The Coughing Gardens
Hidden away in a sequestered part of the Medonian Woods, the Coughing Gardens are surrounded by foliage. The limbs of trees hang heavy with fruits that should never be eaten. Colourful patches of fungus and climbing vines cling to the sides of trees. No birds sing here and no
Animals prowl these gardens. Instead the oppressive silence is broken by coughing and the occasional prayer.
Each tree has bones sticking out at the roots and at least one hollow carved into their trunk where a skull has been left. The Feeble Pox and other diseases have struck this region particularly hard and when they saw no other way out the desperate came here. There are treasures too, spread out among the roots of the trees, valuable pieces of jewellery, rings, golden teeth, the things that belonged to those whose faith was not pure enough, for those who did not have the strength to leave.
It was a colony for lepers once, or perhaps a hospital, or perhaps a vain mage's hall where he dared to gamble with the gods for longer life, it matters little. All that remains is a few scattered ruins among the trees. The past matters little in this place, it is a place of quiet desperation and it is hallowed ground, for the Queen of Pestilence has claimed this place as her own. Her priests sleep under tents and eat the fruit that would kill any others, living their lives in supplicant to
Haya.
For those stricken by disease, this place is a last, desperate port of call. Sanctified in
Haya's name, her priests wander the garden. The brothers and sisters of plague take the diseases of others onto themselves as sacred sacrament to their goddess the Mother of Plagues. These priests wander the Gardens until they succumb to disease or old age, all this time wearing their weeping sores and boils as badges of honour, and when it is their time their bodies are buried among the roots of the trees like those that went before them.
