#hermitpocalypse

SETUP AND MECHANICS:

It begins with small patches of infection crawling up from the ground.

These vines curl and spread at alarming rates. Expanding by a couple of feet in a few hours. They are nearly indestructible, and can push through and break most materials, and they emit a cloud of particles along with a sickly glow.

They seem to pop up in strategic locations. Densely populated areas, underneath buildings, the works. Attempts to remove them or otherwise affect them prove fruitless. Due to  the fast growth rate, and also the fact that the vines come up from incredibly deep underground. Deep to the point where trying to dig them out results in discovering that they seem to go down indefinitely. 

The particles that these vines emit carry an airborne infection. Once inhaled the particles lay root in the lungs. The infection process takes about 5 days.

The stages of infection go as follows:

- Blackening around the chest that sprawls out in a vine like pattern. This stage comes with a heavy cough, along with general chest discomfort/pain.

- Complete blackening of the body. Small deformities begin to take shape. The infection takes a complete hold as it begins to rot and disfigure the insides of the hosts body.

- It is at this stage where we begin to see mob traits popping up. Gradual changes of skin texture/colour, anatomy shifts, and sensory changes all occur. Though the figure still appears mostly humanoid.

- While still in a humanoid form, certain parts of the body grow and shift uncomfortably very quickly. The infection will fuse and elongate the host's body into impossible configurations. It is here where the host loses conscious thought in any meaningful form

- The final stage. The anatomy of the mob smooths out and strengthens. Any resemblance to the host prior to the infection are nonexistent.

(The vines are known as “The ender” and fully infected people as “Mobs”.)

The mob that someone turns into is completely random when contracted from the airborne infection.

Prior to complete transformation, people are not infectious. Starting at about the 4th to 5th stage that a mob may transmit the infection via fluids, as opposed to the airborne version*.

For example, if a mob manages to break through the skin of someone, the infection will spread through the bloodstream. Or if you touch a mob and ingest some of its ‘residue’ that would also result in infection. Because of this different transmission method the transformation process only takes 3 days. (Neat aside, a creeper tries to infect by first exploding to expose a host. Then it’s “”bits”” splat into the fresh wound.)

A mob can only turn other people into another one of itself. Resulting in certain mobs being far more common than others. Such as zombies or skeletons.

As the vines grow so does the area of effect it’s infectious particles have. Because of this, when the ender inevitably engulfs entire cities, the whole surrounding area becomes dangerous.

The materials that lay within the corpses of mobs have other worldly properties. For example, finding an ender pearl rooted deep within an enderman. This is important and will come into play a little later on.

* This is not entirely true, as endermen have the ability to spread the infection by both air and fluid. With airborne producing a random mob, and fluid producing another enderman.