Z Plague

In the mist-shrouded heart of a crumbling medieval kingdom, the first signs of the apocalypse came not with screams, but with silence. Word traveled slowly, as it did in those days, carried on the backs of terrified merchants and plague-worn priests. In towns and hamlets, stories spread of the “gray ones”—souls who rose from the grave and staggered through the night, drawn by warmth and blood. Some blamed a curse from a forgotten tomb unearthed by grave-robbers. Others whispered of a black star seen in the sky weeks before, and the strange fever that had swept the land just after. The Church called it heresy, then a test of faith. The nobles locked their gates and sent their men-at-arms to torch villages thought to be infected. And so the realm began to crumble—not beneath the sword of a foreign enemy, but under the rotting hands of its own dead. The roads turned perilous, monasteries became fortresses, and knights rode not for glory, but for survival. The dead did not speak, but the silence they left in their wake screamed louder than any war. The old world ended with a groan and a shuffle in the dark. (lewdleah auto-cards)