The Positive Plague

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Gazirra
Mumbles Incoherently
Posts: 14

The Positive Plague

Post by Gazirra » Thu Sep 19, 2013 8:33 pm

Heyo! I've only posted on these forums once, but I'd like some opinions/critiques on my latest adventure concept.

Presently, I'm running a Planescape campaign, but using Savage Worlds. My PCs include: twin half-silver dragons Godsmen (Panzer - the brother - is a paladin serving Mystra, Pandora is a wizard who worships Mystra), a rich Athasian elf Sensate named Sky (Fighter-ish, dual-wields hooked hand claws, sends shipments of water to Athas every now and then), a dust genasi Doomguard named Chalk (wields minor amount of necromantic magic and is more of a "multiverse is falling apart just fine" sort of Doomguard), and a tiefling Sensate (forgot his name, rogue sorta guy).

The two adventures the PCs have completed were the on in Well of Worlds with the demonic Romeo and Juliet, and another one from the same book, where they had to steal a sword from a high-level fighter's extradimensional prison. The fighter escaped, and feels indebted to the PCs and the demons will ask them to relay messages again in the future.

I decided to write an adventure on my own, and I wanted to do something unique. I thought about what the PCs have done and who they've met, and I fixated on the fighter they "saved." He has since escaped to a citadel on the Positive Energy Plane. I decided that this could have the basis of a cool story, so I started scheming. A place like that (which at the current point of my game, has been re-inhabited after 20 years of absence). I thought of what could happen in the Positive Plane, and then I thought about creatures born ON that plane.

What I came up with was a recent group of thieves (called the "Portal-Skimmers" for now) broke into this place a year ago. One of them had just contracted a minor cold, something extremely common in the city of Sigil, especially with all the portals and pollution. Normally, the enchantments on the keep would have kept them safe from the effects of the plane, but due to the vacancy in the building, the energies of the plane (and the surrounding quasi-elemental planes) have seeped into the keep, and caused life to go rampant in both growth and evolution. That's for another adventure, though. The cold that the one thief carried multiplied, and the new germs were born on the Positive Plane, and were thus affected by it. This created the Positive Plague.

The Positive Plague begins as a cough, as the nigh-unstoppable cold attacks the respiratory system. A cold that reproduces this quickly would normally kill the victim. Since this cold was mutated by the Positive Energy Plane, while it attacked the respiratory system, it also healed the victim. This causes a feeling of vigor and health in the person. Normally, the energy of the Positive Plane, left unchecked, would make the person's soul overload with life energy and explode. The plague was off the plane, though, so it just kept healing the victim. At the point when the body could no longer handle the healing, it starts a phase of "super-healing" (a term I just made up!). It restores structures from within the host's anatomy, whether they were there or not. At this stage, the host starts itching all over, and the cough getting worse. The itching is caused by tumors beginning to grow all over the body. Left unchecked, the tumors grow into vestigial limbs. On a pure human, it'd grow arms, legs, and heads. None of these limbs will function, and will all be stunted. As long as the disease runs untreated, the Positive Energy in the plague will continue to "cure" the host, possibly indefinitely.

Especially vulnerable are those who wield the Positive Energy (namely like good clerics and stuff). Since they actually are "feeding" the germs, causing them to grow much more quickly. The only effective treatment is the application of Negative Energy, from the plane opposite that of the Positive Plane. Those who are steeped in Negative Energy are actually immune to the plague. Like dust genasi!

All-in-all, it was the Doomguard who saved the city, with the direct assistance of Chalk (who also discovered the cure). What ultimately caused the Doomguard to save the city was the head of the Doomguard (Factol Pentar) nearly being Mazed, and obtaining samples of the Positive Plague from Chalk. *Evil GM Laugh*

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ThroughTheWell
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Posts: 1045

Re: The Positive Plague

Post by ThroughTheWell » Fri Sep 20, 2013 9:54 am

I was with you until the last paragraph, then you lost me.

PE plague: neat. I'd change yours slightly. Can't affect undead or disease immune. 50% chance that a tumor is actualy a useful 'graft', thus resulting in some mutated dead and some mutated living. Transmission like a normal cold. Negative energy kills it. I don't know that I'd make good clerics specialy suseptible, since they tend to be the first line of healing and disease defense. Knocking more than a normal amount of them out just seems rough. Oh, if some ends up with a graft, they are still infectious for a week, but then the disease runs down in them (say the PE cold used up the latent energy from the PE plane in making the graft). Unless of course they get healed for some reason during that week (reroll the 50% dice?) . I'd stick to 1 'free' graft per survivor, ignoring alighnment restrictions, but the dead would have many mutations.

But, I'm not seeing where an adventure comes in, unless the PCs are the ones to deal with trying to cure the strange new disease. I'd probably tweak the dice to give one a graft, and kill an NPC they care about. Then I'd utter dire warnings about the spread of the disease, and possibly give another PC the start of it, so they have a ticking clock to work against in finding a cure. But even then, I'm not sure that is a long adventure, so I'm not sure where you are going with this. Maybe you could stir up some trouble between the normals (ones who never got the disease) and the grafteds (who lived through the disease with a wide variety of mutations). Maybe at that point a Power of chaos decides to take the side of the grafteds. Feel free to borrow themes from the Xmen at that point.

Force effects, and 'protection against' type spells would also stop it, but not kill it. Good hygine would still be as effective as real life.

Druids on both sides of the alighnment aisle might have strong views on both the disease and the grafted. Shoot, a new religion or more might pop up. But not everyone grafted would want to be as involved as all of the factions would be trying to make them.
I survived the forum move 4 times... yeah, I feel old.

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