Adventures in the wake of a plague?

[2D8HP]

I've been mining Ian Mortimer's "Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England" for setting backround, and I have just started reading his "Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England"....

Something that struck me in reading The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England, is that in the wake of the Black Death there were fallow fields, empty farmsteads, and whole villages left to ruin in the 14th century.

If you've every visited a "ghost town" (I remember travelling through some as a child) it's eerie, but other than some flavor text, and the usual monsters that take up residence, I can't think of anything adventure inspiring, but the image is haunting and I'd like to make use of it, but other than as places to shelter, and ghosts, I don't have many ideas.

Your ideas?

[Mechalich]

In many ways, the natural impact of a depopulating plague, or alternatively a vicious depopulating war (something like a Mongol invasion perhaps) would actually be to dampen adventuring for a generation or so. With territory available for open reclamation by the ambitious, there is no need to seek one's fortune by rushing to the frontier or delving ancient ruins, you can just go and homestead somewhere within well-defined territory and presumably remain under the protection of the existing forces of law and order. If the post-plague period is a time of chaos with various factions running about trying to seize power - think China in any inter-dynasty period or Game of Thrones - then adventuring types naturally gravitate to various factions and rise within them as they take advantage of the meritocratic chaos.

As a result, traditional D&D style adventuring parties are actually best suited to periods of stability when there are strong leaders of nations and the frontier can be pushed back. China's Wuxia literature and the Arthurian mythos are both illustrative of this.

[Yora]

When a third of the population dies, it's huge. When some regions have 90% dead, it's no surprise that monks write it's the end of the world.

A similar scenario is smallpox in America. That killed about 95% of all Americans. When English settlers arrived, they found a land that was basically post-apocalyptic. (Great, first the plague almost wipes out humanity and then you get invaded by aliens.)

[Bobbyjackcorn]

When a third of the population dies, it's huge. When some regions have 90% dead, it's no surprise that monks write it's the end of the world.

A similar scenario is smallpox in America. That killed about 95% of all Americans. When English settlers arrived, they found a land that was basically post-apocalyptic. (Great, first the plague almost wipes out humanity and then you get invaded by aliens.)

This is a great example of the direction that I think you may want to go in!
It's not about the abandoned farmsteads themselves. It's about the world-wide implications.
Cities decimated by the destruction of their agricultural support system, now living in the wake of Death's shadow.
Ancient pacts and rites that have needed to be performed to keep certain evils locked away now go undone: the populations that normally performed them all wiped out.
Outsiders making homes in homesteads and resurrecting the dead, or opening gateways.
Alien beings from other worlds invading, or even just Drow or Duergar from the Underdark taking advantage of the surface's woes to invade.
Ancient magical artifacts that have been defended in their keeps now vulnerable to theft.
Or even just plague cults, trying to resurrect the plague for a second, globally-lethal wave.

Since plague is such a globally affectatious event, I'd recommend thinking of the global implications, and work your way down in scale from those until you settle on localized threats.

[Geordnet]

A similar scenario is smallpox in America. That killed about 95% of all Americans. When English settlers arrived, they found a land that was basically post-apocalyptic. (Great, first the plague almost wipes out humanity and then you get invaded by aliens.)

This is really the scenario you need for adventuring in a plague-ridden land. The PCs are outsiders, and they're exploring the recently-depopulated lands. I can think of three main goals they could have:

1. Salvage (it ain't looting if nobody alive can claim ownership; or you can play conquistador and carve out a new empire)
2. Rescue (a purge sets the stage for societal renewal and renaissance, but there could be an explosion in the monster population in the meantime)
3. Survey (find out who's still alive; maybe also remap the area and recover lost texts depending on how much the world depends on oral accounts)

[FreddyNoNose]

Something that struck me in reading The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England, is that in the wake of the Black Death there were fallow fields, empty farmsteads, and whole villages left to ruin in the 14th century.

If you've every visited a "ghost town" (I remember travelling through some as a child) it's eerie, but other than some flavor text, and the usual monsters that take up residence, I can't think of anything adventure inspiring, but the image is haunting and I'd like to make use of it, but other than as places to shelter, and ghosts, I don't have many ideas.

Your ideas?

If you traveled back in time and were an descendant of people who survived that plague, you could very well have resistance to that plague.

[Vogie]

If you've every visited a "ghost town" (I remember travelling through some as a child) it's eerie, but other than some flavor text, and the usual monsters that take up residence, I can't think of anything adventure inspiring, but the image is haunting and I'd like to make use of it, but other than as places to shelter, and ghosts, I don't have many ideas.

Your ideas?

In addition to spooky spirits, you could have:

• pestilence demons, either causing the plague, or being able to manifest because of it.
• Psycho survivalists, cultists, or both.
• Ghost-infused landscapes turning into pseudo-elementals & Revenants.
• A mansion or village that is actually some sort of hungry horror
• A town where there are no adults (due to the plague), but they've misinterpreted the plague as a judgment and have created a "Children of the Corn" society.
• Cannibals, either feral, or "Book of Eli" style
• A village or family that all survived the plague, but were scarred or mutated by it, drawing on the Hillbilly Horror trope
• Baba Yaga
• Werewolf packs
• The party finds out the disease was fairly mild, except it was weaponized by Blightcasters & Plaguelords
• A Creep-style disease or mist that is very slowly eating up the landscape, forcing the party (and everyone) to keep moving
• The party has to follow the river to the source to find out what is infecting it
• Exploring why the individuals in the party survived themselves, then figuring out if they can help others with that knowledge, "I am Legend" style.
• A zone where where a wizard has "defeated" the plague by creating a time loop
• A Cleric who has healed the plague from a bunch of people, but is being afflicted by a super-version of the plague because of his exposure

[Knaight]

Hey 2d8, I have another system recommendation for you. Desolation is a post apocalyptic fantasy system set immediately after an apocalypse, it's full of ideas that work, and I suspect you'll like it.

Otherwise, I'd start by looking at the institutions of a functioning society - political organization, trade networks, production networks, communication networks, so on and so forth. All of them are vulnerable to a sudden massive decrease in population, all of them can break. So what happens when they do? How do you work around them being destroyed, and eventually how do you try to restore them? There's room for adventure in all of these.

[2D8HP]

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Thanks for all the great suggestions!