Arpenian Plague

The Arpenian Plague is one of the deadliest diseases of Aegeron. It gained its fearsome reputation during the Great Plague of P.I. 57 when a ship from merchant ship with goods from the Forest of Arpenia arrived to the city of Gormouth. It was only discovered after they were allowed to come ashore that half the crew were sick with an unknown disease that made them develop puss-filled buboes and led to paralysis and death within a week. Within months the disease spread all over the western coast of the Old Continent and soon started spreading inland, killing hundreds of thousands.

Symptoms and spread
Without treatment the Arpenian Plague is a death sentence, but fortunately it can be cured by various potions and the divine power of clerics and paladins. While most cities have too few of such professionals to contain an outbreak, since the Great Plague most neighboring realms are quick to offer help to contain an outbreak and prevent it from ever reaching their lands.

The Plague is extremely infectious, it can be transmitted through contact with any bodily fluid of the infected. The disease can survive without a host for a significant amount of time, there is anecdotal evidence of people contracting it by touching the possessions of victims who died years before. After an outbreak it is customary to burn the homes and possessions of the victims.

A known quirk of the Arpenian Plague is that young children have a good chance of surviving it without treatment, while it is almost universally fatal to adults. Many attribute this to some sort of divine intervention, but so far it is unclear which deity (if any) are responsible. Those who survive the infection become immune to it, but will carry its marks on their bodies for the rest of their life.

Quarantine Laws
After the Great Plague most realms adopted some form of quarantine laws to handle outbreaks, which was later standardized by the Imperium. They remain in effect in all civilized lands.

According to law and custom, whenever a city or village is struck by the Arpenian Plague they must seal their gates and prevent anyone from leaving. Neighboring settlements are duty bound to send healers and provide guards to ensure that none can escape quarantine. Anyone attempting to leave does so under penalty of death, while their family will be stripped of all possessions and titles, a threat that makes even the nobility wary of trying to escape. Quarantine lasts for two weeks after the last death.

During the Great Plague the mortality in most afflicted settlements was close to 80%, but thanks to the quarantine laws and the help from neighboring settlements present day outbreaks have a mortality of roughly 30%.