The Scarab plague. background and stuff.

While questing with my paragon i came upon this questline about the scarab plague wich sheds some light upon this terrible event from the past.







This however still leaves us with some questions. How did this start? or who did it. secondly we dont see anny scarabs in elona although it indicates that the insects still have traces of them on their skin.

How did it get so far that this could happen? and the most gruesome insects bursting from your skin! O_O Dont want that to happen to me. annyway discuss your ideas on how it started and more things like that.

i ve done the quests myself but i havent figured out what trully happened i think was something with the water a disease or a myth who knows

It was most definatly no myth all over istan vabbi and kourna the plague has swept and killed everything in its path :/ most likely a dark force had something to do with this but who knows?

This is just speculation, and i don't have NF so if theirs continuity errors forgive me

Aurek the Scarab Hunter said that the queen of the scarabs, Kephket Marrowfeast, moved into the area because of the smell of blood and death(obviously meaning the farming overflow) so she had to have come from another place. The only other place in tyria with scarabs is the Krytan jungles, but they are moss scarabs, and do not resemble Kephpket. So, ruling out tyria and Cantha(heaven forbid an 8 ft. scarab snuck on a ship) Kephket must have come from Elona. So isn't it possible that she laid her eggs at the head of the river in Istan, and her eggs were microscopic? then as they flowed downstream, the people harnessed the water and became infected. Then as the she was drawn toward the Tyrian deserts, she took all traces of her existance with her? its a pretty farfetched theory but its still a very possible situation

In that case, she would have to travel pretty far across the mainland, which includes a sulphuric desert...which sounds impossble for Scarabs, unless they could tunnel.

Scarabs, being arthropods, are a lot more resilient than they look. Ants can live in salt pans, fairy shrimps can survive boiling water... Extreme environments aren't a problem for them. I wouldn't be surprised if a Scarab could make it all the way across a sulphuric desert unharmed.

reminds me of the monks path in the crystal desert. i still have nightmares. ths scarabs... they were everywhere!!! *scared*

I'm running through that area at the moment with a friend of mine...

*shudders*

Back on topic...

Might it be possible that Scarabs were once spread through Tyria and Elona with genetic drift between the various subspecies? Then something happening in Elona causing the local Scarabs' necromantic abilities to heighten and produce a large mutant queen? Purely speculation here, but some mutations burn out very quickly especially if they result in the creation of a superpredatory species... And this may have driven the Elonian subspecies of Scarabs extinct.

*grabs his archaeological tools and a DNA kit*

Oooo, do go into detail

Whenever evolution creates a superpredator, that species is doomed. Superpredators burn through resources too quickly for the environment to sustain them. They need larger numbers of prey to sustain themselves. They need to defend larger territories to have access to more prey. Food starts running out, and the huge distances involved makes it much harder for members of the species to meet and reproduce. They end up being starved into extinction.

The same thing happens with diseases. The deadliest diseases today aren't sustainable, as they kill off their hosts faster than they can find new hosts to infect (the microscopic versions of superpredators).

(Warning, spoilers within)

Another possible interpretation is that the scarabs have evolved into a different form. During the scarab plague quests, you have to hunt down the other types of insects to gather evidence of what happened. While none of the insects in question are scarabs as such, there are plenty of beetles - the Preying and Grub Lances become Beetle Lances and Beetle Queens respectively once you hit the mainland. And then you have the presence or the Rain/Rock Beetles in Vabbi. While not scarabs as such, scarabs are a form of beetle, and the term 'Scarab Plague' could simply be a catch-all phrase for all sorts of insects that are suddenly burrowing out of people's skins and growing to immense size. It may be that all the insects we see in Elona and Tyria ultimately evolved from the Scarab Plague.

While this doesn't entirely gel with natural evolution, it is interesting to note that many of the Dynastic Spirits found in the desert blame Palawa Joko for the fall of the Dynasties - an event that happened well before Palawa earned his title as the Scourge of Vabbi. Could he have had something to do with it? (Will have to check the lore on the exact wording of how the Gods granted magic, as I believe the Scarab Plague was before they did so - specifically, was it possible for a sufficiently inspired individual to learn magic themselves before the Gods began actively teaching it?)

EDIT: Having rechecked the books, the Scarab Plague was after the Exodus, and hence, after the granting of magic. My mistake.

Interesting...But wouldn't the queen Scarab in the desert fall out of your superpredator theory?

She's obviously more superior than the rest of the Scarabs, but she treated them very well all the same (keeping them healed while farmers are doing the opposite).

Which means that Scarabs use their...em...mutation thingy to their advantage.

Not necessarily. If the queen is an example of a superpredator, there's also the possibility that she may have resorted to cannibalism to keep herself fed. The queen caste in arthropods (notably the hymenoptera) get all their needs catered to by their subordinates, and queens will eat workers (if necessary) in the case of at least one species of ant.

In the manual it says the plague was brought on by unseen forces. Quote

"Over six hundred years ago, the infamous Scarab Plague devastated this province. Victims died horribly, as insects erupted through boils on their skin. Many believed the outbreak of plague had supernatural origins, blaming the suffering of the innocent on unseen forces." It mainly devastated this province apparently, and in the timeline by 652 DR/962 CC in the manual it says "Scarab Plague sweeps through Elona, decimates the population, and wipes out the Royal House. Istan abandoned. End of the Primeval Kings."

Immediately prior to that on the timeline, in 524 DR and 834 CC in the manual timeline it says "First mention of corsair activities in the Dynastic records. Monument building common in Istan and Kourna." So perhaps they were cursed for these monuments for some reason, (idolators, lol), or maybe the corsairs intentionally brought the scarabs over somehow?

It ended the reign of the Pimeval Kings, so perhaps it was targeted at them, as it caused the fall of the Royal House and brought Fahranur to ruins. Fahranur could be said to be "ground zero" of the Scarab Plague, as it seems all investigations center around it, and Istan was hit the worst. So maybe it was some kind of curse on the Primeval Kings?

You know there has to be some explanation or reason for the Scarab Plague in the quest writer's mind, possibly it ties into some later storyline?

I'd be more surprised if scarabs couldn't tunnel, considering they're second only to devourers in the pop-up mob department...

Another Demon entity trying to seek passage to the mortal realm or destroy it, because there is something’s that is supposed to leave unanswered? It could have been Abbandon himself trying to weaken the masses in Elona for his comeback, but failed miserably.

Well the big thing to me, as I quoted from the manual earlier, the Scarab Plague seemed to target Istan, specifically the First City, and killed off the Royal House of the Primeval Kings. The fact it killed off the Primeval Kings means that it did actually change history to an extent, so it has to be something behind it. Most likely if our main villain is Abaddon, it was him, but you wonder who his mortal servants were who carried it out.

Yeah unfortunately who ever it was kind of failed miserably (people still survived) and probably is in the realm of torment. It would have been nice if that scenario was true to have a follow up quest to it in the realm of torment.

If the Dynastic Spirits blame Palawa Joko for their fall, and the Scarab Plague is supposedly caused by 'unseen forces', perhaps it was good old Joko trying to wipe out the Dynastic Kings so he would face much less resistance when it came to the time to invade Elona?

well lets think a second.

the primeaval kings were tryin to ascend therefore making the god take attention. for some reason they failed (please inform if possible)

so mabye it is a divine plague caused by the gods.