Toxic Bloom

The rash starts small. An itch along the forearm, a blotchy discoloration that could be anything. Then the veins beneath the skin begin to tint green, and a sweet metallic taste settles on the tongue, and the medics start asking uncomfortable questions about where you have been walking.
  Toxic Bloom is a mutagenic disease triggered by exposure to spores, pollen, or sap from genetically unstable or irradiated plant life. When these toxins enter the body, the Infection responds as if attempting to graft plant material into the host's biology, a symbiosis that spirals rapidly and violently out of control. The vascular system transforms into a hybrid network carrying both blood and chlorophyll. Settlers who have seen the late stages have a name for what happens: turning garden-side.
  The disease cannot spread through proximity or touch. It develops internally once the Infection begins integrating plant DNA fragments into the bloodstream, typically after exposure to mutated flora within toxic or irradiated Zones of Mechanics. Handling contaminated plant materials, consuming food grown near mutated vegetation, or making contact with seeds saturated in necrotic energy can all trigger the onset.
  Progression is measured in months, advancing at the end of each attended game or upon entering Bleed Out. Early stages bring skin irritation, distraction, and reduced mental clarity as the body's chemistry shifts. Brews lose half their effectiveness as the changing blood chemistry rejects normal compounds. By the moderate stage, root-like filaments and pulsing green veins become visible beneath the skin, and joints begin to stiffen. The disease offers a strange compensation at this point: Impact skills refresh faster in direct sunlight, as the plant integration begins to draw energy from the light itself. In the severe stage, bark-like growths rupture through the skin. Movement becomes difficult, then impossible. Impact skills shut down entirely, but the body becomes harder to kill; the vegetable matter replacing flesh grants increased resilience even as it suffocates the person inside it.
  Treatment demands dual expertise in both Lore: Nature and Lore: Medical at every stage, from burning spores out of the skin to surgically removing roots and runners to grafting replacement tissue where bark-like growths have replaced flesh. Each stage of treatment is more invasive than the last.
  The terminal stage is quiet. The afflicted ceases moving entirely, body half-merged with the soil or nearby vegetation, still faintly warm to the touch. In some cases, the body continues to sprout after death, putting out leaves and tendrils for days, as if the disease has not noticed its host is gone. The forest does not mourn. It simply absorbs what it has claimed.