The Empire Plague was a terrible disease that ravaged and destabilized southeast Faerûn in the -4th century DR.[1][2] It spread further and faster than any prior disease in Faerûn's history,[2] and so it was sometimes referred to as the continent's first major plague.[3]
Acquisition[]
The disease was spread by rats, and proliferated quickly around the Shining Sea owing to such rats infesting Calishite merchant ships.[2]
Effects[]
The Empire Plague was highly contagious. Plague victims were recognizable by their red and bleeding eyes and by the weeping purple sores on their bodies.[2]
The disease was very dangerous. As many as 3 in 10 people living in Calimshan, the Lake of Steam, Lapaliiya, Tashalar, and some Chultan ports died of the Empire Plague,[2][4] including a third of the population of the city of Calimport. The disease claimed 4 in 10 members of Calimshan's ruling class, including the reigning Syl-pasha, Khalid el Axash, and his heirs.[1][2]
History[]
The plague started in the Year of Clutching Dusk, −375 DR, along the southern coast of the Shining Sea before quickly spreading all around it.[1][2] Within the first year, it had forced people to flee their cities everywhere from Lapaliiya[4] to Calimshan. The death of Syl-pasha Khalid of Calimshan in this first year meant the end of the Axash Dynasty as his cousin, Akkab el Evyrtaan, seized the title of Syl-pasha. His first decree was to set fire to the blighted capital city of Calimport,[1] a place with a long history of incubating plagues.[5] However, the city failed to burn, and so the Syl-pasha was forced to abandon Calimport. By the next year, Calimport had come to be known as the "Rogue's City", and was home mostly to escaped slaves, necromancers, rogues, and Talontar clerics intent on pillaging the city to raise a temple to Talona.[1][4] By this time, Calimshan had already begun to blame Jhaamdath for the plague.[1]
Two years after fleeing plague-stricken Lapaliiya, Lapal refugees founded Lhesper in the Year of Whispering Stones, −373 DR.[4]
The plague ravaged the Shining Sea region for five years. It struck Calimshan's imperial holdings hard, quickly causing their influence in the region to crumble and their control over their colonies in the Lake of Steam to be lost.[1][2] While local rulers across the empire managed to maintain order throughout the plague, many of them began to assert themselves as independent city-states as they restricted trade to keep out any potential plague carriers.[2]
When the disease finally subsided in the Year of Rent Armor, −370 DR, Syl-pasha Akkab el Evyrtaan declared all residents of the Rogue's City to be either plague-carriers or traitors to Calimshan, initiating a bloody purge of Calimport. By the end of the month of Hammer, the only survivors of Rogue's City are those who fled into the undercity.[6]
Even as of the Year of Erupting Crypts, −304 DR, Lapaliiya remained weakened from the outbreak, thus leaving them vulnerable when the yuan-ti of Serpentes decided to declare war on them.[7]
Appendix[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Steven E. Schend (October 1998). Calimport. (TSR, Inc), p. 17. ISBN 0-7869-1238-3.
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 Steven E. Schend, Dale Donovan (September 1998). Empires of the Shining Sea. Edited by Julia Martin. (TSR, Inc.), p. 18. ISBN 0-7869-1237-5.
- ↑ Steven E. Schend (August 1997). “Book One: Tethyr”. In Roger E. Moore ed. Lands of Intrigue (TSR, Inc.), p. 24. ISBN 0-7869-0697-9.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Brian R. James, Ed Greenwood (September 2007). The Grand History of the Realms. Edited by Kim Mohan, Penny Williams. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 47. ISBN 978-0-7869-4731-7.
- ↑ Steven E. Schend (October 1998). Calimport. (TSR, Inc), p. 13. ISBN 0-7869-1238-3.
- ↑ Steven E. Schend (October 1998). Calimport. (TSR, Inc), p. 18. ISBN 0-7869-1238-3.
- ↑ Brian R. James, Ed Greenwood (September 2007). The Grand History of the Realms. Edited by Kim Mohan, Penny Williams. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 50. ISBN 978-0-7869-4731-7.