The Journal of Arcane Medicine: Beastwarping Hiccups
I'm not a big fan "cure disease" magics. It takes something that should be inherently harrowing and dramatic with a built in ticking clock element and lot of chances for adventure and reduces it to a minor annoyance that players can just pay their way out of. (So I intend to take those spells out of my future games.) Magical diseases in particular offer a lot of fun and interesting ways to challenge players.
This is the first entry in a series of magical diseases and their associated methods of treatment (and adventure hooks). Hope you can find a place for it in your games either in its current form, altered to suit your needs and methods, or simply as a seed for other fun ideas.
- Terance
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Entry #437a
Beastwarping Hiccups -
Symptoms: A sustained bout of infrequent hiccups lasting 1 to 4 hours at the onset gives way to the main symptom of this illness. After the onset a single loud reverberating hiccup will be made by the victim once every hour and said victim's form will change to that of an animal of some kind (see random animal transformations table). This transformation is sudden and clothing and equipment worn will not change form (unless magical) nor will it be subsumed into the new form like many other magical shape changing effects. Likewise if the location the victim is in is too small for the new form it can lead to property damage, entrapment, and even injury. Oddly the victim never loses the ability to speak during this phase of the illness. The random transformations will continue to come once per hour for 3 to 6 days (1d4+2) until the hiccups run their course whereupon the last form the victim was in will become their new form permanently and they will lose any ability to speak humanoid languages if that form doesn't have that capacity.
Cause: Beastwarping Hiccups is a magical malady brought on by a sudden build up of transmutive energies, most commonly contracted by apprentice druids and wizards or via volatile potion admixtures but it can also be brought on via a curse from a malicious spellcaster. Rarely shapechanging creatures such as mimics and doppelgangers are carriers of the malady and can transmit it via a bite or other physical contact.
Treatment: Treatment for Beastwarping Hiccups basically amounts to keeping the victim clear of dangers (being stepped on, crashing through walls, overeager trophy hunters, and the like) as well as keeping them calm so they do not accidentally injure themselves or others.
Cure: Druidic orders usually have a ritual cure that can cleanse a victim of Beastwarping Hiccups (people who have undergone this method are easy to spot due to the tell-tale ritual scarification) but the secretive orders are usually very difficult to bargain with for this treatment. If you happen to be in a major metropolitan area with a wizard's guild a premade cure might be purchased (but their keeping one always at the ready is a rarity, only 20% chance that they have one) moreover it will be quite expensive to buy (2000gp at least and likely you'll have to bargain for the privilege of buying it due to its long and fiddly creation process). However a slightly more difficult from the outset but very free alternative is to harvest and consume a suspension of salty beer and mashed Chimera Bracken, a fern like herb that grows primarily around the nests of magical combinatorial species like griffons, pegasus, and of course chimera. (Please note: Make sure the victim is in a form that can easily digest plant matter otherwise the concoction only has a 50% chance of working). Lastly, of course one might simply be lucky enough for the illness to end while the victim is in his normal form but this scenario has a very low probability.
Random Animal Transformations Table 1D20:
Toad
Chicken
Cow
Bat
Canine (1d3 -small breed 1, large breed 2, wolf 3)
Rat
Raven
Pig
Rhinoceros
Cat (1d2 - house cat 1, big cat 2)
Goat
Horse
Ape (1d3 - chimpanzee 1, orangutan 2, gorilla 3)
Hawk
Monkey
Hippopotamus
Python
Donkey
Elephant
Normal Form
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