Players vs. a Sentient Disease: "Calling All Doctors"

[Leliel]

Anyway, I was reading the Ravenloft fan boards when I discovered the little gem of a "monster" called a "Phagian Virus": Essentially, a sickness with a will of it's own. That got me thinking: "What if the Phagians were not only self-willed, but sapient? What would a sentient disease so to facilitate it's survival?" So I came up with this idea:

Players find a city in the grip of a plague. This strange disease, besides doing all the usual things that plagues normally do (ie kill people), is also highly virulent, and difficult to treat. However, when the players are coerced into finding a cure for it, they begin to note it's odd behavior. For one, the victims of the plague always seem to live long enough for the disease to spread to other people. It will not kill them otherwise. Secondly, when a person finally does die of the disease, and subsequently dissolves into infectious muck, the muck seems to move itself from the original site of death to somewhere where it can be easily touched, although not under it's own propulsion. Finally, and most disturbingly, it's victims occasionally usher in plots to spread the disease, and have no memory of doing so afterwords. When the PCs investigate further, they learn that the virus seems to anticipate attempts to cure it: Despite cures working on it the first time they're tried, it seems to evolve a defense against it immediately, far quicker then it should. Ultimately, they confront one of the sufferers when he's spreading the disease, only to discover it's not some human cultist with a dominate spell, but the virus! It seems the plague is self-aware, and while not an evil entity, the intelligence that guides it wishes to survive and prosper as much as anyone else, and it's not about to let some wannabe medics get in it's way. Now the PCs have to find a weakness that the illness cannot cover, prevent themselves from getting infected, and defeat those already infected and under it's control from killing them.

So, is this a good idea?

And yes, it's immune to heal and cure spells.

[shadow_archmagi]

The city must be cleansed by fire. Burn it all.


EDIT: Thats a resounding YES, very good idea.

[Da King]

I love this idea, *steals for own campaign* this looks really good.

[_Puppetmaster_]

It's the descolada!

I second the motion to burn it down.


...Accually, just locate city bomb the whole place

[Hal]

Heh, if your players threaten the virus too much, you could always give it a "Resident Evil" sort of power. Everybody loves zombies!

[jcsw]

Train the whole (Uninfected) city to be monks.

[Thistle]

You should have the plague be looking for a way that it can live within a host without killing it. If it continues on its current course it will kill off all possible hosts very quickly and it probably knows that.

[Weezer]

Very good idea, a good sneaky curveball to send at your players

[bugsysservant]

I hate to bring it up, but a virus that wanted to survive would attempt to change itself so that it wouldn't kill its victims, at least not rapidly. So it would probably go completely undetected. But that's not how these things work, so I'll bow out now before you decide to get violent.

[Collin152]

Reminds me of Jenova...
Oh, I love the idea, by the way.

[quiet1mi]

very cool idea...

*resisting the urge to kill alien life form infecting civilians through fire bombing*

i love the idea that it does not want to kill people because that would be evil and bad for th viruses chances of survival...

can totally see it turn in to a neutral good entity if left alone long enough...

[Ascension]

You need a plague-ridden template to apply to its hosts. As several have said, it sounds like the most likely "cure" is the virus itself mutating into a symbiotic life form. I myself would probably make the virus a manifestation of some ancient evil whose cure would involve the retrieval of an ancient major artifact of niftiness from the ruins of the last civilization the virus almost destroyed. If the virus is essentially neutral, it's going to become a lot harder to justify exterminating it.

[sikyon]

Yeah, it doesn't make much sense for it to be highly lethal if it wants to survive. The most successful viruses are those that go unnoticed on their host. However, you could have a plot twist that the disease itself, while normally harmless, is ITSELF infected and is trying to spread itself rapidly so that it doesn't die, but a side effect of this rapid propagation is that it causes the hosts to die (therefore the hosts don't die when the virus attacks them).

You could also make it so that the virus infact benefits its hosts under normal circumstances, so the entire village would have like +1 to all their stats, making the virus more of a symbiote. The players, upon solving the problem, could themselves be "infected" and get +1 inherent to all their stats as a reward to the quest, or something similar.

[aaron_the_cow]

This is a good idea exsept for thier is no way to win and hence should be saved for when you wish to see all of your characters trying to save them selfs while they slowly get picked off 1 by 1. Also, you could make the rule that sence cure spells don't work, niether do palidins resistance.

I would prefer to make a virus like rage in 28 days later (awsome movie ) where you have characters killing each other, infected priests running around biting each other as people ask them for spell suport. fun.

[Tura]

Neat idea, but what kind of solution do you expect them to come up with? My issue here is this: if they just need to find The Cure, The Artifact, The Water Of Life, The Sage Who Knows The Cure etc, then the whole idea is kind of wasted. It could have been a completely normal epidemic and still have the same solution.
When you have such an original set-up, you should also have an original solution, one that is related to the peculiarity of the situation . So... what do you have in mind?

[Paragon Badger]

Neat idea, but what kind of solution do you expect them to come up with? My issue here is this: if they just need to find The Cure, The Artifact, The Water Of Life, The Sage Who Knows The Cure etc, then the whole idea is kind of wasted. It could have been a completely normal epidemic and still have the same solution.
When you have such an original set-up, you should also have an original solution, one that is related to the peculiarity of the situation . So... what do you have in mind?

If it's sentient, then the 'original solution' should be to outsmart it.

Granted, I haven't read the original post yet.

[Thistle]

I think the challenge would be to communicate. How do you relate to something the thinks of things on the cellular level? Maybe the disease doesn't even know we're sentient.
If you use the idea that the bacteria itself is dying (great idea I think), it would set you on a different goal, though communication would still be important to figuring this out. Maybe the cure spells are working but healing one cell at a time isn't making much of a difference. How would you cure millions of "beings" without epic spellcasting? Could the sentient disease be taught to spellcast? What if the bacteria were infected on purpose so they couldn't give their symbiotic benefits to the populous (future hook)?
The more I think about it the cooler this idea becomes .

[The_Blue_Sorceress]

I had an idea for an campaign once that was similar, save that the sentience behind the disease was a deity-like creature that was the spiritual embodiment of the disease itself. The spirit was wholly and irredeemably evil, the disease itself was just a sickness that was directed and spread by the spirit.

Where I ran into trouble was in trying to justify making the disease "immune" to magical healing. My solution was that it was highly contagious, and therefore by the time it could be contained it was too late for the magical healing to make a difference. You could be cured, sure, but that didn't stop you from getting it again, and everyone around was sick and dying.

If you're looking for a "smart" disease, think of something like the herpes virus, which won't kill you, just give you nasty sores at the infection site (not just the genital area, folks, it can spring up pretty much anywhere you have nerve endings.) If it can be spread through casual contact, or if it's an airborne contagion like the flu or the common cold, you're pretty much set. No transformation into infectious muck required.

Have fun.

Blue

[Randel]

I can recall a few shows that featured sentient viruses:

Red Dwarf had an episode with a sentient virus called Epideme. Once a person was killed by the virus, it would lie dormant until someone else got close to it, then it would animate the corpse just long enough to bite the passerby to spread the disease.

Doctor Who had an episode called "The Invisible Enemy" the virus infected individuals and brainwashed them into setting up a massive incubator to grow the disease germs in it. Later, The Doctor was infected by the virus and used some kind of cloning device to clone himself and then shrink the clone down so that it could enter his body to attack the disease. The Disease managed to escape and enlarge itself into a human-sized crustacian monster, then made plans to go to the incubator and reproduce rapidly (since it could still reproduce as fast as a normal germ) and take over the universe... the Doctor had to blow the station up to kill it.

Futurama had another take on it. Fry ate a sandwich with little worm eggs in it, and the worms took over his system, cleaning it up and enhancing everything to make him super-strong, super smart, and potentially live longer than normal. He got rid of them because he wanted to earn his way through life.


Also, bear in mind that unless the disease is telepathic the germs in one persons body might not be able to communicate with those in another person. So there would be very little if any cooperation between infected individuals (if they are dominated by the germs). However, since they are intelligent, they might 'mutate' rapidly though the mutation is more like each society of germs behaves differently.

[Tura]

Hmm... (Random thoughts to follow.) Maybe there is no way to outsmart the disease. In the end, you could have the players' focus slowly slide from cure to containment. And from "save as many people as we can" to "cure no-one, gather the infected, throw them in a cave and close the door". Make this a temporary solution at first. They should still have hope of finding a cure in time. Then the drama begins.

Add some prominent community members (clergy, nobility, the rich) who absolutely insist that they can contain themselves and avoid spreading the disease - don't throw us in the cave, we swear we will behave, we'll pay you heaps of gold.
Add some sweet and innocent children or other adorable beings - don't throw us in the cave, we haven't done anything, this is so unfair and cruel, what is wrong with you people?
Add some average Joes with a bit of roguish skills who manage to escape, and have nothing to lose. Uh-oh. Now the infected will fight for their lives, and who can blame them, I mean, wouldn't you?

And on the other side, add some (not infected) prominent members etc who press you to kill'em all right away - it's the only way, would you rather have the whole of humanity perish?
Add the obligatory nutjobs who insist this is God's Scourge On The Wicked - and who are we to question the gods, let them rot in the cave, I say.
Stir well.

Alignment shifts should be happening every day in this campaign.

Communication: Telepathic Bond could work.
Better idea: Invent a reason for Telepathic Bond NOT to work. Have them research a spell with similar effects, only it applies to the virus, and absolutely HAS to be a touch spell.

[Hecore]

Three possible reasons why the virus kills its host:

1. The virus can't reproduce inside its carriers. It can only grow by consuming the dead flesh of the infected.

2. The virus doesn't want to kill its hosts, but it creates an enzyme as a byproduct that breaks down organic tissues.

3. The virus has psionic powers and is pure evil. It thrives off the pain, despair, and suffering of the infected, letting them live as long as possible in as much pain as possible.

[Prometheus]

Again Great Idea

I too have a problem with a simple statement of "magical healing doesn't work". Magical Healing should work temporarily, before they are subsequently reinfected by those nearby. If there aren't enough nearby, maybe it can also thrive in another material (metal, wood, water, heat etc) for a short period of time so that it can immediately reinfect the victim unless everything around them is also simultaneously cleansed. Alternatively, the intelligent disease kills it's victim before the cure can take effect or as death throes) in order to "punish" the cure-ers.

The second big question is how to combat it. If it has a trick to feating it or a weakness of some sort, than perhaps the players quest is not to discover it on their own or do medical research, but get the information from someone who knows, an organization that profits from it and probably created it (maybe someone became a disease in a quest for immortality? maybe it chanes the political situation? Genocide?). That way, there can be a long goose chase with real combat scenes mixed in. Alternatively, there is a known cure, but it is very far away and difficult to obtain, and the players must go stamp-collecting

Finally, consider the repercussions. Are there anyone who are more concerned with isolating themselves that helping the infected? Is there anyone who profits from their weakness? Does the disease have political motives of its own or did someone create it for a purpose

[Dr Bwaa]

Sikyon and Tura have got it. (I love this idea by the way, and will almost certainly steal the idea =D) I love the idea that the disease itself is dying, and is just fighting for its own survival: and then its hosts, who you are trying to quarantine, are fighting the PCs for THEIR survival... this makes it a very, very circle-of-life kill-or-be-killed sort of deal that I really like. Everyone, everywhere (or almost) should be living in fear and doing everything in their power to save themselves (I agree with the daily alignment shifts thing).
Another thing to consider: where did this disease come from? Maybe this virus has existed all along, but the new virus (the one infecting the virus) is new, so the formerly symbiotic relationship has been thrown into chaos, and of course the PCs don't figure THAT out until much farther down the road, when everyone they "cure" immediately dies (because despite everything, the removal of the previously-symbiotic virus removes something their bodies depended on--forcing the PCs to find a way to kill just the one virus, that isn't directly affecting anyone but the other viruses).
This has the possibility for endless plot twists and just generally cool stuff; can't wait to see what else comes up in here.

[Grey Watcher]

I agree, that, if we're dealing with a non-Evil entity in the disease, you should at least keep open the possibility that the players may try to talk to it, see if it can't turn itself into something less harmful to its hosts/victims. After all, a virus is a very different thing from a person. Maybe it doesn't understand that humans are sentient, too....

Of course, remember, you've got PCs, so it's not necessarily going to be easy to shepherd them onto the solution you desire, but still, be prepared that one of the tacks (one of the better ones, as I read the situation) is negotiation.

As for the disease's resistance to magical healing, perhaps, because it's sentient, it's entitled to a save when spells are cast against it? Maybe healing spells only work sometimes, and, as the DM, you know those times are when the disease fails its saving throw against the Cleric's spell. Of course, because this disease is capable of learning and adapting, it's base save bonus keeps going up, so it takes an increasingly powerful priest to be effective more than 5% of the time. And even the few people that do find relief through means like Remove Disease and Heal, there's nothing to protect them from reinfection.

Oh, and another possible solution: because traditional healing magic is Instantaneous in duration, perhaps one way to beat it is to have spells that have a duration (a LOOOOONG duration) to continue to protect the beneficiary from reinfection. Of course, this'll need to be potent magic, in case the Virus can figure out how to cast Dispel Magic.

[Dr Bwaa]

Of course, this'll need to be potent magic, in case the Virus can figure out how to cast Dispel Magic.

Virus 5/Cleric X/Wizard X/True Necromancer X...

Dear Lord. What have you done?


EDIT: Also, does the virus have one overarching personality? If the PCs do communicate with it, what do they communicate with? An individual cell? A hivemind? In the case of virus-ridden viruses, how do they distinguish between them ("No I'm the beneficial virus!")? Does each infeted individual have his or her own "colony" with its own personality? If they are symbiotes, maybe they even share or influence each others' alignments and personalities. Awesome!!!

(You've all gotten me really excited about this)

[Grey Watcher]

Virus 5/Cleric X/Wizard X/True Necromancer X...

Dear Lord. What have you done?

Well, admittedly, I was thinking more that the Virus would be gaining HD in its appropriate type, not necessarily class levels, but if who knows where this line of thought could end.

Oh, and what would its type be anyway? Not vermin, since vermin specifically lack intelligence. Magical beast? Aberration? Outsider (maybe this disease is extraplanar in origin)?

Also, if this disease is sentient and non-Evil, why does it attack humans (and demi-humans) anyway? You'd think a disease capable of choosing its targets and even keeping said targets alive long enough to be useful would be smart enough not to attack the species that fights back with all kinds of nasty chemicals and spells. What about humans does it need that it can't get from less fiesty sources out in the wild?

EDIT: Right, right, the whole discussion of the Virus being driven by its own sickness. Since we haven't heard from the OP about whether or not he's embracing this idea, it's still an interesting question to keep open. Heck, even if the Virus is trying to survive its own illness, how does such overt hostility to humans help? If it can control the humans, can it manipulate them into finding a cure? Maybe it doesn't want to kill humans, but invading enough to influence behavior to get humans to help is damaging to the point of being fatal. I get the feeling that this is a great idea that needs a lot of thinking out....

[Dr Bwaa]

If it CAN gain class levels, then it has the potential to gain Raise Dead. Which means that rather than turning into a puddle of goo, when its victims die, it can raise them as immortal disease carriers so they don't disintegrate until they've found their way to another crowded metropolis...

Also, if this disease is sentient and non-Evil, why does it attack humans (and demi-humans) anyway? You'd think a disease capable of choosing its targets and even keeping said targets alive long enough to be useful would be smart enough not to attack the species that fights back with all kinds of nasty chemicals and spells. What about humans does it need that it can't get from less fiesty sources out in the wild?

This is why I like the originally-symbiotic-but-now-infected-and-dying idea: they lived with humans because humans lived with them, and everything was good. Then they got infected by something else that could only affect these crazy symbiote viruses because of their crazy symbiote metabolism or something... =P

to give the PCs something to do once things are sorted out, I'd say that the second virus is extraplanar, and the PCs have to go eradicate the source to see if they can save at least themselves from a gruesome fate. (I'm assuming you don't want the PCs Honey-I-Shrunk-The-Kids-ing it or researching some epic virus-cleansing spell or some such insanity...)

...But the first part, in fact the majority of the campaign, I think, should definitely revolve around moral dilemmas. Because they are SO much fun. =D

[Khanderas]

I'd just like to point out, to qualify for symbiote both the host and virus must gain something from infection. If a host only gets downsides (or just no positive qualities) from being infected, the infection is called parasitic.

Now with that out of my system, side benefits could include magic resistence (would also explain why the virus resists magical attempts to dispel it). The 10 (or whatever) SpellResistence cannot be lowered by the host, so even beneficial spells like buffs or cure can fail (even if cure isnt agressive vs the virus, only heals hitpoints). The virus may or may not be ABLE to lower this.

For a SR version that is even worse, it absorbs magical power, both from spells and background mana and uses that to either infect someone else of other self defense effects (teleport itself and host away from dangers, such as experimenting team of clerics trying to cure the disease, and dominate person (dun dunn duuun) ).
Commoners with a source of sorcerous power, perhaps not totally under their control but sure helpful when you dont get class levels, may not WANT to be cured. The PC's may or may not think its just the virus talking and take more forceful approaches.
Naturally those in power, established nobles, churches and kings, don't really want commoners with sorcerous powers. It's like giving guns to slaves.

[Mad Maudlin]

It would be interesting to see your players try to juggle their in-game time between the vital job of finding a cure for the virus and the no-less-vital politics of the quarantine... Perhaps it would be necessary to split the party.

All the high Int characters would be frantically racing to destroy this disease, finally learning that it's sentient and trying to communicate. Eventually it could be as simple as finding a spell that could cure this secondary virus, teaching it to the first virus and sending tham out amongst their other infected brethren - you'd end up with an antitoxin containing your brand new Virus 5/Cleric6 proto-NPCs.

Whereas the high-charisma, high strength characters would have their hands full coming up with an appropriate quarantine site, somewhere away from the uninfected of the city, and then enforcing it. They've got the tricky job of both explaining to the poor sick children why they have to be sealed away and fending off the concerned citizens who think everyone with a cough should be put to the flame. They'll have to convince people that, yes, the cure is coming, while knowing that the people they put into quarantine will likely never come out.

This could be the most dramatic campaign ever

[Roderick_BR]

Paladin: "Yay! I'll finally get to use my two most worthless class features"
Other PC: "Yay?"
Paladin "Um, I mean, we need to put an end to it"

It's an interesting idea. The virus has a shared mind? That way it would be impossible to destroy it, even with Remove Disease, because while there is still ONE person sick, it can spread, so it's conscience can still exist sometime, and he would learn to avoid those that can remove him from others hosts, and even attempt to destroy those he finds immune to him (better to not screw class features designed exactly for this kind of story).
I like the idea of the virus having to spread because the hosts slowly dies out, regardless of the virus attempts to keep it alive.