Boletum Quarantine

Subject: Boletum Quarantine Tue Feb 25, 2014 7:41 pm

"Toxic spores drift through lands tainted by the Boletum, choking anything foolish enough to enter."

Quote :: The Boletum Quarantine is a putrid swampland covered in fungus, the Bolete, which eats away at even healthy plants and turns them into withered hosts, propagating through spores that catch the air and travel downwind, seeding onto healthy forests and infecting them, able to travel dozens of miles on the wind before landing. Locals are quick to destroy any offshoots that land far away from the main body of the Boletum, fearing that if it’s left unchecked it will spread at an ever increasing rate, until it swallows up all plant life.

The Quarantine is maintained by a small undersupplied group of local farmers and townsfolk doing their best to make a living near the area, finding and burning the land where any offshoots start to appear. The quarantine itself was once a verdant green forest, but now is a murky grey and brown swamp covered in the invasive fungus. Some of the townspeople whisper it’s an evil spirit set to destroy all the forests of the world. The Bolete produce toxic brown spores that drift on the wind and fill the quarantine zone, poisonous to any who would be foolish enough to inhale the dank air, though with sufficient wrappings around the nose and mouth with damp cloth the area may be traversed. The poisoning effects of the Bolete are probably the most horrific of all, for those that inhale too much of the toxin start to lose their minds, hallucinating and lashing out until they succumb, adding themselves to the mass of the huge fungus.

Estavyr itself maintains a sizeable workforce dedicated to keeping the fungus at bay, burning away spores and risking their well-being for a slightly less miserable pay than most are accustomed to. These quarantine workers are often at risk of infection, and the slightest deviation in strict caution will often result in misfortune.