Black Years' Plague

The Black Years' plague was an infection killing a large number of people on Salan during the Black Years catastrophe of 419-423AH.

Symptoms

The first symptoms of the plague are mild, generally including sneezing and sore throat. The second phase starts withing a week of the initial symptoms: usually the patient has hallucinations, and gets high fever during the next hours from that. The patient loses their appetite and often vomits. The fever and hallucinations can last up to 2-4 weeks. Most deaths are caused by malnutrition and dehydration, but many are also have selfdestructive behaviour and sudden death is also possible.

Affected Groups

At first the Fareans claimed that the disease was only affecting the Zeribians, but that soon turned out not to really be the case.

History

The plague was first detected on the Eastern Islands in the early 5th century. The first clearly recorded incident is when the plague hit Old Moon (City state) in 419 AFS, and killed a large number of the population, including the current king. Many different accounts on the outbreak exist, but it is agreed that the measures taken to prevent the infection were at least partially the cause for the devastating Crescent Eruption of 420 AFS.
One story tells, that the local nobles made a deal with a demon, which angered the local volcano god Sahar. Some tell the people were not respecting Sahar enough, or that ended up killing his devoted follower.
What ever happened, a fact is that the disease spread to unprecedentedly large area after the refugees fleeing from the Eruption brought it with them all around the Eastern Islands. The plague hit Der Fem Island in the spring 421, and coastal cities on the Southern Continent such as Silford became affected during the winter 421-422AH. At the same time volcanic winter caused widespead famine winters 421-423 which lead to general unrest and movement from the countryside into the cities which made the population density even worse and facilitated the spread of the disease.

Cultural Reception

The refugees during the Black Years were generally thought to be cursed.
The elite people fleeing from the Moons were given a new grim name, Šiwke, 'Blacksail'.

Type

Supernatural

Origin

Divine

Cycle

Short-term