Mindfire

Mindfire was a disease that affected the brain, leading to a deterioration in intellect and ultimately to stupor.

The term "mindfire" was also sometimes used colloquially to refer to head pain or to psionics.

Acquisition
Mindfire was contracted via inhaling the disease, after which symptoms began to appear about a day later. Air that carried mindfire was said to be warm and to smell like sickness and death.

Mindfire was one of several diseases that could be inflicted using the contagion spell. There were was also a psionic power that could spread mindfire to a victim.

Effects
The disease was named for the experience of feeling that one's brain was burning and feverish, which was the principle symptom of the early stages of the disease. Sufferers at this stage became easily confused in hectic situations like combat and were more susceptible to psychic assaults. As the disease advanced, it ate away at the sufferers' mental competency. They would enter into a stupor if they were injured, and in the latest stages of the disease, mindfire could render the sufferer catatonic.

History
A wizard at Tiru Tel-Quessir in Cormanthyr once accidentally created a magically enhanced strain of mindfire that incubated in one minute and could advance incredibly rapidly. He managed to magically seal the disease inside his lab and alert his brethren before his mind deteriorated, at which point he took his own life.

Noxious gasses in the Great Swamp of Rethild were said to carry mindfire. The disease could also be encountered in the Underdark.

At some point prior to the late 14 century DR, the lich Zzarka created a disease she called "cacklefire" by combining mindfire and cackle fever.