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Approved Submission [Lorath]: Aspertye vayatyaeus monomorphinan

OsakanOne

Inactive Member
Retired Member
Submission Type: Cultural (disease)
Submission URL: https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=lorath:aspertye_vayatyaeus

Faction: Lorath
FM Approved Yet?: Yes
Faction requires art? No

For Reviewers:
Contains Unapproved Sub-Articles?: No
Contains New art?: No
Previously Submitted?: No

Notes:
Lalah's due to bring it up in conversation soon. I figured I may as well write it up.
There is no cure for love.
 
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This suggestion has been implemented. Votes are no longer accepted.
I'll go ahead and Review this article. Personally, I find the idea of a Rage-F* virus amusing and likely to contribute to the setting, so I'll use what I know from LVN class to help too. Overall, the idea is sound, but the article writing itself needs a lot of work. Beacause of this, the way I'll review this is go from top to bottom and list the issues as I see them. Overall, I'll assume that this is somewhat modeled after or inspired by Ebola as well for obvious reasons.

Name wise, I suggest that it the article title be called something like "Aspertye Vayaeus Virus", as it immediately informs the reader that it is likely a disease. My reasoning for this is that the current name tells the reader nothing about what it is. Though a namespace change would be better, it's not necessary, especially due to the tedium involved.

For the first paragraph, I highly recommend having it immediately start by saying that this is a hemorrhagic fever first and foremost, followed by a death rate that's given in percent. 90%, or 9 out of every 10 infected, is likely a good starting point depending on what you're after. The taxonomy should not go first as it is right now, since to the common reader it is not important whatsoever. It can even be completely left out and there would be no negative consequence unless this is specifically stated in RP or something, at which point it should likely go in the "About and/or History Section", which isn't here.

Only having a History section should be enough, since there's not much else to be said in an About. The line about cases in controlled conditions, 200 years or so, and separatist territories should go under the History section. Reading over the article, I firmly believe that this disease would have a very colorful and terrifying history and am disappointed that it does not have one at this time - I suggest writing it to entertain using lots of euphemisms and suggestions as to what it did through the times, but that's my own taste.

With Symptoms and Mechanism, the header should be at level four, not the current three for better organization of the article and to specifically indicate that the L'manel falls under this. Subsequently, Vectors, Exploitation and Policy should have level 4 headers as well, to indicate that they do not fall under Symptoms and Mechanism. I highly recommend that this section be broken into a Symptoms section, and a Pathophysiology section which details how the disease does what it dose. For just the Symptoms though, just detail what can be observed from the patient only and not why. I also suggest the symptoms be given some more specific time ranges to get a better idea of its progression as the infection proceeds. List the symptoms exhibited by ALL vulnerable hosts here. L'manel specific symptoms go into the section you already have. I recommend checking how Ebola's symptoms was written on wikipedia. For the cytokine storm specifically, it's best to say that when the very high fever, swelling and redness caused by the disease occurs, the deaths happen, followed by your preferred percentage. Saying that it's a feedback loop between cell markers and attacking immune cells that causes this goes into the pathophysiology - there's not even a need to use complex language and say it's a cytokine storm. That detail isn't familiar or pertinent to readers. The dormancy of the virus should go into the Vectors section.

The L'manel Symptoms, like the standard Symptoms, has too much Pathophysiology, or the how of the disease, here. That should go in its own section. That means that the whole organic compound part can be taken out and moved. Also, I don't think aspectation is a word. If you meant aspiration, I suggest you correct that. For the symptom list, again, try and put some time ranges for how these progress and develop. Also, the rabidness and estrus-like behavior gives a lose idea of its nature, but not the degree of the symptoms. Is the patient sitting there, drooling and twitching while being easily aroused, or is the patient actively attempting to beat down and violently initiate copulation with others similar to an infected from "28 Days Later"? Also, if this feature isn't exclusive to the L'manel only, it needs to go into the main section. I'd personally prefer it to affect all of the patients in this way and broaden the danger, but that is my own opinion only - if this is taken however, this means the main section and subsection can be likely wrapped up together and simplify the article.

The Pathophysiology section I suggest you make, as I mentioned before, would detail how the disease causes its symptoms. If necessary, it should have its own subsection with a level 3 heading for the L'manel for only the differences they exhibit in the process. It would naturally consist of all the pathophsyiology taken out of the other sections it should not be in.

And at this point, I now realize I have just put a massive wall of text on top of you, and for that, I am sorry. Because of that, I'll stop here for now - tell me how you do @OsakanOne
 
Quick response before I start my editing:
Aspectation specifically is the agreed term for the process of a L'manel taking onboard the aspects of another organism, the major noteworthy capability of the caste.

Wish me LUCK!
 
Written up the first draft of some history. Want to know what you think.

Will start on the rest tomorrow, since its nor 04:23am (yikes!)
 
@OsakanOne

I'm sorry for the long reply time, but looking it over, I can see that the article is a lot better. There's still some work to be done though.

I suggest that Pathophysiology be taken out from under Symptoms, and be given a header of the same level so that it is its own separate section. My reasoning is that though they're closely related, they're distinct enough from one another to need their own portions. The glassy growths are new though. They're ok article wise, but I'm a bit iffy on them, as I'm not sure what to think of them or how they'd go in RP or the setting. That's my opinion only of course. Symptoms themselves are better defined and will do for the article. I'm personally left wanting more detail as to how bad it can get, but that is unnecessary, as the current state lets GMs be more flexible in its portrayal anyways. Whether or not you wish for this however, is up to you, and can be prevented by being more specific.

There isn't much to go on about the "Xa'laxxikka" itself. Though it would be nice to have an article for that animal, I understand that's more work, so it's optional. I bring this up because this is actually the "Natural Reservoir", not a "Primary Carrier" - I'm just being a Nazi with the Medical Terminology though. The "Typical Spread" needs a little bit more work; it mentions a population rise that was previously mentioned, but there's not much to go on. Not only that, but how the disease gets from these things to people is missing too. Are they hunting and eating it like Bushmeat and Ebola? Some info on this would be very handy. The "Mob and Swarming" may be better off in its own subsection under "Symptoms".

Again, unless you're in a dire hurry, let's take this article a few pieces at a time.
 
I've never written a pathogen before. Better to take my time and do it right, right?

Edit #1
How bad it can get? I could throw some flavor text under the history & associated media if you wanted but I'm curious to know how bad you think this will be.

I don't want to disappoint, after-all.

I've also suggested this is one of the primary factors limiting Lorath colonization of the Occhestran system in Lor's northern holdings where the condition is endemic to the population.

Edit #2
I think I've made the changes you're asking for but I just want you to skim through it.

Edit #3
Relevant listening
 
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In regards to 'how bad it can get' it really helps to simply detail how it can go. You can detail the symptoms more. Say for an example, do the mild ones just get really aroused and flustered? The 'average' cases, when they're angry, just how violent are they? Are these individuals aggressively attacking anyone they see that fits some sort of criteria? And how so; are they trying to pummel them to death or stalk and hunt? What about ones that are worse? I don't suggest more flavor texts; if used too much, it's all pretty much against the whole point of the article. I was going to address that later in detail, but I'll mention that here; it's too much! Too heavy. Brief excerpts are good, but not so much.
 
Alright, that's ok.

Moving on, I don't think that the Mobs/Swarming belongs under pathophysiology, which describes how the organism itself does things to the patient and what happens inside the patient. It most likely belongs under Symptoms, or can possibly be expanded upon into its own category. Also, I don't know if their form of psionics can be blocked between the infected or not by expanded and upgraded systems similar to what's used in most SAoY power armors. You may or may not want to elaborate on this. Also, is the virus Lorath and L'manel only, and gets its psionics from them? The article does state that it gets both of them, but doesn't mention if it gets anyone else.
 
No issues from the setting manager here.

Does this have a thumbs up from @DocTomoe?
 
Alright, it looks like things are looking good so far. I'm sorry for the long reply time by the way.

I highly suggest getting rid of the music since it appears unprofessional, but that's entirely optional and up to you. It just seems very abnormal, and not in a good way in my opinion, to have music to the article. The History should be a level 5 header, and I'd like a proper historical summary in brief. The logs should be held in a subsection at level 4. They're just too large a brick for players and GMs to navigate to learn about the history when they only want to be briefed on the matter.
 
Alright, it looks like we're in the final stretch.

I recommend "Exploitation" be renamed to "Drug Production" - it's more descriptive of what's going on as it tells the reader immediately what it is. The "Epidemic Policy" could use some work though. It needs to be broken up into details about surface cities and underground ones. The surface city containment is easy, but I recommend detailing some sort of military guards at the inter-city tunnels or even sealing them. Since the irradiated incendiary may damage said seals, you may want to try nerve gas which is heavier than air so it sinks, followed by systematic military sweeps in fully sealed and protected suits.

Otherwise, it looks like needless overkill that wastes taxpayer credits, without the guarantee of even stopping it all.
 
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