[X] Carefully study them for their mysteries
[X] [Main] Study Metal
[X] [Secondary] Study Health
[X] [Secondary] Survey Lands
Study Stars - Valleyhome
Expand Holy Site - Stonepen x2
Expand Economy - Redshore
Stallion Tribes - [Main] New Settlement, [Sec] New Trails, [Sec] Expand Econ
New Spiritual Trait Acquired!
Observance
Through careful study of the world, the will and workings of gods and spirits can be determined and understood.
Pros: Improved use of study actions
Cons: I know it worked this one time...
Stories more myth than anything else said that the lowlands were cursed, and those who lived there were stalked by evil spirits, all too eager to reap the souls of those so foolish as to dwell there. Perhaps there was even some wisdom in the now half-legendary Dead Priests trying to appease such monsters, but by all accounts it had not availed them. The Thunder Horse had sent representatives to the Highlands Kingdom with news that they would be reining in their raids against protected territory and even offered tribute in apology, because honestly they had better things to deal with, like the fact that their 'cousins' who insisted on also calling themselves the Thunder Horse were returning from the hills in the far east...
Only the Highlander king was a little busy being dead while his sons and war chiefs tore each other apart over who got to be the new king.
Awkward.
In any case, the north of the lowlands were relatively peaceful even as the far east and west of the area were torn apart by civil war and a three way brawl between the Thunder Horse, the eastern Thunder Horse, and the Dead Priests going at it.
Relatively.
And then, whatever demons that plagued that place decided that the violence was not sating their bloodlust fast enough and unleashed a curse of the likes that had not been seen since the dread tales of the star pox had swept through there during the Comet Time. Where before the demons had unleashed purulent fevers that maimed and disfigured and killed, now they conjured up a new epidemic to inflict upon those people. Random and swift, it struck without warning, causing people to collapse in agony where just a moment before they had been fine, inflicting upon them a terrible aching of the guts that soon resulted in the violent and explosive voiding of those guts. A person's vital essence could be drained in mere hours, leaving them a shriveled, sunken, blue-skinned corpse.
Given their retrieval of the star fragments, there were many that feared that the People had sinned, had repeated the hubris of the Thunder Horse in mythical ages past, and that disease was coming for them next, and unlike with the star pox they had no protection.
People fled the lowlands, demons of plague and disease howling and snapping like wolves at their heels, tearing down the most vulnerable among them as they tried to make the already parching trip through the badlands. Both people and demons were met with a stern faced wall of men and women in deathly silent crow masks. To those seeking refugee they were given food, water, shelter, and comfort.
To the demons?
They gave nothing and took everything!
AN: Imagine this, only the Persians are replaced by cholera (except for the well part, there mentally run that bit in reverse)
The continual expansion of holy sites had not increased the number of shamans terribly much, but it had increased the number of part time assistants so that those who were truly blessed by the spirits could devote all their time to spiritual matters, and a fire and mania gripped the shamans. They had beat the star pox, and they struggled every season with the other diseases, struggled to keep the number of children buried from four out of six to three out of six. They would not let this new curse enter their lands! Nor would they cower and hide from it, turning the desperate away.
Like warriors they strode out to do battle in the way of the People: they started no fights, but by the gods would they end them with all brutality and swiftness.
Perhaps it was the earlier orders of the king to study the fallen star and metal and how people reacted to various herbs and treatments, perhaps it was the knowledge that the key to defeating the star pox had come from noticing that those who worked with cows caught a lesser version, but they studied the curse like a hunter studies prey or a mason studies a stone for faults to break along. People volunteered to test treatments, and while far too many died - painfully, perhaps needlessly - these were losses against a foe greater than them, and more than one person passed on with a smile on their face as well as pained tears in their eyes - if their death meant the salvation of friends and family, then no matter how hideous it would be a good death. And with the shamans carefully tending to each new case, all confined to Lower Valleyhome, each death did bring some new little scrap of insight.
The curse could not be transmitted through blood, not like star pox.
Simply touching the sick could not get you ill, but improper cleanliness while handling the copious amounts of waste the sick produced could.
Sometimes people got sick for no apparent reason... but the People had a clue from another project. They had been struggling to understand the curses from turning stone to metal, setting aside forests and fields to study the problems, and they had seen a few things. The act of breaking apart a metal from its air could curse the air in obvious and subtle ways, and that which was not metal could mix with water to make poisons that stained the land. One of the major breakthroughs however was that if you filled a pit with the refuse of mining and smelting, you had to line it with waterproof pottery or the poison would seep out over the seasons. Another insight was that while some of the poisons were immediately obvious with the staining colours they produced, sometimes you could dilute out the colour but still detect bitter or sour flavours if you took a careful sip. Might there still be poison left even after further dilution?
So it was that the shamans tracked the disease and noted that so long as those who came fleeing its influence were kept in Lower Valleyhome, there were no cases in Upper Valleyhome. The sickness could not swim upriver. But perhaps it could seep out of the latrines if one was not careful? Increased care with waste handling was obviously needed to prevent the spread of this illness.
And then came a most miraculous breakthrough. Just supplying water was not good enough, it could not reliably save those who were infected, but a daring shaman had discovered a magnificent spell. Water could be purified through exposure to cleansing flame enough to boil, and then the addition of the pure substances of salt and honey created a tonic that could restore the vital essence of an afflicted person, increasing the chances that they might be able to fight off the curse with strength alone.
With purity of spirit and purpose, the shamans fought, and despite the expense, they beat the disease back, they forced the demons to go running from their territory, their prey of refugees and People denied from them by the unbroken line of shamans and volunteers. There was much weeping and lamentation for those lost, but also the elation of realizing victory.
Crow was with them, and his laughter had to echo and burn in the ears of the demons of disease as they fled, their magic spent.
The study of metal production also brought up other concerns: if the rocks brought up from the earth could beget poisons when washed with water, were there other rocks out there that might be similar to the ones deliberately exposed, producing poison? One particularly interesting point was that the most obvious poisons tended to be associated with bright colours - copper had a lot of blues and greens, but some of the waste produced was red or yellow - and foul smells, including some rather rotten egg stenches that were honestly confusing to try to explain. However, in searching the Land for both the possibility of more metal deposits or other places where nature had produced a natural seep, the People discovered a sea facing cliff face where several layers of stone almost seemed to be bleeding. More than that, while not much had been learned from studying the fragments of the fallen star other than that they were incredibly tough, it was noted that some of the stones around the Bleeding Cliff sort of looked like some of the stony bits of the fallen star, or the one red residue they had made in seeing if the fallen star produced poison like other metals.
Perhaps... perhaps a star had fallen here in the past and left a wound in the earth? Maybe metal, being different from other materials, was all derived from the heavens, and the poisons were merely whatever curses were locked away in such disturbance of the celestial order being unleashed? Maybe... maybe not. Hard to tell, but it would probably be worth further study in the future.
In the meantime, the People had the sick to take care of.
How many refugees?
[] No more than usual (Tiny chance of Stability loss)
[] A significant number (-1 Stability, +2 Econ)
[] There is a war going on too you know (-2 Stability, +4-5 Econ)
[] The whole lowlands are kind of a mess, you know? (-3 Stability, +6-8 Econ, other effects)
You have discovered powerful new magic
[] Keep it secret (Chance of Stability loss)
[] Share with friendly groups (Chance of other effects)
[] Share with everyone who will listen (+1 Stability, other effects)
[] Share with even those who don't want to listen (-1 Diplomacy, +1 immediate Stability, chance for additional stability, other effects)
You're somewhat running out of resources to expand Holy Sites, switch?
[] No, keep Spirits
[] Balanced
[] Defence
[] Expansion
[] Megaproject Support
[] Offence
[] Progress
[] Restoration
[] Trade
Special Note: Because of the discovery of needing clean water and large amounts of salt to most effectively fight these sorts of disease, starting the Saltern or the Garden next turn will provide +1 Stability as the People are assured that the king is being proactive in protection against demons
AN: So many perfectly timed crits... The People basically just headbutt one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse into submission
