Townsend Decades Challenge

Playing the Ultimate Decades Challenge by Morbid Gamer in The Sims 3. Featuring: The Townsend family. she/her, 30, German.

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All You Want To Know And More

Why, hello there! Glad you made it to my corner of the internet.

This blog chronicles my current playthrough of Morbid Gamer’s Ultimate Decades Challenge, following a family of sims for many generations from the year 1300 onwards, starting in northern England.

Warning: While I enjoy history and research as I go, this is in no way, shape or form intended to be historically accurate. This is a silly sims challenge first and foremost. I'm here to have fun and hopefully entertain you, though I do throw in historical facts here and there.

Also the usual UDC trigger warnings for upsetting topics such as deaths of all ages for all kinds of reasons, lots of wars and epi- or pandemics, lots of religious themes and also allusions to sexual violence and physical and mental abuse.

More infos under the cut.

Posting Schedule: Wednesday to Sunday, ca. 3 PM UTC +3 CEST

For some 19th century sims, see my other side blog @moonlightfallsdiaries

Current Households:

Townsend Branches | Glennborough | Junior Branches | Nobility (updated per posted year)

Family Tree (spoilers up to 1350)

Navigation:

Chronological | Introduction Post

Recaps:

Recap 1300 - 1309 | Recap 1310 - 1319 | Recap 1320 - 1329 | Recap 1330 - 1339 | Recap 1340 - 1349

By Generation:

Gen 0 | Gen 1 | Gen 2 | Gen 3

By Decade:

1300s | 1310s | 1320 | 1330s | 1340s | 1350s

Links:

Morbid Gamer’s Ultimate Decades Challenge

Plumbob’s and the Past’s UDC

My Mods and CC

If anyone is interested, I could upload my spread sheet as well, but I currently don't have it online.

Some technical details

I’ll be playing this challenge in The Sims 3, which means no Ye Olde Cookbook, Royalty Mod, Simple Living Lot Trait or the like, but I’ve heavily modded my game to achieve a more immersive gameplay.  This challenge will start – but likely not remain in -  the gorgeous custom world of Praaven, which is both medieval and completely roadless.

A link to a post with the mods I use can be found above.

For the most part, I’ll be following the rules defined by Morbid Gamer, with some deviations:

I’ll take some inspiration from Plumbobs and the Past’s ideas to make the challenge a bit more interesting. For example, when my sims go fishing, I’ll have them pay a fee, I’ll deduct 10% of the proceeds for whatever they harvest or sell from household funds, I will use PATP's dowry rules, and probably more.

Instead of starting with three teenagers, I decided to start with two young adults that have already been married for a bit and have two children and a toddler. I had a bit of a story in mind involving the proverbial lady of the house and the local Earl, so I wanted to jump right into the action.

As Sims 3 has no option to plead with the Grim Reaper (although you can play a match of chess with him or be saved by your pet, but you would have to have a pet that likes you for that to work, or both a chess table and enough skill points) I substitute that action with rolling a d4 when a Sim I’d like to live rolls to die. If it’s a 4, they survive.

Since I think it’s boring if most sims (barring historical events) die at exactly 6/13/20/30, I’ll sometimes roll a die to see how many years of life a sim has left. Those years can never be more than the sim would have to live until the next life stage. If, for example, a sim fails their young adult roll, I’ll roll a d10. 10 means the sim dies immediately, 5 means they live to be 25, etc. A teenager or a child, accordingly, can only roll a d7.

Illegitimate children are not automatically out of the running, they just rank after all their legitimate siblings in the succession. So it's legitimate sons, then legitimate daughters, then illegitimate sons, then illegitimate daughters, and after that the nearest-related side household. Rule may be taken liberty with as is dramatically convenient.

For the most part, no re-marriages for side households. The heir, however, can and will remarry as necessary.

I’ll be starting with a family of farmers, the Townsends, but just for the fun of it, I’ll also be rolling for the two resident noble families, that of the Earl of Petersmarch, who resides in the city of Praaven, and that of Baron Elbenhawke, whose family seat is in the hills just above the Townsend’s village. As they are not even proper side households, I’ll only mention the nobles’ fates on the side, mostly as a little info text at the end or mentioned in the story as relevant.

Honestly, I’m just curious about how long their lines will last.

I've taken some heavy inspiration for the layout of this info page from @lilabella12, whose wonderful Decades Challenge you should really go check out.

Trigger Warnings:

Death (even of children, toddlers and infants) due to a plethora of causes

War

Epi- and pandemics,

Maternal death

Stillbirths

Likely at least mentions of miscarriages

Mentions or depictions of various substance abuses

References to sexual assault/coercion

Religion

Adultery

The sims featured in this likely often just won’t have a good time

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Progress Update:

I'm honestly considering just taking all my sims from my current Praaven save and plopping them down in a new one (also in Praaven) because the Error 12s and crashes are driving me insane. It would destroy cross-household family relationships of course (although I'd be able to reset some of that via Advanced MC) and I'd lose some of the changes I made to lots, but in the long run it might be better for my sanity.

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I'm finally playing again and...glad to see my sims aren't the only ones to get into pre-marital shennanigans.

(Translation: "Nobody expected partners Aoife Lennister and Griogair Brophy to get started on family planning so soon, but obviously, fate had other plans...Congratulations to the parents-to-be!")

Especially fun because Aoife is currently working at the castle, and Mariora might just be the only medieval chatelaine who will react to this news by forcing Griogair to marry her instead of having her thrown out in disgrace. I might just have some fun with this.

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1349 – Day 3 – Windermere Castle

At Windermere Castle, a good way south of Praaven, the earl of Windermere’s family suffers its own losses – or, rather, loss. The war in France aside, life had been quiet for them before the arrival of this plague, filled with the anxiety that the earl’s heir, Vincent, who is nearing thirty, has yet to father a child. In five years of marriage, his wife Werena has never shown any sign of pregnancy. At times, his father wonders if Vincent even shares her bed at all. He seems to prefer carousing with his brothers-in-arms to the delights of his wife’s company – or the continuation of the family line.

And then there is his younger son Matthew’s infatuation with that girl from the abbey. While it’s heartening to see at least one of his sons show interest in the fairer sex, a knight’s daughter of unknown family is hardly the match Arnulf Penrith, Earl of Windermere, envisioned for one of his sons.

Not that it matters now. Because the only one to contract and succumb to the plague, the only casualty in the earl’s family – is Matthew. His fate catches up to him that August, before even his Pelham cousins at Elbenhawke Hall suffer the same tragedy, and it is all over within days. The earl isn’t with him at the time – he is with the court, as are his elder son and good-daughter. Only his younger daughters, Alana and Joan, reside with Matthew at the castle, and thankfully, neither of them are afflicted. Lord Windermere himself only learns of his son’s fate via a messenger.

He begs leave from King Edward to go see about the funeral arrangements – plague or not, Matthew was of noble lineage, and deserves to be honoured as such, and sets out to his estates. What he sees en route shocks him. Even with his hard riding, he cannot miss the devastation even a few months of plague have wrought in some area - high streets overgrown by grass, villages standing empty, funeral pyres and huge grave pits en masse, and everywhere the stench of death. He is glad when he reaches Windermere, even for such an occasion as this.

His son’s body is already in a coffin, nailed shut to ensure the disease is trapped with him, a presumption which would have drawn the earl’s ire under different circumstances. But he has no wish to see Matthew’s mutilated body – while as a warrior, he is no stranger to horrid sights, if his son’s earthly remains are anything like the bodies he saw in London and on his travels, he might be better off remembering him as he was before.

The mass itself is simple, and only possible because of his station. Alana and Joan cry all the while, which he would usually curtail, but this time, he lets them – if things continue as they have, he suspects they will grow out of it soon enough.

Previous: 1349, Day 3, Part 5/9 <--> Next: 1349, Day 3, Part 7/9

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1349 – Day 3 – De Bellefaye Household

Catherine de Bellefaye suffers a tragedy eerily similar to that of the Stirlings that quarter. At the time of the deaths of her husband, stepson and daughter-in-law, she had already been heavily pregnant, which had not made the situation any easier on her. And yet, she prayed that the child would live, a living reminder of her husband along with Louise, Isabeau, Adolar and little Andrea, who is still clinging to life. And initially, it seems that she is granted her wish. The baby, a girl, is born right when she should, and appears to be remarkably healthy.

‘Appears’ is sadly the operative word in that sentence. Only a week after little Quiane’s birth, Catherine is awoken by a sorrow-faced maid, and told that the babe passed away during the night. No fever, no distinctive pustules, no purple marks. By all appearances, she simply stopped breathing.

It is nothing that Catherine hasn’t experience before, but when she traces a hand along her tiny daughter’s cold face, her heart, already torn open by losing her husband, breaks apart anyway, and she cannot help her sobs or the tears that burn down her cheeks. “Leave me”, she orders the maid over her shoulder, clutching the edge of the crib. “Make arrangements for her to be buried with her father.”

Thankfully, they had the good sense to have the baby baptized immediately despite the danger on the streets. Catherine doesn’t have that on her conscience, at least.  

That’s cold comfort, of course, especially when the town is still in chaos. The earl, despite surviving his initial bout of plague, is ailing, and not expected to live much longer. Most of the guard is dead, which makes it difficult for Sir Edmund to keep order. Catherine is only glad that no ruffians have tried breaking into their home so far. With only her, Louise and the young children, she isn’t at all certain they would be able to defend themselves.

Previous: 1349, Day 3, Part 4/9 <--> Next: 1349, Day 3, Part 6/9

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1349 – Day 3 – Stirling Home

Geneviève Stirling, née Chevalier, remains, for the moment, unaware of her sister’s fate – Jehanne dared not send a message, for fear of transmitting this pestilence to her somehow – but has to contend with her own losses. Neither she nor her husband catch the pestilence, but their first child, a boy, isn’t so lucky. He lives only for a few days, before they find him dead in his cradle one morning.

Their boy. Their little Arnulf.

They don’t know that it was this dreadful pestilence that killed him, of course. Neither them nor their maid show signs of being ill, nor are there any pustules on his body. But he’s still so small. Maybe the pestilence didn’t have time to spread fully, but took his life immediately. From what they hear from town, it usually starts with fever.

The young couple leans on each other in that time. Geoffrey assures his wife, with more eagerness to soothe than tact, that there will be other children, even if they will never forget their first. Children not born into this time of sorrow. Part of Geneviève wants to scream that she doesn’t want other children, she wants her son. That she wants her mother and her father with her and to have never witnessed her brother’s drowning or her mother’s fall.

But she remains silent, too weary to argue. Maybe he is right. Maybe they were simply unlucky, and all of this will pass. Even if it doesn’t feel like it.  

Previous: 1349, Day 3, Part 3/9 <--> Next: 1349, Day 3, Part 5/9

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1349 – Day 3 – Neville Estate

Tragedy strikes the Neville estate even before the plague does. After her husband’s return from war, Jehanne had hoped that she would soon be able to give him another child, as a good wife ought to. In the end, it took her almost a year to conceive again – not helped by his frequent travels. He is in good standing with his lord and the King, and he means to capitalize on that. But in order to do so, he has to be where the court is, or at least where there are tourneys or campaigns.  

But then, finally, it happened, and she was so pleased when she found out that she was expecting again. She immediately started picturing how happy her husband would be if she gave him another son, or – and that was her secret wish – how darling it might be to have a little girl, all for herself.

And then they start receiving reports of this infernal plague haranguing neighbouring counties. Percival is at home at the time, and she begs him to stay there, where they can bar their doors to any and all travellers. Maybe that won’t save them, but it’s something they can try, at least.

Of course, he doesn’t listen. Her husband, not a man to hide away, insists on surveying his lands personally several times, to see for himself if the dreaded plague has made its way there. From every excursion, he returns with another frightful tale that makes Jehanne fret just to hear of it. She even enters her confinement early, hoping that the isolation will grant her at least a modicum of safety.

Unfortunately, by then it is already too late. She spends hours labouring, just like during Robert’s birth, but instead of the piercing cries of a newborn, only silence fills the room when the pain ends. The midwife, one of the local women, lowers her eyes and explains that her child – a son – was born still. That there was nothing either of them could have done.

Jehanne tries to believes her, but that doesn’t lessen the pain, or her anger at whatever brought this horrid plague upon them.

One might think that in losing their second son, the Nevilles are punished enough, but worse comes later that quarter. Just like Jehanne feared, the plague eventually makes its way to their home, and like so many other members of the nobility, they learn that it won’t spare them just because of their higher birth.  

Well, ‘learn’ is perhaps a strong word. They are faced with this truth, but all three of them – Robert first, then Percival a week later, and finally, a fortnight after that, Jehanne – are afflicted with and succumb to the pestilence. As she watches first her son and then her husband perish, Jehanne cannot even find comfort in prayer anymore. What merciful Watcher would do this? Why destroy her family like this, one by one? Only a few years ago, her parents and all of her siblings were alive, and now, only her, Geneviève and Marguerite’s boys are left. What did they do to draw Her ire like this?

She understands, in those dark hours, why her mother, Watcher preserve her, might have done what her sister suspected, if her fall was not an accident. She cannot contemplate doing the same, even after her husband’s death, but she understands.

It would be wrong to call death, when it comes, a mercy. Jehanne wants to live, at least before the delirium takes her reason away. Even after losing her parents, and her siblings, and her sons. She tries to fight the pestilence, tries to find something, anything, to save herself. But by the end, there is little her maid – who, loyal to the last, stayed – can do except make her comfortable.

And so, in the last days of September, Jehanne, Lady Neville, breathes her last, leaving her sister Geneviève as the sole living child of Robert and Elisaria Chevalier.

Previous: 1349, Day 2, Part 2/9 <--> Next: 1349, Day 2, Part 4/9

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1349 – Day 3 – Tovar

Once it reaches Praaven, it doesn’t take long for the plague to spread to the surrounding countryside. Tovar, one of the villages nearest-by, is among the first to suffer its effects, and so do the inhabitants of Elbenhawke Hall, seat of the Barons Elbenhawke.

The pestilence costs this exalted family dearer than it does some of their peasants. In quick succession, the baron himself, his son, his niece Georgina and his nephew Eustace – two of his brother David’s three children – all fall ill. After that, it doesn’t take long; even the care of the baron’s personal physician isn’t enough to save any of them. For a while, it seems like Georgina might rally, but then she is carried off by the plague along with the rest of them.

The remainder of the household – the baroness, her stepdaughter Morgana, her brother-in-law David and David’s only remaining child, Charles – all escape the pestilence’s reaching fingers, but not the turmoil it leaves in its wake. At a stroke, they have lost both the baron and his heir. By rights, the lands and title now belong to Morgana, but she is only a girl of fifteen. Nearly of age, but not quite. That would be trying at the best of times, but now, when their peasants are dying in droves, and it is uncertain whether there will be a harvest at the end of the season?

And then there’s the grief. David has to restrain his sister-in-law from rushing to cradle her son when it becomes clear that it is dying, and afterwards, she shuts herself up in her chambers, with only an equally grief-stricken Morgana for company. Not a soul knows that she is weeping not simply for her losses, but out of guilt – although she is fully aware that her family is not the only one to suffer, she cannot help the fear that it was she who drew the Watcher’s eye to their manor. What else could make Her strike down an innocent boy like her son, if not to punish her for her wickedness?

David bears his losses more stoically, with an almost cynical detachment. It is, after all, not the first time he loses children – of the seven his two wives bore him, only one is still alive. His only comfort is that neither Yseult nor Amelia had to witness this. And yet, he is left with questions. Why Georgina? Why Eustace? Hasn’t the Watcher taken enough from him already?

Such thoughts are useless, so he keeps his mind busy by making plans – plans about what to do about their lands, and about his niece, the new baroness. If they were to get her married soon, she would be able to take charge of her inheritance, or rather, her husband would. But the King might take affront to that – technically, Morgana is a ward of the Crown now, and it is the King’s prerogative to dispose of her marriage rights. Edward might not be able to deny even a hastily-made precontract, but he would certainly not be pleased by it.

Maybe it’s callous of him to think about such things while people are dying horribly, but he feels that it is his only chance to keep any semblance of sanity. He cannot do anything to stem this tide of death engulfing the world, but he can think about how to defend his niece’s inheritance from more mundane threats.

Tovar’s peasants are no luckier than their overlords. They don’t all catch the plague immediately, but realize very quickly that it has made its way to them when they hear screams from one of their neighbours’ houses. One family of four dies within weeks of each other, others are lucky and only suffer one or two losses. Among the dead is Abraham, Malika Townsend’s younger brother, who spent his entire life in the village.

Maybe it’s from him that his niece Adeline Everett contracts the plague. She certainly saw him the day before he shut his door to her, trying to prevent exactly that. Or maybe another stricken neighbour was the culprit. Whether one is the source or the other (or neither of them at all), she begins feeling its effects not long after, a fortnight into September.

She even tries to hide it, at first. The buboes aren’t the first symptom – that is her feeling completely wretched, feverish and nauseous. Her little charade doesn’t hold for long – she is too ill for that – but she tries to make light of the situation anyway, to pretend that it isn’t happening. Her children need her. Her husband needs her. She cannot afford to become a burden to them.

It is only when the buboes become unbearably painful and the world goes dark whenever she tries to rise that she truly realizes how dire her situation is. Soon enough, instead of praying for health, she is simply praying for it to end, a wish that is granted within hours of making it. Her youngest soon, Christian, follows three days later. Maurice considers it a mercy that she doesn’t witness his decline.

With Adeline gone, it falls to him alone to make arrangements for her and their boy to be buried – followed, heartwrenchingly, by the death of his youngest daughter. With Adeline unable to nurse and him forced to look after both his dying wife and the children, feeding her becomes a challenge even while her mother is still alive. Afterwards, he does his best, but without anyone to nurse her…

Well, it is little surprise when Wilfrieda only survives her mother and brother by a few days.  

Previous: 1349, Day 3, Part 1/9 <--> Next: 1349, Day 3, Part 3/9

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Progress Update

Because it's Monday again (and I'm waiting for my bus to work) I think another progress update might be nice.

I'm finally done with writing this never-ending recap! I haven't scheduled posts for it yet, but I'm just so happy to have it over with. It took way longer than I expected. Because of that, my queue is actually down to three weeks or so. Of course, the four recap posts and a few associated posts (no list of deaths or marriages this time though, I just can't) and maybe one or two polls will fill it again, but I might still take one or two weeks off from posting afterwards, depending on how quickly I get through the next year.

I honestly can't wait to get to playing again, although I am feeling a bit tapped out atm and don't know when I'll get back to writing.

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1349 – Day 3 – Poland

The pestilence reaches Poland that summer, although by some accounts, the region is more lightly hit than many others. There are various theories on why it might have been so, ranging from travel bans (which would have been difficult to enforce), a genetic resistance or simple geography. All of these are highly debated, as is the question of whether this happened at all.

What is true is that the kingdom became a safe harbour for many Jewish refugees fleeing persecution elsewhere, who in Poland enjoyed the personal protection of King Casimir III. Allegedly, he was influenced to do this by Jewish mistress, but even that woman’s existence is unconfirmed.

Previous: 1349, Day 2, Part 8/8 <--> Next: 1349, Day 3, Part 2/9

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1349 – Day 2 – Glennborough Farm

Across the Irish channel, Elias and Ciara have been living on quietly. It has been months now since the plague swept through Glennborough, and slowly, things are righting themselves. Elias has even been to town again, only to return stunned with how lucky an escape they’ve had. Yes, they lost Gráinne, and they witnessed what happened to their neighbours, but it seems that Glennborough lost half its population in a matter of weeks. Thanks to his brother Joseph's visit they already know that his family, at least, survived mostly unscathed, although the same cannot be said for Lord Goth’s heir and his sons.

Or Ciara’s family.

That is probably the hardest piece of news he brings back. Yes, he is certain that she knew many of those who succumbed to the plague, and he isn’t the only one to worry that it might happen again. But how does one tell one’s wife that her entire family, save one sister, is dead?

Elias doesn’t know how another man would do it, but he goes about it as gently as he can. The worst thing is that it doesn’t even come as much of a surprise to Ciara, who nonetheless weeps for all she has lost – including the opportunity to make things right with her parents. Her father treated her so cruelly, and yet, the thought that she’ll never find closure for what happened during her pregnancy with Órlaith hurts. And her mother! They lost so much time…

“Do you know what happened to Aoife?”, she asks tremulously, once she has gathered herself enough to think of anything other than all the things she’ll never get to say.

Fortunately, Elias thought to gather information about that, too. “Apparently, she works at the castle now. Although one of Eibhlín’s brothers told me that one of them might have designs on her..”

“So they survived, then?”

Elias tries not to pay attention to the bitterness in Ciara’s voice, but simply tells her that yes, indeed, it seems that if most of their good-sister’s family escaped the calamity. His wife accepts this, but is almost as quiet as little Domhnall for days after.

It is also around this time that she begins to feel nauseous more often than usual. When she discovers the cause, she is not quite certain whether to cry or laugh – apparently, her and Elias’ resumed, if infrequent, attempts to build a family weren’t without success. Despite her initial hesitation about the whole thing, she eventually came to the conclusion that yes, she would like to have more children as well. Their field is doing fine, and maybe, if they do this, they will be able to leave the terrible last year behind. And so it is that in the second quarter of 1349, Ciara finds herself with child once more.

Ciara keeps her news to herself for a little while, mostly so she can get used to the idea of a third child in her own time. Part of her is excited – she enjoys being a mother, hard as their lives may be much of the time. But she is also terrified that her joy may turn to ashes just as it did with Gráinne. She may have lived to adulthood if it wasn’t for the plague, but what if she loses this child to another such sickness, or to something else? Children die so easily. She doesn’t think she could bear another loss.

She finds it is difficult to be hopeful after witnessing what they did, or to believe that all things will turn out well. While she is glad to have survived, it also feels as if she cheated somehow, especially when she remembers the spells Elias wove to protect them. What if the Watcher takes umbrage with that? What if the next time, magic won’t be enough? What if, what if, what if. It almost drives her mad.  

But the fact remains that she does want this child, and this eventually wins out even over her fear. Enough so for her to gather her courage and approach her husband.

Even if she hadn’t found it in herself to push past her fears, his reaction when she shares her news would have blown them away like grains of sand. He is ecstatic, asking her several times if she is in earnest. His reaction is so different from the last time that for a moment, Ciara actually wonders whether her husband has been replaced by a changeling.

There are the inevitable questions – when does she think she is due? Is she feeling well? Should they arrange for someone to come stay with them once her time draws near, so she has a woman to support her through the birth? His mother, as the new baroness, surely won’t have time, but they can find someone else. Eibhlín, maybe.

Ciara considers this for a moment, but eventually shakes her head. Her friend has her own children, and she is certain that she has experience enough, both with giving birth herself and from those births she attended. All she needs from him is moral support when the time comes.

After her joyful reaction when she announced her last pregnancy, Ciara honestly doesn’t even consider that Órlaith might be anything other than happy to hear about this one. Which makes her astonishment all the greater when her usually cheerful daughter proceeds to promptly burst into tears.

“I don’t want to be a big sister if they die anyway!”, she wails, in a way that makes Ciara remember that her little girl is still only eight years old.

She bends down to rub her daughter’s arms comfortingly until she looks up. Seeing the tears rolling down Órlaith’s face makes her heart ache, but she nevertheless does her best to smile comfortingly. “No one is dying, love, I promise.”

“But you told Uncle Elias this…this plague could come back anytime! I heard you!”

Cursing herself for her loose lips, Ciara presses on. “I did. It’s a possibility, I won’t lie to you. But it’s not a certainty. And you like playing with Domhnall and being a big sister, don’t you?”

“But Domhnall could die too!”, she whines, followed by yet more tears. Ciara sighs. She has sympathy for her daughter, truly she does, and she does want to comfort her, but what is she supposed to tell her? It’s not like she doesn’t share Órlaith’s fears. She doesn’t understand why the Watcher would do something like this, and that makes it difficult to fathom whether She might finish what She started, or whether this is the herald of something worse.

None of those thoughts are things her daughter needs to hear right now, so she decides to try a different tactic.

“All of us could die any day”, she says gently. Maybe affirming the girl’s fears will help. “But we can’t dwell on that. I am with child, and if it is to survive, I will need you to be very good and help me. Can you do that?”

“Help you how?”

“You know how exhausted I was in the later months when I was carrying Gráinne? It will be like that again. I’ll need you to keep an eye on Domhnall then, and to be very good and lend a hand around the house. Do you think you could do that? It would help me greatly.”

For a moment, Órlaith still looks unsure, and Ciara wonders if she was wrong after all, but then her daughter nods determinedly. “Yes, Mother. I can do that.”

“That’s my girl.” Ciara presses a kiss to her hair, and then hugs her tightly. Órlaith will have to grow up eventually; it’s just as well that she start now. After what she witnessed, Ciara isn’t sure she’ll ever look at life the same way again, anyway.

Terrible as facing these things is, once everyone in the family knows of the pregnancy and has had time to adjust to the news, life returns to its usual rhythm. True to her word, Órlaith throws herself into her chores with newfound determination, not only around the house, but also on the fields. It’s much to ask of an eight-year-old girl, but she seems to realize that a good harvest is vital to them having enough to eat, which in turn will increase her sibling’s chances of survival.

Once, Ciara even overhears her giving the hens a talking-to about how it’s their duty to lay plenty of eggs, so they have a surplus they can trade with. It makes her giggle so much that she has to step back from the window to avoid her daughter catching her eavesdropping.

While Elias and Órlaith are tending to the outdoor work, Ciara, slowly recovering from her initial pregnancy nausea, busies herself with keeping the house in order and seeing to Domhnall. He is still very quiet for a boy his age, but Ciara’s gentle encouragements and Órlaith’s persistent attempts to include him in her games are most certainly bearing fruit. At times, he is even the one to seek them out to show them something or talk to them! And he seems to prefer being near them as they work, which is a relief onto itself. No child should watch their entire family die, but Ciara has every hope that he will develop into a fine young man regardless, Watcher willing.

Previous: 1349, Day 2, Part 7/8 <--> Next: 1349, Day 3, Part 1/9

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1349 – Day 2 – Townsend Farm

On the main Townsend farm, at last, the quarter passes by without incident. They hear the frightening tales from town, of course – their village is even closer to Praaven than John’s, and near well-travelled roads besides. But so far, there seems to be no plague in Mahlsberg. They pray things will remain so, but just to be sure, they pray for it as often as they can, hang up herbs, and tread very carefully when they are in the village. Miasma can reach them anywhere, but all the same, it’s better to stay away from those infected.

Despite these anxieties – and they are many, although they avoid discussing the topic for fear of drawing attention to themselves – this quarter is not without happy events for their family. The first of those is baby Hannah turning eighteen months old. She is still as healthy and happy as before, and is now at last beginning to talk and walk.  

Her parents are absolutely besotted with the little girl. Hugh especially spends as much time as he can playing with her, teaching her words, or just watching her explore the world. All of it makes him emotional in a way he couldn’t have fathomed, especially when he also catches sight his wife, who’s very visibly pregnant now.

This second pregnancy hasn’t been easy for Miriam, especially now with these tales of plague from town. She’s terrified for her daughter – Hannah is still so small – but also for her husband and Gregor and his family. Who knows what might be happening in Lüghaven now? Everything they hear seems half rumour. She strongly suspects what they hear is exaggerated – if the tales are true, everyone in Praaven must be dead by now. But they can’t know.

The waiting is the worst thing. All of them, even if they don’t speak of it, are waiting for the blow to fall. And yet, weeks pass without anything happening to them, while frightful tales from other places abound. It wears on them, leaving them with drawn faces and nervous looks. Even Giles, the youngest other than little Hannah, understands that something is very wrong, even if he doesn’t quite grasp its enormity.

Speaking of Giles, he celebrates his sixth birthday that quarter, although given their circumstances, the celebration is subdued. He doesn’t seem to mind this; there is still a cake, honey and fruit being plentiful, and just like his siblings, he is gifted new clothing. The garments are sensible, a new shirt and tunic, a hood, and some sturdy boots, but he is grateful all the same.

Malcolm watches this milestone with a twinge of melancholy that makes him distant even when he doesn’t want to be. He can’t stop thinking about how proud Hawise would have been to celebrate their son, plague or no plague. He wishes she could be here now. Maybe she’d have answers for the children, even if those answers only consisted of assurances that the Watcher does nothing without a plan.

He doesn’t know how comforting he finds that idea. What plan could justify inflicting a plague like this on them? He knows it is wrong to question Her, that the preachers say simple minds like theirs cannot comprehend the designs of a being as vast as the Watcher or interpret Her words, and maybe that is true. But he knows cruelty, and it is never just.

He keeps those thoughts to himself, of course. He knows his family doesn’t like it when he questions things, and he doesn’t have the energy to quarrel anymore. He just hopes that whatever is happening, his family will be spared.

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[townsenddecades]

1349 – Day 2 – Lüghaven

Even while the plague is wreaking havoc in Praaven, the villages around it initially suffer nothing worse than terrifying reports. Lüghaven, nestled in its woods more than a day’s ride away, is among those. It’s quite possible they wouldn’t have heard anything at all – unless people travel to town for market days, there is little traffic to the village. But Sir Percival receives a report, which leaves him grave-faced, and after that, it doesn’t take word long to spread into the village proper.

What the villagers hear frightens them, but the parson tries his best to be comforting. Their village is so out of the way, and all of its inhabitants are good, humble folk, who pay their tithes and say their prayers. Maybe it’ll pass them by.

John doesn’t quite believe that, and it terrifies him. If even half the stories are true, so many died – many of the dead must have been good, humble folk as well. What will they do if this punishment, or whatever it is, reaches them here? They can’t flee into the woods. Not with his wife Jacquetta so near the birth of their first child.

Everything initially seemed to be going so well for them. They have been settling into their new lives well, have made strides working the land, and when Jacquetta announced, less than a year into their marriage, that she was expecting, it seemed like fortune truly smiled upon them. John loved the thought of building a family of his own, but now, all he can see is that they are trapped. He has the dreadful feeling that it won’t be long until this calamity comes upon them, too, and that there is nothing they can do to prevent it.

For the first time, he wonders if his brother was right in his condemnation of what they did across the sea. Of the suffering they inflicted upon the people there. John didn’t take it seriously at the time (what was he, a simple foot soldier, supposed to do?), but what if this is divine punishment for these cruelties? Why else would the Watcher inflict this upon them, than as a show of force?

He is still fretting over this when Jacquetta’s labour begins in the middle of May, the same month Lord Petersmarch loses his two grandsons.

The birth is a drawn-out one. For a while, John stays away, because he was always taught that birthing is women’s work and doesn’t want to get in the way. It’s not as if Jacquetta is alone - Elissa Forrester and Holly Fletcher, two of the women from the village, are with her, and they seem to have the situation well in hand. But the waiting is so awful that he soon can’t stand it anymore. Initially the two women want to send him away, but when Jacquetta insists that he stays, they relent.

Quite honestly, after watching Jacquetta struggle through birthing their child, he is not quite sure how women like his mother bear to give birth so many times. He’s been at war, so he knows pain, but what he witnesses in those hours – more than a day – is an entirely different kind of horrible. Especially the end. Oh, the end. He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget those screams. He’s no stranger to childbirth, but somehow, it’s very different when it’s one’s own wife doing the screaming.

But it’s all worth it in the end: they are rewarded with the arrival of a beautiful, healthy baby daughter. “She looks just like you”, John tells his wife when he holds the little one for the first time, awestruck as he gazes down into his daughter’s tiny, perfect face.

His daughter. His daughter. He is father to a little girl now. Even after all those months to prepare, he can’t quite believe it. The terrifying tales of plague, the gruelling last day, his worry for his wife, it all disappears in that moment, leaving only breathless happiness.

Jacquetta is pleased as well, although she is so dreadfully tired that she can’t muster the same exuberance. John is so exuberant, in fact, that he completely misses the worried glances exchanged between Elissa and Holly. The birth took very long, and Jacquetta seems so weak…It could be nothing, of course, and they try to tell themselves that they are looking for trouble as they walk back to their own homes. Maybe they’re just exhausted and over-cautious because of those terrifying reports from town. Many births take a long time, and yet, most mothers eventually recover. They’ll simply look in on their friend as often as they can.

They tell themselves all of that, all reasonable explanations, and yet, that nagging worry lingers.

Holly’s and Elissa’s intuition proves to be reliable. Only a few days after his little girl’s birth and baptism (they name her Benedicta, both as a tribute to John’s grandfather and because they consider her a blessing), John comes running through the village like a man chased by hounds. Jacquetta has a high fever, he explains hurriedly, and is complaining about pains in her abdomen. Stronger pains than before.

The older women hurry to help their neighbour, but seeing Jacquetta only confirms what they suspected: the girl is suffering from childbed fever, a common enough thing, especially after a long birth like little Benedicta’s.

There is little they can do to help her, which they try anyway. Fevers have remedies - cooling the person, and giving them herbs to restore their humours to balance, are the easiest ones, and the ones the women choose now. At first they even seem to have an effect, but after that brief surge of hope, Jacquetta worsens again, and two days later, she is dead.

John stays with her the entire time, helping the women, encouraging his wife, and praying. It takes a while to convince him that there is nothing more to be done for Jacquetta – a part of him simply refuses to accept it, even as her hand becomes cold and stiff in his grasp.

“I don’t understand”, he manages, when Holly Fletcher finally makes him let go, so that his wife can be prepared for the vigil and burial. “My mother birthed so many children. So did my eldest brother’s wife, before she passed. Why my wife?”

In response, Holly can only sigh and place a comforting hand on his shoulder. “It is like that sometimes. Life can be unjust. But she left you a wonderful daughter, at least.”

That has John whirl on her, his eyes blazing with fury – and glistening with unshed tears. “I’d rather have my wife!”, be barks, and storms outside. The room feels too crowded suddenly, and he is afraid that he’ll do something he’ll regret if he stays. He wrought so much destruction. Maybe he simply doesn’t deserve to be happy.

Soon enough, he regrets his words, too. He is angry at himself and the world, but never in his life could he wish his little daughter away. Especially because she is the only remnant of his brief marriage now.

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[townsenddecades]

1349 – Day 2 – De Bellefaye Home

A month after Guillaume’s death at Praaven Castle, his widow Eleanor gives birth to their first – and only – child, a girl. It was a surprise to her to find herself pregnant only a few months after her wedding, early enough on that her husband’s step-mother calculated that she must have conceived during the consummation or soon after.

Now, with the streets full of wailing and criminals and the dead, she thinks it might have been fate.

She still doesn’t understand how so much can have happened in so short a time, and even the weeks of her confinement, which give her ample time to ruminate, aren’t enough for her to make sense of it. She arrived in this town less than a year ago, full of hope for her future married to a gentleman. Now she is a widow at only eighteen, with an infant daughter that will never know her father, in a town which is rapidly devolving into chaos as its churches overflow with the dead and the terrified faithful. Even the clergy seems to be dying at a rapid pace, which many count as yet another ill omen.

It seems a small miracle, therefore, that her daughter, Andrea, is born perfectly healthy, unaware of the tragedy she is brought into. The birth greatly weakens Eleanor, but she tries to console herself that at least she gave her husband a healthy child, even if he didn’t live to meet her.

Cruelly, she doesn’t get to enjoy her new motherhood for long. Only a week or so after her daughter’s birth, she begins complaining about feeling feverish and ill, after she initially seemed to recuperate well enough. Naturally, the nurse looking after her and baby Andrea worries that she may be suffering from childbed fever – until they notice the swellings beneath her skin, indicative of a far graver ailment.

This tragedy is compounded when a few days later, when Eleanor is at death’s door, Alexandre starts to exhibit the same symptoms. The De Bellefayes are wealthy enough to employ a physician, who does his best to attend to both of the invalids, but without success – Eleanor, still weakened by Andrea’s birth, passes away first, and her good-father soon follows.

Their deaths are a blow to the rest of the family. Louise and Isabeau are shattered at losing their brother and father so suddenly, and terrified that the same might happen to themselves or, Watcher beware, their mother, who is herself heavily pregnant at this time. Even their sister-in-law’s death shocks them – they might not have been enthused about their brother’s marriage, but they’ve come to like Eleanor. They can’t comprehend that she’s dead now, or that their tiny niece is an orphan at less than three weeks old.

Catherine, despite her exhaustion due to the pregnancy, does her best to hold down the fort – she consoles her children, arranges for a wetnurse for the baby, and makes sure that her husband and good-daughter receive a decent burial. None of it is easy. She can’t explain to Isabeau or Adolar or even Louise why this is happening, because she doesn’t understand it herself. The wetnurse is nearly impossible to find, because the town is in such chaos, but she tells herself that once her child is born, she’ll be able to nurse little Andrea herself. And lastly, the burial costs her a fortune, because those throat-cutting gravediggers know exactly what their labour is worth now and what risks they are running.

Amazingly, Louise turns out to be a great help. The girl was rather sullen for the past year or so, but now, she steps up, takes command of the few servants they have left when necessary and even tries to comfort her younger siblings and niece, taking her cues from her step-mother. At a mere fifteen, it shows an impressive strength of character.

All of it makes Catherine lean on the girl more than she perhaps should, but not being alone in all of this is a great comfort, especially when the birth of her child draws near. And that’s something, in the midst of this terrible chaos.

Previous: 1349, Day 2, Part 4/8 <--> Next: 1349, Day 2, Part 6/8

[townsenddecades]

Progress update:

Still working on the recap, although the most time-consuming part (going through everything and taking notes) is now done. Now I just need to turn those notes into prose, make new family portraits where I can't reuse those from the Black Death, and then hopefully I can play again.

...After making some plans, because there will be a lot of weddings in 1350, and I need to map out when to play in which household in Glennborough.

As an extra, I found this while reading and thought it might be interesting. Really tells you a lot about 14th century English society.

[townsenddecades]

1349 – Day 2 – Dudley Residences

With everything that has been said about royals succumbing to the plague and noble and royal blood being no barrier to disease, it is equally true that the rich and powerful have better recourses to slip the noose than most other people. The Great Mortality is no exception to that. Many a king or nobleman avoids it simply by fleeing to their country estate, where they hope to be able to wait the plague out.

The Dudleys of Praaven don’t do that, and promptly pay the price for it. Having their castle in a town means they have greater control over it and the commerce that takes place their, but it also makes them vulnerable in a way a remote country estate isn’t.

If one were to ask the residents of the castle, they’d say that miasma from the town or the docks must have made its way to them and poisoned those who fall ill. More likely, the pestilence is carried into the castle by the servants who come and go on their errands, or by rats seeking a source of food. Whatever the case, that May, both of the earl’s young grandsons are laid low by the illness. Lady Maud, home to a visit with her family, immediately separates their sister and her own son Guildford from them, while the earl goes to see them, hoping that there is something, anything he can do help. These two boys are the future of his family, the legacy of his dear departed son, whose soul he still prays for. His only living male descendants.

His attentions don’t save them. They’re simply too young, the pestilence too severe. The only tangible result of his attempts is that he is afflicted with the pestilence himself. And yet, he refuses to leave his grandsons, until his physician all but forces him to relent, arguing that no one is served if he dies, and that he needs treatment himself. His lands need their earl, now more than ever.

A day later, both of his grandsons die.

That news, although the physician and his attendants initially try to keep it from him, breaks his resolve. All he fought for, all he prayed for, seems lost now. It is practically a mercy that the fever soon takes his ability to think very deeply on his family’s misfortunes.

And yet, his fever eventually breaks, which is both more and less surprising than Henry Watmore’s recovery. While he is far older than Henry and lacks the vigour of youth, he is also attended by a physician, who lances and cauterizes his boils and administers every possible remedy he can think of. Such treatments don’t always help – even seven hundred years later, bubonic plague can be deadly unless treated with antibiotics – but in Ralph Dudley’s case, they do. He is weak and fears abound that he might not see the end of the year, but for now, he lives.

And yet, he can’t find much joy in the Watcher sparing. Not when both of his grandsons are dead and his legacy is now resting solely on his granddaughter Philippa, the only child of his son’s still alive. She is heiress to the earldom now, and once she marries and has children, the lands his forbears held for generations will be another family’s for the keeping.

And his grandsons aren’t the only young people to be felled by this, he learns. Amidst it all, his good-son Sir Edmund’s young squire, Guillaume de Bellefaye, so recently married, caught – and died of – this pestilence as well. It is yet another blow he is ill-prepared to stomach.

Edward and George are not the only Dudleys to succumb to the plague that quarter. Not long after their deaths, their cousins Briana and Muriel, three years and one year old respectively, begin to show symptoms. Their mother’s only consolation is that the end comes quick; their illness doesn’t last more than a day.

Their nurse reacts quickly when she spots the first signs, too, and immediately separates them from their brother and older sisters, who are thankfully spared the same fate.

And then, a week or so after Muriel’s death, Clement, the earl’s brother, begins complaining about aches in his head and limbs. The earl’s physician, who is sent there by His Lordship himself, can only attest what Lady Katheryn and Arabelle already suspect: he has contracted the plague, like so many others. The physician, bolstered by his success with the earl, tries to save him, of course, but Clement isn’t as fortunate as his brother. He dies near the end of May, following his nephews and the many other Praavenites that didn’t survive this calamity.

When she is told of her husband’s death, Katheryn feels oddly at loose ends. She spent most of her marriage waiting for it to end, but for that end to come like this? Even she can’t feel unaffected by all this suffering around her, or by her good-daughter’s tears over her lost daughters. If the Watcher can unleash something like this anytime She pleases, what defence do they have? Their Divine Lady already took her son Ralph, and now she’s taken two of his children, as well. They hear tales of corpses rotting in the streets, of robberies and violence between survivors scrabbling over food and the goods of the dead, now that there are no guardsmen to keep the peace.

It feels like the herald to an even greater calamity. How is she supposed to feel any satisfaction about having survived her husband amidst all of that?

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[townsenddecades]

1349 – Day 2 – Balduin Bakery

As with Gregory Townsend’s household, when the plague slips into Lawrence Balduin’s bakery, it befalls the entire family. Mark, Clara’s younger son, is the first to become too weak to rise from bed, his body littered with pustules. His mother tends to him, frantically trying to find some way to save him or to at least ease his suffering, but the only result of her ministrations is that she begins to feel dizzy and feverish as well. It doesn’t stop her, even when her husband falls ill and dies soon after, even when she barely has the strength to drag herself out of bed, her vision blurs and she cannot keep anything down. Her Henry is ill as well, and someone has to do something.

Henry wants to help her, but very soon, he is struck down by fever and stomach cramps and nausea. He is dizzy all the time and is too weak to even move, which is made worse by the fact that his ailing mother can’t tend to him like she did to his brother initially. And then there’s the pain. The huge boils under his arms and on his neck and his legs hurt whenever he puts pressure on them, and they’re everywhere. And he feels sick all the time, not helped by the stench in their home. Of sickness and unwashed bodies, yes, but also of something else.

After all of that follows delirium, likely because he is so weak in the first place. It is in that time that his brother and stepfather die, but even in his few lucid moments, he cannot rouse himself enough to care, and instead hovers in a nothingness somewhere between dream and reality. He does notice when his mother stops responding to his hoarse calls for her, but his thoughts are so muddy that the likely reason escapes him.

By all rights, he shouldn’t survive this. He is alone, lying in his own filth with a high fever, with no one to care for him, their neighbours either too scared to visit their house or suffering from the same affliction as his family and thus unable to save even themselves. There is no one to offer any treatment, and he is just a boy of thirteen. When he has conscious thought at all, all he wants is for his suffering to end.

And yet, his fever breaks, and one morning (or is it night? Or day?) he awakens, dizzy, parched and weak, but more aware of the world than he has been since…oh, it must have been days ago now. There is a figure sitting beside him, mopping his brow. It takes him a moment to recognize her as a nun, likely from the abbey. When the woman notices him trying to speak, she puts a cup to his lips.

Maybe it is this act of kindness that helps him survive, or maybe the Watcher simply wasn’t ready to let him pass into Her embrace like his family. When he recovers a little more of his strength, and learns that all the rest of his family are gone, he isn’t at all sure whether to call this a kindness. All he can do is break down in tears, faced with the fact that at only thirteen years old, he is all alone in the world now. He was meant to take over the bakery eventually, but how is he supposed to do that, with so little experience?

His few surviving neighbours offer him kindness and their help in the weeks that follow, but there is no telling how long that will last. Everything is chaos. What if their food runs out? They won’t feed him if they need to look after their own families, diminished as they are. There are corpses in the street, and word is that the entire town watch has fallen to the illness. Everywhere one hears of murders, of people robbing the dead.

Maybe he should leave Praaven, go back to Mahlsberg where is father’s family is. But who knows if this terrible calamity hasn’t spread there, too?

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