D&D 5E (2014) Plague Doctor Campaign Ideas

[Belos-Hunter]

Zombification disease?
Really anything works, as long as it spreads faster than the number of spell slots available for Cure Disease allows for curing.
I have a partly finished Poison/Disease cleric domain for Talona done, can post if desired. Talona's clergy spends as much time curing disease as they might spreading it... or rather, the good ones heal, the bad ones spread, and some do some of both depending on who needs to die.

Neverwinter Nights had a disease as a major plot point.

1. Establishing the disease as a threat.
Side effects that create things for PCs to do include: Quarantines disrupting trade and making people unsafe. Banditry. Bodies piling up -> undead. Corruption, smuggling.

2. Researching the disease.
This could be the PCs, or it could be NPCs they help.
Quests/things to do: Gather special tools, get samples from different areas, solve a burglary at the research area, retrieve and escort a subject matter expert from bandits/kidnapping/evil Duke.

3. Curing the disease.
Retrieve special ingredients (in NWN, they were an Umber Hulk, a Nymph, a Rust Monster, and an Intellect Devourer), protect a magical ritual site, bribe/steal/etc. and transport 3,000 lbs of Nerrhavian Snow Salt, etc., prevent sabotage by the enemy.

4. The creature behind the curtain.
This was all a diversion to weaken XYZ in favor of a plot. Kingdom takeover, return of ancient lizard people, cultists of Extraplanar Evil, Aboleth, dragons playing a long game, one deity trying to weaken the faith in another deity, or whatever you want to fight.

Thank you, this is very helpful!

 

[Belos-Hunter]

I'd lean towards running it in historical Call of Cthulhu or something similar. Something that lends itself to finding hidden lore and secrets and avoiding combat. "Scientific discovery leads to horrible realisation and otherworldly incursion" is a staple theme of that game. It helps that everybody is a civilian of some sort. A medical researcher, journalist, hospital orderly, or local mayor are all normal 'classes' in that game. Everybody is mundane. Games about mundane things and/or horror lose their effect when you can throw around fireballs or are an expert swordsman.

That is a good point, the only problem is I do not know how to play that system and my friends do not want to learn a new system.

 

[Belos-Hunter]

Warhammer has a Plague Doctor cult doesnt it? Iirc they are fanatics who fight to stop the plagues of Nurgle by burning down infected villages, diagnosing the infected and then burning the victims and boiling their ashes.

A PC in town afflicted by plague has to decide if the Plague Doctors are mord of a threat than the Nurgles agents.
Or the PCs could be Plague doctors burning down villages for the good of the Empire and then hunting down patient zero.

For DnD make them Paladins

That could work, but people don't enjoy having limited options I've found. Maybe more classes could work like the cleric, the Artificer (specifically the Alchemist), and someone pointed out to me that doctors still need guards, and maybe Barbarians/Fighters could be that.