It's Alive! And It's in My Head!!

Monday, April 12, 2010

Words aren't supposed to float like this, bobbing in this slow, mildly nauseating way before my watering eyes. This sucks. And if you were at Norwescon this past weekend, I blame you. Con crud: it happens every time we go to a convention—and this time I didn't even go!

My office quarantine makes me but one gross cog in a large, messily predictable, sick-machine. Every 3 minutes Jason, through the wall to my left, coughs twice. Every 1 minute and 20 seconds, to my right, James "Harumpghs"—as Jacobses do. Every 25 seconds I sniff, punctuated by nose blowings after every 15, and with cycle-marking sneezes after every 30 blows. It's not pretty. I especially don't envy Chris, Judy, Rob, and Sutter outside our doors listening to this sickly symphony. Although, if anyone forgot their watches today, they can measure the time by the rising tissue tide.

Now that I've set the gross factor for your week, how does this pity party tie into Pathfinder and RPGs and everything you've come to expect from Paizo? Well, we're foolishly here at work aren't we? And never ones to let little things like our collectively decomposing bodies stop us from bringing new elements to your campaigns, please accept the following gaming grossness, along with an appropriately awesomely awful illustration from Jeff Carlisle (that unfortunately we didn't have room for in the GameMastery Guide, but I'm sure will find a home down the line). Now, back to trying to build a Skinsaw mask out of tissues and mucus...

Creeping Contamination (aka Creeping Crud or Con Crud)
Type disease, contact or inhaled; Save Fortitude DC 14
Onset 1d3 days; Frequency 1/day
Effect 1d2 Wis damage and target is fatigued. Any creature that comes within 5 feet of one infected with con crud must save or also become infected (whether or not this save is successful, the target is immune to the infected creature's con crud for 24 hours); Cure 2 consecutive saves

Wes Schneider
Managing Editor