Stilling Sickness
Stilling Sickness is a disease found most commonly in The Southeastern Threshold. Dwelling in the blood of its victims, the disease first manifests as merely inconvenient symptoms: aches, itching, and intermittent, short-lived fevers. At this stage, the disease can be cured by a tea of several herbs from the Eastern jungles… but as such symptoms are common to many ailments and even simple tiredness, malnutrition, or dehydration, it can be difficult to identify.
After one or more weeks, the sickness enters its second, more severe stage: the victim grows incredibly tired, their mind clouded and apathetic, their bodies unable to rest regularly and instead napping for short stretches every few hours day or night. These symptoms will worsen over time, and eventually the victim will simply cease moving, entering a torpid state (this gives the sickness its name) and soon dying of hunger or thirst. When it has reached this second stage, it is too late for the victim to be cured by mundane means, and supernatural intervention is called for.
The sickness is spread through the blood, which would normally render it easy to control: an injured creature must have open wounds and pass through an area tainted with the sickness. Infected, it is vulnerable to predators, who might be predated in turn, or who might bear children and pass the sickness on to them, so in the end only a small number of creatures will end up suffering the affliction. However, the sickness has developed a much more effective vector to spread itself: the Fly of Torpid Slumber. These large bloodsucking insects become infected with the sickness in the disease-ridden sinkholes of the Flittering Morass, where they are born, and while immune to it themselves they carry it, with a chance of passing it on to a new victim each time they bite another creature.
Most inhabitants of the Southeast have traditions of sleeping either indoors or covered, with a tradition of woven grass to make a multi-layered, latticed textile that allows the breeze through but can keep a Torpor Fly out. However, it is Cattle who suffer most from the sickness: cows have little natural defense against the flies, and the manifestation of early symptoms is difficult to detect in their behavior. Only a couple of flies is required to infect an entire herd, and that herd will begin to perish as time wears on, their comatose bodies attracting even more flies and other predators. As their blood is infected with sickness, the meat of such cows cannot be eaten, and they cannot be used in the ritual Hecatomb lest the sickness spread to the entire tribe. In the far Southern reaches of Harbourhead, tribes will often light whole grass plains on fire if the flies are spotted advancing northward.
