Plague Feats

Prerequisites: Blood sphere and 5th caster level; or Death sphere and 5th caster level; or Duelist sphere and base attack bonus +5; or Alchemy sphere and base attack bonus +5; Virulent Ailment, character level 9th.

Benefit: Diseases you create through Plague feats become incredibly infectious. Created diseases can affect creatures that have immunity to diseases or Fortitude saves, although such creatures gain a +4 bonus to the saving throw (+8 if they possess no Constitution score). This allows your diseases to even infect constructs and other non-living creatures, although they cannot infect anything that does not have at least one Hit Dice.

Prerequisites: Blood sphere and 5th caster level; or Death sphere and 5th caster level; or Duelist sphere and base attack bonus +5; or Alchemy sphere and base attack bonus +5; Virulent Ailment, character level 7th.

Benefit: By plunging yourself further into your studies, you become a vessel for your disease. You can choose to become the host of a single disease you are capable of creating through your plague feats. This is a ritual that takes 10 minutes of time, at the end of which you must choose to either deal damage to yourself equal to your Hit Dice, or spend a spell point.

Afterwards, you become infected with the disease, but suffer none of its negative effects and never need to attempt saving throws against the disease (meaning it never cures naturally, but can be cured through magic or other methods). This causes all of your natural attacks to gain the disease, causing any creature that takes damage from your natural attacks must succeed at a save against your hosted disease or be infected by it. You may only have one disease selected in this way, although you may use the ritual again to infect yourself with a new disease, becoming a host of the new disease and curing the old one.

Special: Abilities that primarily use your blood as a weapon (such as the Gory Armaments (blood art) talent), or otherwise affect a creature using your blood may additionally cause a saving throw against the hosted disease, subject to GM discretion.

Prerequisites: Blood sphere and 5th caster level; or Death sphere and 5th caster level; or Duelist sphere and base attack bonus +5; or Alchemy sphere and base attack bonus +5; Virulent Ailment.

Benefit: Your time spent analyzing mundane illnesses has allowed you to master them. You may choose two diseases from the following list: blinding sickness, bonechill, bubonic plague, cackle fever, cholera, filth fever, leprosy, mindfire, red ache, shakes, sleeping sickness, slimy doom.

You may create these diseases and use them with your other plague feats. The onset period of any disease created this way becomes immediate, and the saving throw is changed as stated in the plague feat rules.

Special: This feat may be selected multiple times, selecting two more diseases each time.

Prerequisites: Blood sphere and 5th caster level; or Death sphere and 5th caster level; or Duelist sphere and base attack bonus +5; or Alchemy sphere and base attack bonus +5; Death sphere (Shroud), Virulent Ailment.

Benefit: You gain +1 spell point. Your diseases carry a trace of your necrotic magic. When you afflict a creature with a disease through the use of another plague feat, you may also mark that creature with necrotic energy as per the Shroud talent. Marked creatures suffering from your diseases do not count against the maximum amount of marks you may have at a time.

Four Necrosis Feats: When you reanimate a creature you marked through the use of this feat, the undead created is afflicted with a single disease made with your plague feats that it suffered from at the time of its death (if the creature suffered from multiple diseases, pick one). Whenever that undead strikes with a natural attack, the victim must succeed at a saving throw against the disease or suffer from it as normal. You may mark creatures afflicted with a disease this way, as per the Shroud talent.

Prerequisites: Blood sphere and 5th caster level; or Death sphere and 5th caster level; or Duelist sphere and base attack bonus +5; or Alchemy sphere and base attack bonus +5.

Benefit: You learn to create a terrible, contagious disease and learn to utilize it with your powers. As a standard action you may either spend a spell point or expend your martial focus to make a melee touch attack. If you hit, the target must succeed at a Fortitude save or suffer from the blight disease.

You may also infuse your disease into your sphere effects or attack actions. When you target one or more creatures using a magic sphere effect, you may spend a spell point or increase the casting time by one step in order to force one of the targets to succeed at a Fortitude save or suffer from your blight disease.

Alternatively, when making an attack action as a standard action, you may expend your martial focus as a move action to force the target of your attack action to attempt a Fortitude save as above. The effects of this feat resolve independently of, and after the results of, the sphere effect or attack action. This means that even if the sphere effect fails to affect the target, or the attack action misses, the target must still attempt a save against the disease.