Plague-Bearer

Often misrepresented to the public as those who prevent disease, plague-bearers are wielders of vile energy who capture miasmas (clouds of vile energy) in special nets, then unleash them in order to spread diseases and maladies. In order to become a plague-bearer, a person must intentionally catch a disease (any disease), survive it, and capture the vile energy produced thereby in a net, then wrap themselves in that net for six days. After this, they will be able to capture and sense miasmas with the right tools.

Miasmas

A miasma is a cloud of vile energy generated by a disease. These appear over anyone who is sick, though they are driven away in decent hospitals and temples and other healing sites. Places where but one individual is sick produce weak miasmas that don't last long enough to catch or use, but major outbreaks, long-term sicknesses, or specially cultivated illnesses or miasmas produce greater clouds.

Nets

Plague-bearers use nets like fishermen, casting them out into the air to wrap them around miasmas. Once a miasma is netted, the plague-bearer binds the net together and wraps it up tight to carry it. To unleash the miasma, they simply unwrap and untie it, opening it like a bag.

A plague-bearer's net is made of poison ivy, poison sumac, poison oak, sorghum, ryegrass, scutch grass, hemlock, stinging nettle, foxglove, bitter nightshade, mistletoe, snakeskin or snakes, poison-soaked cotton fibers, linens from sickbeds, cloth soaked in the blood of those with major illnesses, fever-sweat-soaked cloth, used handkerchiefs, rat fur or tails, vireo feathers, lavellan fur or tails, bohun upas bark or leaves, kayot leaves, nuckalavee sinews, dipsa skin or dipsas, or strands of cancer.

Masks

Plague-bearers wear masks that are corruptions of the masks worn by plague doctors. They have are made of bone and flesh of the diseased, bohun upas wood, scarab chitin, lapis viridis, or q'umir. Wearing these masks allows them to see miasmas, control them once captured (by coughing), and protects them from their own weaponry.

Coughing

Once a miasma is released, the plague-bearer guides it by coughing, inhaling a little bit of the miasma, then coughing it in a direction to push the miasma that toward their target(s).

Vectoring

If they are ill, they themselves are a vector for any disease they have (even if it is not otherwise transmissible). They can also turn others into a vector by capturing them in a net that holds a miasma and holding them there long enough for them to entirely absorb the miasma.

Vermin

Some vermin make better vector than others. If a plague-bearer cannot turn a person into a vector, they often settle for one of these kinds of vermin:

• Rats: plague, cholera
• Scarabs: any disease
• Fleas: plague, typhus
• Ticks: borreliosis
• Vireos: parkinson's, cancer, other non-transmissible diseases

Illness

Because plague-bearers must inhale miasmas, they are always ill themselves. Their masks protect them a little bit, reducing the power of the miasmas, but a plague-bearer will always have at least a cold and oftentimes something partciularly nasty. However, as wielders of vile energy, they are still able to operate as if healthy. They simply feel sick as they do it.

Variations

Some variations include

• Cloak woman: a plague-bearer witch who uses cloaks instead of nets.
• Epidemiologer: a plague-bearer who complements their work with science.
• Erreger: those who apply miasmas to technology.
• Lacnunger: a researcher of diseases.
• Pestilent: a street doctor who spreads disease in the guise of innoculating people against it.

Societal Role

fake plague doctors

Skills

Stats

The average plague-bearer has these variations on the base stats of their nation/species:

PRO +1
ATH -3
STR -2
AWA +4
WIL +6
ROG +2