Epidemics

1.EPIDEMICS

Epidemics is a subcategory of hazards, the prospect of a serious disease. Imagine villagers seeking a doctor for some epidemic ravaging them, or a character with plague looking desperately for a cure, a child cured of dieases by a heroic character, thus gaining respect and trust among the locals.

As you will soon notice, the work that healers have to do in each lesser purgation has never before been described as truthfully as it is now.

2. KNOWN DISEASES

Understanding diseases is very important. This section details diseases, including their symptoms, diagnosis, misdiagnosis, treatment, course, failed recovery death probability, and possible postrecovery debility.

NOTE: To protect newbies, diseases won't affect players below level 30, or players with less than 20 constitution, or players with less than 100 hit points.

All hours provided are RL (real life) hours, not game hours.

Each disease runs through it's course in four stages:

 Dormancy stage:
   You do not have the disease.
 Incubation stage:
   You have the disease, but it's not giving out any symptoms yet. 
   A person skilled in diagnosis can detect diseases which are 
   still in incubation stage. They can already be medicated at
   this point to push them back to dormancy.
 Phase 1: 
   Early stage of the disease. The symptoms are visible and you
   become affected by them. At this point you will begin the
   recovery cycle. Your constitution, favor of your gods (score -p), 
   and medicine will help you overcome the disease. However, failed
   recovery death probability activates at this point. It means that
   if you do not get better soon, depending on severity of disease,
   you can die.
 Phase 2:
   If a disease in phase 1 is not cured, it will enter phase 2, 
   in which it's symptoms are suffered in full force. Treatment 
   which begins during phase 2 of the disease has its overall 
   effectiveness halved. Failed recovery death probability will
   loom over your shoulder even more harshly.
 End stage:
   If you survive past phase 2, you will enter the ending stage
   in which your body has been able to eradicate the disease from 
   your system. However, depending on severity of disease you
   might suffer from post-recovery debility.
   

TLDR; air priests can cure diseases and get karma and ticks of new mastery in return. Don't let any disease get past incubation because of failed recovery death probability activating in beginning of

phase 1.

Diseases do not cure with death, but death can drive away an hour or so two of your suffering. Note that after dying of a disease you are protected by the newbie protection rule. You would be wise to contact an air priest immediately because of your symptoms will return after death as soon as you heal.

2.1. DYSENTERY

Transmission: Contaminated food and/or water. Symptoms: Abdominal pain, diarrhea. Misdiagnosed often as: Cholera, or minor disease. Treatment: Replace fluids (drink water), relieve pain. Course of the disease:

 Incubation: 1-3 hours.
 Phase 1: 3 hours.
 Phase 2: 7 hours.

Failed recovery death probability: 10%

2.2. CHOLERA

Transmission: Contaminated food and/or water. Symptoms: Abdominal pain, fever, diarrhea. Misdiagnosed often as: Dysentery. Treatment: Spirit of element, elixir of death, relieve pain and fever, elixir of truth. Course of the disease:

 Incubation: 1 hour.
 Phase 1: 3 hours.
 Phase 2: 3 hours.

Failed recovery death probability: 20%

2.3. HEPATITIS A

Transmission: Contact, contaminated food and/or water. Symptoms: General body pain, fever, malaise. Misdiagnosed often as: Minor disease. Treatment: Relieve pain and fever. Course of the disease:

 Incubation: 22 hours.
 Phase 1: 3 hours.
 Phase 2: 5 hours.

Failed recovery death probability: 10%

2.4. FOOD POISONING

Transmission: Contaminated food. Symptoms: Severe abdominal pain, abdominal cramps, slight fever. Misdiagnosed often as: Cholera. Treatment: Relieve symptoms, Theriac, elixir of life, elixir of death. Course of the disease:

 Incubation: 1 hour.
 Phase 1: 2 hours.
 Phase 2: 7 hours.

Failed recovery death probability: 50%

2.5. PNEUMONIA

Transmission: Contact, airborne. Symptoms: Cough, fluid filled lungs, fever, chest pain, discomfort. Misdiagnosed often as: Minor disease, plague. Treatment: Pain and fever relief, elixir of life, elixir of death, elixir of truth. Course of the disease:

 Incubation: 5 hours.
 Phase 1: 5 hours.
 Phase 2: 9 hours.

Failed recovery death probability: 10%

2.6. TYPHOID FEVER

Transmission: Contact, contaminated food and/or water. Symptoms: Severe fever, pain, cough, apathy. Misdiagnosed often as: Pneumonia, plague. Treatment: Elixir of death, Elixir of truth. Course of the disease:

 Incubation: 6 hours.
 Phase 1: 7 hours.
 Phase 2: 35 hours.

Failed recovery death probability: 10%

2.7. TYPHUS

Transmission: Carried by body lice. Symptoms: Fever, headache, rash. Misdiagnosed often as: Minor disease. Treatment: Elixir of life, Elixir of Death, Elixir of Truth. Course of the disease:

 Incubation: 1 hour.
 Phase 1: 5 hours.
 Phase 2: 10 hours.

Failed recovery death probability: 20%.

2.8. DEMON POSSESSION

Transmission: Contact with infected blood or saliva, normally through an animal bite. Symptoms: Fever, malaise, sore throat, severe pain, excessive salivation, sweating, fluid loss. Misdiagnosed often as: Minor disease. Treatment: Potion of exorcism. Course of the disease:

 Incubation: 20 hours.
 Phase 1: 14 hours.
 Phase 2: 7 hours.

Failed recovery death probability: 100%.

2.9. BUBONIC PLAGUE

Transmission: Ratborne fleas. Symptoms: Fever, swollen lymph nodes, severe abdominal pain. Misdiagnosed often as: Pneumonia, minor disease. Treatment: Elixir of Death, relieve pain and fever.

Course of the disease:

 Incubation: 5 hours.
 Phase 1: 5 hours.
 Phase 2: 10 hours.

Failed recovery death probability: 100%.

2.10. PNEUMONIC PLAGUE

Transmission: Contact, airborne. Symptoms: Fever, swollen lymph nodes, severe abdominal pain, severe cough, chills. Misdiagnosed often as: Pneumonia, minor disease. Treatment: Elixir of Death, relieve pain and fever, Elixir of Truth. Course of the disease:

 Incubation: 5 hours.
 Phase 1: 3 hours.
 Phase 2: 7 hours.

Failed recovery death probability: 100%.

2.11. MINOR DISEASE

Transmission: Contaminated food, contact. Symptoms: Fever, body aches and pain, vomiting, discoloration, cough. Misdiagnosed often as: Most minor diseases. Treatment: Relief of symptoms, Elixir of Life, Elixir of Death, Elixir of Truth, Theriac. Course of the disease:

 Incubation: 6 hours.
 Phase 1: 6 hours.
 Phase 2: 6 hours.

Failed recovery death probability: 0%.

3. TREATMENT

Fortunately our world offers us a wide selection of medicinal herbs.

These herbs can be brewed into potions and salves which can be used to fight diseases.

3.1 POTIONS

Elixir of Life: 1 fire flower. Elixir of Death: 1 blister heart.

NOTE! Do not administer Elixir of Life and Elixir of Death to the patient at the same time.

Elixir of Truth: 1 fire flower, 1 blister heart. Potion of Exorcism: 1 rain savory. Theriac: 1 drake fennel. Spirit of Air: 1 rock vine. Spirit of Earth: 1 shade creeper. Spirit of Water: 1 water blossom. Spirit of Fire: 1 sun bloom. Spirit of Life: 1 emerald pine Spirit of Void: 1 blue sage

NOTE: Drinking of the wrong spirit will kill you. If you worship air, you need to drink of the Spirit of Air. If you are a Wilder, you need Spirit of Life.

3.2. SALVES

Painkiller: 1 angel clove Antifever: 1 hill mallow Sedative: 1 swamp husk Strong sedative: 1 forest wreath Anesthetic: 1 spring rue Intervention: 1 winter dandelion

3.3. OVERDOSING

If you use wrong amount of the wrong medicine, you are in danger of getting even worse symptoms than those you got from the disease you wanted to cure from.

Once you have the right medications, you need to consult with a neophyte air or better yet, a Follower of Grace to make a _diagnosis_ of your condition. He will be able to tell you how much of which drug will be the right amount for you. But even he can misdiagnose if he isn't familiar with your disease beforehand. However, if you follow the advice of a skilled medical professional to the letter, you are in (relatively) best hands you can be.

Once you know what you need to have and how much, you need to ask him, or a fellow alchemist, to _measure medicine_ so that the dosage is correct. A wise alchemist has medical supplies in advance. If you have to go foraging for herbs in the forest to get better, you are not suffering only from a disease, but also from bad planning.

Hence, potion makers and salve makers: Ask for a price for your trouble.

Once you have been medicated, don't expect instantaneous healing. You need to let half an hour or so pass and then you will see whether you start feeling better or worse.

You will benefit greatly from having ample amounts of piety (score -p) while you are sick. However, you will see your piety consuming away slowly as your god's favor to keep you alive decreases. Your god can cure you, and he can also prevent you from dying, if you are to his or her liking.

Medical potions and salves are not affected by decanting or recanting rules as it is the exact dosage of medicine that matters, not volume.

3.4 RELATED SKILLS

Alchemists, air priests: measure medicine, potion brewing, mixing. Air priests: diagnosis, mastery of diagnosis, mastery of epidemics (mastery)

3.5GLOBAL EPIDEMICS

While taking care of hygiene helps a great deal in not getting sick, there is also the "shit happens" factor, like when they find bubonic plague from town well and townspeople have already drank it.

Therefore epidemics is an automated event with 4 stages of severity:

 - minor epidemic    (1-2 RL day interval)
 - slight epidemic   (1-2 RL week interval)
 - serious epidemic  (1-3 RL month interval)
 - deadly epidemic   (1 RL year interval)
 

To get sick, you need to have accumulated 10 drops of some specific bacteria in your bloodstream. Each run of these events gives a random amount of players (linkdead or not) 1d6 drops.

In the case of, for example, a deadly epidemic, and it is run about once every year, it is technically run once every six months to permit accumulation.

In first run of the event, you might get 1d6 drops of deadly epidemic. This doesn't get you sick, but you can see it with diagnosis. After 6 months, the deadly epidemic runs again, and now comes the second 1d6, which has the chance to take you over the 10 drop threshold.

So depending on epidemic severity, you always have a chance to notice and heal it before the second run comes, which has the first real possiblity of going above incubation threshold.

In other words, with deadly epidemics, your chance to notice a deadly epidemic before incubation is ~6 months. So there is fairness in that the event needs to run at least twice before it can accumulate enough drops to enter incubation stage.

Environment gives you these drops too - like eating contaminated food or drinking from contaminated source.

Carnivorous digestion makes immune to getting contaminants from food and water, as does shapeshifter bird form.

3.6 ABUSING

Rewards for medical procedures are not granted across primary and secondary characters. You CAN cure your primary with your sec or vice versa, but you will just not get any rewards for it.

Naturally, any attempts to abuse the system will result in peppering the system with captchas. So behave.

See also: help hazards