In a world of magic, there are bound to be ailments and illnesses that only affect those of a magical bent. Depending on the level of magic in your game, these illnesses could have huge, hilarious and often deadly results. With that in mind, we have put together 10 magical diseases for you to use in your next RPG.
Name: Mana-drain
Effect: For every day that the character has this disease, they lose 10% of their remaining power points (rounding down).
Spread: Highly contagious. Can be spread just by touching an infected person.
Cure: A potion containing very rare ingredients.
Name: Mana corporis
Effect: Every time the character uses power points, they take that many hits.
Spread: This illness it not contagious. It is caused by over exposure to mana.
Cure: Magical healing from a very skilled practitioner
Name: Involuntary invisibility
Effect: Every 12 hours, the character becomes more difficult to perceive, starting from mundane and moving all the way up to Absurd.
Spread: Contagious. Bacterium. Often spread by magical creatures that suffer from the disease.
Cure: The infected person needs to bathe in a magical concoction made of reasonably rare ingredients
Name: Anamalia Gravas
Effect: Character attracts animals within a 50’ radius. When first infected, the character only attracts Miniscule creatures, every day that passes, the character attracts all animals of that size and one size bigger.
Spread: Certain magical animals are carriers of the disease and spell casters can be infected just by close proximity.
Cure: Herbs that are most often found in the deepest, darkest parts of woods and forests
Name: Lisencio Arcana
Effect: An arcane blast bursts from the characters person at random, striking out in a random direction (to a maximum distance of 50’). The longer the character has the disease, the more frequent the ‘attacks’.
Spread: Not contagious. Caused by prolonged periods of characters with high PP not using any magic
Cure: Incredibly strong magical healing and regular casting of low level spells.
Name: infelicis fortuitus
Effect: Whenever the character attempts to cast a spell, a random other spell is cast instead.
Spread: Contagious. A viral infection that can be spread by sentient creatures or magical beasts.
Cure: Character should be kept in isolation and deplete their PP and keep them depleted for 48 hours to starve the virus of magical energies.
Name: Slow-casting
Effect: The mystical forces do not flow as well through the character as they would normally. This is caused by a build up of ‘bad’ mana. It takes 5 rounds longer to cast all spells.
Spread: Not contagious. Caused by regularly fumbling spells.
Cure: There is no cure. The problem will clear up after a week of not fumbling a spell.
Name: motis motabil
Effect: The long door spell goes off randomly, transporting the caster up to 100’ away to a random place. Normal rules about not passing through barriers apply. The longer the patient has the disease, the more often the spell will go off. The spell depletes PP in the usual way. If no PP are available, the patient will still be transported but will take the number of PP required in hits.
Spread: Highly contagious. Can be caught just by standing too close to someone that has it.
Cure: Healing runes must be carved into the flesh of the affected person
Name: The terrors
Effect: At random everyone in a 50’ radius is hit with the spell ‘fear’. The effect goes off roughly once every six hours but is random.
Spread: Cannot be past between sentient beings. Can only be inflicted by demonic beings.
Cure: Intense magical healing to cleanse the damage to the inflicted person’s aura.
Name: ‘Tin man’ disease
Effect: The character gets ‘steel skin’ but with the manoeuvre and casting penalties associated with the level of armour. Every day the character has the disease, they move up a level of armor (soft leader, studded leather, chain mail etc). Once plate mail has been surpassed, the character received +10 DB every day but also +2 to their Casting Penalty and their Max Manoeuvre Penalty is +20 and their Minimum Manoeuvre Penalty is +5.
Spread: Not contagious. Is caused by an over exposure to magical damage and magical healing.
Cure: Avoiding magic for at least a week whilst taking regular draughts of a potion made of very rare herbs.