Oblivion:Disease

Contracting a disease weakens specific skills or attributes of your character. Disease effects will remain active until cured with a potion, spell, or an altar or wayshrine. With few exceptions, diseases drain your attributes and should be cured as soon as possible. One particularly notable and somewhat unique disease is Porphyric Hemophilia, which will turn your character into a vampire three days after contracting it. Multiple disease effects will stack together. Although beggars carry diseases, they will only infect the player when attacked. This is rare however, given that all beggars have low aggression and therefore tend to flee instead of fight. Also note that diseases cannot be spread by the player.

The following table lists each disease, its symptoms, and the creatures or beggars that spread it.

Name	Effect	Carriers
Astral Vapors	Damage Magicka 15pts, Stunted Magicka, Weakness to Magic 25%	Dread Zombies
Ataxia	Drain Strength 5pts, Drain Agility 5pts	Zombies, Imus the Dull, FimmionSI, BolwingSI, BhishaSI
Black-Heart Blight	Drain Strength 10pts, Drain Endurance 10pts	Headless Zombies, Fralav the Faker
Blood lung [sic]	Drain Endurance 5pts	Rats, Rancid Ra'dirsha
Bone Break Fever	Drain Strength 5pts	Rats, Foul Fagus
BrainRot [sic]*	Drain Strength** 5pts	Rats, Nigidius the Needy
Brown Rot	Drain Strength 5pts, Drain Personality 5pts	Zombies, Penniless Olvus
Cannibal's PrionMR	Drain Agility 20pts, Drain Intelligence 20pts	Consuming Msirae Faythung's Beating HeartMR
Chanthrax Blight	Drain Agility 10pts, Drain Speed 10pts	Boars, Headless Zombies
Chills	Drain Intelligence 10pts, Drain Agility 10pts, Drain Willpower 10pts	Headless Zombies, Cosmus the Cheat
Collywobbles	Drain Strength 10pts, Drain Endurance 10pts, Drain Speed 10pts	Headless Zombies, Wretched Aia, No-Coins Draninus
Dampworm	Drain Speed 5pts	Deer, Zombies
Droops	Drain Agility 5pts	Sheep, Zombies
Elytra Hatchling diseaseSI	Drain Fatigue 50pts	Not in game
Feeble Limb	Drain Strength 5pts	Rats
Greenspore	Drain Personality 10pts	Slaughterfish, Zombies
Helljoint	Drain Agility 5pts, Drain Speed 5pts	Wolves, Zombies, Simplicia the Slow
Porphyric Hemophilia	Drain Fatigue 5pts, Vampirism (after a three day incubation period)	Vampires, Beating HeartMR, the Darkness Eternal quest
Rattles	Drain Agility 10pts, Drain Willpower 10pts	Headless Zombies, Fetid Jofnhild
Red Rage	Drain Strength 5pts, Drain Willpower 5pts	Rats, Nigidius the Needy
Rockjoint	Drain Agility 10pts	Zombies, Bruccius the Orphan
Rust Chancre	Drain Personality 5pts, Drain Speed 5pts	Zombies, Jorck the Outcast
Scalon BlightSI	Drain Endurance 3pts, Weakness to Fire 25pts, Weakness to Frost 25pts	Scalon BrutesSI
Scalon FeverSI	Drain Endurance 2pts, Weakness to Frost 25pts	Diseased ScalonsSI
Scalon SunburnSI	Drain Endurance 4pts, Weakness to Magic 25pts	Hulking ScalonsSI
Serpiginous Dementia	Drain Intelligence 10pts, Drain Personality 10pts, Drain Willpower 5pts	Headless Zombies, Luckless Lucina
Shakes	Drain Agility 5pts	Rats, Foul Fagus
Swamp Fever	Drain Strength 10pts, Drain Endurance 10pts	BaliwogsSI, Mudcrabs, Headless Zombies, Lazy Kaslowyn, Ragbag Buntara
Ticklebritch	Drain Endurance 5pts, Drain Personality 15pts	A hoe in Sundercliff Mines, if Mehrunes' Razor is installed
Tunnel CoughMR	Drain Sneak 15pts	Laborers in Sundercliff Watch
Witbane	Drain Intelligence 5pts	Dogs, Zombies
Wither	Drain Strength 5pts, Drain Endurance 10pts	Mountain Lions, Headless Zombies, Nermus the Mooch
Witless Pox	Drain Intelligence 5pts	Rats, Rancid Ra'dirsha
Yellow Tick	Drain Strength 5pts, Drain Speed 10pts	Black Bears, Brown Bears, Headless Zombies, Puny Ancus, Deeh the Scalawag

* BrainRot is spelled without a space, despite being two words.

• The Unofficial Oblivion Patch fixes this bug.

** Judging by its name, BrainRot was probably intended to Drain Intelligence instead.

• The Unofficial Oblivion Patch fixes this bug.

• Characters with Resist Disease abilities are less likely to be infected.
• Astral Vapors ignores disease resistance. Therefore, characters with 100% Resist Disease and 100% Resist Magic (eliminating the possibility that a Weakness to Disease effect could be added) can still be infected with Astral Vapors.
  • The Unofficial Oblivion Patch fixes this bug.
• Similar to Astral Vapors, Porphyric Hemophilia ignores disease resistance as well.
  • Unlike Astral Vapors' disease resistance, this is not a bug. Rather, it is a feature - one introduced in the 1.1.511 patch, possibly so that Vicente Valtieri would be certain to give the player vampirism in Darkness Eternal.
• Black-Heart Blight and Chanthrax Blight are watered down, common disease variants of the Blight diseases of the same name in Morrowind.
• Ticklebritch is present in the game even without Mehrunes' Razor being installed, but is used nowhere in the game world.
• Contracting Ticklebritch from a hoe is likely a lewd joke on the part of the developers ("ho" being a slang term for prostitute). The disease's name alludes to its intended nature as an STD.
• Cannibal's Prion is a reference to prion diseases, lethal diseases that can be spread by cannibalism, or by eating infected cattle. Unlike the disease in the game, real prion diseases have no cure and are uniformly fatal.

Dialogue

If you have a disease, townspeople may say one of the following things to you:

• "You don't look well, my friend. You should seek a healer."
• "Have you been to a Healer recently? Because you don't look so good."
• "Whatever you've got, I don't want it. Head to the Church before you get me sick."
• "Get away from me. I don't want whatever you've got!"
• "Are you well? You look a bit pale."