The Plague is a disease greatly feared throughout the World of Daventry and across the multiverse.
Backround[]
It was a dreaded and deadly disease. The plague often follows time of famine when citizens are their most vulnerable lower immunity due to starvation, and corpses being fed upon by vermin spreading the disease. Rats and bats are the mange-ridden, nasty, smelly plague-carrying vermin.[1][2]
Little is known about its specific symptoms other than it is fast acting. The disease is deadly and quick killing its victims within a few short days. When the disease is first contracted, it causes a great fever for three days, become bedridden, finally become very sickly, become more unresponsive and comatose for the last few days, with each passing day the victim worsens, and then dies soon after. Most die within a week.[3]
There is unfortunately no known cure, and it kills nearly all who are infected by it.
During the plague, the stench of death fills the air. The bodies are often carried away in plague wagons.[4] The corpses are another source for the disease (especially if the rats and bats get to them).
It has historically hit Daventry in only one known instance. Following the loss of the Merlin's Mirror during Edward the Benevolent's reign famine struck Daventry. With famine came dreaded Plague. Edward's wife contracted the disease, and layed sickly for several days. The Dwarf (forever remembered as the dastardly villain) came to the castle on the fourth day offering a root he claimed would cure the plague. He touched it to the queen's lips, her eyes opened, and she smiled at the king. The Dwarf offered the rest of the root but only if the king gave up the magic shield that protected Daventry from foreign invasion. The king agreed, and gave up the shield, and the dwarf left. However, it had all been a lie, the root was fake, perhaps even poison, and on about the fifth day she was dead.[5]
The Plague is so feared, that reference to the disease has become a curse in the land of Daventry for things that people don't like, often used to curse someone else. Such as stating; "A plague upon thee."[6]
The plague is also known about in the Realm of Eldritch (another world in the multiverse).
Rosella witnessed the Ghoul Kids giving an eulogy to the Black Cat they were attempting to bury alive, they claimed she caught the plague, although this is part of their sick joke.[7] Both Rosella and Valanice also heard references to the plague from Malicia (who greatly feared bats and rats because they were plague-carriers) and the Mocking Bird who made reference to plague wagons in his insults.
Other plagues[]
The zombies of are infected with a zombie plague, and are contagious to other humans via bite, scratch or even touch. The victims die, and quickly arise again as undead. The symptoms involve the corpse of the new victim turning grey (and partially decomposed), even their hair, before they rise again.
Behind the scenes[]
The Plague is first mentioned in the second manual for King's Quest 1. It's even described as the "...dreaded Plague" indicating that it is a proper noun, well known, and not some random disease.
The references to the plague appear to be references to the "bubonic plague" or similar diseases that struck cities and countries during the Middle Ages.
See also poison, venom, toxin and bane for some of the similarities and differences between terminology. This article is not the place to discuss pedantic online debates on terminology.
Technically it wasn't the bats or rats that were the carriers, but the fleas that fed off the rats or bats, and then spread the disease to humans. But humans then helped spread the disease further, and faster.
In a death sequence cut from the new King's Quest Chapter 2, would have made a reference to the plague.
[VO_DeathRats05_GG SoundNodeWave] Subtitles[0]=(Text="These rats were plaguing me.")