Dragonsbane

**Dragonsbane** is a fluid-borne disease that only seems to have an effect on dragon-blooded creatures. Creatures affected by the illness are known to go on senseless rampages, forcefully ejecting their breath weapon attacks as much as possible and specifically targeting areas with lots of life in them, such as cities, towns, and large caravans. It's most infamous as the pandemic that ended with the death and destruction of countless dragons around the beginning of the Insurrection era, leaving only about 300 dragons left alive. The recent new outbreak of Dragonsbane is causing mass panic, as there is still no known cure other than killing those afflicted.

## Signs and Symptoms

### *Mental Symptoms*

The mental symptoms of Dragonsbane are usually the first ones that begin to appear once infected, usually within 2-3 days of making contact with the disease itself. After some time of being infected patients begin to display signs of increased agitation and anxiety, becoming increasingly nervous in wide open spaces and quick to anger when upset. Their attention span also becomes much shorter, and their eyes begin to flit about from focus to focus rather quickly. After one week the speech patterns of the afflicted become more garbled, almost to the point where they roar or screech more than actually speak.

#### **Uncontrollable Breath Weapon Expulsion**

Sometime after the patient begins to become more anxious and before they begin losing their ability to speak, affected dragons start to lose control of their breath weapon attacks. This results in them starting to fire them off on accident, such as when shouting, sneezing, or yawning. Additionally the breath weapon will begin to "leak" out of the nose and mouth of the patient. Listed below are specific symptoms for each dragon type within Halintar:

* Silver Dragons have an air of visible fog around their head and neck, notably greyer than the white clouds that they can summon from their breath weapons. Frostbite begins to form around their eyes and on the edges of their mouths.
* Bronze Dragons have sparks fly from their snout, often collecting around the fringes of their head and up and down their long horns.
* Brass Dragons and those draconic beasts with fire breath have smoke billow out from their nostrils, and flames are often consistently visible when they open their mouths and reveal the inner part of their throats.
* Orange Dragons leak magmatic fluid from their mouth and nose. They are also known to sometimes even leak out from their spines, though in such cases the dragons themselves found this to be quite painful.
* Purple Dragons begin to molt around their snout and jawline, constant force energy leaking through their nose and mouth and often forcing them to keep their mouths open if they don't want their teeth to start to be pushed out.

Surprisingly enough no clear symptoms have been recorded for Yellow dragons, though this is assumedly because they are too violent in the first place to allow proper medical research to be enacted upon them.

This leakage of breath also causes strain to the muscles along the snout and head of these dragons, causing them to complain about the aches more and more frequently as they begin to lose their ability to speak.

### *Physical Symptoms*

Though the physical symptoms of Dragonsbane do not appear until later in the illness, when they start to show up it's a sign that the afflicted will most likely become fully consumed by the disease within a couple days. The first symptoms go along with the excessive breath weapon expulsion in the form of eye infection and vision loss- the constant expulsion of the breath weapon flies upwards towards the eyes, causing them to become sore and infected. Those who were able to hold on to their ability to speak further into the illness claimed that they were "seeing in red and black"- potentially meaning they were developing some sort of deuteranopia (insensitivity to the color green) as their condition worsened.

Around when they start to lose their voice, infected individuals begin to have muscle spasms and twitching, especially in the muscles related to the limbs and wings. Some tough-willed individuals described it as an "itch to get into the air". Subjects forced to stay on the ground, either by request or by force, became incredibly irritable and their breath weapons began to erupt in full force.

#### **Hydrophobia and Hunger**

Similar to creatures that catch the rabies virus, those affected by Dragonsbane have a bit of a love/hate relationship with water. They become incredibly hungry and thirsty, consuming anything in their path that's even somewhat edible (including people and other dragons), but their constant breath weapon expulsion often destroys what they're attempting to eat. At this phase in the illness the throat muscles of the draconic creature are also incredibly swollen and inflamed, making swallowing rather painful. Additionally, visions of water for land-based creatures and land for water-based creatures create a heavily adverse reaction, forcing them to flee in the opposite direction of the fear-inducing vision.

#### **Frail/Shedding Scales**

The most easily visible sign of a dragon that's had Dragonsbane for over two weeks is the state of their scales. Dragons with the disease have incredibly dull scales, almost completely gray by the time they reach three weeks of affliction (if they can even live for that long). The scales are also very brittle, coming off and crumbling at only a slight touch and leaving exposed patches of bare skin beneath. For furred and feathered dragons this appears as intense molting, and as the feathers or fur grow back in in lumpy, matted patches they grow in as very dull in hue, eventually turning to gray and white before the dragon finally succumbs, usually to hunger.

## Transmission

### *Polluted Water/Food Sources*

No one is quite sure where exactly Dragonsbane came from, but many myths state that it came from an infected oasis. Some believe that a yellow dragon died beneath the oasis, their rotting corpse creating an infection that caused other dragons to act the same way Balktan and his brood do. These are only urban legends though, and usually only bought into by folks who are gullible or just want some sort of explanation.

After the first water source was infected, the infection spread to other sources via infected individuals. Dragons afflicted with the disease or any mortals that have come in contact with the dragon can be potential carriers, and as soon as the carrier becomes submerged in a water source that source becomes an almost guaranteed contagion point for up to an entire year. In large bodies of water such as the ocean or rivers this contagion point is much less guaranteed, but still a potential risk.

### *Sexual Activity*

The most infamous way that Dragonsbane is spread is through sexual activity with other draconic creatures, or creatures who have been in sexual contact with other dragons. Non-dragons seem to be able to carry the disease without being hit by any of the symptoms, meaning they have no idea if there's a chance they could spread it to other dragons. Intercourse of any kind seems to spread the disease even worse than through the water, expediting the speed at which the Dragonsbane symptoms begin to overtake the dragon(s) affected. This is especially dangerous for the Brass, Bronze, and Purple dragons, who are notoriously the most sexually active of the six Halintar breeds and also tend to be frequent bathers.