Let's open with a few broad assumptions. Many of you are, I suspect, long-time gamers who were weaned on D&D. A fair amount of you still play it, and I daresay a similar number prefer an ancient world / medieval / dark age / renaissance setting. I know that's quite a big epoch and allows for a lot of diversity, but in fantasy games, time periods do tend to blur somewhat.
Now, I don't know about you lot, but one thing that bothers me about D&D is its lack of realism. Before the old argument about fantasy versus realism flares up again, let me make one thing clear here: I'm not talking about the combat system, magic or alignments. What annoys me is how everything's so damn clean. Where's the muck and the grime? Where's the squalor? Are the only diseases the semi-magical afflictions you find in the book?
As any good obsessive-compulsive will tell you, diseases can be found anywhere. They can be in the food you eat, the water you drink, even the air you breathe. Germs. Everywhere, germs. Dirty, nasty, filthy germs. In this article I hope to demonstrate the sort of diseases a character might find in a fantasy setting, and the sort of effect they can have on a character.
Because I love the sound of my own voice, each section will feature gratuitous use of rhetoric.
Ever wondered why taverns and breweries stay busy? The reason's simple, readers: you just can't trust the water. If you live out in the country, the wells and lakes could be full of microbes -- although to the telescope-free denizens of the past, the problem isn't down to invisible tiny monsters in the water: it's just that water is undrinkable.
Of course, any GMs among you lot who are always on the lookout for ways of inconveniencing your players (and if not, why not?) should realise that this is a wonderful opportunity to educate them on the benefits of cautious behaviour. I'm not saying that you should give the heroes diseases just so they can soil their armour after an attack of explosive diarrhoea, though. That would be wrong!