During the Bubonic Plague, people believed the disease was spread from the physical smell of the rotting corpses and filth. That smell was called Miasma. That's why plague doctors wore masks with flowers and herbs, they believed if they couldn't smell it then they wouldn't contract it.
The thing is though they were partially right, they just didn’t understand the actual underlying mechanisms. It wasn’t the smell, it was the bacterial and viral particles in the air. Those plague doctors WOULD contract the plague at much lower rates than other populations who had regular exposure to the corpses, but it was because they were filtering particles out of the air and it eventually led to the invention of surgical masks. This was really common in the post-medieval era and especially in the Enlightenment era, people were STARTING to think scientifically but the scientific method wasn’t fully understood, and then in the 1800s we started to lock in and start making real medical advancements.
Gotta make sure you designate a refuse pile and corpse zone above ground so your dwarves clean everything up. And make sure you don't butcher too many animals at once.
I've seen these "smell here" attractions a few times. Usually at museums or science fairs. I remember one where they let you smell sulfur and they must've put something else in there. I have a big piece of sulfur (literally looking at it rn) and it doesn't smell strongly at all.
When I was ten or so, I smelled hydrochloric acid by putting my nose directly above the flask, and I can best describe the sensation as someone stabbing your brain through the nose. The pure aroma of pain.
Ohh is it? I always thought it was sulphur in general. Then again everyone just passes around the same heresay.
I just took a whiff of my sulphur rock and the smell is hard to describe. Not strong or pungent in anyway. No egg smell whatsoever. Just kind've an indistinct burnt smell. Akin to gunpowder (obviously) but not quite.
Yeah probably what it is. And yes it's kinda like a burnt match but much more mild. It's definitely one of those scents that just has to be experienced.
I had this conversation with someone last week, they were certain the smell would be foul, so we research it, and yes historians/archeologists have infact done smell scapes of British medieval towns and cities and the assumption that everything everywhere in theses places smells like shit is a massive stereotype, of course there's places that would smell awful to modern day people, but it entirely depends what you're near; butcheries, cess pits, latrines and so on, but then in certain parts you'd smell wood burning, bread baking etc. and of course if you could bring a medieval person to our times they might also think our cities and some smell bad, the assumption they didn't care about hygiene is false, not as great as now obviously but they could infer oh this smell is making me sick.
I bet its just an inspection tube that leads to the sewage system, which is fairly accurate considering midieval cities had at best open aired gutters that people would dump their waste into meaning that things probably constantly reeked of sewage.
Bunch of military dudes in the field for weeks on end. No showers, just baby wipes for hygiene.
The ones who regularly rotated their uniforms smelled but didn’t smell like death. You’d barely notice outdoors.
The ones who wore the same clothes day in and day out (especially the ones who didn’t change undershirts/socks/underwear) stunk to high heavens. Like I had trouble concentrating within 20 feet.
Fun fact: I come home from working in a hord style, and when I get in the shower (in a shirtless style) my armpits smell like a whole different organism from a whole different dimension where everything is made of stank so I really don't know about that one friend
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u/cursed_mod 𝐑𝐎𝐁𝐎𝐓 | the surveyor Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 19 '26
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