Goodman Games

Howdy!

My campaign is set to start in August. The very general story up to the starting point of the campaign is as follows:

The action takes place in a vale where the local baron, a brutish warrior, has just been killed by his jealous cousin, a weakling. The cousin has secretly been learning magic and found a way to deal with a demon named Azastas. The cousin wanted the baron's wife, an extraordinarily beautiful woman. With the help of Azastas, the cousin gets what he wants: the woman and the barony to boot. The demon now asks the new baron to pay his debt, per the agreement: the cousin must give him the life of any one of his subjects. When asked who, Azastas says: the woman! The new baron refuses (Azastas had of course predicted he would), and the demon scourges the vale with plagues.

The first plague is that the river that crosses the vale has overflown. After that, I wished for a new plague to occur and, in front of the inefficiency of the new baron (who has his hands full securing his new title and dealing with the demon), the PCs are the ones that decide to try to solve the situation and the adventure starts there. They don't know it's a supernatural plague yet and I doubt they'll link the river overflowing with this new plague - yet. It's just like, sh*t happens, twice in a few months.

I'm looking for a cool idea for this plague, to use as my level 0 funnel adventure. Something that can be fixed, so to speak, so that there is possibilty of success for the PCs (or not, if it's a cool idea I don't mind, maybe they just learn stuff). My first idea was a plague that would hit the animals and give them festering sores or the like, and the animals would enter a rage before dying. Maybe a minor demon of some sort that would be poisoning the water, but then again I do not think I would like for 0-level PCs to be able to defeat a demon, even a minor one, because it then says that demons are not that strong.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Just to clarify, you want the second plague to at least appear "natural" until investigated, yes? Something like clouds of biting flies emanating from a nearby swampland. When the 0-levels investigate, they find the swarms issuing forth from a monstrous labyrinthine hive (a hive at the centre of which lurks some monstrous thing). Made of damp swamp mud, the hive cannot simply be burnt, so the 0-levels have to venture in to deal with the grubs and queen.

Sailors on the Starless Sea would probably work well... have some beastmen raid a few farms. Or that Doom of the Savage Kings module, or Attack of the Frawgs.....

Yes, hopefully the plague seems natural until investigated.

This is the type of idea I'm looking for.

Keep'em coming if you have any!

Yeah, I've been reading the Hound of Hirot module I got with the book, it's pretty much along the lines of what I'm looking for, I might use that later.

Strangely the first thing that popped into my head when I first read this thread was The Abominable Dr Phibes and his emulation of the ten biblical plagues of Egypt.

Yes, when designing my campaign background, I went and read the ten plague of Egypt (on wikipedia, not Dr. Phibes ) for some inspiration.

Don't forget the Goodman Games modules: DCC #0 Legends are made, not born, a zero level adv. for 3-3.5 D&D. It would be a great zero level funnel. Or DCC #31 The Transmuters Last Touch, a 1-2 lvl adventure. It would take very little work to make these useful.