Name: Boneblack Mold

Appearance/lifespan: Boneblack is a flaky white mold that naturally grows in caves all across Allaria. Its spores are most often carried by bats and rodents, many of them resistant to infection. While Boneblack dies within seconds of being exposed to natural sunlight, the migratory habits of Boneblack's natural carriers can deposit Boneblack into the soil of dense forests where it can lie dormant for years. Many other animals have natural resistances to the fungus. Boneblack mold kills most land-bound birds within days of exposure, and can kill humans or elves inside of a month. No other humanoids have displayed vulnerability to the mold.

Symptoms in Humanoids: Human or elf, a sufferer of Boneblack typically finds that their feet grow numb over the course of two weeks, with sores appearing a couple of days after. Their feet will turn gangrenous or rot in queer ways depending on how the infection spreads. Even into the fourth week of infection an afflicted person will still be able to move, but once Boneblack mold can begin sporing from rotted areas, the results are always fatal.

Epidemic Concerns: Boneblack mold formed from human/elven tissue is far more aggressive, with drastically shorter times between symptoms. Effectively, each generation of Boneblack is far more invasive. A populos that doesn't catch the infection is in dire peril. Thankfully, once a Boneblack colony germinates in a human or avian host, it loses its aggressiveness to the other organism. A chicken coup lost to Boneblack is a minor inconvenience by comparison.

Cure: The reason that rampant Boneblack is so rarely seen is that its cures are often just a part of daily life in humanoids. Milk is a healthy preventative, as are several fruits such as apples, dates and plumbs. There are herbal remedies known to apothecaries where diets are less broad, but common wisdom is that the first way to prevent Boneblack is simply proper nutrition. It most commonly finds hosts in rural or otherwise isolated areas, and has taught its unique lesson enough times over generations of human/elven kind that one will rarely find an apothecary that doesn't know at least two ways to cure it.