Post by Catsmate on Oct 30, 2015 15:25:19 GMT
A quick idea for the weekend.
Eyam is a smallish English village in the Peak District, about 55km south-east of Manchester. In May of 1665 thanks to a shipment of cloth sent from a merchant in London to a local tailor (Alexander Hadfield) there was an outbreak of bubonic plague in the village. It spread from the tailor's household to the rest of the village.
Initially, based on advice from local religious leaders (the rector William Mompesson, and a puritan Minister, Thomas Stanley) the villagers tried to minimise contact with each other, but this proved ineffective. So the village decided to quarantine itself to prevent the spread of the disease. This would last fifteen months and kill at least 273 people, out of perhaps 360.
A system of boundary stones was created around the village’s periphery, about 6-900m from the village; holes were bored into flat rocks and coins soaked in vinegar would be left there to pay for food and other supplies from outside. In turn merchants from the surrounding are would collect the money and leave bundles of meat, grains and other materials in return.
As more and more of the population died the village began to collapse. Roadways started to crumble, untended gardens and fields became overgrown. There weren't sufficient people to tend the crops, so the village was reliant on food supplies from neighbouring towns.
After about fifteen months the plague outbreak burned out; all those susceptible were dead only those with natural immunity or who'd managed to fight off the infection survived.
83 of them.
Game use.
1. It's a bit predictable but a party of time travellers could arrive in the village during the outbreak. What would they do? Historically the village suffered almost 80% dead, do the travellers intervene? Can they? Or do they watch everyone around them die, or leave quickly.
2. Unless of course they can't leave. TARDISes become lost, or buried under convenient building collapses (and there aren't people to dig it out). Pocket sized time machines are stolen. How do the PCs react to being stranded in a dying village?
3. Do they break the quarantine? If so how do the nearby villages react? Is anyone infected?
4. What if the reason for the isolation wasn't something as mundane as Yersinia pestis. Alien disease, infectious parasite, mind controlling vapour... The history of Doctor Who and sci-fi in general has many options. The story Who Goes There? (the inspiration for The Thing) has a similar theme with an isolated base quarantining themselves because of an alien infection.
5. Or has something forced the village to isolate itself while they make use of the villagers? Mind controlled humans concealing a Sontaran research project or Cyberman conversion facility.
Links.
Information and pictures of the village
BBC
The Plague Village
Who Goes There? (full text)
Eyam is a smallish English village in the Peak District, about 55km south-east of Manchester. In May of 1665 thanks to a shipment of cloth sent from a merchant in London to a local tailor (Alexander Hadfield) there was an outbreak of bubonic plague in the village. It spread from the tailor's household to the rest of the village.
Initially, based on advice from local religious leaders (the rector William Mompesson, and a puritan Minister, Thomas Stanley) the villagers tried to minimise contact with each other, but this proved ineffective. So the village decided to quarantine itself to prevent the spread of the disease. This would last fifteen months and kill at least 273 people, out of perhaps 360.
A system of boundary stones was created around the village’s periphery, about 6-900m from the village; holes were bored into flat rocks and coins soaked in vinegar would be left there to pay for food and other supplies from outside. In turn merchants from the surrounding are would collect the money and leave bundles of meat, grains and other materials in return.
As more and more of the population died the village began to collapse. Roadways started to crumble, untended gardens and fields became overgrown. There weren't sufficient people to tend the crops, so the village was reliant on food supplies from neighbouring towns.
After about fifteen months the plague outbreak burned out; all those susceptible were dead only those with natural immunity or who'd managed to fight off the infection survived.
83 of them.
Game use.
1. It's a bit predictable but a party of time travellers could arrive in the village during the outbreak. What would they do? Historically the village suffered almost 80% dead, do the travellers intervene? Can they? Or do they watch everyone around them die, or leave quickly.
2. Unless of course they can't leave. TARDISes become lost, or buried under convenient building collapses (and there aren't people to dig it out). Pocket sized time machines are stolen. How do the PCs react to being stranded in a dying village?
3. Do they break the quarantine? If so how do the nearby villages react? Is anyone infected?
4. What if the reason for the isolation wasn't something as mundane as Yersinia pestis. Alien disease, infectious parasite, mind controlling vapour... The history of Doctor Who and sci-fi in general has many options. The story Who Goes There? (the inspiration for The Thing) has a similar theme with an isolated base quarantining themselves because of an alien infection.
5. Or has something forced the village to isolate itself while they make use of the villagers? Mind controlled humans concealing a Sontaran research project or Cyberman conversion facility.
Links.
Information and pictures of the village
BBC
The Plague Village
Who Goes There? (full text)