![]() The great hall was packed with followers who bowed down as Adiris entered. It was the sign Adiris had been waiting for. The chamber was bare except for the golden statue of a woman, who stood with outstretched hands, her fingers covered in jewels. Sliding through the gap, she reached a crypt hidden under the sanctuary. When she lit the candles, she noticed a narrow opening at the back. The swelling panic had to be contained, even if by a novice.Īnxious before her first ceremony, Adiris visited the priests' sanctuary chamber. Adiris, having assisted many purification rituals, was the only one able to carry on. It did not take long before they became too weak to perform any kind of ritual. Within months, the priests contracted the disease. Cleansings were being performed daily to answer the demand from outside the high temple walls, where a catastrophic plague had resurfaced. The priests were more and more in need of assistance. She worked herself to the bone each day that followed, fulfilling her duties while taking on new ones, as she aided the priests during purification rituals. Her worries lifted, and the resulting bliss made her feel closer to the Gods than ever. Swinging a censer down the great hypo-style hall, she cast thick black fumes that reached the cold towering stone pillars before dissipating. When she came of age, she attended the high-ranking priests during the yearly worshipping of the sea-goat, the God of Water and Creation. At night, she would pray for a sign that would reveal her purpose. She would tend to the gardens, prepare ceremonial meals, and polish ceremonial incense burners. ![]() To process her shock and sorrow, she held onto the belief that the Gods had a plan for her. When she was five years old, Adiris, the youngest of a family of seven, was left on the brick-red burning steps of the Temple of Purgation at the centre of Babylon. It might be really hard to see anything through that thing.Additional Lore can be found in Tome 7 - Forsaken: The Maiden Guard. It has enjoyed renewed popularity through its integration into popular culture, including the video game Assassin’s Creed and steampunk.Īnd so, in this new year of the plague, with a Halloween like no other in recent memory (trick-or-treating is officially “discouraged” in Toronto in 2020), you’ll find me with my family carving pumpkins, eating our favourite candies, and watching Frankenstein and Dracula, all while wearing my plague doctor costume. Apparently it became the custom for droves of people dressed as plague doctors to fill the streets of Venice on Fat Tuesday to signal the end of Carnival, to remind Christians of the start of the more spartan Lenten season, and to instill a little old-fashioned fear into the population. But the wearing of the plague doctor mask probably started when commedia dell’arte (professional Italian comedy) came into fashion with the character Il Medico della Peste (Plague Doctor). Wearing masks in Venice goes back to at least the 12th century and was a way to play with the rigid societal stratification, so popular that the authorities had to shorten the Carnival season, from six months in its heyday to about six weeks. 1656 – How do I compare?īut the plague doctor mask, just like quarantining, is most associated with Venice, perhaps because of the population’s general fondness for mask-wearing during Carnival. Beak,” a plague doctor in 17th-century Rome, c. Apparently though he had a very good success rate, his remedies relying less on bloodletting and garlic wearing and and more on good hygiene, a healthy diet, and basic public health regimes such as removing infected corpses from the streets. One of the most famous plague doctors in history was Nostradamus, though living during the 16th century in France he would not have worn this outfit (too soon). In addition to taking care of patients (if one could call it that), they took a sort of death census and performed other tasks related to death, including writing wills. Plague doctors carried canes so they could examine patients without touching them (the first instance of mask-wearing and physical distancing?). The tell-tale beak-shaped mask actually originated in Naples in the 17th century, the beak filled with herbs and spices designed to combat noxious smells as well as to prevent infection. What or who exactly was a plague doctor? The profession itself is quite old, certainly going back to the Black Death of the 14th century (when 30-50% of Europeans died) and possibly as far back as the 6th century’s Plague of Justinian (when something like 25% of the Roman Empire’s population died) and likely even earlier. So I decided to be a plague doctor for Halloween this year. ![]()
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