The Plague Years

The first cases of the Great Plague occurred, in the Empire, in the 351st year of the Emperor in a town called Krakenberg [about seventy years ago]. Krakenberg lay at the Western mouth of the South Pass, one of the routes through the Rockland Mts. Its location made it a primiary way-station for soldiers on their way to and from the battlefields of the Frontier. It was first believed that the Plague was brought to the Empire by soldiers returning from the war with the barbarian hordes. What is odd is that Krakenberg was not the nearest Imperial settlement to the war. Battlekeep, and its surrounding farm communities had returning warriors pass through days or even weeks before Krakenberg had any sick soldiers. Even Thulud and the other port towns on the Minor Ocean should have had ship loads of Plague carrying veterans before any could cross the South Pass. It is this fact alone that caused the medical and spiritual thinkers of the Emeperor’s court to first suspect the Great Plague had origins other than the battlefield.

From Krakenberg the Plague quickly spread to the rest of the Emperor’s lands. Within a week, whole villages in the provinces of Belceberon and Sinciput had been decimated. By the end of Summer, the Great Plague of NOS had spread as far West as the town of Tannis. The Imperial City had lost over one hundred thousand, and the count was climbing. Much of the Imperial coffers were dedicated to finding a cure, for in the first week of Fall, 351, it was announced that Emperor Vargas himself had taken ill.

It was shortly after the Emperor became sick that the city of Menhaden sealed itself from the rest of the world to keep out the Plague. Tariel Lang, the governor of the province of Menhaden saw the situation in the Capital as his chance to break from the Empire. It was on the festival of Olt och Sim, 351, that the fortress city of Menhaden closed its doors and waited for the seige.

The Emperor was outraged at the news but he ignored his councilor’s urgings to fund a war to retake the rebellious House of Lang. Vargas was sick, his Empire was sick, he knew that the only hope lay in finding a cure. The army was ordered to abandon the Frontier, leaving only garrisons to guard the Western side of the Rockland Mts. The Southern fleet was called home to port, with just a handful of ships to watch for the Confederate longboats. All efforts were chanelled into the Cure.

By Burholt 352, the Great Plague had spread to every corner of the Empire and Emeperor Vargas was dead. His younger brother, Edlin took the throne, but succumbed to the Plague after only forty days wearing the crown. His first decree however, was war on Menhaden. He died before seeing his army finally decimated outside the walls of Lang’s fortress city.

In the Summer of 352, under the influence of Ney, the Plague altered. Hundreds still died every day across the Empire, but it changed how it worked. Some would die within a few days of their symptoms, but some people and even animals went through horrible, painful transformations. Many of these victims died as well, but too many survived. Even plants displayed the large blisters and callous warts that typified the Great Plague.

After Eldin died, the only member of the family old enough to rule was Vargas’ widow, Tamora. The Inner Council objected of course, but Empress Tamora was healthy and many on the Council were not. After a year of study and prayer and dabbling with their alchemies imperial scientists were no closer to the Cure. Rumours that the Imperial City had discovered a cure for the Plague caused a huge influx of pilgrims. They came from the four corners of the Empire to get the Cure, but found none to be given. Riots rocked the capital for months. Empress Tamora had no choice but to take valuable resources away from the doctors to keep the peace across Tawdic City. The ignorant masses caused their own misery to the prolonged without even knowing it. In one such riot, the Imperial Palace was assaulted and the Empress slain. Martial conditions in the Capital became strict and fierce.

The Winter of 352 was extremely harsh and the death rate, which had been declining, exploded. Tor’jadin, the capital of the province Sinciput, was completely exterminated. The beautiful city lay empty, devoid of al life. It was the following Spring, 353, two years after the Plague began that the Empire was first exposed to the fae races. After the assassination of Tamora, the Inner Council appointed Senator Grax of Charkon to the throne. A vicious, narrow minded man, he saw the Fey as a threat to Humanity and declared that being non-Human was a crime punishable by death. He, and many others saw the Fey, and their alien ways as a blasphemy against NOS and felt they had to be destroyed. The Primus did not agree with the new emperor’s views and tried to convince Charkon to rescind the law, that the Fey were just other Aspects of Humanity. Charkon was not convinced even after the Tor’jadin Revolt (Five hundred of Charkons’s soldiers were sent to Tor’jadin to pass the Emperor’s sentence on the Fey. They were met by armed resistance, both physical and magical. A week after the fighting began, twenty members of the Order of the Talon were sent by the Primus with instructions to capture or destroy the Emperor’s men and help protect the city from any of Cahrkons’ further insults to the Fey. ) Charkon was not fully convinced of his error until his death when the Order of the Talon, lead by one of the Primus’ Archprimes, took one last stab at changing his mind in 354.

After Emperor Charkon’s removal from the throne, the Inner Council could not agree upon which among them should become the new Emperor. For nearly a year they argued about who should lead and finally agreed that in the season of Ney, 355, they would convene in the Great Hall of the Imperial Palace and settle the matter once and for all. The Inner Council members went their separate ways to work on building their powerbases and garner supporters. Only one man went to Tor’jadin to seek support and he became the new Emperor. Council Corvass Zardrouin had fallen ill shortly after Charkon’s death and slipped into a coma. His family feared it was a new symptom of the Plague (and no one to this day can say for sure that it was not) but one day he suddenly awoke fully recovered but changed. He saw things in the world around him. Th world and the things in it seemed to be giving off strange energies. When the challenge of the Council was made he sought out the Fey to see if they could explain his new sight.

They explained to him that for some reason, he had become Aware and was seeing the magical energy of the Elements. In exchange for their help to become the new Emperor, he promised the Fey of Tor’jadin that their city would never be claimed or attacked by the Empire. Corvass returned to the Capital armed with the only weapons he new his opponents would not have: magic and the support of the Fey. Corvass Zardrouin was soon crowned Emperor Medaka IV, of House Zardrouin. He kept his word and signed a treaty with the Fey of Tor’jadin, granting that city and all lands within two days’ ride of the gates to its’ inhabitants to rule as they see fit, so long as they want it.

Many other inhabitants of the Empire began exibiting signs of Awareness about the same time as Emperor Medaka IV had and in order to see the magical power of the Human race and the Empire grow (and keep it regulated) Medaka IV founded the Imperial College of Wizards and Alchemists. At first, under Medaka IV, the College was fully funded by the imperial coffers. When he died of the Plague in 357, however his successor Emperor Sidram III, began charging tuition to the members of the College. Many of the original were now powerful mages by this time and were teaching at the College. They did not object to the added resources they would now have for their research, though many of the younger students attempted a rebellion against the idea of tuition, but the Emperor’s soldiers, backed by combat wizards put an end to that.

The Year of Our Emperor 358 brought an end to the Great Plague of NOS. No one in the Empire, or elsewhere, had developed a cure for it (not even the new magic seemed to be able to do that.) It simply went away. The last person reported to have died of the Plague was Beljar Howvardyu, a minstrel in the Port of Thulud. Even without the decimating Plague the empire had much to worry about.