Someone has been terrorising villages on the outskirts, even small towns. The survivors speak of rats, flies and other insects assaulting the settlement, sometimes devouring those who couldn’t get away in time, stripping flesh from bone. And the day before, they would always be visited by a minstrel dressed in hues of grey and white, who would play the most haunting song on the flute ever. Does the horde of rats, flies, ants and other insects follow his music? What could have offended the minstrel so that he would do such a thing?
- There is no motivation, no reason – the vermin horde are just a representation of the faeries in the physical relam, and the ministrel is someone who they have “brainwashed” to be a herald for the horde of vermin. Understanding the origin of the vermin horde would require the PCs to find one who understand the way of the faeries. It would be anything more than just an annual hunt (keeping in mind that mortal and faeries view time differently) to a migration of faeries from one of their realms to another. The PCs have the option of eradicating the faeries or find a way to prevent blood to be shed.
- If the PCs look at a map of the towns and villages that were struck, they would be able to make out the rough shape of a rune (the more accurate the map, the better-defined the shape would be). Those settlements are on the ley lines (or lines of power) that flows through the land. It seems when the vermin horde struck, they also dig through the graves and tombs of the area, unearthing corpses and breaking through graveyards. Is the minstrel using the horde to find something? Or perhaps he wants the ley lines to be free of any human settlements or burial grounds. Perhaps the ley lines are essential for a ritual, and for the magical power to flow there could be no obtrusion? The obtrusion could be a village to consecrated place like a church.
- Under investigation of the settlements’ records, it turns out that each owe a certain individual a vast amount of money. A rich merchant from faraway came to the area when there’s a famine, and out of compassion, used his money and goods to provide for the people. However, when the situation turned around in about ten years time, the merchant because of a series of bad luck, became a beggar and he came to the region, seeking succor. Instead of being grateful, the rulers of the settlements turned him away, and according to legends, refused to honouring the agreement to make give him a place in their community. It was said that the merchant was gnawed by rats and was infested by maggots and flies as he laid dying and no one buried him at all till his corpse was totally devoured…
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