Author: stevenattewell

How serious were medieval plagues and how fast did they spread?

We’re talking plagues hitting populations with little understanding of medical hygiene, epidemiology, or public health, it’s as serious as it gets. To give some examples:

  • The Antonine Plague (also known as the Plague of Galen because he witnessed and recorded its effects), which rocked the Roman world between 165 and 180 killed about 5 million people or a third of the population, and made it from Han China to Rome in less than a year. (Incidentally, the plague may have caused serious long-term damage to Roman trade in the Indian Ocean, decreasing world trade between Europe and China for some time).
  • The Plague of Justinian, which hit Europe in 541-2, killed 25-50 million people or 40% of the population. Many historians blame the plague (which was established in 2013 to be Yersinia Pestis or bubonic plague) for the decline of the Byzantine Empire from its heights under Justinian, as the population loss prevented the Byzantines from holding onto Belisarius’ conquests in North Africa, Italy, and Spain.
  • And of course, the undisputed heavyweight champion: the Black Death. One of the worst pandemics ever, the Black Death killed anywhere between 75-200 million people, or 30-60% of the population of Europe. It was so severe that world populations did not recover until the 17th century. Once again working thorugh Yersinia Pestis, the Black Death moved incredibly quickly, as you can see below:

(Credit to Andrei nacu over at Wikipedia)

Just wanted to say, while I’ve enjoyed your responses to the GoT episodes, and I agree that there are some distinct flaws and occasional moments that go beyond willing suspension of disbelief (re: Arya stumbling through Braavos after multiple twisting knives in the gut–even if they missed all her major organs, there’s no way she could do that), I still enjoy the show for its performances, brilliant editing, and glorious production values. For all the absurdities, it’s still a fun show.

I would strongly quibble with brilliant editing – I find the show cuts back and forth way too much and benefits from the rare occasions when it sticks in one place for a length of time. 

But I wouldn’t disagree with the thrust of the comment. The acting is good even if the writing isn’t, and the action sequences are excellent. 

So I got into The Adventure Zone recently…

racefortheironthrone:

And it’s rekindled my love of creating oddball D&D characters. Some characters I’m fiddling around with now:

  • A Shade from the Warhammer Fantasy Dark Elves who got left behind on a raid and is now hiding out pretending to be a “good" elf ranger who works as a guide/scout for adventuring parties…except he’s not very good at pretending. Something about the way that he doesn’t so much live in harmony with nature but cow it into submission, or maybe it’s the suspiciously long canines and his collection of humanoid hunting trophies, or maybe his habit of targeting the most powerful enemies he encounters, killing them, and eating parts of them to gain their strength. My attempt to create an evil character who doesn’t steal from or try to kill party members.
  • An ex-soldier turned philosopher paladin who’s completely uninterested in treasure or glory, but adventures so that he can ask as many different creatures important questions about how one leads a good life, or why war exists, or whether objective moral alignment systems make sense. Totally uninterested in gold or magical items – trying to make the Vow of Poverty work from an RP perspective – but will collect any and all historical and philisophical tomes he encounters. 
  • “Honest” Tomas Rhymer, half-elf rogue/fey pact warlock. Inspired by Moist von Lipwig, he’s a mostly pacifist con artist who got on the wrong side of a powerful Archfey, the Duchess of the Dark Side of the Moon. As a result, his soul has been hidden somewhere in the world and he has a year and a day to get it back…but to make things interesting, he’s been unwillingly declared the Duchess’ judicial champion, so that any spats she gets into with her fellow powerful supernatural beings means he gets unexpectly attacked by horrible monsters to settle the dispute. If he wins the fight, the Duchess sometimes sends him a clue as to where his soul might be…

If you like Tomas Rhymer, I’ve started blogging his adventures! 

It’s weird that Aegon II is considered the victor of the Dance of Dragons (e.g. he’s listed as the 6th king, Stannis considers Rhaenyra a traitor, and it reinforces the idea that the Iron Throne can never go to a woman) when (1) Rhaenyra’s army won and (2) the succession actually ended up going through Rhaenyra, and not at all through Aegon II.

In the heat of debate over Rhaenrya, people keep forgetting that Aegon III was the son of Daemon Targaryen, younger brother of Viserys I, uncle of Aegon II, and son of Baelon Targaryen the chosen line of descent by the Great Council of 101. Since Aegon’s sons were dead by the end of the Dance, under the legal precedent that he himself had based his claim to the throne on, his rightful heir became the eldest surviving son of his brother (yes, Daemon died at the Godseye, but the principle that the heir of the heir inherits had also been established at 101). 

It was a lucky accident that the Dance ended in such a way that both sides could think they had won: the blacks could be happy that Aegon II was dead and that Aegon III was king, but the greens could console themselves that the legal principle of Salic Law from the Great Council had been upheld. After all, if the Dance had established that women could inherit, Aegon II had a daughter left alive (who was carefully betrothed to Aegon III to prevent that sort of thing causing trouble), and Daemon had two daughters who were older than Aegon III. (While we’re at it, it is interesting that GRRM has the Dance wipe out all three of the “strong” Velaryon boys so that Aegon would be the one to inherit)

At the end of the day, then, I think it calls into question how much those victorious armies were Rhaenrya’s, if they were so cheerfully willing to strike her name from the roll of monarchs (which was probably all to their advantage, given how hated Rhaenrya was after her brutal occupation of King’s Landing led to the storming of the Dragonpit) and abandon the cause she had given her life for, or whether by that point they were fighting for vengeance and to overthrow the green faction and replace them in the halls of power. 

If we’re talking aquatic wights (specifically oceanic), the only legitimate example I can think of would be Patchface, right? It lends a sort of irony that the two arguable examples of Drowned God-esque magic — Patchface and Euron’s incoming sacrifie — are done by/to non-believers.

Patchface certainly counts. 

As for the believer/non-believer thing, I think it depends on how you view “gods.” Are they entities for whom worship is food, or are they entities at a scale so large that our worship doesn’t really concern them? If the Drowned God follows Cthulhu in any way, it’s the latter. 

So it doesn’t really matter whether Patchface was a believer or not, he gazed upon the face of the Drowned God and for a merest fraction of a second made eye contact with it, and the psychic force of that brush with divinity broke his mind into a kaleidoscope (collidoscope?), turned him into a prophet, and then brought him back from the dead.