The Rumor Mill - Week 37

Diseases fill our list here on week 37 of The Rumor Mill. From the annoyance of the common cold to the stony finality of Gorgon's Touch, we look at several diseases, their causes, and their prevention. Disease can cause blindness, inappropriate shrieks of laughter, or transformation into animal form. The Camillians can't always afford the resources to outright remove your affliction, though they do their best, so you may be dealing with symptoms for a while.

Let's explore some of the common diseases in and around Fellport, and learn what we can do to avoid, prevent, or combat them in any way possible.

1d8	Rumor	True?
1	Moana sailors eat dried huruhuru berries. They also don't get Scurvy at all.	Yes1
2	Swamp Fever cases declined in Fellport after the FCA cleaned up the streets.	Maybe2
3	Even the most powerful healing magic can't cure the common cold.	No3
4	Most people believe fey creatures infect mortals with the Shrieks (Cackle Fever).	Maybe4
5	Eyebleed (or Sight Rot) leaves its victims blind within a week if left untreated.	Yes5
6	If you're quick enough with Wolfsbane, you can prevent Lycanthropy.	Maybe6
7	Ooran's Kiss painfully transforms air-breathers into water-breathers in a few days.	No7
8	Gorgon's Touch starts with a patch of hard skin and ends with petrification.	Yes8

1 - The Moana people (Iwi o te Moana) cultivate rambutan trees and eat the hairy fruit. Dunhill sailors fall prey to scurvy.
2 - Cleaning the sewers had more to do with the reduction in Swamp Fever, but the FCA did that on a similar timeline.
3 - Casting lesser restoration will cure a cold, but using a 2nd level spell to cure a common nuisance doesn't make sense.
4 - Since gnomes are immune, but elves aren't, many believe gnome wizards somehow created it as a transmissible curse.
5 - Eyebright grows in a few Dunhill bogs, and ointment made from its flowers will cure the disease in 3 doses over 3 days.
6 - Wererats are far more common in Fellport. Wolfsbane works only 25% of the time unless concentrated in a poultice.
7 - Old sailors spread this false tale of the Queen of the Drowned coming for surface dwellers' souls, but they come to her.
8 - It may take years to spread to full petrification, but if it spreads to the heart and lungs first it kills before it petrifies.

Part of T.W.Wombat's Lore 24 project, detailing the world around Fellport.
For all city posts, see the Fellport Index. For posts about the wider world, see the Beneterra Index.