Firstly a commentary - I love the Downtime system in Ultimate Campaign. It has given a whole new breath of life to my homebrew and provided a major impetus for the PCs to help out in their adopted base of operations.
That said one of the players had her character helping to build a bunch of houses for refugees during her Downtime. These particular unfortunates are prejudiced against and without any skills at building, so they really needed a lot of help. The PC used her skills to generate goods, influence and labor and went on a MASSIVE recruiting drive, then handed off a bunch of Teams to her cousin/NPC as a Manager to keep the project going while she's away.
Now to my request: does anyone have some good suggestions for Downtime events? While running this first big use of Downtime I rolled on the stuff in the book but there really wasn't much I could use since 1. there was no building yet for "building specific" events and 2. not a lot of the generic stuff really fit.
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At the start of a 'kingdom' you're pretty much in the 'first episodes' of your favorite show. And as any good series of first episodes go you start by introducing the characters, in this case, NPCs that may become important later on.
Cowboy Bebop for example, each character gets their time to shine, starting with the main characters (Spike, Jet), and important NPCs are introduced through their own episodes (Radical Edward and so on). Here you set the tone for the NPC's current state, and foreshadow any character development you may wish to proceed with. Again with this example we see a character that is wandering aimlessly, struck by a desire to travel beyond her own environment.
Be careful, this can be overused akin to many Monster of the Week series, but, if used appropriately, and cleverly disguised many players wont even notice that the events are simply introductions for additional plot hooks.
You mention that the populace of this area are prejudiced against. A very simple event would be to have their persecutors come by to interfere with the people's new home. I'd make sure there was a highly visible leader or important underling to personify as a villain.
I believe there's a 'rogue's gallery' or similar thread on these boards where people toss up their own characters for use as NPCs for other gaming groups. Crowd sourcing bits of GM duty for the enjoyment of all.
So ultimately I would suggest thinking up a dozen or so NPCs, and how they might interact with your new 'kingdom'.
Event: prejudiced mob
A small group of angry bigots arrives to intimidate the target of their intolerance. PCs may make a DC 25 Diplomacy check; success with this roll earns them 1d3 Influence. Otherwise the mob rampages dealing enough property damage for the victim to lose 1d4 Goods.