Need help with an adventure hook

[Noldor Elf]

I'm creating a campaing world where the death has been missing for some two hundred years. First it just caused people to live longer but with more and more deaths increasing number of the dead people have returned as undeads.

Now I need a good adventure hook to get the heroes of the story involved. Any ideas?

I was thinking to make one of them (paladin/hunter of the death)bound to continue death's work (agreement made by his ancestor), and to free himself from the work he has to release the originanl death.

 

[Deadguy]

Well, if you have one or more players who will work with you on this, a very personal connection might be in order: someone close to him has died and returned as an undead, perhaps at the hand of another undead.

In other words, something that says: this death should not ahve happened if things were going right. Perhaps the other PCs are in a similar position. Then they can meet up and try and deal with this together. Let them follow one or two leads that turn out to be false (someone is bound to be selling false hope in this desperate world). Then let them sumble on something pointing towards the original event that caused Death's absence. (Generally I prefer a lower-key start to the campaign - it makes the PCs feel less railroaded.)

Nice idea, by the way.

 

[Mark]

Oddly enough, I had just suggested earlier that specific topic be addressed at the DMing Chat Session on Monday night 7pm (central US time). If you can make it to the chat, I will guarentee that we will spend some time on your problem. In fact, it is a good excercise to use examples on which to brainstorm, and if you are there, we will use yours. You will have plenty of material after that, I am sure.

Here's the thread, if you'd like it-

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?threadid=28055

 

[Noldor Elf]

Well, 7pm Centras US time means 3am for me, so it's very unlikely for me to make to the chat. So I hope getting more suggestions here...

Those false leads are marked used, whether I start the story from lower or higher-key.

Also, do you think that is bad to create too precise story for the campaing since it can easily lead to railroading?