Blood Plague

In 588AS a terrible highly infectious plague spread throughout the Mainland, known as the **Great Pestilence** or by its well known title the **Blood Plague**.

### Symptoms

The severity of the plague was so mild in the first few months that it often lead individuals to assume what they had was nothing more than a mild cough or cold. Initial Symptoms were headaches, freckle-like spots and rashes, painful aching joints. After a few months, people that had the above symptoms all developed new symptoms with him a week of eachother, including a high temperature, nausea and vomiting and a general feeling of malaise.

It is at this point that most realised they had contracted a dangerous sickness as many began to die, but had likely passed it on to others after underestimating their affliction. Coughing up blood followed within 7 days, again, across the whole of the continent. This was followed by acute fever and continuous vomiting or glood by around the fourteenth day. Within two weeks the victim would either die or lose their sanity, turning feral and attacking others around them. Some even had their physical features twisted and morph to resemble horrific, monstrous creatures.

### Spread

Due to its highly contagious nature, the plague spread incredibly quickly, causing people to seek out aid where they could. Many caravans of sick people would travel to Dragonspire, the Tenth City, to seek a cure from The Medicus Church known as Blood Mollification.

### The Tenth City

Dragonspire was an ancient city renowned as the home of a mysterious medical remedy to the **Blood Plague**. Over the years, many desperate travellers ventured into this city in search for this cure, but none returned. The Medicus Church was the fountainhead of blood healing. The church controlled all knowledge on Blood Mollification and all varieties of blood.

The Blood Mollification process was performed by The Medicus Church and the Blood Mages and Clerics that belonged to it. Dragonspire's Blood Mollification was said to have the ability to cure all diseases, and thus it attracted all kind of sickly travellers who seek the miraculous blood. Unfortunately this to lead to its downfall. When the **Blood Plague** spread across the Mainland, most of the afflicted left their homes to travel to the tenth city for the cure. Due to the sheer concentration of sick and dying infected denizens within **Dragonspire**, the plague became entirely unmanageable within the city. It became clear, all be it far too late, that the sick and dying were turning into **monsters**.

During the outbreak, the inhabitants of **Dragonspire** began to riot. They formed large street mobs and pursued those who were infected by the plague, the monsters that now terrorized the city, and trespassers who dared to set foot in the dark streets. Those unfortunate enough to be captured by the mobs of crazed citizens met gruesome ends, often at the stake.

Eventually, in 592AS, The Medicus Church made the decision to close the gates of **Dragonspire**, to prevent the monsters of the plague from escaping into Vari, and to prevent further spread of the terrible plague. This sealing the fate of everyone within its walls.

> "Father abandoned child, wife husband, one brother another; for this illness seemed to strike through the breath and sight. And so they died. Some went mad. None could say if it was the tragedy of death or the plague that was taking the sanity of people. And none could be found to bury the dead for money or friendship. Members of a household brought their dead to a ditch as best they could, without priest, without divine offices, great pits were dug and piled deep with the multitude of dead. And they died by the hundreds both day and night. So many dead. And as soon as those ditches were filled more were dug, and I buried my five children with my own hands. And there were also those who were so sparsely covered with earth that the dogs dragged them forth and devoured many bodies throughout the city. There was no one who wept for any death, for all awaited death. And so many died that all believed it was the end of the world."
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> - An Unsigned Letter sent from Dragonspire days before it was sealed.
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### Outbreak Ends

Two years later, in 594AS after the majority of infected peoples had been locked away inside the now damned city of Dragonspire, the Sanguine Syndicate's Blood Clerics announced that the plague had been brought to an end.