Epidemic

[Felicity Locke]

Alright, so one of our plot ideas is the epidemic plot. Meaning, a plague of some sort comes to the school, and everyone is devasted (blahblahblah).

Alright, the few ideas we had were:

• Three stages (or more)
  
• Natural disease
  
• Muggle disease turned wizard disease
  
• Effects certain group?
  
• Starts next term
  
• The whole janitor idea (which I will repost)
  

If I missed anything, just state it again please! (And I'm sorry in advance if I did x3 )

Janitor idea thing:

ally: What if a muggle born got the muggle disease (the janitor) but then while he was at the school it changed to a wizard thing?
nicole: because of all the magic like, in the school?
ally: Yea
the school has a lot of magical properties
it would help change the disease
besides the janitor doing it himself (unintenionally)
nicole: and he would spread it around the school
and eventually die
but something.. would happen to his body
so it wouldn't be found.

(Credit goes to Jason for coming up with the thread idea, thank yoouuu<3 )



Annddd here's the link to the Brainstorm thread, where the discussion started: Clickie!

[Ian Gray]

By janitor, you mean the caretaker like Filch was?

The really cool thing about that idea would be the fact the body would be available to see what effects the disease had on the body. The limitation would be the epidemic would only take two months to kill you, if the caretaker was dead by summer's end.

Maybe link the old thread to this one, Ally? For reference?

[Bradyn Reed]

SJ's idea on loss of voice is interesting, but I think it's a bit too much of a noticeable thing for a first stage. I still believe that the sickness should be progressive from light to bad so it came up as more of a shock.

Other magical... anomalies could be sudden loss of talents for the animagi and the veelas. Unable to charm or change ( maybe even some of our animagi could be stuck in their form for a while, and if we did the magic spurts that could be the only way for them to get out of it besides being healed? )

edit: we were thinking janitor like filch, yes, but not the official one on the site. Just like, a wizard hired to clean up the school..? A non-played character for sure.

and I like the idea of his body being hidden, so no one knows what happened to him or what is going to happen to them when the disease gets worse. It'd add more mystery to the plot.

[Brooke Kennedy]

With my losing voice idea, it would maybe be considered as either a 'hex' or a wizarding form of Laryngitis. So maybe it wouldn't be as noticable for a while until things got to worse stages and until people figured out what was happening.

Maybe for a while people could think people were hexing random people until they figure nobody's behind it but a virus is.

[Ian Gray]

The caretaker can't necessarily die and then hide his own body, though.

[Felicity Locke]

(The link to the old thread is up xD )

Maybe some student stumbles on the body at some point? Because they'll be sick instantly and probably get the worse dose.

For the death rate, it might increase for children. Because maybe it took longer to take effect on a fully grown wizard, but a child still has somewhat uncontrolled magic and is less experienced?

As for Symptoms, I agree with nicole and think we should go less severe to more. Because then it's less noticeable and it strikes quicker.

We just have to get a basis for the symptoms, but make it somewhat open so not everyone is walking around with wart faces, so to speak.

edit: The janitor could've been trying to get out through a passageway or something when he died, it doesn't have to be complicated xD

[Bradyn Reed]

I didn't say the body was hidden on purpose..
more of the disease did something to it because it didn't want to be found. Magical viruses could be.. somewhat intelligent. Maybe it was incinerated or made invisible like an invisibility cloak was over it.

( lmao, mental image of a first year tripping over his carcass made me laugh )

[Polaris Stormwrath]

I would absolutely love to help work out the background information on the scientic aspect of the disease. I have taken multiple classes on infectious disease, have taught a few classes of my own and plan on taking microbiology, virology, immunology and epidemiology in college courses.

Needless to say, I have extensive information on this type of stuff so if I can help out in anyway, I would absolutely love to! I have a TON of free time on my hands.

[Ian Gray]

It should be a very vague indication of what's happening in stage though, so RPers can sort of come up with their own symptoms at the same time.

Like, if one of the stages is overload of magic, the RPer can choose what happens. (Which spells go wrong, what spells go wrong, what happens when a spell goes wrong)

Rather than saying something specific like, "A bad case of boils" and then having their only RP opportunity to be; And then Lucy's face spontaneously broke out in boils! and having it done.

Keep it really open, a basic outline, you know? Instead of listing things out.

The janitor could've been trying to get out through a passageway or something when he died, it doesn't have to be complicated xD

Not complicated, nah... but wouldn't you like it to be logical?
The virus being intelligent and hiding the body itself though... that's brilliant!

[Felicity Locke]

It should be a very vague indication of what's happening in stage though, so RPers can sort of come up with their own symptoms at the same time.

Like, if one of the stages is overload of magic, the RPer can choose what happens. (Which spells go wrong, what spells go wrong, what happens when a spell goes wrong)

Rather than saying something specific like, "A bad case of boils" and then having their only RP opportunity to be; And then Lucy's face spontaneously broke out in boils! and having it done.

Keep it really open, a basic outline, you know? Instead of listing things out.

I agree, that's what I was trying to get at xD

Give them a lot of freedom, but still have a basic outline.

On that note, I still like the magic overload, because we could have a lot of fun with that. And, it wouldn't really be noticed at first. Spell backfiring and stuff, people would just think you're a bad wizard/witch.


As for the scientific aspects, I don't think we should worry about those a lot right now, because I don't think we need to go into a lot of detail about how it happened. Most of the RP would be just it happening.

[Bradyn Reed]

Jun 26, 2008 21:14:19 GMT Ian Gray said:

The janitor could've been trying to get out through a passageway or something when he died, it doesn't have to be complicated xD

Not complicated, nah... but wouldn't you like it to be logical?
The virus being intelligent and hiding the body itself though... that's brilliant!

Well, thank you...

and yes, the stages should be vague but not too vague because then it'd be like everyone has a completely different virus..

OH.. that could be something good. The virus constantly mutates like the common cold making it harder to cure?

[Polaris Stormwrath]

Instead of having it spontaniously mutate, have it eventually become immune from what the people are trying to use to cure it. Like hand sanitizer or some sort of charm.

And the common cold doesn't mutate to become immune, there are over 100-300 different strangs of the same virus. So, it could be like the same thing?

[Felicity Locke]

Instead of having it spontaniously mutate, have it eventually become immune from what the people are trying to use to cure it. Like hand sanitizer or some sort of charm.

That seems like it would take some time though.

I still like the mutation, because we don't need a big explination. Hogwarts is a giant magical center, so the disease could easily be changed. Plus with all the magic spells and such that the care-taker would've been doing, that would've effected it as well.

OH.. that could be something good. The virus constantly mutates like the common cold making it harder to cure?

Well, if we're going with the magic mutation idea, that would make a lot of sense. It would affect people in different ways. Much like the cold. More severe for some, different symtoms (some would have to be the same), etc. Good job nicole xDD

[Ian Gray]

I don't think we really need any scientific explanations... it's a wizarding virus, so it could defy all science, really.

Mutating to become immune would be great fun.
Just imagine finding an antibiotic one day and then having it cause the virus to grow worse instead the next. Bahah...

[Polaris Stormwrath]

But that doesn't make sense, antibiotics only effect bacteria while antivirals effect viruses. So, we could possibly make the disease caused by a bacteria of some sort.

Like, an experiment when wrong somehow, exploded and a bit of potion got on a wall, wasn't cleaned and grew into a mold. It was in a classroom, so that could be the ground zero for it and everyone or only some of the kids in the class could get infected. And since it's from a magical potion, that's where it could get it's magical properties!

This is so hard for me, magic and science doesn't mix. ;-;