Famine of 16 AV

The Famine of 16 AV affected eastern Auseka, mostly towards the north. Biesen and Schap were hit the worst, Fonticia weathered the storm better.

Following a hot and dry summer in 15 AV, crops began to fail in the autumn, but grain stores and rationing of remaining resources meant that the winter of 15/16 AV was difficult, but not desastrous.

Unfortunately, the spring of 16 AV began cold and wet, and many seeds were swept away or drowned in a series of spring storms over eastern Auseka. When the weather changed at the start of summer, peasants rejoiced, but it turned out to be a second too dry and too hot summer, and crops failed again, on an already stressed economy.

When winter broke early in the north, famine began almost immediately. Many fields could not be saved or had only just started to prosper and were damaged by early frost. Stores had been depleted from the previous year. Animals had been slaughtered in spring to feed peasants until the first harvests could be brought in.

The winter of 16 AV was long and harsh, and both peasants and nobility suffered. Several noble families and entire villages of peasants perished.