1698–1699 Amokolian famine

The Great Famine of 1698–1699 gripped Amokolia in the aftermath of the Second Elwynnese Civil War and the reorganisation of the economy and society of the defeated nation towards meeting the targets for contributions to the reconstruction effort and reparation payments to the victorious southern states as mandated by the Congress of Chryse.

By early 1699 AN rumours had been reaching Chryse of a major disaster in Amokolia. Access to communication networks for the defeated subjects of the reconquered state had been heavily restricted since the end of the war, and access to internal passports permitting travel outside of a subject's bailiwick of residence severely curtailed, but reports through official channels addressed to the Congress and the High Presidium of the Benacian Union had begun to come in faster than the censors could screen them out. Finally even some petitioners had evaded the attentions of the Magisters-Carnifex, the Internal Security Bureau, and the Elwynnese Landstorm to arrive in the city in person to present complaints to the assembled dignitaries.

The disastrous consequences of the Scouring for weather patterns of the northern latitudes of the Benacian continent had caused the widespread failure of crops sown in 1696 AN and 1698 AN. In 1698 especially the boreal season had barely abated into summer thaw at all. Drifting pack ice had extended as far south as Thorgilsby and the winter of 68/69 had seen a great freeze engulf the waters of the Automatican Isles closing the harbours there to all but the scant and overtaxed number of icebreaking vessels. Nightly killing frosts throughout the winter months blasted the countryside, scouring it of all but the hardiest of boreal and hibernating creatures. Throughout the winter people went on dying. The herdsmen discovered horses, cattle, and even reindeer frozen to death where they stood; farmers despaired of the long months of cold ever ending, already on the edge of starvation they devoured their seed-grain; they sold their daughters and sons to the guilds, to the UDF, and to the lascivious, in such numbers that the glut of supply at length quenched the thirst of demand; they ate lichen and moss, they ate leather and bark, and at length those who still lingered in famished life began to feast upon the emaciated corpses of the dead, and when the supply of the dead would no longer suffice, the survivors fell upon each other. Even those who fled into the cities found no succour. The streets and the railway sidings became clogged with heaps of the dying and dead as, day and night, a torrent of famished and disease-ridden wretches thronged into the urban districts of bailiwicks in the vain search for relief.

Throughout all this, not only had the authorities sought to suppress news of the catastrophe, but the residents of the Honourable Company who had established their seats in the ports of the country had increased their exactions by a factor of ten during the height of the famine, frantically trying to be seen to not only fulfil but to overfulfil the quotas for resources and revenues which had been set by the Benacian Union on the basis of an abstract headcount and without any regard for local conditions. No relief efforts of any significance had been undertaken, in spite of innumerable appeals by the beleaguered municipal corporations of bailiwicks that were staring into the abyss of mass-starvation. Indeed representatives of the Honourable Company, the N&H and the UDF alike all stood accused of active collusion in hoarding and profiteering.