With the recent super spreader Corrupted Blood 2.0 event that just occurred on Moon Guard.
What are your thoughts on how disease and illnesses are handled in this setting? What practices do you think exist and or have changed due to various events in the setting?
For example, my partner is from Hong Kong and we went to visit a few years ago, it was pre-COVID but post SARS. One thing that I saw was that a lot of restaurants would bring you pitchers of warm tea and bowls. The idea is that you would disinfect your plates and cups with it. Everyone told me that they don’t think rinsing your plates and cups in lukewarm tea water will prevent you from getting SARS but it became the new common practice in a lot of spots around the city.
So with that in mind, you can’t help but wonder how some major events in the setting could have caused social and cultural changes. The easiest to come to mind is the rise of the Lich King and the fall of Lordaeron, do people cremate the dead now to avoid another Necromancer from raising an army of the dead? Is there added scrutiny now on inspecting food shipments moving in and out of major hubs.
Then we have the near Genesaur attack on Stormwind, do mages now Arcane cleanse themselves after visiting far flung weird places to avoid spreading unknown invasion creatures and magic?
Do we have whole sects of priests, shamans and other healers who’s whole job is to monitor for disease and illness outbreak? Especially in a magically charged setting like Azeroth? All it takes is an loa to spread a corrupting blood disease to decimate your empire. Anyway, this kinda stuff is always fun to muse about. It’s not the most exciting sorta topics but you can’t help but imagine there’s some probably really unique and nuance practices amongst the different people around Azeroth.
It’s medieval fantasy with healing magic, so you know no one is washing their hands. I mean let’s be really honest here, even Silvermoon is probably really smelly and an level of dirty that would be uncomfortable by modern standards.
Sorry mate, took me a hot second to get my head in the game for this.
Let’s tackle the most common source of wide-spread disease, the bowel movement and getting that waste as faaaaaaaaaaar away from the ones that made it as possible!
I imagine it has been a struggle. Some races/factions have strong physiologies that likely come with strong immune systems, others are literally dripping in magic, others have great technological or engineering prowess and a willingness to use it.
And yet, we’ve been through dozens of ‘End of the World’ situtions in the past decade and change in-universe, we’ve had our Mega-Faction economies collapse into a pile of dust, blood and tears, so I imagine a lot of the old systems either got broken badly or simply got folded like laundry and never truly recovered.
I imagine Humans quickly adopted the old medieval method of carting their waste out of their cities and towns to suitable disposal grounds, be it old 'spent' fields and abandoned mines where the waste can be dumped, covered up and left to either enrich the soil or be consumed by time, any potential disease or vermin that could be drawn or spread from the waste can spend itself far away from the community.
As they advanced, however, and made contact with Gnomes, Dwarves and High Elves, I rather imagine they quickly adopted the whole indoor plumbing situation and especially Stormwind likely uses piping to pull seawater into the city to fill the canals, and then uses that same flow of water to pipe wastes out of the city and then likely releases the waste water deep into the ocean, after being dealt with by a somewhat-magical version of a treatment plant where solid wastes are separated and burned and the liquid that remains is cleansed somewhat.
Ironforge and Shadowforge probably just tosses theirs into the magma and moves on with their day. Outside of Ironforge, we’re probably looking at more of the same waste-carting out into the fields and forests, especially since Dwarven lands are, traditionally, not the most fertile lands and even if Human(oid) waste isn’t the best thing for a field, it is still something that can be used to enrich the soil. Even if it wouldn’t be safe to use on their farmlands, enriching the forests they need for lumber only makes sense as Dwarves are longer-lived than Humans and would be well aware they need to maintain and sustain the lumber that fuels their forges, reinforces their mines and forms a significant chunk of their tools and equipment.
Gnomes have indoor plumbing and treatment plants that turn the waste into green power or something. And nobody took them seriously and thought they were talking literal .
Kaldorei probably do the whole carting waste away too, but given their nature-bent, there’s probably a thing with the Druids where young apprentices are given the task of cultivating dung beetles or something to both remind them that even the smallest beings are worthy of respect, and how the cycle of life functions and how dangerous disease can be if allowed to spread unchecked.
Draenei probably had to develop magical methods of either destroying it or rendering it non-viable for diseases, as they had to develop something to eat during their journey across the Great Dark Beyond, aka spaaaaaaaaaaaace, and hydroponics would have fit the bill quite well. And considering that the Botanica raid exists, their original Void ship likely had a similar setup to feed the refugees aboard.
Orcs probably just dug a hole, used it and covered it up. When they founded Orgrimmar, probably just tossed it into the magma below the city or would leave it to dry out in the hot sun in ‘dung fields’, then have the peons move back in again after it was all dried out and ‘safe’ to shovel it back up, mix it with soil and bury it in fields along with waste from their pigs to enrich Durotar’s soil enough to produce food for a nascent nation.
Tauren likely just dug a hole too. But staying in one place for years was foreign to most of them and they likely struggled with what to do for years. The Darkspear likely wrap theirs up, take it out to the deeper parts of the ocean and dump it, where time will erode the wrapping, likely leaves from the tropical plants nearby, and the nightmarish biosphere of the ocean will deal with what is left.
Goblins have indoor plumbing and probably deal with theirs with chemical stews that either kill everything alive in it, or use it to make some sort of methane farm to power their city.
Forsaken don’t poop. Next Question.
Sin’dorei likely use magic to deal with it, considering it crude and beneath their station, so you can imagine just how bad Quel’thalas got when the Sunwell poofed and all of a sudden, arcane magic was both incredibly rare and something you’d kill for, and public sanitation systems were likely one of the first things scavenged for resources to feed the Sin’dorei addiction.
Actual treatment for diseases, we’d probably see the high-tech races like Dwarves, Gnomes, Goblins and Draenei having sanitized napkins, wash-basins and harsh cleaning chemicals,likely ethanol based, to cleanse surfaces and objects in high-traffic area, as ethanol, methylated spirits as they’re more commonly known, will freely evaporate into the air and leave behind little to no residue in exchange for being a highly toxic substance.
Less tech-y species likely use fire for this, likely cleaning tools or utensils in water and then running them over a flame for a few seconds to kill anything left behind, then drying/wiping them down on a rack. You’d probably also see the use of plants like eucalyptus, citrus, lavender and similar to both break down and diminish tainted materials and disinfect services in the house or on tools, and especially when combined with vinegar, and would likely be the go-to for most common folk.
Magic peoples probably don’t have to worry, just every other day, run through the house with the feathered wand and then go about your day.
God, yes, the Eastern Kingdoms is probably stupendously pedantic about the movement of food across borders now, and I would bet money that getting caught slacking off on that specific job gets your whole beaten like it’s a dirty rug by the entire department.
I mean, Orcs traditionally cremate their dead as much to avoid drawing predators as to carry the ashes with them on their travels, and I imagine that tradition lived on to the current day in some form or fashion. Tauren I think cremate their dead? It has been a hot minute since the Tauren heritage questline. Darkspear once practiced ritual cannibalism where they would consume a small portion of the corpse to ‘keep’ their ancestors with them, while the rest of the body would be offered to Bwonsamdi as was his rite as the Loa of Graves. I imagine Goblins don’t really practice any singular form of dealing with their dead, it probably depends upon wealth and personal preference, but I can’t see them using any method that comes with an annual cost like grave taxes or the like.
Humans probably kept burying their dead in Stormwind and Kul’tiras, but any nation that had even glancing contact with the Scourge and the Forsaken probably took to cremating their dead immediately. Likewise, I imagine the Dwarves either cremate their dead and use their ashes in forging of symbolic or deeply personal tools, weapons and armor.
Gnomes likely cremate.
Kaldorei are burial, straight up, bury them under a tree and let nature take its course.
Draenei probably cremated on their Void Ships, but on Draenor, we saw massive mausoleums built to contain their dead and shield the souls of the Draenei from depredation by the Legion, although how this would be possible if the Demons didn’t know where they were is an interesting wrinkle. Did the Legion’s pact with the Eredar affect the Draenei even if they didn’t choose to serve, much as the Orcs that didn’t make a physical pact with the Legion (Frost Wolves, some Mag’har) were still ‘claimed’ mystically by the Legion regardless?
Its funny, as we had a RP event planned that day and I was reading about the spread and that we may have to postpone if Silvermoon was impacted. I was explaining what was happening in-game and hubby said: wait, this is RP you’re talking about, right?
It sounded so story-like!
Back to the question, while healers exist, I believe magical healers are rare. While our characters are all mechanically magically or otherwise inclined, I believe in most towns, villages, healers are mostly folks who have learned herbs and teas, salves. Who know how to set bones.
Not everyone has access to a Priest.
War would bring about new waves of disease as resources diminish, including ingredients for healing supplies.
I believe each village, town or city would have their own procedures for dealing with the sick, whether it be isolating them, quarantining an entire settlement, or what have you.
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beaten like it’s a dirty rug by the entire department.