Afflicted Characters and Persons of Interest
Dwargon Malachite — Speaker of Malachite Forges. Suffering from oripathy, though the stage and the extent to which it is known publicly is left to DM discretion. His condition gives the party a personal, face-to-face encounter with what the disease does to real people — and raises questions about why the man responsible for industrial originium use hasn’t stepped down or been more vocal about its dangers.
Titania — The silver dragon who serves as Terra’s protector. She was stabbed with a blade coated in active originium — a deliberate assassination attempt by someone with both access to weaponized originium and the capability to wound a dragon. She is in critical condition. Who has access to weaponized originium at that level? This is an open thread.
Robin Bauer — A farmer on the outskirts of Malachite reporting strange crystal growths on his body. A quiet early indicator that oripathy is spreading beyond industrial workers into the general population.
Elis Kulf — Speaker of Chrysalis Labs and current mayor of Chrysalis. Rumour holds that her father died of oripathy — a disease the Labs has been covering up cases of internally. Her campaign platform around “public health” takes on a different character in light of the Labs’ suppressed data.
The six-year-old child — A child begging near the river in Chrysalis with visible Stage 3 crystallisation on her skin. No faction has publicly acknowledged her case.
Connected Factions
Chrysalis Labs — Classified oripathy as a research subject and suppressed public data. The Oripathy Ward in Dawn Town officially provides treatment; in practice, Stage 3+ patients are studied. Registration becomes effectively mandatory at Stage 4 under worker safety agreements — agreements the workers signed without understanding their implications.
Rhine Lab — Pursuing more aggressive oripathy experimentation than Chrysalis Labs. Has publicly announced “promising treatment vectors” that Chrysalis Labs’ caution prevents it from pursuing — a political move as much as a scientific one.
Malachite Forges — Their newest smelting technique uses originium in quantities and concentrations that the Labs has not publicly deemed safe. Workers in the processing facilities are among the fastest-progressing oripathy cases on Terra.
The Dwarves Union — Politically linked to the public death that triggered the Flesh to Dust incident. Whether this connection is genuine or manufactured is an open question.
Mechanical Notes for DMs
- Active originium samples (goblin camp crystal, samples from animal remains, raw tunnel deposits) should be treated as hazards with a 10 ft. contagion radius.
- Magallan (Rhine Lab) can serve as an early expert NPC: she will try to stop the party from approaching an active crystal before explaining the danger.
- Players who reach Stage 5 become a genuine threat to NPCs around them and may face social consequences — quarantine pressure, fear, or exploitation by factions seeking subjects.
- The party may encounter multiple sources: a sample from Dwargon Malachite, the goblin camp, or animal remains in the tunnels. Each is an opportunity to introduce the disease before it becomes personally relevant.
- Consider the emotional weight of Stage 3 visibility — the moment a character or NPC is visibly crystallising is a turning point. It is no longer deniable.