Disease: Miretaking

Injury or Contact; Fortitude DC 16; Incubation 3 days; Damage Special (see below)
Special: Only affects Humanoids of the human subtype
Save Frequency: 1/day (see below)

SAVING THROWS

• The victim makes one Fortitude save per day after the incubation period ends (first save on Day 4)

• A successful save negates that day’s effects only, but does not cure the disease

• The disease continues progressing regardless of successful saves

• Beginning at Stage II, each failed save imposes a cumulative –1 penalty on all future Fortitude saves against this disease (penalty resets only if the disease is cured)

PROGRESSION (30 DAYS TOTAL)

Miretaking does not deal traditional ability damage at first. Instead, it progresses through stages, each lasting roughly one week. Effects are cumulative.

Stage I – The Listening (Days 1–7)

The victim begins to hear faint, indistinct whispering when in silence or near water.

• –2 penalty on Concentration and Listen checks (distracted by internal murmuring)

• Victim takes a –1 penalty to Will saves

• Sleeps poorly, often waking damp or disoriented

• Symptoms are easily mistaken for fatigue, stress, or swamp exposure

The victim does not recognize this as illness.

Stage II – The Softening (Days 8–14)

The victim’s sense of self begins to dull.

• 1d2 Wisdom damage per day

• –2 penalty on Sense Motive and Initiative checks

• Victim becomes noticeably calmer, less reactive, and emotionally muted

• Gains a +2 bonus on saves against fear effects

The whispering becomes more structured, though still not understood.

Stage III – The Blending (Days 15–21)

Identity begins to erode.

• 1d2 Charisma damage per day

• Victim no longer initiates conversation and responds slowly when addressed

• Gains a +2 bonus on Listen checks (attuned to the murmur)

• Suffers a –2 penalty on Will saves against compulsion effects

• Begins to spend long periods standing still, especially near water

At this stage, divine casters or healers may sense something “wrong,” but cannot clearly identify the condition without powerful magic (such as heal or greater restoration).

Stage IV – The Surrender (Days 22–30)

The victim ceases to meaningfully resist.

• 1d4 Wisdom and 1d4 Charisma damage per day

• Victim will not willingly leave swamp or marsh terrain

• If removed, must succeed on a DC 15 Will save each hour or attempt to return

• Speech becomes fragmented, often overlapping whispers or repeated phrases

• Immune to fear effects

By this stage, the victim no longer meaningfully recognizes allies.

FINAL TRANSFORMATION (DAY 30)

If the victim is still alive at the end of the disease’s progression:

• The victim’s type changes to Humanoid (Human, Augmented)

• All remaining Wisdom and Charisma are reduced to 1

• The victim permanently loses all class levels, feats requiring independent thought, and sense of identity

• The creature becomes a Mireborn Kin under GM control

This transformation is not death and cannot be reversed by raise dead or similar effects.

CURE

Miretaking resists conventional treatment.

• Remove Disease only halts progression if cast before Stage III

• Neutralize Poison has no effect

• Heal or Greater Restoration can cure the disease if cast before Stage IV

• After Stage IV begins, only Wish or Miracle can restore the victim

SPECIAL – CALL OF THE BROOD

Any creature suffering from Miretaking within 1 mile of a Mireborn Brood Mother must make a DC 15 Will save each day or become compelled (as suggestion) to move toward her location by the most direct route available.

This is a mind-affecting compulsion effect.

REGIONAL VARIATION – BAYOU-BORN (CAJUN HERITAGE)

Humans raised in deep bayou cultures, particularly insular Cajun communities, possess a cultural familiarity with the signs of Miretaking.

• These individuals take a –2 penalty on Fortitude saves against Miretaking (their lives bring them closer to the conditions in which it takes hold)

• However, they gain a +4 bonus on Survival and Heal checks to recognize the early stages of the disease

• Such individuals automatically recognize Stage I symptoms as unnatural and dangerous if they succeed on a DC 10 Survival or Heal check

Among these communities, Miretaking is not considered an illness, but a known and feared fate.

LORE

Miretaking is rarely identified for what it is. To most, it appears as fatigue, swamp sickness, or the strain of prolonged exposure to a hostile environment.

It does not spread quickly, nor does it present obvious symptoms in its early stages. It takes hold only in those who remain too long in the deepest reaches of the bayou - where the water stills, the air thickens, and the world seems reluctant to move.

There are no fevers. No coughing. No urgency.

Only the whispering.

By the time the condition is recognized for what it is, the afflicted are often less inclined to resist it than they once would have been.

Those who witness the final stages rarely speak of what is lost.

Only of how quietly it is surrendered.

Kelwyn’s Notes

Ah… “Miretaking.” A crude term, certainly - but I find I prefer it to the more elaborate alternatives. It lacks pretense. It does not attempt to explain. It simply acknowledges a truth: the mire takes, and there is very little to be done once it has begun.

I have noted, with some interest, that those born to the bayou - particularly the Cajun folk who dwell along its deeper reaches - possess a curious relationship with this condition. They are, by all observable measures, more susceptible to it. Whether this is due to prolonged exposure, inherited tolerance that has turned to vulnerability, or some more esoteric factor, I cannot say. Yet despite this, they recognize its onset with remarkable clarity.

They do not debate its nature. They do not question its validity. They know.

There is a particular gravity in such knowledge - the kind that does not arise from scholarship, but from repetition. From loss. From having seen it before, and knowing precisely how it ends.

What unsettles me most is not the physical degradation, mild though it may appear when compared to more dramatic maladies, but the erosion of will. One expects suffering to provoke resistance. One expects the mind to recoil, to fight, to cling desperately to its own shape. Yet here, the opposite occurs. The afflicted do not deteriorate into madness - they drift into acceptance. The struggle fades not because it is lost, but because it is… abandoned.

I have observed, from a distance I consider insufficiently safe in retrospect, that those in the latter stages exhibit a curious serenity. Not joy, certainly, nor even peace as we would understand it, but a kind of alignment - as though they are no longer burdened by the need to be singular.

It would be tempting, for the academically inclined or the magically ambitious, to study such a process more closely. I must strongly advise against this inclination. There are phenomena that reward observation. This is not one of them.

If you suspect even the earliest stage of Miretaking in yourself or a companion, remove yourself from the bayou with all possible haste and seek powerful restorative magics immediately. Delay is not merely dangerous - it is, quite demonstrably, persuasive.

For in the end, Miretaking does not force its conclusion.

It invites it.

And, most disturbingly of all, it is very rarely refused.