Author Guidelines

(All information here is present at the right of the screen while writing a thread.)

The inspiration of this story is the game Plague Inc. albeit with a less lethal outcome. The basic format I'm sticking to is:

Stage 1: The first hosts are infected, the world is unaware of the threat. Level 1 upgrades become available.

Stage 2: A significant portion of the populace is infected, the world is actively and aggressively combating the threat. Level 2 upgrades become available.

Stage 3: Most of the populace is infected with only a few pockets of resistance, the world is fighting and losing to the threat. Level 3 upgrades become available.

And if you feel like it:

Stage 4: Either the pathogen or the "survivors" have effectively won at this point, this is essentially an epilogue.

All four levels are at the exclusion of the others, meaning once a plague moves from Stage 1 to Stage 2 it can no longer evolve Level 1 upgrades since it has moved on to Level 2. There's no in-universe explanation for this it just helps streamline the evolution process.

My intention was to set the intro up in as open a way as possible, so that the story could be applied to any universe (DC, Marvel, Resident Evil... you could even set up a Pokémon story if you felt like it). I'm open to whatever, these are just some guidelines I started with.

POV for the story: 3rd person omniscient (he, she, it, they, them, etc...).