Need some suggestions: the new campaign is going to start out just after an earthquake that breached a wall. In the ensuing chaos post-quake somehow goblins have gotten into the city with the idea that, once there they will cause annoyances to slow the wall's repair so that the little buggers have the chance to really take root in the city and maybe even find a way to smuggle more of their number in or loot out.
I'm looking for calamaties they can cause. There's the obvious - they damage the scaffolds and palisades temporariy replacing the wall or a distracting fire, but I want some others. Specifically I'm looking for things that can involve the PC's and not have the event be a giant neon sign saying "this was done by goblins living in the sewers."
Large caches of food disappearing! Subtle, but if you have feed a force large enough to rebuild you need food and the lack of food can be quite a calamity.
We have a goblin rouge in one of our adventures, and he spends 90% of his loot on food. It's a fun roleplay.
Disappearing pets (especially dogs) and children.
Theft/spoilage of food.
Various murders (single NPCs or small groups).
Random vandalism.
Use false sightings/red herrings: Possibly one of the goblins has a dire rat animal companion and/or summons fiendish dire rats, so that many people assume wererats are responsible.
Need some suggestions: the new campaign is going to start out just after an earthquake that breached a wall. In the ensuing chaos post-quake somehow goblins have gotten into the city with the idea that, once there they will cause annoyances to slow the wall's repair so that the little buggers have the chance to really take root in the city and maybe even find a way to smuggle more of their number in or loot out.
I'm looking for calamaties they can cause. There's the obvious - they damage the scaffolds and palisades temporariy replacing the wall or a distracting fire, but I want some others. Specifically I'm looking for things that can involve the PC's and not have the event be a giant neon sign saying "this was done by goblins living in the sewers."
Spreading disease. The lil' buggers could easily spread filth fever around the area which they track up from within the sewers (stuff like Escherichia Coli). Poison the water supplies of people and horses (especially horses). Set stables on fire and make it look like an accident (overturned lanterns), and general stuff like that. Also, a rash of pie thefts and such would be amusing too.
Ok, so that's 3 for food theft. Here's what I'm thinking:
Per the request of my players they want to start out randomly in the city not knowing each other for a change. So they start out in the lower wards near the docks, near where the wall was damaged landward and is under repair. Anyway, as they're making their way through vendors and what not they note a delicious smell of fresh meat pies from a nearby tavern over the fish smell. By the time they get there the proprietor is beside himself; he's been robbed. A pair of workmen from the wall are hacking up a lung in the corner and getting very peeved; this is the 3rd pie-theft this week! Add that to the nasty fever going around and having to rebuild the scaffold earlier (since some j@ck@$$ came along and half-sawed through a bunch of the supports) they're having the worst week of their lives!
If that doesn't hook 'em the tavern's owner, a former guardsman named Obane is a real sweetheart who genuinely cares for his neighborhood. Since the quake he's watched it slowly degenerate; crime's up, people are getting hurt or worse. And for some reason the inn up the street that a lot of the laborers from out of town are staying at suddenly got fleas out of nowhere. Anyway, Obane will promise the generosity of his taps to any of these adventurers who'll help put an end to it.
'Course, we'll have the red herring of the Ratman. Its an urban legend that there's a wererat stalking the streets in the lower wards. The workmen confirm that they contracted filth fever after one of their number got attacked on the way to the site by a pair of giant rats and he saw a figure hunched at the end of the alley; a figure in the dark that looked like it had the head of a rat (goblin with a "rat-hat" so he can command his pets better). So that wild goose chase leads them to a local rat catcher suspected of being their man. Of course there's the chance of mistaken identity leading to the party killing an innocent man, but if they don't then after the situation's cleared the rat catcher announces that he's seen more of the blighters in the last few weeks than in a long time; he figured the quake just stirred 'em up. He knows where a few nests are in the sewers so w/the character's help he can do a proper cleansing...which naturally leads to the actual goblins' sewer lair.
Thanks for everyone's help on this one!
Lots of outbreaks of the rash that Goblin Dogs carry could be one sure sign.
Goblins might also kill lots of horses or burn a library down or tear down signs around the city....
writers and poets being killed
the appearance of a rat-king, in my opinion one of the most creepy things on this earth.
Roofs and cellars leaking as the goblins make entrances to their hiding places.
Sewers are blocked because the goblins put up barricades to their new homes.
Goblins steel the workmen's tools (hammer, pick, shovel, chisel, etc..) so they can't work on the wall and to use as weapons themselves.
Goblins poison the well. (Maybe just by urinating in it.)
Goblins bring in nests of spiders, wasps, snakes, etc... to make the work site unpleasant.
Shaman cast bane on the works so that accidents are more common.
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All excellent suggestions above. My advice is to keep in mind the goblins total disregard for their own safety when designing their plots. After all, they are invincible until proven otherwise, leading to ridiculous ideas such as launching themselves from a catapult at an enemy up on a wall. Therefore they are likely to take either the extremely sneaky or the most direct route possible, but nothing in between.
Goblins hate Horses and dogs so those should be in short supply soon. And The only thing they really love is fire so those should pop up all over the place.
Stables and kennels first.
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Sewers are blocked because the goblins put up barricades to their new homes.
Goblins steel the workmen's tools (hammer, pick, shovel, chisel, etc..) so they can't work on the wall and to use as weapons themselves.
Goblins poison the well. (Maybe just by urinating in it.)
I like these because they aren't necessarily deliberate sabotage, but the sorts of things that would just sort of happen on their own, as the goblins fiddle around in the sewers.
By blocking off flow in a certain area, or diverting sewage from an area they want to use as their lair, they could cause sewers to back up or overflow 'up the line', leading to disease outbreaks or contaminated wells.
By blocking sublight from areas they want to use as their primary travel routes, by stuffing rags into grates, etc. they might accidentally cause a methane build-up, which results in a fiery explosion the first time some torch-wielding sewer worker attempts to pry loose the rags blocking the grate. (And yeah, lots of goblins could get caught in the blast. Civic engineering is not their strong suit...)
A beam or support column might be 'in the way' for whatever the goblins want to do to expand their lair, and, in cutting it down or pulling it over, they might unintentionally undermine whatever building lies above it, resulting in local smithy collapsing into the sewers.
Goblins gotta eat, and sneaking out at night and stealing food from the grainery or killing a horse and chopping it up and dropping it in pieces down the sewer grate to eat back at the lair are only some options. They might also eat rats that live in the sewers, which could lead to rats fleeing the sewers and seeming more common on the surface, or rats being in such short supply that packs of local rat-eating feral cats start attacking sleeping street people for food! Cats vs. commoners, only on pay-per-view!
Please, god/dess/es: OP, PLEASE, correct the spelling in the thread title.
Every time I scroll by it, I think I'm reading "Goblin-made catamites,' and it's giving me hives.
'Calamities.'
Please. For the love of grammar and all that is holy...