The Plague disease is also often called the Blood Death (due to the massive
expelling of blood by the ill), the Black Death (due to the bruises and blood
beneath the skin) or the Pestilence. The disease itself is shrouded in history.
It killed nearly the entire township of Thevelin (the later
Nyermersys, which was under quarantine)
in 602 b.S. and was only halted from killing more by the
Quepruran Clerics. This plague gave the
town its nickname "City of the Dead".
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Image description. Gruesome scenes from the
deserted Thevelin after the Plague had hit the town.
Image from the game
Mystical Empire,
used with friendly permission, drawn by
Quellion. |
Symptoms.
One of the first symptoms is an inflamed area (some think it a bite from an
insect of some sort) of the body, usually in the neck, armpit or upper inside
thigh. Less than a day after the "bite", victims suffer from high fever and
chills, and become very weak; without treatment the ill may become delirious
(doing irrational things, seeing things and babbling incessantly) and convulse.
Things get worse, however. If the ill continues to not get treatment, they will
begin bleeding from the nose and mouth as well as large unexplained bruises and
blood in their excrements. With this stage of illness, the loss of blood and
exhaustion is believed to be the cause of death.
Others with the Plague will die quicker; they will take on early symptoms such
as swelling and illness, but will quickly develop body aches, a difficulty
breathing and cough blood; this usually signals a death by suffocation as the
lungs become unable to process air.
Effects.
The Plague, if left untreated would kill those affected. This was common in the
early days of the Plague, as healers and surgeons would refuse to treat those
ill for fear of becoming ill themselves. Only the
Quepruran clerics would treat those
that were ill, and that was only in the end of the Plague in the ancient
Thevelin. It takes roughly 3 weeks from notice of the bump to death.
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Image description. The famous Pest Pillar of
Nyermersys.
Picture drawn by
Faugar. |
Cure/Prevention.
The only known cure to the Nyermersys Plague was the knowledge and blessings of
the Quepruran clerics. These people
seemed able to hold the illness off, nearly immune to it themselves, and still
cure others through their faith in the
Silent Goddess. When others feared the ill, the Clerics tried to save those
that were not yet showing symptoms by keeping them away from the Ill and
feeding them constantly, despite the fact that the food the Clerics gave them
were full of fungus and other small plants. Eventually the clerics won out,
though only saving 1500 people out of the 6000 quarantined within the city.
Vector/Cause.
No one seems to know where the Plague came from, or where it went to after the
Plague of Nyermersys. Some believe it a Curse from
Queprur, who only lifted it after she
felt she had done enough. Others think it arose from a terrible accident of a
great mage. Those with a more pastoral knowledge believe it to have risen from
the bites of insects, who they thought seemed to carry the illness themselves.
The most common theory, however, is that filthy
rats carry the disease with them, or at least are the first beasts affected
by the Plague, as the deaths of many rats are
said to have preceeded the breaking out of the Plague in Thevelin. Since then
Queprur, the Goddess of Death, is also
often depicted in rat-form, as the
rats are viewed as the deadly messengers of
the Goddess.
Endemic.
As scholars seem to notice, a second occurence this size such as at the Plague
of Nyermersys has not yet risen, at
least not to their knowledge. Some cases have sprung up in the past centuries
from time to time north of Nyermersys or
in rural areas of Southern Sarvonia, but those affected are quarantined and
either cured by the clerics or die shortly. It seemed only specific to the
conditions of Thevelin at that time that it happened so broadly.
