White Tower - The Curse

The Lands of the White Tower are infected with a terrible Curse. Invisible, untraceable, transmitted from any thing living and dead, tilled into the land itself. The Curse causes things to grow strange and monstrous, mutinous against man, and irreparably wild. As the old spirits of nature establish their domain among the Cursed lands, so wanes the domain of man.

The deeper towards the Tower one delves, the worse the Curse gets. Certain objects and creatures carry it particularly well. Unseen it spreads between proximal things. The longer you spend around a Cursed person or thing, the more it spreads to you.

The Curse affects biologies differently. Contrary to rumor, though, it spreads at equal rate.

Biology	Stage 1  (1-2 Units)	Stage 2 (3-6 Units)	Stage 3 (7-9 Units)	Stage 4 (10-29 Units)	Stage 5 (30-59 Units)	Stage 6 (60+ Units)
Human or Dragon	Nausea	Fatigue, Headache	Mutation	Greater Mutation	Zombification	Death
Elf	Fatigue	Drowsiness	Weakness, Frailty	Visible Aging	Infirm	Death
Dark Elf	Agitation	Vomiting	Bloodthirstiness	Hallucinations	Vampirism	Nosferatum
Dwarf	Muscle Stiffness	Loss of Smell	Loss of Hearing	Loss of Pain	Petrification	Death
Halfling	Thirst	Fever	Hunger	Unquenchable Hunger	Ghoulification	Ghastification
Orc	Dizziness	Vertigo	Weakness	Shrinking	Diminution	Disappearance
Tiefling	Temptation	Addiction	Withdrawal	Uncontrolled Hedonism	Fall to Vice	Super-Ego Death

HUMANS

Nausea, fatigue, headache, fever, then mutation. Extreme cases of mutation are rumored to have the subject's flesh melting like a candle, assimilating and melding with other creatures like The Thing, distributing their essence as they go and likewise taking it upon themselves.

ELVES

Fatigue, weakness, frailty, drowsiness, then visible aging.

Few have seen an old elf. They don't wear age gracefully like humans do. Elves magically aged, for this is the only way they can be aged, appear monstrous. Their features get sharper, more exaggerated. Heads elongate, chins narrow, ears extend. They seem more like insects than elves if too far gone.

DARK ELVES

The Curse gets in their blood and kills it. As the blood dies, they thirst for more. When it gets in the bones it files their teeth and nails. They hear the call of the wild, of bats and wolves that live in the cursed lands. The Sun, which merely blinded, now burns.

DWARVES

Stiffness, loss of smell, blindness, loss of sensation, then petrification.

It's rumored that somewhere within the gaze of the White Tower there lies a forest of statues - a lost hold of Dwarven kin lost to the Curse. Texts acquired from explorers into the forest revealed that they were fleeing some dark entity, and that the risks of the Curse were less than that of staying.

HALFLINGS

Thirst, fever, hunger, then the unquenchable hunger.

Ghouls are a blight upon the nearby lands. Immortal, ravenously hungry, and prone to seek out civilization, thereby spreading the Curse. Local sheriffs and constabularies are keen to address ghoul problems quickly, lest their influence spread.

ORCS

Dizziness, weakness, vertigo, then shrinking.

It would be comical, were it not so serious. Orcs shrink, like someone was slowly isometrically transforming them down. One of the greater mysteries of the curse, no doubt.

TIEFLINGS

Temptation, addiction, withdrawal, then the fall to vice.

The strangest of the Curses effects befalls the Tieflings, who suffer no physical maladies but exclusively illnesses of the mind. The Curse amplifies any presently-existing vices the Tiefling carries, cranking one or more of them into overdrive. Addictions become screaming, withdrawals become impossible to ignore, internal demons become proudly displayed. A fully fallen Tiefling becomes an Id-Creature, a slave to their fleeting desires and needs.