Custom Disease Mechanics: Cue-Sickness
Overview: Cue-Sickness is said to be a manufactured contagion, believed to originally been developed as an attempt to create some sort of terrible bioweapon. However, its current form is a disease that twists the sympathetic nervous system “fight or flight” response of Aberrants in particular. The neurological agitants present in the disease readily impact the brains of Aberrants to cause its dangerous biological chain reaction, leading them to attack those close to them.
A disease meant to invoke the classic fear of Aberrants turning against their loved ones and communities, Cue-Sickness is named after the way using Aberrant abilities confuses the normal links between ‘cues’ for the body to react intensely. The “fight” response becomes more prominent as the disease progresses, turning Aberrants into a threat against their own allies, and breaking this response requires fracturing the minds of the afflicted in an attempt to restore mind-body connection.
Everything below this point is Out Of Character knowledge!
This is provided so there are no out-of-character ‘gotcha’ moments and one can roleplay the disease and its progressions properly. In-character, this information can be gained through word-of-mouth, experience or research with Lore: Medical. See “Researching a Disease” in the Pathogen Primer for more. Limited Research with appropriate Lores and Focused Research with Master Education can also gain information about the Disease, including more “Deep Lore” style knowledge.
Causes & Transmissions: Cue-Sickness is a manufactured, weaponized disease that roots in the brain and nerves. It is spread through injections of cerebrospinal fluid, carefully infected blades, transplanted or grafted Infection taken from diseased nervous systems, and the like. It can be spread through Aberrancy via. a surgery designed to weaponize an afflicted’s state.
Only Aberrants can contract Cue-Sickness.
Game runners may choose to give the following skill to Aberrant NPC threats as part of a storyline if they wish to introduce this disease to their game.
Weaponized Aberrancy: You may add “Inflict Cue-Sickness” to any Psionic Attack at the cost of 20 Body damage or 1 Resolve.
Symptoms and Progression: Early symptoms include a physical tension and tightness that concentrates in the head, like a tension headache for the entire body. Victims described it as being tightly and painfully wound up. The strain of movement causes issues with blood flow, including dripping blood from orifices or expelling small amounts from the nose or mouth. Perception becomes “cloudy” and distracted as the body attempts to fight off the tension and disease, mildly distorting the understanding and memory of the victims as they struggle to hold on and catch up to surrounding events while keeping control of their body.
Mid-stage cases exhibit increasing fear and paranoia, often intensified by fears of their own actions and reactions being taken away from them or the harm they may do. This is in great contrast to the “fight” reflex when the disease takes proper hold. The tightness becomes incredibly painful, the body attempts to let out perceived tension and pressure by leaking blood from the eyes, nose and ears to no avail. Perceptual, mental and physical symptoms blur and lead to day-to-day experience feeling like a painful, surreal collection of events predominated by attempting to weather the disease.
Advanced cases begin to lose track of reality, of friend or foe. Final-stage collapse is into a state prone to agonized delirium. Survivors find it hard to regain safety and confidence in their own ability to control their Aberrancy.
Five Stages of the Disease
ALL STAGES INCLUDE THE MECHANICS FROM PRIOR STAGES UNLESS NOTED OTHERWISE.
Stage 1(Onset): Feeling tense with an emphasis on a tension headache, distraction becomes easier to fall into. No mechanical effects.
Stage 2(Mild): Tension grows more painful and is constant, small amounts of blood may drip or be expelled from eyes, nose, ears and/or mouth. Perception and memory become cloudy. Fear of what is happening. Upon waking from Unconsciousness, treat all Allies as enemies for 1 minute OR take 1 Fracture.
Stage 3(Moderate): Tension becomes agonizing, leaking blood is more common and frequent. Memory, perception and life itself seem blurry. Paranoia of others and how they will react to the disease symptoms. 1x/per Impact Skill Refresh, upon expending all uses of a single Impact Skill, treat all Allies as enemies for 30 Seconds OR take 1 Fracture.
Stage 4(Severe): Day-to-day life becomes a terrified and violent fugue of fear and distorted understanding of events. Constant blood pouring from the face, makeup with “pools” or “stains” of fake blood in appropriate locations. After refreshing used Impact Skills, treat all Allies as enemies for 1 minute OR take 1 Fracture.
Stage 5(Terminal): Victim suffers a descent into agonized delirium, consumed by pain, fear, paranoia and regular memory loss.
Duration Between Stages
Illness is progressive over months; it advances a stage at the end of each attended game, or the first time a character is knocked out or enters Bleed Out during an event (not both).
Treatment & Recovery
Stage 1: Basic Medical, 1 Mind Point to treat, must induce a Fracture during treatment. Treatment role-play should focus on re-stabilizing the mind-body connection by stressing the patient’s body through methods such as over-exertion or inflicting wounds, and Fracturing their mind before mending their body and calming their nervous system through methods such as breathing exercises or exposure to freezing cold water to reset their body.
Stage 2: Basic Medical, 1 Mind Point to treat, must induce a Fracture during treatment and expend 1 Infection Material to treat. Treatment must be performed during a use (does not have to be by the character using the treatment, but must be involved in the RP of the treatment) of Sedlec Engineering Plans. While inducing the Fracture, still-living bodies and brain matter of Lineages being slain in the Sedlec Engineering Plans procedure are used to help graft the Infection Material as the brain’s Infection tries to respond to the Fracture.
Stage 3: Master Medical, 1 Mind Point, must induce a Fracture during treatment and expend 2 Infection Material and 1 Grave Flesh to treat. Treatment must be performed during a use (does not have to be by the character using the treatment, but must be involved in the RP of the treatment) of Sedlec Engineering Plans. Role-play is as per Stage 2 with the addition that while inducing the Fracture and grafting the Infection Material, the patient must be flayed open and crudely, agonizingly have the Grave Flesh worked into their nerves.
Stage 4: Master Medical, 5 Mind Points, must induce a Fracture during treatment and expend 1 Imprint Crystal, 2 Infection Material, 1 Grave Flesh. Treatment must be performed during a use(does not have to be by the character using the treatment, but must be involved in the RP of the treatment) of Burn Cycle. While inducing the Fracture, surgical specimens from the Burn Cycle patient and the agitation of the Mortis along with the Fracture are used to destabilize the body-brain connection enough to perform this horrifying cure.
Stage 5: Requires the expenditure of 1 Resolve with The Living Experiment, and 2 Imprint Crystal, 1 Mycelium Wiring, 1 Grave Flesh. Fracture must be induced during the treatment and the treatment must be performed during a use(does not have to be by the character using the treatment, but must be involved in the RP of the treatment) of Infectus Copiam. While inducing the Fracture, Infection from those slain in the Infectus Copiam is reused to bolster the Infection of the patient and allow for implanting the materials involved in the treatment.
Death prior to the onset of Stage 5 will reduce Cue-Sickness by 1 Stage.
Roleplay and Costume Notes
Begin with acting more tense and agitated but easily distracted – clench fists and muscles while at rest, wince occasionally from the headache starting. Struggle to keep at extended tasks or exercise intense focus, driven more easily to distraction. As symptoms progress, adopt a regular pained expression and move in a taut and intentional way as the tension grows more intense and fear of what one’s body and mind will do begins to take over. Add small amounts of makeup to simulate blood at the eyes, nose, ears and/or mouth, it will help the effect to clean those off and reapply them later. Midway through the disease progression, emphasize the terrifying blur of perception and memory by expressing issues with keeping track of time, people, and generally what is occurring after being distracted or without concentration to keep grounded in reality. Apply moderate amounts of fake blood makeup and act out trying to clean it up only to have more blood pour out. Paranoia hits hard at later stages, fear of what is happening to one’s own body and mind consumes much of day-to-day life. Finish by adding more blood at prominent locations and when reaching these stages, entering into a fugue state where pain and fear is all-consuming and reality is hard to grasp with a preoccupied and addled mind. In the end, memories don’t stick but the terror does.
((This set of disease mechanics was created by Emily B.! Please reach out to her on Discord if you have any questions at @emilyb137.))
