Plague Maiden
Once a week the Plague Maiden walks the world and the plague spreads from player to player. The infected grow weaker but gain more experience.
Old Polish folk tales speak of a pale woman with a red scarf who brought pestilence upon whole villages with a wave of her scarf. Once a week the Plague Maiden (in game: Morowa Dziewica) appears in Kovloria and infects players, and the plague spreads further from player to player. The infected slowly lose health but get an experience bonus, so some will seek the plague out while others keep well away from carriers.
The current outbreak, the live number of infected players, the top spreaders and the chronicle of past outbreaks are on the Outbreak page.
When the outbreak starts
| Stage | When |
|---|---|
| outbreak | every Wednesday at 20:00 server time |
| announcements | the server announces the outbreak 60, 30, 10 and 1 minute before |
| duration | 120 min |
| the Maiden wanders | every 15 min she vanishes and appears near another town |
Whenever the Maiden moves, the server announces which town she was seen near. Beware: the Maiden is a dangerous boss that attacks everyone nearby, including characters below the infection level, so weaker players should keep their distance. A slain Maiden may drop plague herb. The first infected player of the outbreak becomes patient zero, and the whole world learns their name.
How you catch it
The Maiden infects players standing within 3 squares of her on the same floor and outside a protection zone. On every server check (every 2 seconds) each of them has a 35% chance to catch the plague.
After that the plague spreads on its own. A healthy player who stands right next to a carrier (on an adjacent square, diagonals included) for 3 server checks in a row catches it too. Stepping away for a moment resets the count. Nobody infects anybody inside a protection zone.
Only a character can catch the plague who:
- is at least level 30,
- is not a staff character,
- has not been sick in this outbreak yet (a cured player is immune until it ends).
At most 150 players can be sick at the same time. Once the limit is reached, nobody new gets infected until someone recovers.
What the plague does
| Effect | Value |
|---|---|
| health loss | 2% of maximum health every 6 s |
| lower limit | the plague never takes health below 30% |
| bonus | +30% experience while you are sick |
The plague does not kill and does not affect fights with other players: it gives no protection zone lock and no skulls. Inside a protection zone a carrier does not lose health. Carriers are easy to spot by the poison effect around them, and everyone gets a message when they are infected.
A character that logs out while sick stays sick, but loses no health and infects nobody until the next login. If the outbreak ends while the character is offline, it will be healthy after logging in.
How to get cured
| Way | How |
|---|---|
| plague herb (morowe ziele) | buy it from the NPC Anirad or Beau for 2,000 gp and use it; it only works during an outbreak and only on a sick character, and uses up one herb |
| quarantine | stand for 180 s without a break in a protection zone within 10 squares of any town temple |
| death | the death of the character cures the plague |
| defeating the Maiden | everyone who dealt damage to the Maiden is cured and stays immune until the outbreak ends |
Defeating the Maiden does not end the outbreak: the plague keeps spreading among players until the time is up. When it is, everyone recovers and the server announces a summary: how many players were sick, who was patient zero, who infected the most people and how long the longest chain of infections was. Killing the Maiden also counts as a boss kill for awakening unique items.
In-game command
Type !zaraza to check whether an outbreak is in progress, whether you are sick or immune, how many players you have infected and how much time is left until the outbreak ends or the next one starts. Game messages are shown without Polish characters because the 8.60 client cannot display them.