Pox Echo

The surface races of the world had experiences many diseases throughout their history leading up to the Pox Echo. But none of them devastated the population like the Pox Echo. Spreading at a time when population was at a high it killed over half the population.

We now know that the Pox Echo was an a disease intentionally spread from the lith races of the Hollow to cripple the sol races of the surface.

## Timeline

* **905 A.B. - First Victims:** The first victim, a sea merchant, comes home to his wife experiencing strange verbal ticks and extreme shakiness. The following day his pupils have gone glassy white and is blind as his wife begins to show similar signs. Within a few days they are both dead. In 905 four more people would die of similar symptoms. By 906 A.B. it grew to hundreds. Newly improved transportation methods would accelerate the spread of the disease at a historic pace.
* **907 A.B. - Death Ships:** Ships carrying death and diseasebegin arriving in the world's ports as a disease that had been silently spreading for centuries had finally mutated and spread through the trading ports of the world.
	+ Due to the strange nature of the disease causing its victims to repeat their final action over and over many of the ships crashed into the shores allowing the disease to spread inland.
* **908 A.B. - Cities Abandoned:** As deaths turned from hundreds to thousands the upper class begin to flee the larger cities of the surface. With no scientific knowledge of disease or bacteria the church accuses refugees from the Hollow and any other group they deem undesirable. A large percentage of the population thinks this is the end of the world.
* **909 A.B. - The Great Mortality:** Many people turn to religion and the church to save them as society begins to breakdown. As people die in each others arms they began to grow pessimistic and lose the will to rebuild. The most devastated places of the world begin to grow exhausted by the deaths and the sorrow caused by the pestilence.
* **910 A.B. - Labor Shortages:** Within five years of the first recorded outbreak of the pox, the populations of the most heavily affected areas of the world:
	+ Cazimor, Homelands of the *Dirigidale Roden and Dwarven Deepbrow Kingdom*
	+ Western Asora, Port cities of the *Laurandi Astrada*
	+ Velar, Settlements of the *Riverland Roden*
	+ South-east Etica, City-state of the *Kelwin Ursadar*
	+ The Deepgrowth, the entirety of the *Noko'qorra Garden*, vast empire of the *No'qi*.

With a large part of the labor force, a key aspect of pre-industrial Boreal society, the ruling class were forced to turn to those they before deemed unfit for work. Soon minorities within the many races of the world, including women, were able to take a more important role in the workplace.

* **912 A.B. - Peasant's Revolt:** As the survivors of the first wave of the pox begin to move into the empty homes and territories of the dead the weakened monarchy and ruling powers go to extreme lengths to hoard this empty land for themselves. Though the peasants come within a breath of defeating the great monarchies entirely they are overall defeated, but not before taking large areas of territory for themselves on the outskirts of the kingdoms. These new settlements would fracture the large kingdoms of the monarchies into warring city-states that would set the groundwork for the great wars later in the age.
* **919 A.B. - Coward's War:** By 918 the Pox Echo had begun to spring up again killing thousands of people, the peasants of the kingdoms called to their clerics for healing and aid but their pleas fell on deaf ears. The clerics, seeing the horrors and danger of the previous outbreak of pox, abandoned their flock in their time of need and outrage again swept through the kingdoms.
	+ Many of the best members of the church died to disease and war during this period, leading to a decline in power for the church, giving rise to the scientific and industrial revolutions to come.
* **921 A.B. - Hollow Men:** Looking to escape the death of the pox, pilgrims venture into the depths of the Hollow seeking sanctuary from the pestilence, most of them only finding death.
* **946 A.B. - Second Wave:** After almost nearly a decade since the last reported death to the Pox Echo it retruned with a vengeance. This time mostly sweeping over the desert kingdoms of the Asora continent, notable killing Queen Prtega, among thousands of other astradi. This would lead to the Queen's son to activate Nimba Nora, a great abjuration shield that shut off Keovrone from disease and the outside world for centuries. This second wave of pox would go on to kill until it finally faded away sometime in the 1100's.
* **1224 A.B. - Third Wave:** After over a century without a report case of Pox Echo many of the great minds of the world thought it to be finally eradicated. Soon people began to forget the stories their grandparents told of the great disease that had ruled their world for so long and cities grew larger and reckless with their population and standard of hygiene. Eventually the pox struck, this time sweeping through all three of the major continents, killing of one-third of the population in its wake. Despite this brutal initial wave, the disease would grow mild over the next century, only appearing every now and then in small towns that were quickly quarantined.
* **1391 A.B. - Panacea:**  A roden military doctor by the name of Dr. Pan Fleming, neither surgeon nor physician, discovers the miracle drug panacea, which helps eradicate diseases like gangrene and final puts an end to the Pox Echo. Taking time to treat his son before treating himself, he would become one of the last well-known victims of the disease before his own discover finally put an end to the terrible disease. Panacea, easy to make and distribute, is spread to every corner of the world within a few years, giving aid to a ravaged people right before darkness overwhelmed them again.