Disease recieved from reading a book...no

[Croak]

Why? No, just no. Diseases don't manifest as thoughts...

[algothi]

Just about anything can be tainted with disease... paper included. You may have heard that paper money which exchanges hands fairly often is an perfect vector for the cold virus.

[Croak]

Originally posted by algothi:

Just about anything can be tainted with disease... paper included. You may have heard that paper money which exchanges hands fairly often is an perfect vector for the cold virus.

"The hero reads a particularly unsettling passage from the tome"
Yep that text fits toxic dust.

[Raxa Roxocta]

Originally posted by Croak90:

Why? No, just no. Diseases don't manifest as thoughts...

Animated slime monsters with skeletons inside them don't exist either. And I've never killed a maggot and had a ruby drop out. Did I just see a gargoyle actually move? OH GOD, WHY IS EVERYTHING 2D!?

Really? The book is what you take issue with? ;)

[Croak]

Originally posted by CrocodileLogic:

Originally posted by Croak90:

Why? No, just no. Diseases don't manifest as thoughts...

Animated slime monsters with skeletons inside them don't exist either. And I've never killed a maggot and had a ruby drop out. Did I just see a gargoyle actually move? OH GOD, WHY IS EVERYTHING 2D!?

Really? The book is what you take issue with? ;)

There's game logic and real logic. If you're too stupid to understand the issue, then kindly go ♥♥♥♥ yourself to death.

[RedHookChris]

@Croak90 Please reconsider your choice of language - and check the steam guidelines for posting.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/262060/discussions/0/528398719797240937/

[Croak]

Originally posted by RedHookChris:

@Croak90 Please reconsider your choice of language - and check the steam guidelines for posting.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/262060/discussions/0/528398719797240937/

Hellish night has left me with little patience for antagonizing morons, so sorry.

[Raxa Roxocta]

Originally posted by Croak90:

Hellish night has left me with little patience for antagonizing morons, so sorry.

I wasn't trying to be antagonizing, so sorry if I offended you. But I'm not a moron either - books having properties that move outside of the normal is a longstanding fantasy trope, and one that I happen to quite like. There's even a TV tropes page about it, 'Tome of Eldritch Lore'. And I do find it strange that... Well, I find it strange that you found it strange, I guess.

No hard feelings, I hope.

[Tailwind]

I hope the Devs read this report thoroughly, no matter how inappropriate they thought words in a post were, and solve it soon.

"Diseases from books" happened to me too. I assume they wanted to solve this issue with the Hound&Corpses patch, which separated Diseases from Quirks.

(If a book is actually an evil tome of illness, the game should mention it, not just things like "unsetting pages" or "a lasting effect".)

[Raxa Roxocta]

Originally posted by watbesh:

(If a book is actually an evil tome of illness, the game should mention it, not just things like "unsetting pages" or "a lasting effect".)

Now that I agree with, anything that increases the flavor of the world and makes it more internally consistent is a step in the right direction.

[pluteus808]

But can we have a little bit more detail as to what disease your hero contracted from that book?

As I recall there are few cases of psychical aliments that are considered "Disease" by game mechanics and some that are hard to clearly specify as either physiological or pshyological in nature. Lethargy for example, is it sickness of mind or body? Yet it is considered "Disease" anyway.

So while catching Black Death from reading an evil book seems a bit silly (though if bacterial endospores were laying dormant among the pages it is possible to get infected this way) there are some illnesses that make sense coming from reading a book.

[Bouncer]

Originally posted by CrocodileLogic:

Originally posted by Croak90:

Why? No, just no. Diseases don't manifest as thoughts...

Animated slime monsters with skeletons inside them don't exist either. And I've never killed a maggot and had a ruby drop out. Did I just see a gargoyle actually move? OH GOD, WHY IS EVERYTHING 2D!?

Really? The book is what you take issue with? ;)

I hate this train of logic. There's basic gameplay elements and a bunch of fantasy enemies, so of course it's totally ok for books to give the Black Plague by just reading them!
No, no, that's not how logic works. Just because it is a game that plays in a fantasy setting don't mean they can just abandon all logic, else we'd probably have seen spiders with machine guns and skeletal samurai unicorn riders by now.

But yeah, as said before, if books are supposed to give diseases, the game shouldn't be saying they got that by just reading something nasty.

[Raxa Roxocta]

Originally posted by Bouncer:

I hate this train of logic. There's basic gameplay elements and a bunch of fantasy enemies, so of course it's totally ok for books to give the Black Plague by just reading them!
No, no, that's not how logic works. Just because it is a game that plays in a fantasy setting don't mean they can just abandon all logic, else we'd probably have seen spiders with machine guns and skeletal samurai unicorn riders by now.

But yeah, as said before, if books are supposed to give diseases, the game shouldn't be saying they got that by just reading something nasty.

Ah, I think we fundamentally differ on how we interpret the game in that regard then. The Darkest Dungeon universe is driven by narrative - you're called by a letter, the hamlet opens up through the reclamation of property deeds, the ruins are chock-full of bookcases and ancient scrolls. And when you take an unexpected critical, the voice-over doesn't shout out 'got hit there, bro!', it's all doom and portent and interesting words, stark reminders of mortality etc. Words are important in this game.

I don't think that 'because it's a video game in a fantasy setting that means we can abandon all logic', what I'm getting at is that the idea of a book in a highly magical universe being able to confer a disease on the reader is no stranger than any of the other well-accepted tropes and ideas used, and would actually fit this game far better than most. Think of games like Neir, where (if I remember correctly) the main disease that runs the plot of the game is the black scrawl, where the affected become empty spaces surrounded by floating glyphs. Books in that universe have a hell of a lot of power. Same in one of the longest-running fantasy series ever, Discworld. Magical books that eat eachother, spells that burrow into your mind just by opening the right page. Hell, it's even the same in the very mythos from which Red Hook drew their name and seemingly their influences for the tone of the game itself, Lovecraft's writings and general mythos. This is a universe where I would expect a book to be able to do more than just give you a bit of info.

I guess what I'm getting at is that in this setting, the idea that a book could confer a disease upon the reader is no more absurd than the idea that the Vestal can call down blades of holy light, and far less absurd than the idea that an encounter with some maggots might net you precious gems (it's not exactly uncommon for games to have separate drop pools for different enemy types based on what they might realistically have on them - not that I think DD needs that). That doesn't mean it's true of every setting, nor should it be. I also understand that, as has been pointed out, the lack of a specific flavor text for the occasion means that it's probably just a small oversight and was never meant to happen. But that doesn't make it an untenable idea by any means.

Sorry, that ran on way too long.

TL;DR The idea of fantasy is more than just orcs and elves, it's whatever the creators of the world want it to be. Writing and words are important in this game, and in the inspiration for it. A book being able to corrupt the body is not a radical idea in this genre, it's merely slightly unusual. And if we can and do overlook elements that exist because of the format of the work (it's a videogame, items and 2D etc), I don't see why we have to be up in arms about the inclusion of something only slightly unusual.

[Tailwind]

Originally posted by pluteus808:

But can we have a little bit more detail as to what disease your hero contracted from that book?

As I recall there are few cases of psychical aliments that are considered "Disease" by game mechanics and some that are hard to clearly specify as either physiological or pshyological in nature. Lethargy for example, is it sickness of mind or body? Yet it is considered "Disease" anyway.

So while catching Black Death from reading an evil book seems a bit silly (though if bacterial endospores were laying dormant among the pages it is possible to get infected this way) there are some illnesses that make sense coming from reading a book.

If I remember correctly, my Bounty Hunter got The Runs, from a pile of books, not a bookshelf.

I found Diseases called "Vampiric Spirits" and "Ennui". Those are more of mental illness, so they can be in the books and/or scrolls, I guess.

[Goose Whimsey, PhD]

Getting weird, random ass effects from loot or interacting with objects is really the ONLY aspect of a rougelike the game currently has, as well as creating some humour.