Rotmire Blight
First Entry, Field Notes on the Rotmire Blight
By Doctor Kyra Sheer, Physician of House Valkenmar
First Year of the Rotmire Blight
I have spent the past two years in the afflicted lands of Faulmoor, studying the plague that has come to be known as the Rotmire Blight. It is a disease unlike any other, cruel in both its efficiency and its lingering horrors. No known cure exists, despite my countless attempts. I document my findings here, in the hope that if I do not survive, another will take up my work and perhaps succeed where I have failed.
Onset and Symptoms
The Blight begins with fatigue and an unquenchable thirst. At first, the afflicted mistake it for a simple fever, the body’s way of protesting the wretched damp and decay that permeates Faulmoor. But soon, the telltale signs emerge—darkened veins creeping across the skin, as if something within is trying to claw its way out.
The real horror of the Blight is its unnatural speed. Within a day of exposure, the victim’s breath turns ragged, their flesh grows pallid, and their sweat carries the stench of stagnant water. The skin softens, bruising with the slightest pressure, while the eyes yellow and weep a thick, bile-like fluid. Some afflicted claw at their own skin, maddened by an itch that cannot be soothed.
In the second stage—rarely more than three days after first symptoms—lesions erupt along the spine and joints, leaking a black, viscous discharge. The pain is said to be excruciating, but worse than the pain is the dread; the infected know what comes next. Some take their own lives before the final stage can claim them. Those who do not… change.
Attempts at a Cure
I have tried everything. Bloodletting seemed the most obvious approach, and yet the most useless. The disease does not reside in the blood alone, and those who are drained too much perish faster. Herbal poultices and tinctures, such as mugwort, wolfsbane, and blackroot, slowed the fever in some, but the infection remained. A mixture of crushed thistle and bittercress produced a violent reaction in the afflicted—one patient seized so forcefully that his bones snapped. Alchemy and distillations held promise, but each attempt ended in failure. Silver nitrate was once my greatest hope, but it only blackened flesh and prolonged agony. Distilled salts, oils infused with rare barks from the southern reaches of Norvostra, and even the venom of marsh serpents yielded fleeting relief at best. Fire and purification remain the only certain methods, and the most terrible. When a town succumbs, the safest course is to burn it before the dead rise. But how can I advocate such barbarism? How many lives have we ended not knowing if a cure was within reach?
The Failure of Restorative Magics
Divine magic, which should cleanse the body of its ailments, offers little more than false hope. Lesser Restoration fails entirely, as if the disease is beyond mortal intervention. Greater Restoration provides only temporary relief—symptoms recede for a day, perhaps two, before returning with renewed ferocity. Healing potions mend the body but do not purge the rot within. In some cases, they seem to prolong suffering rather than end it. Resurrection attempts fail, as if something holds the souls of the afflicted beyond reach. Even the gods, it seems, have turned away from Norvostra.
On the Spread of the Blight
The plague moves with horrifying ease. A cough in a crowded room. A touch. Contaminated water. Even the mist that clings to Faulmoor may carry the sickness, for I have seen cases appear in those who swore they had not been near the infected. Quarantine wards were established to halt the spread, but they are prisons of the doomed. Walls and barricades can keep the sick inside, but they cannot stop the Blight from seeping out. I have seen entire villages sealed away, only for the rot to take hold in the next settlement days later. It is relentless. The worst cases are the “silent carriers,” those who bear no outward signs of disease yet carry death within them. Some walk for weeks before succumbing, infecting all they meet. By the time it is discovered, it is always too late.
The Final Stage: Death and Beyond
Not all who die remain dead. The Blight does not merely consume; it reclaims. The bodies of the fallen do not rest; in some, the infection does not end with death but instead finds new purpose. First, there is stillness. Then, hours—or even days—later, the body jerks with unnatural spasms. The flesh sloughs from their limbs like wet paper, but they do not bleed. They rise, blind and silent, compelled by something beyond reason.
Unlike common undead raised through sorcery, some of these creatures do not hunger. They do not seek to spread their affliction. They simply… move. Some return to places they once knew, standing in eerie stillness outside their former homes. Others march aimlessly into the marsh, sinking into the bog without struggle, as if answering some unknown call. I dissected one once, a man who had been dead for three days. His organs were liquefied, reduced to a foul-smelling slurry, yet his body still responded to touch. A twitch of the fingers. A slow turn of the head. Even severed limbs continued to move, grasping blindly at nothing.
Silver has shown remarkable effects on these creatures once they have turned. Wounds inflicted by silvered weapons do not simply damage them—they disrupt them. A strike that would only sever a limb on an ordinary corpse causes the Blightborn to recoil violently, their movements slowing as if something deeper than the flesh itself is being harmed. Repeated wounds with silver seem to break whatever force animates them, leaving the bodies truly lifeless. It is as if the metal interferes with the very essence of the affliction, severing whatever unseen tether binds them to undeath. However, while effective, silver remains rare and expensive, making it difficult to procure in the quantities needed to combat the risen dead on a large scale.
What force animates them? Some say it is the will of the gods, a punishment for some forgotten sin. Others whisper of ancient things buried deep beneath the mire, stirring for the first time in centuries. I do not know the truth. I only know that the dead do not rest in Faulmoor.
Final Thoughts
If this is my last entry, let it serve as a warning. The Rotmire Blight cannot be stopped by conventional means. Fire is the only certainty. If a cure exists, I have not found it. And if the dead truly rise of their own accord, then I fear this plague is merely the beginning of something far worse.
May the gods have mercy on us all.
Second Entry, Field Notes on the Rotmire Blight
By Doctor Kyra Sheer, Physician of House Valkenmar
Second Year of the Rotmire Blight
I write this entry with shaking hands, for what we have witnessed in this past year defies all reason. The dead are changing.
The first year was spent trying to understand the nature of the affliction. We sought explanations in alchemy, faith, and reason, and we failed at every turn. We burned villages to contain the spread, executed the infected before they could rise, and yet, the Blight endures. It does not merely endure—it adapts.
A Change in the Undead
In the early months of the Blight, those who succumbed to its grasp rose in a slow, shambling mockery of life. They wandered aimlessly, trapped in the remnants of their past existence, standing before their old homes, silent and empty-eyed. There was horror in their return, but at least they lacked intent.
That has changed.
Now, they hunt.
Their movements are no longer sluggish and thoughtless. Some of them have learned to move with unnatural speed, to strike with violent precision, as if remembering some distant echo of their former lives. The soldiers who fell in the early days of the Blight have risen again, and they still know how to kill. They fight with rusted weapons and shattered shields, staggering forward with purpose. They are no longer mindless.
And worse, some of them speak.
At first, it was dismissed as the wind, the ramblings of broken minds grasping at answers. But I have heard it myself—the low, guttural utterances that come from their rotting throats. They do not converse, they do not plead or beg; they mock. They repeat the voices of the dead, the cries of those they have slain. It is as if the Blight remembers.
The Emergence of Variants
The Rotmire Blight is no longer a single, predictable affliction. It now takes different forms, warping its victims into grotesque parodies of humanity. I have classified several of these new horrors as follows:
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The Hollowed – Those who have decayed beyond recognition, their bodies little more than skeletal husks held together by the Blight itself. They do not rot further, nor do they tire. They simply persist, their bodies refusing to acknowledge their own death.
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The Whisperers – These are the ones who speak. They utter broken phrases, luring the living with the voices of lost loved ones. They are cruel, waiting until their prey comes close before striking with inhuman precision.
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The Broken Lords – Former soldiers who retain an uncanny sense of their old training. They move in formation, they fight together, and they still wield weapons, though their armor is rusted, and their flesh hangs from their bones. We cannot afford to underestimate them
What drives these changes? Is it simply time, or is the Blight itself learning, refining, and growing? I do not know, and that ignorance haunts me.
Silver and the Blight’s Weakness
Silver remains our only effective weapon. It does not just wound them—it destroys them. A strike from a silvered blade sends tremors through their forms, as if something unseen is being severed within them. I have tested this theory extensively, and I now believe that the Blight is more than an infection—it is a force that binds them together, something deeper than mere sickness. Silver disrupts that bond.
But silver is scarce, and those who control it hoard it as if it were more valuable than life itself. Perhaps they are right.
The Spread of the Blight
We thought we understood how it spread. Contact with the infected, consumption of tainted water, exposure to the damp fogs that roll across Faulmoor. These were our truths.
They were not enough.
Even those who remain untouched by these factors are beginning to succumb. There are accounts of the Blight taking root in individuals who had never left their fortifications, never touched the infected, never drank from the marshes. Something unseen is carrying it now, something beyond our ability to contain.
Some whisper of cursed land, of buried relics that have begun to stir. I do not entertain such superstitions.
But I fear the Blight no longer needs a host to spread.
Final Thoughts
I do not know how much longer I can continue this work. The others are gone. Some were killed. Some walked into the night and did not return.
I will press on. If I do not survive, let this serve as a warning to those who come after:
The Rotmire Blight is no longer a disease. It is something far worse.