The Elven Plague

Also known as the ‘magic plague’, ‘sorcerer sickness’ and ‘mage rot’ the elven plague is a disasterous affliction of catastrophic proportions which wiped out the entirety of the Elven race, a popultion of hundred of thousands, in a matter of days. Not much is known about the plague aside from it suposingly being magical in origin. There is little documentation or accounts. Most believe that the elves who were constructing their massive underground Elven Undercity were using increasingly more exotic magic spell to expand quicker. Leading to massive amounts of magic output from using spells that were not properly researched or constructed, and as a result something in the spell went wrong in a form of Mana Recoil and the spell began to eat the magic of it’s casters, which for elves made up their very soul, causing them to waste away. Then horrifically the recoil began to jump from one person to another becoming a disease that spread across all of the interconnected tunnels of the Elven Undercity.   It’s said that the elves afflicted soon realised that hope was quickly fading and chose to seal off themselves from the surface world, by collapsing all of the vaults doors leading to and from the surface. Choosing to protect the other races and prevent the disease from reaching them but sacrificing temselves in the process. Within a matter of months all signs of life from the elves were gone.   it took fifty years for the city to be reopened by kith forces, mostly comprised of knights from the The Royal Guard and wandering scribes from the The Church of Tarn and when it was the remains of the elves were found scattered all over the city. The elves seem to have dies where they dropped with no rhyme nor reason to how the elves were found, aside from a mass at the vault gates there was little to indicate that the elves had organised themselves en masse alluding to the speed in which the disease took hold. The scribes present described them in notes as 'shrivelled in texture Like old fruit with deep brain-like craggles across the skin. They were dry to the touch and a dark powdery ash transferred from them when disturbed." The dead elves were then collected where possible and ushered into designated chambers and marked with a special symbol resembling an elven ear shape with a slash through it. After numerous expeditions into the undercity it seemed that the plague was not contractable from the elves or had died out when the elves did. This did not sow enough confidence to allow the general public to access the undercity but gave rise to opportunity and over time it was repurposed into homes for the Kith of Gand and eventually the Elven Network Trade Route .  

Lasting Effects

Ultimately the plague wiped out the entirety of Gand's' elven population without harming a single Orc or Kith, the illness however damaged the kith population in a drastic way; paranoia. The horror of the catastrophic event led to concerns around all magic-use and sorcerers became seen less as individuals and more as plague-spreaders waiting to materialise. Stronger legal restrictions were imposed on magic-users eventually culminating to their complete legal restrictions and persecution. This paranoia also gave rise to the Brotherhood of Tarn a new anti-magic sect that deviated from the teaching of the Church of Tarn. The kith were able to build in and around the structures ta the elves left and the establishment ofthe trade network wold usher in the rapid expansion of the kith influence. It's people however are strictly forbidden from interacting with and accessing the structures below the surface for fear that the plague is still down there, waiting to spread.