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.
* BrainRot is spelled without a space, despite being two words.
- PC Only This bug is fixed by the Unofficial Oblivion Patch.
** Judging by its name, BrainRot was probably intended to Drain Intelligence instead.
- PC Only This bug is fixed by the Unofficial Oblivion Patch.
- 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.
- PC Only This bug is fixed by the Unofficial Oblivion Patch.
- Similar to Astral Vapors, Porphyric Hemophilia ignores disease resistance as well.
- 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 Morrowind's Blight Disease
- 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.
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."