A Warmer Wetter World
1250's - POD. The temperature in the North Atlantic is around 1-2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer. In OTL the average temperature begins a slight drop. In ATL, the temperature remains on a gradual rise.
1347 -A proximately 100 years later, The Bubonic Plague arrives in Europe.
Over the past three hunrded years, times have been fine for farmers. A Bounty is produced each year, and serfs could often pay their lords in grain. Often villages could sport a few thousand people.
The Plague begins it's sweep through Europe in Italy. From there it spread in all directions. The people in Europe could expect to live to 40 with their bountiful foodstuffs, but this glut often attracted plague-carrying rats. Although a handful of peasents were healthier that OTL's counterparts, the more food meant more rats breeding living and spreading plague.
The death toll was around 24 million, approx. 1/3 of Europe's population.
Over the past three hunrded years, times have been fine for farmers. A Bounty is produced each year, and serfs could often pay their lords in grain. Often villages could sport a few thousand people.
The Plague begins it's sweep through Europe in Italy. From there it spread in all directions. The people in Europe could expect to live to 40 with their bountiful foodstuffs, but this glut often attracted plague-carrying rats. Although a handful of peasents were healthier that OTL's counterparts, the more food meant more rats breeding living and spreading plague.
The death toll was around 24 million, approx. 1/3 of Europe's population.
In a drought stricken East Mediterranean, The times were tougher. The Byzantine Empire had collapsed due to the conspiring of a Civil War, Plague, and the Drought. The Ottoman Empire, while not collapsing like it's neighbor, was under stress to move north. Dust storms from desolate farms plagued the countryside. Water was in everyone's mind. The Mongols were pecking away at their eastern edge . Many began to look north at Greece as a refuge.
The Mongols were having wonderful times. North China and the Middle East were arid at best, but Russia was now as wet and warm as Southern China, and repeated raids were weakening bug under their boot. Russia was their cupboard for horses and food. The stage was set for another reshuffling of the World's border.
In The Americas, Increasing drought in Central America is straining the Mayan cities, causing them to start collapsing, which increases the violent encounters with the Aztecs, Forcing them to start moving north. Tribes north of the Aztecs are put under pressure.
Over the next decades this will bring the Civilized Tribes north into Texas and California.
The Rocky Mountain Locust is spurred into action in the West. Billions block out the sun in the Northern Great Plains. The plague of locusts eat everything in sight, and Most Native American Tribes stand in awe and fear at the biological catastrophe before them. A Mild winter does not slow them down. Even Tribes in the Great Lakes regions suffered from the swarm.
Despite this, the Missouri Indians have found it easier to farm up river. Their tribe grows and prospers.
In The Northwest, None describe the situation best than the Ninqually Tribe's tale of makadiwozìpineshìnjishag or The Black Birds:
The Black birds descended upon us from the ocean, and brought days of darkness. We could not breath. Our Children suffocated, they sun didn't show for days, and we thought we wouldn't see day again in the world.
Dust from China's expanding Gobi Desert was making it's way across the PAcific to North America.
Ethiopia, Sudan, and Chad are suddenly blessed with rain at this time. A bounty of food leads The Solomonic Dynasty to push it's boundaries West. Sayfa Arad leads numerous attempts to once steppe-desert, to conquer the peoples there.
The Inca are pulling through this sudden change. In Peru, The Inca try to counter the drought in Northern South America by bringing water from Chile North. Right from the Start, Logistical problems hindered the efforts, and The Inca uprooted themselves, and began a trek South in November 1347. Downstream in the Amazon, The Yanomami of the Amazon Rainforest are the first of the rainforest's people to be forced out of the rainforests by repeated forest fires and drought. The Amazon river was but a trickle at most points in the year. Like their Incan Bretheren, they begin a trek South.
The Aborigine Populations are relatively unnaffected, although Salties and Irukandji are appearing farther south, and an increase in forest fires causes an increase in grassland fauna.
Last edited: