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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4129115" data-attributes="member: 4937">I think you are missing my point - knowing the germ theory of disease is more important than access to clean water.  The great mass of people who died didn't die for lack of clean water, they died because they didn't know what caused disease.  If they had have known, they probably would have paid more attention to obtaining clean water, boiling water before drinking it, hygiene, waste disposal, and so forth.  The great mass of ancients weren't dying of Cholera, which is a relatively new thing.  They were dying of dysentary and small pox, bubonic plague and typhus, influenza and scarlet fever.  Clean water would have helped, but not as much as knowing what caused diseases.  Hense, my suggestion that magical water in itself would mainly be valuable where it would otherwise be difficult to obtain water.  Like the purification system is mainly valuable in cases where the threat of rapid recontamination is low.There is no reason to think that fantasy inhabitants don't know what causes disease within thier own world.In a fantasy world?  No, I think that is greatly in doubt.  I've already stated that cholera is not caused by a germ in my homebrew.  It's caused by a malevolent spirit (or spirits).  Those spirits are attracted to and strengthened by filth and bad odors (which also drive away beneficial protective spirits).</blockquote>