Spirit Sickness

A disease once thought dead has found a new home in the Ghostlands. Spirit Sickness was an ancient disease, originating some time after the Morlu War (some think it to be a weapon left over from that terrible war) that infects a host's spirit and slowly gnaws at the soul. The disease can be contracted through contact with a carrier wandering spirit of some sort, be that a ghost, wraith, banshee, or some other spiritual manifestation. The undead of the Ghostlands seem to carry this disease in quite high numbers, though not all wandering spirits can cause it.   The first sign of the spirit sickness is a unusual melancholy that descends on the infected. The infected person will become morose and inconsolable. The things that once brought them joy will elicit no such response once the disease has set in. Often this stage of the illness is mistaken for a normal stage of the physical healing process since so many sufferers are those physically wounded by battling a wandering spirit. The melancholy will deepen and deepen to the point where the sufferer will refuse even to eat or even move to relieve himself.   Following the melancholic stage, assuming that they are still alive, their body will begin to shrivel away and die, regardless of the food and water given to them. The light will go out of their eyes, and what is left of their will to live will dissipate. It is said that this second and final stage is the spiritual death, whereas the physical death is almost a formality. At the time of final death, the sufferer's husk will be given a proper burial, but nothing will stop the final, inevitable phase of the disease: the wandering of the spirit.   After death, no matter what rituals are performed or what libations poured, the spirit of one who dies from Spirit Sickness will wander aimlessly in the ethereal plane for all eternity (or until slain again by some adventurer or necromancer). They will phase between the material and ethereal planes until they are released from their suffering by a wandering traveler.