Homebrew - Virulent Diseases
There are a few things that rarely come up during an entire campaign, and there’s kind of a reason for it. When a single character, with a simple touch, can cure something - it shows that it just isn’t a big deal and is meaningless inside the game. Today, we are going to talk about diseases and how we can actually include them in your games as something meaningful instead of just as that one thing that a paladin can cure with their touch.
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Why?
Why am I making this? Well, it is slightly topical as a virus is causing a wide variety of problems for our world, but that’s not it. This has always been something I’ve been annoyed at as it is so underused and even when you do use it, it’s simply handwaved away thanks to a 1st level paladin or any 3rd level bard, cleric, druid, or celestial warlock - and if that isn’t enough you can just wait until the artificer and ranger become 5th level.
So when you look at diseases, it definitely looks like it’s supposed to be a 1st or 2nd level problem. But that can’t be true because paladins at 3rd level become completely immune to diseases while monks and circle of the land druids become immune at 10th level. If characters are getting certain abilities and features at high level, then it obviously means that diseases are still a problem for them to overcome. WotC wouldn’t be giving classes useless features if we weren’t supposed to use them!
So, that’s why I’m creating this, because diseases in 5e are just boring and bland, easily handwaved away, and I’m going to let the monk and paladin in my own game feel special when they don’t have to deal with the Dreaded Swamp of Diseases. I want them to feel special.
What is This?
Virulent Diseases isn’t a system so much as it gives diseases a fighting chance. Not every disease should be one of these virulent diseases, and in fact, I’d argue that you should only use one Virulent Disease a campaign. These diseases circumvent the easy handwaving of 5e, which can make players annoyed. They might be annoyed simply because they don’t want to deal with diseases or they never get to use lesser restoration and they can finally get a chance to use it or any other reason. Maybe they are tired of thinking of diseases during a pandemic, who knows!
A Virulent Disease works differently than a common disease because it can’t simply be touched away by the paladin or magicked away using some sort of restoration spell. These diseases might be magical in nature, making it incredibly difficult to get rid of, or maybe the disease comes from the eldritch powers of the Far Realm and thus don’t comply with our normal rules that govern society. There can be a wide variety of reasons, but every disease has a cure no matter what.
Virulent Diseases all have their ways of being cured that are unique to the disease. Some might require being transferred to the Positive Energy Plane with the radiant energies burning up the disease… and hopefully not you with it. Or maybe the disease requires the sacrifice of a demon or angel. Maybe the disease requires you to cluck like a chicken or actually polymorph into a chicken! Whatever the way it is to cure a Virulent Disease, it rarely requires a simple spell to be cast.
Sample Diseases
As part of this, I provide a few sample diseases that can be used in your games and provides some ideas that go along with them. These diseases are meant to be used as part of a greater story, not simply to hurt and maim your character.
The King’s Disease
Often thought to be poison, this disease is unique due to being found on exotic fruits from a world over. Those who become infected begin wasting away as they can’t hold down food and eventually succumb to exhaustion, hunger, and dehydration. This disease probably won’t be a problem for players unless they travel to new lands and try out the local delicacy.
This disease is best recommended as an investigation for the party to conduct, trying to determine how the king is being poisoned and racing against time to save them. Eventually, it culminates them in having to transport the king to Arborea where they can see the great feasts of Arborea, the huge fields of food, the dire animals, and witness the plane of wild passions of joy and rage.
Or maybe the players make their way over to new and strange lands, traveling through uncharted islands and find a nice settlement of locals who host a large feast in their honor. Unfortunately, some of the fruit is carrying this disease, and while the locals are immune to it, the adventurers are not. An investigation begins, did the locals attempt to poison you? And over the next few sessions realize that the locals didn’t and you are simply diseased. In this instance, you might change the cure from going to Arborea to having to find something else to eat to neutralize the disease. It could be a white whale of mythological proportions, a strange delicacy known as coffee, and more!
Leaking Wounds
This disease is a dangerous one and can be carried by fiends and undead that focus on using unarmed and natural weapon attacks. When you become infected, your body fails to produce enough platelets and so you continue to keep on bleeding when you take damage, which is represented as you being vulnerable to Bludgeoning, Slashing, and Piercing damage.
A DM should be careful when infecting their party with this as it can make a difficult fight against a boss almost impossible as the boss will be dealing far more damage than normal - unless they don’t use a weapon but cast spells. Just something to keep in mind.
This disease can be great if the adventurers are fighting off hordes of undead that have risen out of a swamp, or maybe the demon invasion has brought in some foul creatures capable of horrifying diseases. Regardless of how this disease is brought around, the cure is rather simple - a casting of greater restoration provides the character with a new saving throw. Notice it’s a new saving throw and not automatically cures it, even though greater restoration is a powerful spell, it simply gives the player a chance to reroll their save. On a fail, the spell doesn’t help enough and the character is still infected.
This is a disease meant for higher-tier characters that can still be healed relatively quickly as an example of how a more ‘common’ disease can be handled at higher levels. Not every virulent disease needs a convoluted cure, some can be higher level restoration magic because that magic is so powerful.
If you are looking for a special cure for this, you might have the party search for rare silks that only phase spiders produce, maybe having the party journey into the Ethereal Plane. The phase spider silk is said to have special binding properties that can seal any wound close and has a natural anti-bacterial that is created by the phase spider that can help destroy the disease.
Magician’s Lament
Alright, before I talk about this one BIG RED FLAG! This disease isn’t necessarily designed for player characters but NPCs. Stripping away a character’s ability to casts spells is dangerous and deadly for a table. That’s not what this disease is meant for - it’s meant as a plot hook and an adventure for a party, in very rare circumstances you might infect a character with it but be very wary when you do so and make sure the player understands the consequences of this disease and how to cure it.
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about the disease. This horrifying disease feeds off of magic and can permanently strip away a spellcaster's spells from them. That’s it, no horrifying wounds or disease-ridden corpse, just a hungry disease that feeds on magical energies. For many spellcasters, this might be as good as a death sentence for their magical abilities as the disease stops them from regaining spell slots after a long rest and can eventually remove their cantrips from them.
The cure for this disease is rather clever, in my humble opinion. Once the disease ‘senses’ there is no more magic to gain, it becomes inert in the body, and the creature is ‘cured’ - but you can attempt to trick the disease by casting feeblemind on the creature. As feeblemind prevents a creature from casting any and all spells, this tricks the disease into thinking they are in a non-magical creature and thus the disease becomes inert.
Or you can simply kill the infected creature and create a new body for them with a reincarnate spell or true resurrection. For player characters, this might not be too much of a problem as they can trust that their party members will undue the feeblemind or resurrect them after they die. For NPCs, this is a dangerous proposition. They can’t trust that a spellcaster will keep their word and not loot their wizard tower, nor can they trust that resurrection magic might work or that the cleric casting such a powerful spell won’t simply pocket the 25,000 gp worth of diamonds and bounce. It’s risky and requires a team of expert adventurers to help them find a different cure that isn’t so risky.
Sun Blind
For tieflings, cambions, succubi, fiends, and more - this disease sucks. Random solar flares can leap out from the sun, causing the disease to be flung through space and descend into the planet and infect them with a horrifying disease that will leave them blind. This doesn’t even sound like a disease but some sort of divine retribution against such foul creatures as can be found in the Lower Planes. Maybe the sun god is angry and is attempting to burn away such blights.
Regardless of the actual how of this disease, this can be a great plot hook for a party even if they don’t have a tiefling in their midst. An elderly scholar could ask for assistance as his eyesight is failing and he sends the party on adventures to find a cure. Maybe he eventually realizes that the only way to cure it is if he can convince the party to capture a deva. At this point, the party might grow slightly suspicious that their best friend isn’t all he appears to be and they find out that the elderly scholar is a powerful demon that has gone blind from the Sun Blind disease.
It’s up to them to figure out what to do next. Maybe the scholar offers money to convince them to pick up a deva, maybe they decide to take down a poor, helpless old man who can’t defend himself. Who knows!
Undead Pox
Our last disease is a real doozy. It creates the impression of death upon any infected by it, and as their body begins to rot away from them, they have several days to locate a cure.
This disease shows another way to use features that can already cure diseases, but requires more oomph from the paladin and may require a very powerful paladin or only a 2nd level paladin depending on how the dice land. You can also try the tried and true method of destroying the body and making a new body for the creature using reincarnate or true resurrection as the old body is diseased and useless. Thinking about it, most diseases can probably be thwarted by simply destroying an old body and having someone create a new body for you - hmm, that could be a great service that druids or clerics offer to the obscenely wealthy who have strange sicknesses that just won’t go away… of course, you might come back as a goblin, a gnome, a halfling, or some other horrifying creature.
One of the main reasons I created this disease was because of the lore and plot hooks that this disease creates. You can become undead with it, and you know there are crazy people out there that think this is an easy way of becoming a lich. Finding the right rituals, concocting the proper magics, and boom, you can quickly and easily become a lich without having to become an all-powerful spellcaster capable of feats of magic or make a deal with Orcus.
Diseases and Adventure
The last part of the document goes over adventure hooks, different ideas for cures, and even a section on how to run a game with diseases. I hope that this is helpful to DMs and helps you guys run campaigns where diseases can be a part of it. It’s an underused and overlooked part of Dungeons & Dragons, and when used correctly can provide some great plot hooks and memorable moments in your games.
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