[RPG] How to you undo a Slaad infection

character-deathdiseasednd-5emonsters

Both the Red Slaad and the Blue Slaad's Claw attacks have an ability that, if they hit and the target is a humanoid that fails a Constitution saving throw, infects the target with a disease.

For instance, the description of the Red Slaad's Claw attack says, in part (MM, p. 276):

[…] If the target is a humanoid, it must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or be infected with a disease—a minuscule slaad egg.

A humanoid host can carry only one slaad egg to term at a time. Over three months, the egg moves to the chest cavity, gestates, and forms a slaad tadpole. In the 24-hour period before giving birth, the host starts to feel unwell, its speed is halved, and it has disadvantage on attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws. At birth, the tadpole chews its way through vital organs and out of the host's chest in 1 round, killing the host in the process.

(Yeah, its Alien.)

How could this tadpole disease be cured before the tadpole emerges?
Is the disease magical?
After the tadpole emerges, how could the host be revived?

Likewise, the description of the Blue Slaad's Claw attack says, in part (MM, p. 276):

If the target is a humanoid, it must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or be infected with a disease called chaos phage. While infected, the target can't regain hit points, and its hit point maximum is reduced by 10 (3d6) every 24 hours. If the disease reduces the target's hit point maximum to 0, the target instantly transforms into a red slaad or, if it has the ability to cast spells of 3rd level or higher, a green slaad. Only a wish spell can reverse the transformation.

How could this chaos phage disease be cured?
(It's clear that once transformed by a Blue Slaad, only a wish spell would work – the text says so right in the description – so I'm only asking about curing the chaos phage disease before then.)

Best Answer

Prior to chestbursting, any feature which cures disease will work.

The slaad inflicts a disease. Ergo, any effect which cures disease will remedy our issues:

  • The lesser restoration spell
  • The heroes' feast spell
  • The paladin's Lay on Hands feature
  • The wizard's Transmuter Stone
  • The raise dead spell (target must be killed first, which isn't a problem because raise dead)

Reviving the host

If the host is killed by the tadpole from a blue slaad, there are not a lot of options:

If the disease reduces the target's hit point maximum to 0, the target instantly transforms into a red slaad or, if it has the ability to cast spells of 3rd level or higher, a green slaad. Only a wish spell can reverse the transformation.

If the host is killed by a tadpole from a red slaad, any of the usual resurrection methods should work just fine, as the description does not appear to present any unique challenges to such magic. Revivify does specify that it cannot replace missing body parts, but the description of the slaad tadpole does not suggest that any organs are missing, just that the tadpole has eaten its way through them to get out. Sure, your lung has a "slaadpole"-sized hole in it, but that isn't normally a challenge for revivify when the hole was made by a spear.