Swamp Lung

A serious illness contracted by bug bites, rat bites, or drinking contaminated water in Aelas' wetland regions. Most cases of Swamp Lung can be treated with a few days of bedrest and fever medicine. A night's rest is often interrupted by intense coughing, making it difficult to recover. An active lifestyle can cause the disease to worsen becoming more and more hazardous to the infected. It begins with chills, aches, fever, and loud painful coughs every few minutes. Untreated, the disease begins to fill the victim's lungs with fluid, making it difficult to breathe. After 6 days without sufficient treatment, death will likely occur, either from exhaustion or organ damage.

Swamp Lung is not contagious.

Pathology

Symptoms

Swamp Lung starts as a cough. After a few hours the cough worsens becoming regular and painful, making rest difficult. Within a day, the afflicted will experience the full gamut of symptoms: chills, fever, congestion, and muscle aches.

For each day without proper rest, the symptoms grow worse, especially the coughing and the state of the afflicted's lungs. This persists until death occurs typically after the 6th day.

Treatment

Bedrest keeps the more serious symptoms of the disease at bay, but without proper medicine, the afflicted will remain sick indefinitely.

Any medicine that treats cold or flu will alleviate the symptoms. A medicine check of DC 12 or a nature check of DC 16 will reveal insights on the herbs & tonics that will treat the afflicted. Otherwise, if near civilization, a trip to the apothecary is all one needs to get proper medication.

Prevention

The best way to avoid Swamp Lung is to stay clear of wetland areas. Don't drink still water without boiling it. Otherwise, one can wear long clothes to prevent bug bite, or apply insect repellants to the skin. Even with these precautions however, entering deeply swampy or diseased areas may still be enough to break through preventative measures, and contract Swamp Lung.

Game Mechanics

• Identifying Swamp Lung requires a DC 14 Medicine check.
• Players must succeed on a CON saving throw of DC 16 each day of exposure to the illness.
• While sick, the player takes a point of exhaustion each day if traveling more than a mile, using skills, or taking an action.
• Players take disadvantage on stealth checks (because of the coughing).
• Neither long nor short rests recuperate HP.
• Each 24 hour period of bedrest reverses exhaustion points. One additional day of bedrest and taking basic medicine cures the player's Swamp Lung entirely.
• ex. If a player has one point of exhaustion accrued from Swamp Lung, they will have to take 2 days of bedrest, and find basic fever medicine, to cure themselves of the illness.

Locations

The Blightmire

The most common place to contract Swamp Lung is in the Blightmire. The swamp's name comes from how virulent the sickness is within it. It's well known that wandering too far from the roads and highways is a great way to get sick. The ubiquity of Swamp Lung within the Blightmire has also made Black Delta a hub for medical scholarship, and an easy place to find good tonics to cure the illness. Incidentally this has also given rise to a plague of mountebanks and snake oil salesmen along the road to Black Delta.

The noble House of Venturis employs rangers who sprinkle a foul mixture of vinegar, tar, and garlic on the sides of the main road to Black Delta to ward away infected pests from preying on travelers. This potent mixture is also burned in the city's torches, making cases of Swamp Lung uncommon within the walls of the great port.

Mothwing Bog

Swamp Lung cases were once common in Mothwing Bog, but have greatly diminished since the Lich War. The curse that hangs over the silent wetlands is anathema to all forms of life, even the pestilent. In addition to that, the beasts and humanoids who once played host to Swamp Lung are now a rare sight within the majority of the bog.

In the westernmost reaches of Mothwing Bog, where Sharev's curse is at its weakest, the disease still persists. The moat surrounding the goblin stronghold Ai'Ralam is its epicenter, with the sickness massively concentrated therein. Without protection, one is almost guaranteed to contract it, along with numerous other maladies, when nearing the city's fetid sick-moat.

Kestunese Jungle

The dense and humid conditions of Kestu's jungle are host to several diseases that keep even locals far from the treeline. Unfortunately, Swamp Lung is one of the jungle's milder maladies. The Kestunese people have a long history of combatting disease, and the island's healers are highly skilled at treating Swamp Lung.

Mestran Coast

Swamp Lung along Aelas' southern Mestran Coast, unlike other wetted areas, is confined to small still ponds and marshes scattered across the grasslands. This makes contracting the illness fairly rare here, but every year or so some schlimazel manages to fall into one of these insalubrious pools and get sick.

Breathbane Woods

Little is known about this distant forest in the furthest frontiers of Aelas' woodlands. The elves of Azka speak of an evil and twisted society living at the forest's edge who foster and spread disease to all other peoples. Swamp Lung has been noted as one of these illnesses.