So my campaign is gearing up to go full-on plague mode. You know the deal; disease spreading among the population, panic running through the streets, bodies being carried to the cemetery by the cartload, Churches unable to keep up with the need for healing, etc.
What I need is ideas for "quests" I can weave into the overall plot. Vignettes and setpieces that push the horror atmosphere (ideally without delving into the generic "undead everywhere" style) of the city.
So /tg/, can you help me brainstorm some ideas?
Seriously, guys I'm completely tapped for ideas right now.
Depends on what your PCs are. If they are mercenaries i would suggest having them protect a shipment of all too rare medicine on its way the clerics or whoever is in charge of distributing healing and supplies. Plague victims attack the shipment desperate for medicine and knowing that there isn't enough to go around.
This is assuming that your PCs are mercs, of course. if not you could have them see a shipment getting attacked, perhaps with guards defending it with brutal force on the weak plague ridden victims.
A bunch of nobles gathered together in a manor to have a party and take their minds off of the shit going down amongst the filthy peasants.
The music stopped just after midnight. Nobody has come out. The guards that went to investigate have yet to return.
>>44233578
I like this idea, maybe working off this you could say the shipment of "medicine" the nobles ordered you to deliver to the manor was part of some science / magic concoction that the owner of the manor has had made for him.
>>44233577
>Depends on what your PCs are.
They're sort of self-appointed heroes, but also sort of deputized by the head of the City Guard.
They're going to be moving around the city doing a lot of shit to help people, fight the plague, but more importantly beat down the various criminals and monsters that are going to be using the plague as cover for their shit.
There is no "medicine" though, it's a plague. There's healing magic, but not remotely enough to help the entire city since high level casters are rare and the low level ones can only cure one person at a time, a few times a day.
>>44233578
I've actually already got a set piece pretty much exactly like this already.
As an aside: I have a villain that was already a Harlequin-type, and that got me thinking about another mystery villain I've sort of teased the party with but haven't revealed (other than them hearing a story of him going crazy), so I kind of want to turn that guy into a Joker expy. Not necessarily with the makeup and the wacky antics, but the concept.
I'm just having a hard time thinking of how he might emerge onto the scene in the middle of a plague.
>>44233578
>>44233645
It's literally The Masque of the Red Death.
>>44233833
:D
You got me. Still a good idea.
>>44233577
If you're going to set up the victims of the plague as people that need to be killed in order to protect the thing that's supposed to help the victims, you're kind of fucking with any sort of tone inherent in game here.
>>44233061
Some ideas
Quarantine sections of the city. Prohibt all travel from the most plague affected sections (likely the poor quarters) to the less plague affected sections (likely the richer quarters). The PCs could get a smuggling/escape mission in either direction across the barricades.
Have ships lying in the harbor, some distance from land, with archers shooting anyone approaching. (Kind of the opposite of "plague ship" doctrines that kept ship born diseases from spreading to cities) The PCs need to get someone or something on to or off one of these ships.
Rumors start that the plague is really caused by sinful behavior/elves/the color blue and soon desperate lynchmobs form.
Foreigners/nobles/clergy don't seem to get sick; the PCs need to find out why, maybe it could protect everyone?
The many victims of the plague kick start a black market for corpses intended for illegal dissection (or necromancy).
>>44234305
I was kinda hoping to cut a bit deeper. Like, actual excursions and plot threads to pad out the world.
There's gonna be quarantining eventually, and lots of people going nuts around, but that's just set dressing.
How advanced is the understanding of science in this campaign? Depending on your answer, this may be a good quest:
The party comes upon a lynch mob where a man accused of purposefully spreading the plague is about to be killed. The man is a doctor who is alleged to have been harvesting the plagued humours of the sick and dying and purposefully introducing them to his healthy patients. The twist is that the doctor had actually come up with the idea of inoculation but none of the townspeople would believe him.
>>44233061
>>44234305 was plot ideas, continuing with set pieces
Be sure to describe smells, not just visual scenes. The sweet, acrid and pungent stenches of various bodily fluids and the ever present tang of burning flesh on the nostrils from the corpse fires.
People start getting religious or superstitious, a brisk trade in "protective talismans" and frequent services and the temple become commonplace. Have temple bells ringing, waking up characters in the middle of the night. Have peddlers selling death-related trinkets. (as a twist, the trinkets or temple services, could be spreading the plague, but note that this was the plot in a well known PC game, so...)
Describe vermin everywhere. Flies landing on characters, rats scurrying across the floor. Worms in apples. Cockroaches on the walls.
Have non-essential NPCs that the PCs remember suddenly dissappear (taken by the plage). E.g. there's a young lad instead of the inn keeper; and the inn keepers wife is crying.
Have prices change to reflect changes in supply and demand. Wine and ale becomes more expensive (it's safe to drink, and provides temporary escape), while used boots can be had at bargain prices.
Mention otherwise insignificant symptoms of a cold or other minor disease to the player, have them worry for some time before realizing that they don't have the plague, just a runny nose. To add to this, have a beggar approach and then suddenly run away from a character with the sniffles.
>>44233742
>here is no "medicine" though, it's a plague.
Okay, how about a plot hook involving fake medicine being sold? The party hears rumors about a cure and tries to find where it is being sold. Then they have to track down the supplier and expose their fraud.
>>44234436
That's kind of hard without knowing more about your campaign setting and the PCs. I'm guessing this is some sort of medieval-like fantasy from your mention of carts and undead, but it's not much to go on. Plots that can be anchored in *any* fantasy world will inevitably be more bland and boring than something adapted to your world.
Why don't you tell us about the setting and the PCs, and it'll be easier to answer.
>>44233061
Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the Empress' daughter?
>>44233061
For a set piece, maybe you could do something with a plague village - one that quarantined itself when the plague arrived, to attempt to halt the spread.
It happened IRL at least once (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyam#Plague_outbreak), they'd use stones to delineate a boundary, allowing people to leave food without getting infected.
Maybe food isn't being taken any more
Maybe the isolation and the deaths have led the villagers to doing dark things - to try and cure it, perhaps, perhaps looking to older and more visceral religions
Entering the village means your players become a danger to the rest of the world if they leave (or if they're allowed to leave), if they weren't already, and the small village opens up a lot of creepy options anyway
>>44234658
>Okay, how about a plot hook involving fake medicine being sold?
Yep, already got it. I may re-write it to do a bit more, but for now it's just a minor event because I assume in such a large city there will be a ton of scam artists attempting to sell fake cures, and the players calling one out publicly will inform enough people to make a chunk of the population turn away from those rather than having to make them kick down the door of each scam artist individually.
>>44234664
>That's kind of hard without knowing more about your campaign setting and the PCs.
It's...a large city in a fantasy world. I really don't know how to explain it without going into the religions and government systems that control the whole place, and that would take far too long to write up.
The only important detail is that the campaign takes place 100% within the urban city, it doesn't leave. No treks through the mountains, no caves, no lost ruins.
The players are just people. They have no particular religious affiliations, they unofficially work for the head of the City Guard, and they don't trust the government. There's already an overarching plot about the Plague Doctors brought into the city being fake and a cult of Urgathoa being behind the disease itself.
I'm just trying to fill gaps in time as the plague spreads and panic eats at the city.
>>44233061
Pogroms and witch hunts as people turn to basically any solution/explanation for the plague, even ones as dumb as "elves did it, let's burn the elves".
Doomsday cult want to spread the plague. Have to be stopped.
>>44234933
>PCs prove that it's not the elves
>Mobs wants to do it anyway
EXECUTED WITH IMPUNITY
>>44234845
>100% within the urban city
That's quite the limitation, but nothing insurmountable
The plague is affected by phenomena - maybe the spread speeds up as the moon wanes, or the death rate doubles when the mist comes off the water.
Ghettos are formed, and underlying tensions get exacerbated by the fear - various groups get blamed by notable community figures
How do you stop a lot of the cities' wealthy inhabitants up and leaving with all their money?
Grave pits and/pyres could present problems - it's grisly work and could affect people, making them go strange (especially if there's a magical nature to the plague)
Cities don't tend to be all one age - maybe construction work has found something buried beneath the city, which could be good - if the city survived a plague before - or could be very, very bad
>>44233061
What year does this take place in? What level of medical knowledge would your healers have? For example are they 17th century doctors who can just do magic? Would the medical community know about things like bacteria?
Sorry for bad English.
>>44233061
Does the plague follow standard epidemiological spread patterns? What are the vectors?
More importantly, what do people THINK are the vectors? Those iconic plague doctors masks came from the belief that foul smells carried disease, so they were stuffed with sweet-smelling herbs and spices. Think like that and you can add a lot of flavour to the wider world as well as the specific scenario.
For instance, what if it's believed that certain trades spread disease? That there's something "unclean" associated with certain jobs and businesses which are normally tolerated. I mean, this makes sense scientifically - some jobs will exposure people to potentially infectious materials and jobs that involve travel carry the risk of spreading disease around an even further area. So let's say that in this world it's believed that, say, the trade of cloth is a danger. Not that all cloth itself is necessarily infectious, but that disease can spread through infected clothing (though, smallpox blankets, who knows?), that clothes of certain styles or fabrics might be especially dangerous.. That would have knock impacts on trade AND fashion.
>>44237487
>For instance, what if it's believed that certain trades spread disease?
How does this provide quests, plot threads, or ways to engage and challenge the players? Seems like it's just more effort to paint details on the surface.
You can tweak away at the verisimilitude of the setting as much as you want, but that's not what was asked.
>>44237545
Let's stick with the idea that it's cloth and fabric related. They might suddenly find themselves in situations where people start shying away from them because of what they're wearing. "You've been killing and all that.. foulness seeps into what you're wearing, you know.." Suddenly there's a reason for a PC to not be constantly walking around in fucking plate mail at literally all hours of the day - because people believe they're plague bearers if they do.
The social impact also is going to create demand, which creates both quests and challenges. A city that once was a vibrant fabric production centre is shut down by disease, leading to mass unemployment and an upswell in criminal activity; neighbouring cities still need the fabric and some might be willing to risk infection for the now-premium fabrics the city is still producing.
I'm just spitballing because beyond "disease, what do", there's not a lot to work with and specifics actually help.
>>44237653
>A city that once was a vibrant fabric production centre is shut down by disease, leading to mass unemployment and an upswell in criminal activity;
But this is just saying the same thing, you're just saying "A plague will cause crime" without actually attempting to come up with something that might actually be more than just a passing detail.
What KIND of crime?
>Have the Plague Doctors been leaving wards at the places they visit, which are really enchanted with Unhallow spells as a method of secretly consecrating the souls of those who die next to them to some goddess of disease?
>With so many people getting sick, how does that affect the local Vampire population? Are they suddenly hunting more openly and forming sacrifice covens to keep themselves fed?
>Plague demons are a thing, perhaps the cult that created the disease accidentally lost one and now it's tearing through an otherwise untouched wealthy section of the city, leaving mangled bodies and pestilence in it's wake?
>>44237898
Are there vampires? We don't know.
Are there plague demons? We don't know.
Can plague doctors do spells? If so, arcane or divine? We don't know.
This is the issue. You're asking for specifics but without knowing more information we can't GIVE specifics. We can only give broad generalities and then go "make it work for your setting".
Like, is the plague magical or real? Either way, how does it spread? Would anyone ever knowingly WANT to get infected and if so why? Fuck, I've read through this thread twice and I've not seen any symptoms described. Why is the plague bad? When you say plague, do you literally intend it to be bubonic plague or is it something else?
THIS CITY MUST BE PURGED!
