By Paco Garcia Jaen

It is quite incredible what we put our characters through sometimes. They get cut, slashed, slammed, cursed, tied, imprisoned, hacked, bitten… the list goes on and on. But they very rarely get sick. Very rarely they get an illness that would incapacitate them partially for a few adventuring days.

Indeed it makes no sense. Also, it makes it more difficult for the GM when they want to make the character’s life a bit of a misery without actually resorting to magic or other unsavoury means.

Lastly, illnesses can be very handy because we, as humans, can relate to some of them, so we know the sort of pain our characters are going through. And that should make it more fun!

Well… fun… I mean… like playing the character…

Oh hush! You know what I mean!

Anyway, here’s a list of 50 illnesses that are not always lethal but could make your games a lot more interesting, and your player’s life a bit more challenging. They’re in no particular order and some ideas of how they could affect the players have been given, but the idea is that you use them as you see fit, so feel free to add the causes and symptoms. And the lehality!