My submission for the RPG blog carnaval. This month's topic is Magic Rocks - stones, crystals, weird metals.
First, we need to understand disease. Following the Arnold Kemp, what we call diseases are actually spirits. Suffering a disease is the same as being possessed, to be cured requires the spirit to leave voluntarily or be exorcised.
Second, we need to understand that humans aren't special. Just like we have a spirit, so do other beings in the world. Moreover, just like a human is made up of different parts, each with their own spirit, societies made up of different humans have collective spirits. Ergo, not only trees, but forests have spirits, both boulders and mountains. It is spirits all the way up and down.
Given these two facts it should be obvious that not only humans get sick. Other living beings can become ill, but also forests, mountains, fields. What we will concern ourselves with here are the diseases of various metals and minerals.
D6 diseases of metal, rock and soil:
- Giltwither: Gold is oft deemed incorruptible. This is wrong, there is a spirit malign enough to sully even gold. Lead is the common name used for gold infected with Giltwither, a spirit so foul that exposure to lead quickly leads to horrible effects on most peoples health. Alchemists have spend many lifetimes attempting to cure Giltwither, but as of yet no known cure has been discovered.
- Ironrot: Also known as rust, ironrot is is a common water spirit. The easiest way to cure it is by removing the infected metal, similar to amputation of rotting limbs, though it is also possible to cause it to leave the iron through exorcism or bargaining. Ironrot can be warded off by most oils.
- Glowstone: A condition which causes calcium rich minerals to emit a green glow, a pebble casting about as much light as a rushlight. Anything with bones and teeth that gets in sustained contact with the glow has these parts of their body become infected and start to glow green as well. Anything possessed with greenglow eventually crumbles into dust.
- Brittlemold: This nasty spirit has won wars and ruined economies. It infects rocks, though it has a preference for crystals. Affected minerals become incredibly brittle, which is why Brittlemold has at times been used deliberately to infect large stone fortifications. The disease progresses slowly, but is sometimes faster than starving a besieged town or castle.
- Saltcreep: Infects tilled soil, causing it to become as barren as salted earth. If not treated in time, the soil dies making it impossible for anything to grow from it. Flushing the soil with water is a possible treatment, though it is very labour intensive. Rituals for cure exist, but are prohibitively expensive.
- Zombiesoil: One of the reasons we burn our dead, earth infected by Zombiesoil reanimates anything that once lived. Decaying plants turn into shambling mounds, putrified beasts into black puddings, and as one would expect from the name, corpses into zombies. An attempt has been made to eradicate the disease, making it relatively rare these days.