Sickness

Sickness is a status condition that prevents characters from naturally healing HP until it wears off. Sick characters may also temporarily lose attribute points ("Your disease is taking its toll").

The colour of the word "Sick" gives some indication of how long it will take to wear off (red -> pink -> yellow), at which point it will go away on its own. Sickness heals slower if hungry.

Sources of Sickness

• Being hit by a monster with disease attacks.
• Being hit by a needle of sickness.
• Casting the Haunt spell.
• Drinking a potion of blood without being a vampire or having the Carnivore mutation may cause sickness.
• Eating a contaminated or rotten chunk of meat has a chance of inflicting nausea for most species. This prevents further eating of food unless the character is near starving, at which point eating any kind of food (contaminated or not) may cause sickness instead.

Dealing With Sickness

• Quaffing a potion of curing cures sickness.
• Regeneration will make sickness pass more quickly.
• The Sustain Abilities intrinsic will prevent attribute loss during sickness.
• Kobolds recover from sickness more quickly than other living species.
• Rotting resistance also confers resistance to sickness. All undead species and monsters have rotting resistance, as do nonliving, insubstantial, demonic, and holy creatures.

History

Prior to 0.10, nausea didn't exist, and eating contaminated chunks would drive you straight to sick status.