Creative Death

Creative Death is a disease that ravaged the east of the Kellerian Empire. No one knew it first started, but many believe that it was brought by infected vermin at the docks along the coast. Many died from it, thought it wasn’t the deadliest of ailments to plague the nation. What made it truly a scourge is how it affected its victims. It was a disease that mostly affected humans. Different species’ brains are built differently, and most non-humans simply weren’t affected. Healers speculated that the disease attacked a specific part of the human brain, mainly the part that controlled creativity. People who were known for their creative pursuits were the most affected as their creative portions of their brains were more developed than normal. At first it was thought that individual people were simply depressed. They seemed to lose all interest in pursuing their crafts and became very lethargic. They would eventually die from a brain hemorrhage as the disease finally finished destroying that portion of the brain.
The deaths brought enough issues, but the hardest hit was those who pursued any sort of craft and not just painters, actors and playwrights. Smithies, wood workers, basket weavers, carpenters and most other tradespeople whose creativity was important to their lives were soon not plying their craft while they suffered from this ailment and soon the economy took a downturn.
In addition, the loss of creativity meant more honesty all around. As one must use their creativity to lie, those affected could not lie at all which caused untold problems. Politicians were far more honest with the masses than they ever intended to be and those that still could do business found their haggling skills greatly diminished or non-existent, further adding to the economic upheaval. It was only several missions of mercy sent out by the church of Thalena, the goddess of mercy and healing that finally brought this plague to heel.