The rider came from the Great Gate. He bore grave tidings. A great sickness was sweeping over the Mezhed, a punishment from the gods. He was still clear of mind when he delivered the message. Perhaps it would have been better if he weren't. Then they could have passed off the details of the sickness as the ramblings of a mad man. Then they wouldn't have to see what became of a man, as the sickness tool hold.

Still, at first it seemed that the Ra'Shaket would be spared from this disease, as only those who spent too much time near the mountains grew ill. Many jokes were had at the pretentious mountain dwellers, who thought they knew everything and placed so much value in gold and idols, who farmed the soil and drank wine, who lived their lives never knowing the hardships of the desert. This was a Divine judgement, to show them the folly of their ways.

Then the rains came.

It was the gods who joked now, at the Ra'Shaket who thought themselves so much better. The sickness spread, taking man and child, camel and goat. It spread on silent wings, and it marked all who it touched. Some would die right away. Perhaps those were the lucky ones. It would replace sight with the visions of spirits, shift minds until people were unrecognizable. Tempers rose, as bodies fell. Sight dwindled with life. Every season, when the rains come, the disease would swell, reaching further and further every time. As the water turned to dust, the spread of the sickness would halt, but it would only be a temporary respite. The effects on those who survived left little room for hope.

For the Ra'Shaket, it was the single authority of the Shadi that saved them. Or rather, saved those that survived. Most of them. A single voice brooked no argument, no challenge. Any dispute could be settled, any choice decided. To fall behind was death, to argue, damnation. There were those whose tempers were swelled by the sickness past the point of reason, and for them nothing but exile and execution would suffice. There were plenty of men with anger in check, who relished the opportunity to let loose and spill blood upon the rocks and sands.

Camels and goats also died en masse, and with them much of the food that was relied on to survive. Many of those that survived turned intractable, too aggressive to be handled, and needed to be put down as well. The meat of the animals was butchered, thin strips cooked on skewers over the fire (as was the custom of the Shaket). With the rains fading as soon as they come, soups and stews were a waste of water that could not be afforded (indeed, they were words unknown to many Shaket, the origins taken from the Mezhed).

Sometimes, the deaths of animals meant that there would not be enough food to support the survivors of the plague. Those who were near water, primarily those in the center of the desert, at the mountain springs, took up farming. The seeds were there, but before it had been deemed pointless to spend a lifetime toiling over earth. Now, the goats were not enough, and one did not need sharp eyes to till and sow. Even after the crisis, notable populations of the Ra'Shaket would continue to farm where they could, though these places were few and far between.

For the rest of the Ra'Shaket, this was not a possibility. And so if there were not enough animals to feed the people, there were only two options. Aquire more animals, or reduce the number of people. Since the scarcity of food was universal, that meant many Shadi simply selected those who were of the least benefit to the tribe, and killed them. The ritual cut across the throat and stabbing of the heart is done to many who are not strong enough to continue, and had not been banished. To be left behind would be damming them, and to try and keep them with the tribe was a burden. So they would be killed, stripped of their belongings, and left in the desert to the scavengers. Before this had only been the old and infirm, now many more bodies suffered the fate.

Some Shadi saw an opportunity to take both paths to secure food, and turned to raiding. Other tribes of Ra'Shaket, those in the mountains around them, indeed anyone with food. It was lucky for the farming Shaket that half grown wheat was not worth the effort. These raid and conflicts served to both capture animals, and reduce the population of the tribe, by those who died. Sometimes all the Shadi of the opposing tribe were killed, and the serving keliit joined the raiders. Sometimes the surviving keliit were killed as well. Extra food was useless, when it brought too many extra mouths along with it.

While conflict between Keliit were silenced and decided by Shadi, intertribal conflicts between Shadi had no such ultimate authority to decide. Frequently tribes were split up, as Shadi became paranoid about their fellow leaders. Shadi were also not spared the wrath of the plague, and many grew suspicious and violent. Many fought, and many died. Several tribes dissolved to chaos as they were left with no Shadi to lead them, resulting in mass suicides and desperate journeys across the sands.

There is a sacred ritual that every Shadi goes through, where the easy path to the stars is closed, but in exchange they are given the right to lead, and the spiritual strength to brave the hard path. In some of the westernmost tribes, they began giving this ritual to all who passed the age of full adulthood at 24, so that even should all Shadi die or turn mad, the tribe may survive. This was both a blessing and a curse. Now, any man could kill a Shadi, and not face Damnation. Shadi used to be a title that could only be bestowed by a previous Shadi, now it could be taken by those willing to spill blood. It would come as no surprise to learn that these were the tribes that turned to raiding the most.

As a whole, the Ra'Shaket blamed the Mezhed for the sickness. Hadn't it, after all, come from them? They had grown too close, adopted too many of their ways. That was why they had contracted the divine punishment meant for them. Trade ceased almost completely. In the past, that would have doomed the large industry of craftsmen that worked gold, who relied on food imports to survive. Most of those were dead now, the food no longer needed. Still, the new warlord Shadi in the desert still valued gold and glass, so the practices survived, if on a scale a magnitude smaller than before.

TL;DR

Plague comes, people die, people farm, people murder each other, people murder themselves, people blame Mezhed.