Premise: The common cold has finally mutated enough to the point where it can infect Kindred. This, by itself, is something of a horror for Kindred more so than for humans because kindred don't heal in the way humans do and the pathogen can get out of control. And funnily enough, the Morbus have nothing to do with it.
The Pathology:
Black bubbles are quite literally just a mutated variant of the common cold. What we refer to as the common cold is actually about a hundred different viral strains. Humans fight off colds by having immune systems which spring into action. raising one's body temperature to cook off the virus.
But kindred don't have antibodies or metabolisms or any of that useful junk. Most virii can infect a kindred but cannot live in a dead system. And so it is with Black Bubbles. The Kindred Cold can't survive in a kindred host for more than 10 days. But the problem is, if they come into contact with another kindred with the illness, they can be infected again right away.
Black Bubbles has the following effects on kindred infected by it:
1) Every single night that a kindred is infected by Black Bubbles, he must spend an additional point of blood. This is obviated by the Coil of Blood. If the vampire has the coil of blood he must only spend an additional blood point when he must spend normally per coil of blood. This blood is expended as "phlegm" or blood sweat.
2) This phlegm is actually dead blood, turned black. This by itself can be a masquerade threat if not carefully hidden or controlled.
3) While afflicted with Black Bubbles, a kindred is down -2 on all challenges.
4) Symptoms can be stifled for a scene with a willpower expenditure.
Sure, it's an inconvenience, but it's hardly Malkavia, right?
The illness itself is contagious mostly via blood-born vectors. Blood sweat, sneezing, and drinking from an infected kindred or ghoul can pass the disease. Thankfully, casual contact is not enough to pass the disease. But a good hard sneeze in an Elysium can get a number of kindred at once.
Treatment Methods:
Seclusion will work to a degree. Taking some time out to stay away from other kindred and ghouls and just suffering through until the disease dies off will work. The only problem is that it will cost the kindred HALF of his or her downtime actions for the month.(Round down)
a short duration voluntary torpor will also cleanse the infection from the kindred's body but this is a costly method of treatment.
Mage spells may cleanse the kindred of infection but cannot actually create antibodies against the disease.
Werewolf blood will flatly kill the virus but will also have all the usual effects on the kindred who ingests it.
Blood Fire (Theban 3) burns the sickness out of a kindred, but sadly can only be used on the blood sorcerer. Also, blood stored in Vitae Reliquaries is cleansed of taint, (The virus cannot survive the transformative process.)
Some bloodline powers may, at the VST's discretion, affect the illness, but none of them can instill any sort of antibody protection against the virus.
Morbus can identify carriers of the disease easily, and with the power of Inflame, may cause the illness to burn itself out of the kindred at a vastly increased rate. In fact. A successful use of Inflame will burn out the illness in the space of a single night, but it will cost the kindred so affected to lose half of his current blood pool and he will be at half of his pools for all the challenges on that evening.
Morbus, of course, are completely immune to Black Bubbles, as they are immune to all of the diseases they come in contact with.
Twists and Turns:
Naturally, the Morbus will get blamed for all of this. As if they needed more crap working against them, but ironically enough, they have enough knowledge to actually make themselves quite useful to any domain who doesn't run them out on a rail first. In addition, with some work, Cachexy can get some control over the spread of the disease in a single night. It won't prevent re-infections from out of town sources, but it can staunch the tide of infections. Which can be good for the bloodline as a whole in the long run.
In addition, like most plagues, it strikes at the heart of a society by making social congress actively dangerous. Expect a series of closed borders, and formal courts held via conference calls, at least until things calm down some.
Ghouls are not proof against the illness, although once they've suffered through the illness, they aren't going to catch it again. The illness will run through their body in the same way it does in a kindred but will only last until the kindred blood has burned itself out of his system. Ghouls develop a series of antibodies against Black Bubbles. One might think that this would translate into a treatment for kindred, but drinking ghoul blood doesn't affect the illness. The change to Vitae turns that blood into the perfect medium for the virus's infection. The antibodies don't stand a chance.
Research:
Kindred will find that researching the illness itself is a bit difficult as samples taken from an infected victim die as the victim's blood turns into regular human blood in a minute after being removed from the kindred's body. And as near as anyone can tell, the virus is indistinguishable from a common cold virus.
What's really going on:
It might take some serious research, (Science with a serology or virology specialty and 30+ successes) to discover that the Kindred Cold is NOT a natural virus. Black Bubbles is a test balloon being sent up for a kindred based bio-weapon.
The Cheiron Group is funding a number of research projects in viral and serology labs all over the country. The work is very heavily compartmentalized and few people are aware of the whole picture for security purposes. The virus in it's manufactured form looks like a completely natural virus but can be manufactured in an aerosol form. Cheiron Group operatives are issued spray cans of the material and they are instructed to go around to nightclubs in their local area and treat those places. Since the virus is designed to live longer in an unliving medium than most, it adheres easily to surfaces for days, like a regular rhinovirus.
Black Bubbles is a test. if it works as it's supposed to, then a much stronger virus will be manufactured and weaponized.
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