Among all disease, few are as feared as risen sickness. Fabled to have toppled empires, this sickness creates undead with staggering efficiency, and at the least ensures a culture of fear and paranoia.

Even the rumor of risen sickness is enough to rally mobs to stamp it out, and kings have been known to wipe out entire communities as a safety measure, whether it was merited or not.

What is not certain is how the disease starts, but when it does, corpses begin to rise and hunger for flesh. This disease often spreads to long-dead corpses who have no resistance to the disease whatsoever, and swell the ranks of the risen.

Walking corpses are considered zombies, replacing their slam attack with a bite attack that imparts the infection (+3 to hit, 5 ft. reach, one target, 1d4+1 piercing damage). These corpses infect their victims with a disease that kills and raises even more walking corpses. An individual exposed to a bite must make a DC 17 Constitution saving throw. Failure means the victim is infected. After every hour of infection, the infected creature loses 2d6 hit points from their maximum. If this maximum reaches zero, the infected creature dies and rises as a zombie within 1 minute of death.

There is no simple cure for this disease outside of magic, though there are special herbs that can remove the infection before death. An infected victim that is cured is also restored to their normal hit point maximum. There are rumors of random individuals that are naturally immune to the disease, though such tales also say that the immune are carriers, and unwittingly help the spread of the disease.