OSR: Tomb of the Serpent Kings, Session 4

Continued from here. In which the party strikes a bargain, four characters learn to fly, and cutlery is the only source of XP.

The Party:

A nameless human Paladin of the Voice. Not very bright, but unshakably faithful.
Thomas, a toadling elementalist wizard, formerly a shepherd. Accompanied by his last remaining sheep.
Franklin, the Iron Frog. A frogling, a knight, and a sensible man.
Antonia Barracuda, a fishling thief, and a sensible lady.
Spackles. Slugling illusionist wizard and children's entertainer. 

The Party, as of Session 3

Session 4:

OSR: Bring Out Your Dead

Your medieval OSR settings should have the Plague in it. Not just a plague, but the Plague, a recent memorable scourge that changed the world. A good medieval setting references the War, but forgetting the Plague means ignoring a huge part of human history. The Plague gets a one-liner on many OSR tables or adventure introductions. It deserves more than that.

Death and the Bishop, 1541, Heinrich Aldegrever

Before we get into the RPG-based stuff, here are a few quotes from 2300 years of human history, and some background music.

Not many days after their arrival in Attica the plague first began to show itself among the Athenians. It was said that it had broken out in many places previously in the neighborhood of Lemnos and elsewhere; but a pestilence of such extent and mortality was nowhere remembered. Neither were the physicians at first of any service, ignorant as they were of the proper way to treat it, but they died themselves the most thickly, as they visited the sick most often; nor did any human art succeed any better. Supplications in the temples, divinations, and so forth were found equally futile, till the overwhelming nature of the disaster at last put a stop to them altogether.

 The Peloponnesian War, Thucydides

During these times there was a pestilence, by which the whole human race came near to being annihilated. Now in the case of all other scourges sent from heaven some explanation of a cause might be given by daring men, such as the many theories propounded by those who are clever in these matters; for they love to conjure up causes which are absolutely incomprehensible to man, and to fabricate outlandish theories of natural philosophy [...] But for this calamity it is quite impossible either to express in words or to conceive in thought any explanation, except indeed to refer it to God. For it did not come in a part of the world nor upon certain men, nor did it confine itself to any season of the year, so that from such circumstances it might be possible to find subtle explanations of a cause, but it embraced the entire world, and blighted the lives of all men, though differing from one another in the most marked degree, respecting neither sex nor age.

 The Plague, Procopius

In 1349 [the Plague] resumed in Paris, spread to Picardy, Flanders, and the Low Countries, and from England to Scotland and Ireland as well as to Norway, where a ghost ship with a cargo of wool and dead crew drifted offshore until it ran aground near Bergen. From there the plague passed into Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, Iceland, as as far as Greenland. Leaving a strange pocket of immunity in Bohemia, and Russian unattacked until 1351, it had passed from most of Europe by mid-1350. Although the morality rate was erratic, ranging from one fifth in some places to nine tenths or almost total elimination in others, the overall estimate of modern demographers has settled - for the area extending from India to Iceland - around the same figure expressed in Froissart's casual words: "a third of the world died."

A Distant Mirror, Barbara W. Tuchman. If you have time, I'd really recommend reading the entire chapter.

In 1918 an influenza virus emerged - probably in the United States - that would spread around the world, and one of its earliest appearances in lethal form came in Philadelphia. Before that world-wide pandemic faded away in 1920, it would kill more people than any other outbreak of disease in human history. [...] Epidemiologist today estimate that influenza likely caused at least fifty million deaths worldwide, and possibly as many as one hundred million. [...] One cannot know with certainty, but if the upper estimate of the death toll is true as many as 8 to 10 percent of all young adults then living may have been killed by the virus.

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, John M. Barry

It's almost as if there is a blind spot in our view of history that prohibits us from grasping the devastation of a Plague, of a scourge that kills on in ten or one in three of our neighbors, families, and peers. The survivors write histories and chronicles, sometimes in desperation. "I leave parchment," Brother John Clyn of Ireland wrote in the 14th century," to continue this work, if perchance any man survive and any of the race of Adam escape this pestilence and carry on the work which I have begun.”  

But the memory fades almost immediately. The next generation builds few monuments. There are thousands of WWI memorials but only a handful of memorials, mostly plaques and tombstones, for victims of the Spanish Flu. Similarly, while a cult of death arose in 15th century Europe, it rarely referenced the Black Death directly. It's almost too grim. We can understand war and violence, but disease escapes us. Survivors often launch into a period of excess, not just while the plague rages and life seems cheap, but for years afterwards. The "Roaring Twenties" and the elaborate pageantry of 14th century France could be seem as reactions to the vast, merciless mortality that "embraced the entire world".

The Triumph of Death, 1562,  Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Here are 3 options for including the Plague in your OSR games.

1. About to Happen
2. In Progress
3. Just Past

1. About to Happen

At some point in your game, the Plague will arrive, and everything will go to hell. Add an entry called "Plague Omen" to  your Rumours or Encounters tables. Once it's been rolled 10 times, the Plague is here. Mixed in with other tables, your PCs might not suspect anything until it's too late.

1d10 Plague Omens
1. There is sickness in the camp of The Enemy. Surely, God has punished them for their wickedness
2. A distant and once-prosperous city fallen into a sudden decline.
3. A common trade good is no longer available, and no one knows why.
4. A rare herb or flower is suddenly in demand in a trading port, worth its weight in gold.
5. A nation across the sea has closed its ports and burns any ship approaching. Their king has gone mad, it is said. 
6. Flocks of crows are flying south in huge numbers. 
7. A learned astrologer cast a horoscope so terrible and momentous that he sold all he owned and rode into the wilderness.
8. The King's nephew has fallen ill, and the most learned doctors in the land gather around  his bedside.
9. A rider gallops by, his face pale. He bears the livery of a distant kingdom and carries ciphered letters.
10. Someone the PCs know writes them a letter in a shaky and blurred hand, referencing dozens of past letters (undelivered), a terrible sickness, and God's wrath.

The Plague arrives without warning, like a sudden and terrible storm. You might see it on the horizon in the smoke of burning towns, or hear it in the dockyards or the alleys. Everything is normal the night before. The PCs wake up to screams and disaster. The world is falling apart and they are not immune. By the end of the week, they might all be dead.

1d10 Early Encounters
1. A caravan of priests, fleeing the area.
2. A riderless horse with a fine saddle.
3. A sick man, shivering in the streets, coughing blood.
4. A house abandoned, its inhabitants dead overnight, its windows open.
5. A raving doctor, promising all he has for a cure, for a rare ointment, for a chance to escape.
6. Bells begin to ring and don't stop until the ringer dies.
7. Fire spreads across a district
8. Looters, moving from house to house methodically
9. A doctor selling dubious cures by the dozen. 
10. 1x10x1d10 infected men, women, and children, heading for a landmark.

2. In Progress

The Plague is a fact of life when the game starts. The game is post-apocalyptic, like the Road, but with swords. Carts carry the dead to mass graves. Cities are abandoned. Armies rot in the field. The world is falling apart, but unlike the mad first few days, this is a slow and inevitable decline. Edicts are announced. Governments struggle for control.

1d10 Late Encounters
1. Work crews in masks, walling a family inside a house.
2. An abandoned cart full of corpses.
3. A banquet held by the infected and the dying in the middle of the street
4. A new edict declaring a curfew, a travel ban, a new tax, a general amnesty, or some other law. It is completely ignored.
5. A beggar, wearing the clothes of a noble, dancing around a fountain.
6. 2d10 flagellants whipping each other and praying.
7. A spray of gold coins and gems dropped by a dying looter.
8. A barricaded and fortified house. Does anyone still live inside?
9. Fanatics burn clothes, tapestries, books, heretics, sinners, and the dying .Anything that might offend God is flung into the pyre. 
10. A roving doctor sells bundles of herbs and flowers, guaranteed to ward off the infected air.

Yet life continues. You can buy food in the marketplace. You can charter a ship, raid a dungeon, seduce a princess, attend a tournament. The world struggles on, in a changed and diminished form, but there are pockets of light and peace. The Plague has become accepted. Panic has faded into fear, fear into dull resentment and rage at the inevitable, or at God, or at mortality.
Anyone who survives the Plague might become richer. Labour is scarce, wages rise (despite laws passed against it). Looting is endemic, buried treasure is common. Some trade routes, cites, and villages fade forever. Some prosper. In a changing world, the PCs might be able to leap several rungs up the social ladder, or topple those in power.

3. Just Passed

It is over.The Plague is a memory, an affliction of past generations. The living stumble through a diminished world, one where violence and disorder are more common. The ruins of the past, from empty villages to overgrown fields to weather-worn castles, stand everywhere. Eat, drink, and be merry, for the world has just escaped destruction, or is perhaps on the brink of it. Taxes are higher than ever.

If your game takes place in this era, the PCs will be able to buy and hold land more easily than they would otherwise, but hiring mercenaries and assistance is more expensive. The world is also more chaotic and disordered. Rulers cry out for a return to morality, but sink further into excess. Most people recognize the signs of plague, and most rulers know how to prevent its spread: isolation, often by walling the dying up in their own homes or blocking gates and roads.

100-200 years between major plagues seems about right in a medieval setting, but minor flares will accompany any major plague like shocks around an earthquake. 

 

Black Death at Tournai, 1359, Gilles le Muisit

Mapping

For each populated region, hex, city, town, or whatever on your map, roll 1d6. That's the percentage (10%-60%) of the population that will die, is dying, or died during the Plague. The population will decline further for about 30 years before slowly recovering. Some areas in northern France did not reach their medieval population levels until the modern era.

Death and Infection

Test for Infection:
Urban	per day
Rural	per week
Isolated	per month

"Isolated" means "the Plague Carrier can still get to you but strangers can't". If the carrier can't get to  you, you are safe. The PCs do not know this. They don't know any of the stuff below, even if they are educated and well-read.

Base Chance of Infection
Raging (About to Happen)	50%
Stable (In Progress)	5%
A Memory (Just Past)	N/A

If the Plague is over, the PCs will not become infected until the cycle begins again. 

+10% if malnourished
+10% if infected with any other disease or serious illness
+10% if in intimate contact with anyone infected
+10% if wounded
-10% if young/elderly or in the prime of life. Roll per plague to see which group is less likely to die.

If anyone in the party is of a different race or ethnicity than the local area, they have a 20% chance to be more susceptible (+10%) and a 50% chance to be less susceptible (-10%). If they are of a wildly different race (spiderlings, lizardlings), the chance of infection is always 1%, but if they do become infected, the Plague will spread from them to any others of their race with astonishing rapidity.

Spells like cure disease will cure the Plague, but will not grant resistance. You can still be reinfected. There are historical cases of people being infected with the Black Death in the morning and dying by sunset. Even a cleric with 4 castings per day can't save everyone.

If you are infected, use whatever disease rules your system has in place already, unless they seem insufficiently lethal. If that's the case, use the rules below. The Plague might have a name, but it won't be "cholera" or "influenza" or "ebola". It will be "The Plague of Justinian" or "The Red Death" or something equally evocative. Your players shouldn't be able immediately to associate it with a real-world disease.

Disease: the Plague
Each morning, or after 2hrs of strenuous activity, Save. If you fail, take 1d6 Constitution damage until you are cured or die. If you pass 2 consecutive Saves, you are cured, and are forever immune. Your Constitution damage recovers at a rate of 1 point per day, during which time you can still infect others.

Chances are pretty good that the Plague will infect at least one PC. The other, uninfected PCs then have a choice: flee, or try and save their friend and risk infection. Starvation and dehydration will kill them even if the Plague doesn't. The Plague should be treated like a "dragon between you and the exit" scenario in its potential for a total party kill.

The party could also go on a quest for a cure (unlikely), a deserted castle or monastery to hide in (more likely), or just loot everything in sight and hope they survive. 

Extra Tables

1d10 Carriers of the Disease (roll once per Plague)
1. Rats and Dogs (fleas)
2. Ticks
3. Sheep and Goats
4. Swine
5. Cattle
6. Horses, Donkeys, and Mules
7. Mosquitos and Flies
8. Water
9. Air
10. People only

1d10 Symptoms of the Disease (roll as many times as you'd like per Plague)
1. Bloody cough
2. Black pustules
3. White pustules
4. Headaches and trembling
5. High fever
6. Weakened and locked muscles
7. Open sores and rashes
8. Constant effluvia
9. Blindness 
10. Vomiting bile

1d10 Dubious Cures
1. Urine
2. Bloodletting
3. Heat and bundling
4. Bludgeoning
5. Prayer day and night
6. Ice cold water
7. Branding
8. Crushed pearls
9. Rainwater mixed with lime and gelatin
10.  Wine mixed with charcoal

OSR: Building a City - First Section

There are dozens of easy ways to build a medieval city for your games. Here's my hard, difficult, and tedious way. If any of my players are reading this, take note. Your GM is an idiot.
 
The First Section: Corpathium
Go to Last Gasp's excellent city generator. It's been getting  rave reviews since 2014 for a very good reason. Don't worry if you don't really understand all the references to the Godless or the Vermintide. I don't. I'm here for flavour and mapping. In the next post, I'll use other PDFs and tricks to add details.

OSR: Chromatic Dragons

This post is mostly an excuse to use the art of halycon450. There are hundreds of "dragonomicons" out there. This one is mine. You might find some of the content boring but I hope a few lines are useful.

Once, there was one dragon, or one kind of dragon. It's unclear. The stones remember it. They say it lived before the Authority created the moon and thousands of years before mortals were invented. The Sunlight Dragon was immortal, invulnerable, and one of the most terrifying things the Authority had ever created. It devoured primordial trolls. It devoured everything.

The stones aren't sure what happened next. Some of them say that primordial trolls built a giant prism of completely normal, nonmagical matter. Some say that the Authority himself interposed His form (the most perfect conceptual triangle) in the Sunlight Dragon's flightpath.

The Sunlight Dragon (or Dragons) was split into 8 Chromatic Dragons, and ever since their descendants have bounded around Creation, still powerful, still immortal, and still immensely proud, but flawed and incomplete creatures. All dragons love flattery, and all dragons hoard things, but no two dragons are alike, just as no two sunsets are alike. All dragons are intensely magical. They are difficult to kill.

Some dragons have made alliances with the elements. The terms of these alliances are inscrutable. It is unknown if dragons have allied themselves with the winds to allow them to fly, or if they fly under their own power. The winds always change the subject.

Red Dragons

Disposition: Wrathful, Short-Sighted, Impatient, Cruel
Common Hoards: Swords, Shields, Corpses, Coal, Crippled Knights
Elemental Alliance: Fire

Red dragons are warm enough to boil water. They glow like a hot stove. They are the slowest and dimmest of the dragons, but they are also the most ferocious. They delight in combat. Most have scars and embedded weapons. Some bite limbs off knights or particularly interesting warriors and keep them as trophies. Red dragons that are allied with fire elementals have glowing guts and breathe gouts of choking fire. Those that rely on their own power breath rays of pure heat, invisible and utterly deadly. They live in caves, accumulate food and worshipers, and occasional rise to destroy a city and devour the army sent against them. Dragons allied with fire elementals must devour fuel. Coal is the most common, but there are legendary dragons who grew enormously powerful by consuming pure troll oil.

Orange Dragons

Disposition: Lustful, Curious, Vindictive, Ostentatious, Insecure
Common Hoards: Beautiful People, Artwork, Books, Gemstones
Elemental Alliance: None

Orange dragons are beautiful, even in their war-forms. They are natural shapechangers and shift forms as easily as a human putting on clothes or armor. Of all the dragons they love flattery most, and will even reward artists who create works to suit the dragon's whims. Once a work has been admired it is added to the hoard: a vast raft of paintings, a nest of sculptures, a library of poetry, all fixated on one topic; the dragon itself. They build palaces in impossible locations. A bored dragon might change itself into a human, visit a city, and show off its form and skills. They take lovers, become patrons of the arts, live for decades without aging and then, one day, take offense and erupt into their furious war-form and savage an entire district. Orange dragons are not as smart as they think they are. Pointing this out is unwise. They do not breathe any elements or rays but most learn to cast spells.

Yellow Dragons

Disposition: Greedy, Secretive, Manipulative, Obsessive
Common Hoards: Coins, Deeds, Lawyers, Ascetic Monks
Elemental Alliance: Stone

Yellow dragons are Creation's greatest bankers. As immortal beings, they are risk-adverse to the point of mania. If you miss a payment, they'll fly over your city as a gentle reminder. They have vast reserves and minds like machines. No one is sure who first taught yellow dragons the principles of loans and interest rates. It's possible, as they claim, that they invented the idea. They live in great marble and granite halls, hollowing entire mountains to make mazes and vaults. Their ancient alliance with stone elementals lets them fly through stone as if it were water and makes a bare vault a deathtrap for thieves. Some breathe sand or cannonballs of stone. Ancient yellow dragons can reduce a city to rubble in a few hours. They assemble (and pay) legions of accountants and lawyers, and keep property-less monks as curiosities. Creatures who willingly resist temptation amuse them. The greatest Dragon Banks conduct themselves like nation-states and grant knighthoods and honours with solemnity equal to any mortal kingdom.

Green Dragons

Disposition: Envious, Melancholic, Decadent, Spiteful
Common Hoards: Animals, Prisoners, Rare Metals
Elemental Alliance: Acid

Green dragons made a poor deal with acid elementals. They can breath horrifying clouds of caustic gas, or spray concentrated streams of acid that melts plate armour in seconds, but the dragon's skin is coated in acid sludge. Their bodies are living toxic waste dumps. Mortal creatures burn near them. Green dragons secretly resent their condition but are too proud to alleviate their misery. Instead, they poison farmland and rivers, watch animals die in their presence, keep prisoners and taunt them, and seek metals able to withstand their caustic effluvia. They live in slick tunnels, often half-filled with sludge or water, and but conduct themselves like kings in exile. You can offer little to a green dragon. Some alchemists have bred slave races for them in exchange for mercenary services.

Blue Dragons

Disposition: Gluttonous, Quick-Witted, Fickle, Wise
Common Hoards: Sunken Ships, Spices, Raw Ingots
Elemental Alliance: Water

Swimming as fast as they can fly, blue dragons are a well-known terror along the coast of some nations. They can grow large enough to swallow whales whole. They sink ships by accident or by design, dragging the wrecks to the bottom and building wooden cities in the cold and sunless depths. No creature is more feared in Creation. From the bottom of the sea to the highest clouds, nothing can escape the predatory gaze of a blue dragon. But for all this, the dragons are not cruel or vicious monsters. They choose their targets with care. They can be reasoned with, and even bribed with herds of cattle or barques of fish. Their alliance with water is not always a calm one. While the dragon might call rainstorms or whirlpools, water elementals sometimes race ahead to warn sailors and fishermen. The can breathe jets of water but prefer to use their teeth and claws.

Indigo Dragons

Disposition: Slothful, Contemplative, Domineering, Distracted
Common Hoards: Music, Furs, Slaves, Magic
Elemental Alliance: Lightning

Rarely encountered in Creation, the indigo dragon is a sticky, indolent creature that dwells in forgotten temples, disused catacombs, and collapsed cities. It seldom attacks outside its den. Indigo dragons are involved in passionate affairs with lighting elementals, and the strain of the relationship distracts them from most concerns. They can charm with a glance and set armies of slaves on half-mentioned tasks. They learn and use magic only to make their lives easier. In battle, they are terrifying foes. They breathe torrents of lighting, a crackling wave that can kill an entire army in one pass. Most consider it a blessing that these dragons rarely find the need to use their arsenal. Above all else, they prefer to be left alone but they will pay to have annoyances, from flies to mountain ranges, removed.

Violet Dragons

Disposition: Proud, Maniacal, Ascetic, Predatory
Common Hoards: Bones, Buildings, Crowns, Historians
Elemental Alliance: None

Of all the chromatic dragons, the violet are the most delighted to merely exist. Other dragons validate themselves with hordes or flattery. A violet dragon knows exactly what it is; perfection. This maniacal self-obsession drives them to live on craggy mountaintops or unadorned caves. Carved stone would only weaken them. They collect buildings of other races to mock, the crowns of deposed kings, books of fallen empires, or the bones of the famous and the powerful. They attack on a whim and retreat beyond retaliation. Their fangs cut soul and flesh alike. They breathe an invisible, deadly light that sets the air on fire and sings like shattering glass.* Those struck by the beam of a violet dragon go blind or develop hideous skin lesions. Violet dragons can fly through the upper air of creation and bask in the light of the sun without ill effect.

*Like the purple beam from Shin Godzilla, but made of ultraviolet light.

Octarine Dragons

Disposition: Unknown
Common Hoards: Unknown
Elemental Alliance: None

Also known as comets. Scrying and interviews with stones that fall from the sky indicate that comets are gigantic dragons the colour of pure magic. No one knows where they go, or why they do not visit Creation's surface. Scholars believe that an octarine dragon's presence would usher an age of madness and death across every land. Their appearance in the sky heralds the death of kings, the fall of empires, an explosion (often literal) of wizards, and strange prodigies in every land.

OSR: Don't You Know There's A War On?

There's always a war on. Maybe it's not the War, but at the very least, there's a war, and you should have one in your setting. It's a useful plot device. The War is happening Over There: over a mountain range, an ocean, a river, a plane. Its effects are felt at home. The War isn't an epic struggle between good and evil. The marauding hordes of barbarian orcs are just propaganda. Both sides are roughly equal, speak related languages, fight using the same methods, have similar codes of conduct, and are generally interchangeable.

Out of Placers

This isn't a sensible and orderly conflict like Bastionland's Far War. European medieval warfare is messy, infuriating, completely disorganized from our modern perspective. In a world without standing armies, centralized authority, or a sense of realpolitik and the art of the possible, war is a fact of life like plague, famine, or weather. There's not  much you can do about it. When the ruling class derives all its position and prestige from warfare, warfare will inevitably occur. 

Adventurers want to get rich. Wars are incredibly expensive. Traditionally, wars are paid for by levying taxes and taking on debt. Next time your PCs are in town inform them that there's a new tax on salt, lanterns, prostitutes, dogs smaller than a newborn lamb, and anything blue. They might be taxed directly on anything hauled out of a dungeon. If tomb-robbing is a respectable profession in your setting they might have to join a guild. If not, taxation is variable and highly unfair. To keep everyone happy the local noble could grant the PCs a charter or worthless title (Keeper of the King's Lesser Warrens and Catacombs) to cement their allegiance and ensure the gold continues to flow. If the local noble is not wise, he might kill the golden goose and imprison the PCs, raid the dungeon with his own troops, or exile the PCs from his lands

If the PCs are rich enough and have a sufficiently secure position, they might instead be asked to loan money. This is a dangerous game. The terms of repayment could stretch for decades, and if the War goes wrong, they might never be repaid. If all goes well the PCs could earn powerful allies.

80, Igor Sid.

General Effects of the War

Uncertainty
News of the War can take months to reach some areas and is always accompanied by rumours and lies. The cause of a protracted War, or even the sides, can be forgotten. After a great victory the people will expect riches and a reduction in taxes (which rarely materialize). After a great defeat, they will expect rampaging armies and slaughter within days (which is slightly more likely, depending on their distance from the conflict).

Greed
People with a stake in the war's outcome always need money. They will make poor, short-sighted decisions to get it. Raise taxes until the peasants revolt (again)? Sell a vital plot of land? Make an alliance with a heretic king, an otherworldly power, or a band of smelly adventurers with a tall tale and a tame basilisk? Why not. Predigest and power are on the line.

Soldiers
Marching to the war. Marching back. Recruiting in every village. Getting drunk and starting trouble. Deserting. The closer you get to the War, the more soldiers you'll find doing almost anything except fighting, especially if there's a siege. If the War is small and the times are peaceful and orderly, soldiers will be focused on the conflict and their immediate needs. If times are turbulent, if authority is breaking down and pay is late and the causes of a war are as immaterial as the outcome, then soldiers become much more dangerous. Roving bands might search the countryside for wealth and plunder, not caring if they attack allies or enemies. The PCs might be perfect candidates to join them. On the other hand, the last thing you want after finally building your castle is a bunch of ruthless mercenaries taking it from you and using it to raid the countryside.

Letters
Just as the PCs might receive (Konsumterra's) terrible letters from home, they might also receive letters from their friends or family in the War. Second only to a death-letter is a ransom letter. Only nobles are ransomed individually. Peasants and knights are ransomed in bundles. The cost is usually unaffordable.

Shortages
The cost of everything creeps up as you get closer to the War, or as the War goes on for years. The PCs might find that a local luxury good or a vital staple is no longer available. Trade falters. On the other hand, finding thirty usable but rusty swords in a dungeon suddenly makes you an arms merchant.

Battle of Grunwald, Jan Matejko

Encounters Far From the War

Add these to your rumour or random encounter tables.

Minor
1. A letter arrives from someone a PC knows. It's 1) dull, 2) good news (false), 3) bad news (false), 4) bad news (true)
2. A a drunk sergeant and a seedy corporal have enlisted someone the PCs know. They'll accept a bribe to cancel the enlistment.
3. Three knights and thirty-six archers, all marching to the War, camp near the PCs. The are 1) well behaved, 2) belligerent and coarse, 3) actively hostile to anyone they think they can rob or forcibly enlist, 4) desperate to avoid the War entirely.
4. Prices on one item go up by 20% due to a new tax or a local shortage
5. News arrives of a shift in alliances. No one is sure if this is good news or bad news, as no one is sure who was on which side originally. People with some information debate people with no information in public squares.
6. A rider gallops by, carrying sealed orders in a case. If intercepted, the orders are 1) coded, 2) actually treasonous, 3) false, designed to look treasonous, 4) true but mundane, 5) true but valuable, 6) obviously moronic.
7. A roving priest with 1d10 ragged followers, declaring loudly that the War is sinful bickering among the faithful, and all those who join it are damned.
8. Prisoners, heading to a city for 1) trial, 2) execution, 3) ransom, 4) negotiations. They look like the locals in all but one or two crucial respects, which are of course the topic of ridicule.
9. 1d20 wounded soldiers, returning to their homes. 1 in 4 are sound enough to be hired for dungeon work.
10. 2d20 mercenaries, eager to reach the front and obtain plunder and glory. If they smell easy riches they'll drop all plans. They are used to bargaining for their services, but they aren't cheap. 50% chance they are part of a much larger mercenary force. Their comrades, if informed, may also want a share. Otherwise, they carry rumours of distant lands, strange customs, and the conduct of war.

Major
1. A letter arrives from someone a PC knows. It contains news of 1) a significant defeat (true), 2) a significant defeat (false), 3) a significant victory (true), 4) a significant victory (false), 5) a massive shift in alliances, 6) magical or supernatural events. The PCs have this information before anyone else in the region.
2. The local noble sends a large recruiting party to scour the area and raise more troops. The PCs may not be offered a choice.
3. A new tax is proclaimed. Prices on most goods rise by 50%. There is a 2-in-6 chance the peasants revolt and murder the local officials, tax collectors, and possibly nobles. They will ask the PCs to lead them. In 2d6 days, troops will arrive, arrest everyone, execute the ringleaders, and move on.
4. A significant victory! Soldiers return with loot and spend it unwisely. Feelings run high. Feasts are arranged. Bells ring night and day. The local nobles are proclaimed saints and geniuses. Maps are redrawn. Grand plans are proclaimed, but will inevitably fade.
5. A major defeat! Soldiers flee the front, made lawless by their fear. Despair spreads. The local nobles are proclaimed fools and traitors. Defenses are prepared. The approach of the enemy is feared daily, but they never materialize.
6. Defeat looms. The local nobles are bound by tradition, but some in their courts might seek the PCs, the PCs rivals, or stranger powers and buy their aid. Almost any plan will be entertained, from sorcery to assassination. The PCs will never earn public glory for their aid but they may earn a great deal of money and the attention of those in power.
7. A troop of 30+2d10 mercenaries passes through the area. They will avoid fortified towns or a serious fight, but isolated monasteries, wizard towers, villages, farms, and camps will be looted and burned. The mercenaries are foreign and don't speak the local language.
8. Truce! The truce holds for 1d6 months, exploding on a 6.
9. A creditable peace. The War is over, and while neither side accomplished anything of note, neither side has any immediate pressing claims. A new War will restart in 1d6 months, exploding on a 6.
10. A discreditable peace. The War is over, but the local side lost prestige, territory, a leader, or or an ally. A new War will start in the next summer, against the same target, a new one, or both.

There's room for camp followers, sieges, ridiculous politics, taxes, and crusades in another post. 

OSR: Unique Death Conditions

How do you kill a vampire?

Everyone knows that. Cut off its head. No, wait, cut off its head, stake the body through the heart, bury the head across a river from the body so that they'll never find each other.

What about dragons?

Some creatures get unique death conditions. You can slice a vampire to pieces but it will rise again unless certain obscure deeds are done.

In the early days of Creation, the Authority's first creatures were immortal and invulnerable. As He grew wiser, He made creatures weaker and weaker. How many ways are there for a mortal to die? Elves are untroubled by age or disease. The serpents of the earth will never age, never rot, and cannot be harmed by mortal weapons. Every type of powerful creatures must be killed or handled in specific ways lest it rise again. The ideas below might not be common knowledge. Seek out a Dr. Van Helsing or a village elder.

Feel free to add or suggest more creatures in the comments.

Mortal Creatures
You can kill a mortal creature with almost anything: cold, disease, drowning, even fright. They are fragile. If the creature is left to rot, disease spirits may erupt to infect the air. If the creature was strong-willed and had unfinished business in Creation, they may rise again in a new form. Ghosts are the souls of creatures that don't know they're dead, or are too insane to care. Dybbuks and other embodied dead are created when a creature knows it is dead but has the strength to carry on, at least for a time. Mummies and wights and similar creatures are formed when the soul is carefully prepared and trapped before death.

Sulphur Dragon, Yohann Schepacz

Dragons
You can kill a dragon with blades and spells, but that is not enough. In Creation, the body is merely a housing for the spirit and dragons are mighty spirits indeed. Cut them apart, make armour of their scales and trophies of their bones, and they will wait patiently. A year and a day after its death the dragon will come roaring back to life, reborn from a volcano, twice as strong and powerfully angry. Anything made from its former body will crumble into toxic ash.

To permanently kill a dragon, cut out its heart and lock it in a stone chest. Sail at least one day away from land. Toss the chest off the edge of the ship and let it sink into the cold deep. Do not think about the Blue Dragons that lurk in the deep. Dragons, being solitary and proud beings, aren't likely to resurrect their kin idly. Nobody knows how deep blue dragons can dive, or how deep the ocean really is. Perhaps the hearts fall all the way to hell. Some people think this might be a ploy by the blue dragons, and that one of their kind is growing more powerful every year by devouring the hearts of its kin. Perhaps, with enough, it could regain the lost power of the Sunlight dragon. Alternatively, paranoid scholars insist the blue dragons might be hoarding the hearts, ransoming their own kind or preparing a massive draconic army. It is said that there are volcanoes under the sea. Perhaps there's something else in the oceans that wants dragons kept out of the equation. Dropping the stone chest overboard could just be the first step.

Owlbears
Any blade can cut an owlbear, but age will never claim them. Disease nourishes them like ambrosia. Kill and owlbear and burn the body immediately or its tar-like flesh will birth a horde of eggs and larval owlbears (horrible little grub-things with beaks and too many feather-legs). The grubs remember who killed their parent and will, once fully grown, perpetrate a hideous revenge.

Drugula, Alex Brock

Vampires
The peasant elder knows of three varieties of vampire. The first is created when the corpse of an evil man or woman is left unattended immediately after death rites have been performed, or if the rites are performed incorrectly. The body will rise and seek the blood of the living. It possesses terrible strength and a host of supernatural powers. To prevent this, criminals and suspicious travelers are buried decapitated and chained in some parts of the world. Decapitation is the only certain way to prevent them from rising.

The second variety is created whenever a vampire bites a living mortal. Their victim falls into a waking nightmare and swiftly dies of fever. No matter how virtuous they were in life, they will rise again as a vampire if their head is not removed.

The third variety, and the most terrible, is created when a truly evil being dies and wills itself, fully consciously and with appropriate magical precautions, back to life as a vampire. This is no accident or trick of fate. The new-born vampire is aware of its own strengths and weaknesses and is much harder to kill. The head must be severed and carried across running water, far from the body, and buried with a silver coin in its mouth. Full funeral rites must be performed over both the body and the head or they will rise again. Cremation is not an option, though few will ever speak of why. Fire elementals cower before a vampire.

Beholders
Creatures so ludicrously magical can be difficult to kill, but once dead, many adventurers believe a Beholder poses no threat. This is a lie. The magical power that fuels these strange visitors from the Mirror Realms must be released. Harvest the beholder's magical eye-lenses and craft them into spectacles or wands. Use its skin to bind a spellbook. Do something with the body that exposes it to continuous magic or, in time, it will regenerate itself and seek your death. Or it might explode and take a village with it. Beholders are unstable. Treat a desiccated beholder corpse like unexploded ordinance.

Purple Worms
Split each piece laterally, down the middle, or it will grow into a new purple worm in a few days.

Phoenix
It is impossible to truly kill a phoenix. They are one of the Authority's first creations. They eat nothing. They are made of pure white flame, the flame of magic crinkling the fabric of Creation. If slain, the phoenix is reborn in flames. It is a peaceful and harmless creature, unconcerned with mortal life or the intrigues of Creation.

But the phoenix can be captured. Kill it, and quickly trap its body in a metal shell. Iron won't do. You need strange alloys forged by creatures who have never seen the sun. Seal it in tightly. Lock the shell around it. Sink it in a deep pool of cold water. When the phoenix awakes, it will struggle, but the heat of its existence will permeate through the shell and into the water. You could build a primitive hot spring, but that is not the only purpose. Some say that cities deep underground are fuelled not by wood but by hot water drawn over arrays of trapped phoenixes.

Trolls
Cut off a troll's limb and, unless reattached to the main troll, it will grow a tiny head and tiny limbs and eventually reach full size. Only acid or fire can slay a troll forever. Before ancient bargains were struck with acid and fire elementals trolls ruled over all Creation. There are huge oozing layers of troll bones and troll flesh, deep beneath the earth, below the vampire strata but above the heat of Hell. Entire underground kingdoms have grown wealthy on troll-oil.