In case anyone was confused by the Leper class

[Quincy_Morris]

And here I thought they were just making crap up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Saint_Lazarus

[Nequis]

I don't see any line saying the lepers themselves took part in battles,did i miss it?

[jklinders]

Perhaps the Lepers in game were members of the order who had contracted teh disease and no longer served thier original function. Seems reasonable and also fits in with their being religious by default.

[Quincy_Morris]

A group of elite fighters who took care of people with one of the most contagious diseases at the time and existed during the time period inspired by the game? Sounds pretty open and shut to me. It's pretty hard to have hospitals devoted to taking care of lepers and not have a lot of people contract it.

[Baywatch]

Actually, it isn't a very contagious disease. I know popular belief states otherwise but around 90(?)% of people are naturally immune. So, chances are the Order of Saint Lazarus didn't serve as an inspiration for the leper class. I would assume that honor goes to King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem.

[Half-Eaten Toilet Baby]

Wasn't there a king in 'The Kingdom of Heaven' movie who wore a mask to hide his leprosy?

Not sure how accurate that depiction was, but that was during the Holy Wars, which would match the timeline of the Crusader.

[Baywatch]

Originally posted by Domestic Violence:

Wasn't there a king in 'The Kingdom of Heaven' movie who wore a mask to hide his leprosy?

Not sure how accurate that depiction was, but that was during the Holy Wars, which would match the timeline of the Crusader.

Yeah, that's Baldwin IV.

I can't speak for how accurate the portrayal was. You'd need someone more knowledgeable than I on the subject but, it's likely safe to assume a lot was 'adjusted' for the sake of entertainment as movies tend to do.

[Quincy_Morris]

Originally posted by Baywatch:

Actually, it isn't a very contagious disease. I know popular belief states otherwise but around 90(?)% of people are naturally immune. So, chances are the Order of Saint Lazarus didn't serve as an inspiration for the leper class. I would assume that honor goes to King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem.

Well NOW 90% of people are immune. In olden times it was a different story. Just historically speaking.

[Baywatch]

Originally posted by KRAG Canterlot Royal Guard:

Well NOW 90% of people are immune. In olden times it was a different story. Just historically speaking.

But, historically speaking it was never that contagious. The bacteria itselt can spread at a fast rate but, the disease rarely follows. That was just as true then as it is now.

Keep in mind most people of the Medeival era were completely uneducated, especially when it came to medicine. It's very likely they labeled many diseases/deformities as Leprosy out of fear and ignorance.

[Vanagandr]

Originally posted by Baywatch:

Originally posted by KRAG Canterlot Royal Guard:

Well NOW 90% of people are immune. In olden times it was a different story. Just historically speaking.

But, historically speaking it was never that contagious. The bacteria itselt can spread at a fast rate but, the disease rarely follows. That was just as true then as it is now.

Keep in mind most people of the Medeival era were completely uneducated, especially when it came to medicine. It's very likely they labeled many diseases/deformities as Leprosy out of fear and ignorance.

TBH it doesn't matter if it's the plague, typhus or cholera, you're still probably going to end up dead if you hang around sick people.

[Shirsh]

Check this: http://www.st-lazarus.org.au/history.html

The second Master of Saint Lazarus from 1120 to 1131 was Roger Boyant, who until then had been Rector of the hospital of Saint John. Undoubtedly the two hospitals retained close ties and provided the early association with the knightly Hospitallers in what is now known as the Order of Malta. Until this time those dedicated to the care and welfare of the Saint Lazarus lepers were purely Hospitaller and mostly monks, but with the steady influx into Jerusalem of crusading knights contracting the dreaded disease, the character of the Order gradually evolved to become military.

The Knights Templar, the first military Christian Order, had the policy for knights contracting leprosy to join the Order of Saint Lazarus with the Templars paying a pension for each affected knight’s admission. As leprosy was rampant in the east at that time, a steady flow of knightly recruits entered the Order influencing its military nature.

In 1143 the Convent of Saint Lazarus was established at Bethany and accommodated the spouses of leprous knights.

Don't forget that DD doesn't have a strong connections with real world timeline and exist in quite mixed fictional Poe-Lovecraft-alike universe though.

Or this https://www.st-lazarus.net/en/the-order/history - maybe better source to read:

By the early 13th century, the Order had expanded its role in the Holy Land. In his Bull dated 1227, Pope Gregory IX refers to the brothers, knights and clerics of Saint Lazarus. This suggests that the Order had assumed a military role and contemporary texts do confirm that members of the Order of St. Lazarus participated in the campaigns in the defence of the Holy Land including the Battle of Gaza in 1244 where contemporary texts state that “all the leper knights of the house of Saint Lazarus were killed”, and in the Battle of Mensura in 1250.

[Quincy_Morris]

Originally posted by Baywatch:

Originally posted by KRAG Canterlot Royal Guard:

Well NOW 90% of people are immune. In olden times it was a different story. Just historically speaking.

It's very likely they labeled many diseases/deformities as Leprosy out of fear and ignorance.

Just because people in olden times chose to classify several different diseases under the umbrella of "leporasy" doesn't make them wrong. Obviously in this modern age we're more precise in our classifications because we know about more diseases. But classifying several similar diseases as one thing doens't make them wrong. They used more general termonology. We just use the same word to describe different things.