runes are a portal to the Middle World, or perhaps it carries a giant disease spirit that buds off smaller ones, or it attracts disease spirits that hover around it as a cloud and infect those it come into contact with...

(added to Q&A)

[Geoff R Evil]

11 hours ago, Scotty said:

The broo is a disease carrier (per Carry (Disease) RQB 93 / RBM 24). It just carries the disease, with infection caused by a disease spirit. There's no explanation of how this actually works (as it's magic), but perhaps the broo acts a disease spirit vortex and its carved runes are a portal to the Middle World, or perhaps it carries a giant disease spirit that buds off smaller ones, or it attracts disease spirits that hover around it as a cloud and infect those it come into contact with...

Hmmm, well for those that like to have some form of explainable logic so when they do weird stuff like I am and send players into the dead place we can make reasonable judgements on what happens. Certainly my players think diseases are passed by disease spirits much as you say. 
So I think the answer to my question is that in effect broo cannot pass on a disease in the dead place. Any disease spirit that is created to facilitate this, either cannot exist in the dead place, or if somehow it appears, it immediately turns to some form of gorp sludge….however chaos features do work in the dead place….so I could just play the “it’s chaos” and ignore all logic have disease infection still occur.

Now however, if I follow that logic, my players may figure out that the ideal way to rid oneself of any possession spirit including disease spirits, is just enter the dead place. Of course, they would also lose any bound spirits too, unless they had a friendly shamen nearby, which is what happened to be the case in my game, to hold those spirits for them while they enter the place.

[Scotty]

15 hours ago, Geoff R Evil said:

Hmmm, well for those that like to have some form of explainable logic so when they do weird stuff like I am and send players into the dead place we can make reasonable judgements on what happens.

Gloranthan reality is defined by mythology, not by hard logic or physics. RQG, Magic and Mythology, page 8

15 hours ago, Geoff R Evil said:

Certainly my players think diseases are passed by disease spirits much as you say. 
So I think the answer to my question is that in effect broo cannot pass on a disease in the dead place. Any disease spirit that is created to facilitate this, either cannot exist in the dead place, or if somehow it appears, it immediately turns to some form of gorp sludge….however chaos features do work in the dead place….so I could just play the “it’s chaos” and ignore all logic have disease infection still occur.

You didn't mention the Dead Place in your initial post. In the Dead place, spirits become physical, so a broo acting as a spirit vortex would pop out a physical disease, or it's giant disease spirit would physically appear and bud off more smaller diseases, or any disease spirits hovering as a cloud would just precipitate out. I'd give them a SIZ & STR equal to their POW. In this environment I'm not sure they'd attack, and most would would likely wander off. Adventurers won't catch diseases.

15 hours ago, Geoff R Evil said:

Now however, if I follow that logic, my players may figure out that the ideal way to rid oneself of any possession spirit including disease spirits, is just enter the dead place.

Yes. Although bear in mind the fine alkaline dust which hangs in the air, damaging lungs and burning skin. (RQG 124). Adventurers in my game would only travel there when raining as the dust was an hourly attack (POT = half max daily temperature) and daily vs metal armour. Travelling across alkali flats in the rain is miserable and your feet still need protecting. See Prax Temperature and Precipitation, RQG 122. Getting down into it is the biggest problem as the steep stream gullies are prone to flash flooding

15 hours ago, Geoff R Evil said:

Of course, they would also lose any bound spirits too,

Yes, they'd appear physically and be released. They could be chased down, physically captured  and forcibly taken out, then rebound outside of the Dead Place.

15 hours ago, Geoff R Evil said:

unless they had a friendly shamen nearby, which is what happened to be the case in my game, to hold those spirits for them while they enter the place.

Alternatively find the Father of Independants  and sacrifice for Dead Place Ferry (RBM 40).

[Geoff R Evil]

Thx @Scotty, although I did mention the dead place in the original post, but generally agree with your follow up answers. The players clan were involved in sending them into the dead place… loosely following the beer with teeth Lifethief scenario but adjusted to fit my own campaign arc.  So the PCs were forewarned of dead place dangers, they are well prepared…and entering in storm season, so dust less of an issue, mud a definite issue, and the alkaline effects were warned and they are prepared … but nothing stops all that damage, and one is still wearing his dwarven plate armour….

[Scotty]

18 minutes ago, Geoff R Evil said:

although I did mention the dead place in the original post,

Doh, Dead Place blindness - apologies!

[Joerg]

So basically the Dead Place has a great potential to be a cure to all diseases, with Chalana Arroy fighters able to beat the manifest diseases to death?

There ought to be some side effect to the bearers, I suppose, but shifting this to something a Heal or Heal Wound might repair outside of the Dead Place still would count as a win.

[David Scott]

6 minutes ago, Joerg said:

So basically the Dead Place has a great potential to be a cure to all diseases, with Chalana Arroy fighters able to beat the manifest diseases to death?

Here we move into grey area. Chalana Arroy can fight spirits, but will likely have a moral dilemma when in the Dead Place, they are no longer spirits or diseases, 

6 minutes ago, Joerg said:

There ought to be some side effect to the bearers, I suppose, but shifting this to something a Heal or Heal Wound might repair outside of the Dead Place still would count as a win.

The dust or mud may kill them first. If you reach a point where you need to take a possessed person into the dead place, that's a whole adventure in itself.

[mfbrandi]

5 minutes ago, Joerg said:

So basically the Dead Place has a great potential to be a cure to all diseases, with Chalana Arroy fighters able to beat the manifest diseases to death?

A middle way is possible, I suppose: viruses/bacteria/parasites and disease spirits are not identical, but it is hard to get rid of something in the first category if you are under attack by its associated disease spirit. Then ditching the disease spirit in the Dead Place would enable “normal medicine” — Arroin? — to take over, improving your chances without being an insta-cure.

[Joerg]

My current idea is that diseases would manifest as minor forms of Malia (thinking of the Gods War "miniature" here) crawling off, possibly attempting to merge with other such little Malias. As they merge, they might acquire Chaos Features.

Entering the Dead Place is a bit of a challenge, agreed. The Good Shepherd is said to know the secrets of navigating the place, but with a base camp on the outcrops of the Dead Place, people secured on ropes should have no serious trouble to leave again.

For a scenario of mine (actually a sidequest for the scenario) I have pondered expeditions into the Dead Place to collect dust from there, to be used in enbalming, to make certain that the separation of body and spirit(s) remains intact. It should also suppress putrefaction (assuming that that is caused by living Darkness).

The Wild Hunter (Gagarth) can be summoned in the Winter Ruins, IIRC, possibly stripping him of his Wild Hunt for a while. There is also a holy place of Inora inside (hence the name) which may lead to if not regular then not that unusual pilgrimages by those seeking her continued support. Hard to do for a shaman leading a Spirit Cult or Spirit Society, though.

[David Scott]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

My current idea is that diseases would manifest as minor forms of Malia (thinking of the Gods War "miniature" here) crawling off, possibly attempting to merge with other such little Malias. As they merge, they might acquire Chaos Features

I have always assumed that the minor diseases are Darkness Rune based, the major diseases are Death Rune based and only the plague is Chaos Rune based. While my assumptions aren't borne out by RQG anymore (major & minor are Chaos and Darkness based). Plague is only Chaos. While major & minor diseases can be caused by Chaos, they have no taint. Whereas plague is definitely chaotic.

I also assume that any spirit in the Dead Place dies within a week as they've nothing to sustain them. Their bodies are the dust and their magic points are very slowly regenerating the place (there are now a few hardy plants).

[Geoff R Evil]

Before we go deep into how to use the dead place, back to my original question.

Given that any broo met in the dead place would have been there a while, then any disease spirits connected to them would have long since been left behind. So are broo in the dead place devoid of disease? I think so. The only angle I was thinking was that maybe when this first happens to the broo, the disease spirit turns into some form of chaos slime, the broo could then dip their weapons into it. The effect of this might be that those wounded at first notice no ill effects necessarily. But when they leave the dead place the slime turns back into a disease spirit and initiates an attack via the wound. Remember in the dead place no wound can be magically healed. So first aid is your only hope to heal a wound and stop bleeding. Maybe a crit or special cleans the slime out as part of the healing.

In my game the players have an NPC shaman they work for, they had brought some blessed mud with them, and the shaman had made it into a non magical salve that could cure a few hp and seal a wound. Otherwise sending in a PC to the dead place who meets an armed foe could be death from a single wound that a first aid fails on and they bleed to death. Maybe this mud cleanses the wound, maybe it seals the slime in? Only time will tell….the point is any wound in the dead place is potentially fatal if serious enough.

[David Scott]

11 hours ago, Geoff R Evil said:

back to my original question.

If it works for you, just do it.

[French Desperate WindChild]

12 hours ago, Geoff R Evil said:

So first aid is your only hope to heal a wound and stop bleeding. Maybe a crit or special cleans the slime out as part of the healing.

cut the limb ! quickly !

Another option would be that the dust itself may clean the wound. In the same way that the dust causes damage to your body, the dust may damage the slime.

something like cauterization.

 

[French Desperate WindChild]

18 hours ago, Joerg said:

with Chalana Arroy fighters able to beat the manifest diseases to death?

 

18 hours ago, David Scott said:

Here we move into grey area. Chalana Arroy can fight spirits, but will likely have a moral dilemma when in the Dead Place, they are no longer spirits or diseases,

it depends on what did @Joerg mean by "beat".

Of course if Joerg have in mind to "kill" these physical entities, we can conclude that he is an illuminate agent of Nysalor, Sedenya or Chaos trying to convince "pure" white ladies to lose their faith for something more ambiguous.

 

But if the CA "fighters" do what they can to heal these physical entities the fight is a non violent fight, just huge efforts. After all CA try to heal Malia, I think ?

how does their disease nature appear in the dead place ?

- If it is physical, they can offer first aid, surgery or alchemy heal.

- If it is more some kind of behavior, we may see disease spirits as spirit experiencings mental illness (after all if they propagate voluntary suffering, that's a kind of mental pathology) , then they may use fast talk, orate, sing etc.. to "confort" them and maybe "transform" them to "just spirit", no more disease spirits (if one day they live the dead place)

 

[Joerg]

14 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

 

it depends on what did @Joerg mean by "beat".

Of course if Joerg have in mind to "kill" these physical entities, we can conclude that he is an illuminate agent of Nysalor, Sedenya or Chaos trying to convince "pure" white ladies to lose their faith for something more ambiguous.

Nothing Nysalorean going on here. Chalana Arroy is a mortal enemy of Malia, and eliminating her children is what she does. If these happen to become tangible, then they can be eliminated - possibly by fire rather than weaponry, but removed from Life.

 

14 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

But if the CA "fighters" do what they can to heal these physical entities the fight is a non violent fight, just huge efforts. After all CA try to heal Malia, I think ?

I don't think so. Not any more than they try to heal Vivamort and his minions.

[French Desperate WindChild]

3 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Chalana Arroy is a mortal enemy of Malia, and eliminating her children is what she does. If these happen to become tangible, then they can be eliminated - possibly by fire rather than weaponry, but removed from Life.

oh I was convinced that CA try to heal everyone even chaos. But you're one of the lore master, I will not challenge you 😛 

[Joerg]

1 minute ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

oh I was convinced that CA try to heal everyone even chaos. But you're one of the lore master, I will not challenge you 😛 

Not speaking with my lore master hat on, though. Vivamort and Malia are special foes, personal foes of CA, IMG, embodying the antithesis of herself.

 

[Jens]

18 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

I was convinced that CA try to heal everyone even chaos

Chaotic beings are explicitly excluded from CA vows to never harm an intelligent being, and they are under no obligation to heal them. That doesn't mean an individual Healer will attack Chaotic beings on sight, or chose not to heal a chaotic individual, just that they are not compelled by their usual vows.

[French Desperate WindChild]

1 hour ago, Jens said:

Chaotic beings are explicitly excluded from CA vows to never harm an intelligent being, and they are under no obligation to heal them. That doesn't mean an individual Healer will attack Chaotic beings on sight, or chose not to heal a chaotic individual, just that they are not compelled by their usual vows.

Oh I agree

i was talking about the goddess herself who tried (or not) to heal chaos 

In my view she had no enemy (aka no one she wants and tries to wound/kill)

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Oh I agree

i was talking about the goddess herself who tried (or not) to heal chaos 

In my view she had no enemy (aka no one she wants and tries to wound/kill)

She has two antitheses she wants to undo - Death and Disease. Also suffering (Wakboth).

[mfbrandi]

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

She has two antitheses she wants to undo — Death and Disease. Also suffering (Wakboth).

Although Cults of Prax (ClassicPDF, p. 71) seems to set this up as rank hypocrisy:

• Enemies of the cult who defy the pacifistic and healing ways of the cult
  will find themselves unable to resist infection with disease …
  and never recover from it without the appropriate Cure Disease spell
  from the cult.

If your cult’s spirit of reprisal is called “Infection”, just how opposed to death, disease, and suffering are you? She is all sweetness and light until you oppose her and then the gloves are off. “Now I am become Chalana Arroy, the destroyer of immune systems.”

CA is a dangerous lunatic. I can think of two ways to end death, disease, and suffering: retcon the universe, so the World Machine was never set in motion; chuck everything into the memory hole that is Kajabor. The truly pious CA cultist is always working on some mad scheme or other. Don’t let them catch you looking at them funny or you may find yourself with a nasty cough that just won’t shift and … 😉

[French Desperate WindChild]

5 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Although Cults of Prax (ClassicPDF, p. 71) seems to set this up as rank hypocrisy:

• Enemies of the cult who defy the pacifistic and healing ways of the cult
  will find themselves unable to resist infection with disease …
  and never recover from it without the appropriate Cure Disease spell
  from the cult.

If your cult’s spirit of reprisal is called “Infection”, just how opposed to death, disease, and suffering are you? She is all sweetness and light until you oppose her and then the gloves are off. “Now I am become Chalana Arroy, the destroyer of immune systems.”

CA is a dangerous lunatic. I can think of two ways to end death, disease, and suffering: retcon the universe, so the World Machine was never set in motion; chuck everything into the memory hole that is Kajabor. The truly pious CA cultist is always working on some mad scheme or other. Don’t let them catch you looking at them funny or you may find yourself with a nasty cough that just won’t shift and … 😉

I think the point is not CA send an infection, she just doesn't care that now you have one.

[soltakss]

10 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

I think the point is not CA send an infection, she just doesn't care that now you have one.

Yes, the way I see it is that Chalana Arroy actively helps people fight off infections, so crossing her means that she simply doesn't do that and they can catch disease more easily.

[mfbrandi]

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

Yes, the way I see it is that Chalana Arroy actively helps people fight off infections, so crossing her means that she simply doesn’t do that and they can catch disease more easily.

“I didn’t throw you off the cliff, I just let go of your hand” kind of thing?