Example afflictions
Here are some “common” afflictions to use as examples. GMs can tweak these to create any manner of gross old disorders for their players.
Giant rat venom
A green rat the size of a dog, covered in buboes, welts, and goiters, bites you. It only gets worse from there.
Stage 1: The wound turns ugly: green and fetid. It begins to stink, but there are no other effects.
Requires 1 charge to cure.
Stage 2: You feel like hot garbage. You become permanently Exhausted.
Requires 1 charge to cure.
Stage 3: Your lungs are filled with green mucus. Every time you test fate, you take a Piercing Wound after the test is resolved.
Requires 2 charges to cure.
Black honey
A thick molasses that tastes so, so sweet. It’s like meth and speed had a terrifying demon baby. You act preternaturally fast while on the honey.
Each time you take black honey, you are re-exposed to the affliction. If you’ve previously cured stage 2, erase the marking in the stage 2 section.
Stage 1: If you’ve recently taken black honey, you may choose to draw 5 cards during an encounter instead of 4. If you do so, you spit out 1–4 teeth.
Requires 5 charges to quit.
Stage 2: You’re jittery and sweaty. Your Cups score equals 1 and you suffer disfavor on all tests of fate that require fine motor control.
Requires 1 charge to calm down to stage 1.
Ghost lotus
The seeds of the ghost lotus rewrite pathways in the user’s brain. The feeling is incredibly addictive. Habitual users of the lotus (called lotusphages) become very strange and otherworldly: their personalities change, their memories become distorted, and they have trouble distinguishing between the waking world and dreams.
Stage 1: You experience euphoria. This effect cancels out any effects that hamper your ability to sleep.
Requires 1XP to recover from stage 1. No charges are otherwise needed.
Stage 2: At this stage, you lose the ability to understand representative thought. Paintings and illustrations are just blobs of color. Words are meaningless lines on paper. You cannot read. You cannot write. You are also immune to illusions.
Requires 2 charges to cure.
Stage 3: You become lost in a waking dream. Rewrite one of your motif descriptors. For example, if you have the “Romancing Swordsman” motif, replace “Romancing” with another word (e.g., Ambitious, Addled, Drowsy, Sadistic, etc.).
Requires 1 charge to cure.
The great contagion
“Oh Mythrys, do I have the red welts? I have the red welts don’t I? I’m going to die. Tell Mama I love her.”
Stage 1: Your skin breaks out into red whorls that are very painful to the touch. You take a Piercing Wound.
Requires 2 charges to cure.
Stage 2: You take Critical damage.
Requires 2 charges to cure.
Stage 3: You die.