City plague tables

It's the winter months here, and with winter comes cold and flu season.  I've been sick lately, and staying at home.  To keep the time from being a total loss, I thought maybe I could use the illness as a source of inspiration.

This is a series of event and encounter tables for districts of a fantasy city struck by a plague.

Escalation stages

1. Rumours and mutterings.  Ominous omens.  Prophets offering warnings in the market square.
2. Official denials from the government.
3. Theatres and public events closed.  Dusk-to-dawn curfew announced.  Extra guards recruited.
4. The wealthy and well-connected begin sending their families out of town.  Government announces that foreigners or minorities may be carrying a sickness.
5. Martial law.  Markets closed.  24-hour curfew announced.  Travel between districts is suspended.  Gates to the richest and poorest districts are shut and guarded.  Carts travel the streets collecting the dead.
6. Foreigners and minorities are attacked on site by hysterical mobs.  Fires are spreading.  Gangs operate unopposed in all but the richest districts.  The dead lie in the streets.
7. The mobs have run themselves to exhaustion.  The city is silent as people wait out the crisis in their homes.
8. The contagion has burned itself out.  People begin to emerge from their isolation and start putting the city back in order.

Docks

The docks is a place where people are constantly coming and going as ships dock and depart.  There are crowds of day labourers waiting for work carrying goods.  The businesses here are ship outfitters, warehouses and pubs.

Event table:

1. A boat captain and his crew are facing off against a merchant and his men.  The captain is refusing a shipment of pork because it may be infected, the merchant is insisting that he pay for it even if he leaves it on the dock.  Neither side is backing down.
2. A gang of looters armed with clubs is emptying a warehouse while the owner stands helplessly watching, yelling for the city guard or anyone to stop these thieves.
3. A ship is dumping cargo on the docks to make room for passengers who are offering everything they have for transport away from the city.  A group of ragged locals is snatching up all the goods they can carry, and squabbling over the best loot.
4. City guards are 'taxing' anyone who wants to enter or leave the docks.  Several ship crews have gathered in a group to try and push through without paying.  The guards have called for reinforcements.
5. A group of three boats is refusing to dock.  The harbour master is threatening to destroy them with fire arrows if they leave without unloading their cargo.
6. A fight in a dockside pub is spilling out into the road, blocking several streets.

Encounter table:

1. A rich man with his family, his retainers and all his household goods, looking for a boat to hire.
2. 1d4 'sailors' approaching individuals and small groups, promising passage on a boat they have tied up with its lights doused at the end of an unlit jetty.
3. 1d6 stevedores without work, looking for other ways to make some money.  They'll attempt robbery if the odds look good.
4. 2d4 city guards looking for a chance to use their new authority.
5. 2d4 smugglers trying to buy or steal valuable cargoes cheaply.
6. 2d6 angry and aimless sailors whose ship has left without them.

Market square

This is a wide cobbled square near the centre of the city, where the main roads intersect.  There are stalls selling everything from ironmongery to livestock.  Rumours spread quickly and everyone's already on edge, but people still need to buy food and other necessities.

Event table:

1. Someone with an obvious plague-rash collapses, groaning loudly.  People nearby scream and run, fearing infection.
2. A zealot is haranguing the crowd from a platform, telling them the plague is a judgement for their sins.  Some of the crowd are shouting at him to shut up and go away, others are nodding along and yelling encouragement.  There's potential for a riot.
3. A group of stallkeepers are packing up, planning to leave the city.  A group of bullies is telling them to leave their goods if they're going to run like cowards.  So far it's a stand-off.
4. A shout carries through the crowd "It's them!  They brought the plague here!" A group of hysterical townfolk are preparing to stone two foreigners.
5. A delegation of citizens are marching to the government square gates to demand that the city council take action on the plague.  They're followed by a large group of jumpy hangers-on.  City guards are massing at the gate to stop them entering.
6. Squads of guards begin moving through the crowd, arresting anyone who looks foreign, poor or a troublemaker.

Encounter table:

1. A hawker selling miracle cures.  1-in-6 chance they're actual medicine.  2-in-6 chance it's a purgative.
2. Town crier reading out a list of emergency measures the mayor has decreed.  The crowd's mood turns darker.
3. A madman, yelling that the gods will be satisfied and lift the plague if a wicked few will repent and mend their ways.
4. 1d4 town guards using their new authority to extort and pilfer from passersby.
5. 1d6 cultists preparing a ritual to appease the gods and bullying passersby into joining them.
6. 2d4 angry drunks looking for someone to blame for the plague.

Slums

The poorest of the citizens live here.  Guards never travel these streets.  Order is enforced by gangs.  Crime is everywhere.

Event table:

1. Families are barricading the entrance to this street and threatening anyone who approaches the barrier.
2. A gang are taking over a building, boarding up the ground floor entrances and shooting from windows at people who approach.
3. A mob have set fire to a building with several infected people inside.  They have the building surrounded and are throwing stones to keep anyone from escaping.  The fire threatens to spread to nearby buildings.
4. A family of labourers are preparing to publicly hang their landlord.  Passersby seem uninterested in helping him.
5. A man with one eye and a scarred face is handing out stolen liquor to anyone who wants it, making him the hero of the moment.
6. People are killing cats, dogs and rats and throwing their bodies into a bonfire as a preventative measure.

Encounter table:

1. A dead plague victim, lying in the street where they died.
2. A crippled beggar, shouting that the gods will spare those who show charity.
3. 2d4 gang members with rags tied around their faces and hands, extorting money from the healthy and clubbing the infected to death.
4. A hysterical mob of 2d10 + 10 stoning anyone who doesn't look like a slum-dweller.
5. An elderly couple who have been pushed into the street to fend for themselves.
6. 2d6 patrolling vigilantes, interrogating passersby about their business here.

Craft district

The city's middle class.  These streets are made of workshops and courtyards with homes above the shops.  The wealthy are often seen here as customers.

Event table:

1. Several fine riding horses are loose and milling around uncertainly.  They're on edge and ready to spook.
2. Hot metal in an abandoned forge has started a fire in the courtyard.  It's spreading.
3. A group of craftsmen are burning down their guildhall.
4. A group of craftsmen with their families and carts piled high with their belongings are forming a caravan to leave for another city.
5. Workshops all along this street are closing their gates and putting up their shutters.  Several are already abandoned.
6. A craftsman has fired his apprentices.  They have him cornered against a wall, angrily demanding back wages.

Encounter table:

1. Two masons armed with sledgehammers are grimly fighting two city guards with swords.
2. A woman supports a heavily-bleeding man while two young children cry and pull at her skirt.
3. A recently-killed man lies in the bed of a horseless cart.  Around him are cases and chests which have been broken open and tossed aside, empty.
4. 1d4 + 1 apprentices have broken into a cask of wine they were delivering and are laughing and staggering in the street.
5. 1d6 + 2 assorted craftsmen armed with workshop tools are facing off against a gang of 2d4 thieves.
6. A patrol of 2d6 city guards are walking the street, ordering anyone who looks out of place to leave the district.

Wealthy district

Big and luxurious homes with neat gardens and high walls to ensure their privacy.  The residents can afford their own security and city guards are only tolerated here.  The streets are watched and someone will take note of anyone who doesn't look like they belong.

Event table:

1. A burgher is directing his personal guard to prepare a gallows for a servant he suspects of stealing.  They're setting it up in the courtyard of his house.  Several of the city guard are watching but making no attempt to intervene.
2. A group of citizens have gathered outside an unpopular rich man's house, demanding that he come out and face them.  His only reply is to pour water on them from an upstairs window.  The crowd's mood is getting uglier.
3. A party is going on behind a high wall set with spikes along the top.  There's harp music, laughter and the sound of clinking glasses.  The gate has had a carriage overturned behind it to block it completely.
4. A maidservant is banging on a door pleading to be allowed back in.  She shouts that she's not infected because she hasn't been among strangers, but the door stays firmly shut.
5. A crowd of craftsmen, labourers and delivery carters is being pushed out of the district by a laughing mercenary squad, who are telling them they're not wanted here until the plague has run its course.
6. A richly-dressed man is setting his dogs on a shabbily-dressed one, shouting that he'll make an example of any thief he finds.

Encounter table:

1. A luxurious carriage with an armed driver and two crossbowmen on the roof.  Heavy brocade curtains hide the passengers.
2. 1d4 thieves dressed as and pretending to be servants.  They're keen to know the characters' business in case it points them towards a rich target.
3. 2d4 mounted lordlings, the sons of the ultra-rich.  They're armed and arrogant, playing at defending their district from looters and rioters.
4. 2d6 mercenaries patrolling the street.  They order anyone who isn't dressed expensively or as a servant to leave the district.
5. 2d6 city guards patrolling.  If any local citizens are watching, they attempt a show of hustling the characters away from the district.
6. 3d6 assorted citizens in various states of drunkenness, certain the rich are hoarding a cure for the plague, intending to take it for themselves and their families.