Suffering and misery due to warlock - hag conflict

[HoboKnight]

So I have this medium-sized region, a single town and several villages.

Not long ago, two groups crashed in this region: a trio of cunning hags and a competent warlock. They both offered people all sorts of deals, that would ensure their souls for warlocks master or would corrupt them, which would suit the hags. Both parties are very competent and do not have short-term plans. Hags have manipulated many druids/rangers in the region to be killed and have consequently caused crops to fail. People started migrating as well they became more prone to making deals with the hags. Warlock, however, made sure, that low and mid tier devils were suddenly summoned in the region, causing all sorts of pain and suffering - and again making people more inclined to make the deals. Both groups have many followers as well as mercenaries along with a powerful patron each(arch-devil and a black dragon). So they do not engage in direct battle, but all more looks like a massive turf war between two gangs. Also, hags have poisoned most of sources of water - it's a slow poison, a drug, that slowly deranges a person.

I need to show, not tell all this to my PCs. I'd appreciate some good ideas. Here is what I have so far:
- prostitution (hunger)
- excessive amounts of child beggars (hunger)
- beggars in the stret, starving
- criminals looting people, but criminals are actually starving pesants
- a corpse of crucified woman (supposed "blightbringer", but just a result of mob in-justice)
- a man, talking to himself in the street (poisoned)
- a man, cathatonically sitting in the gutter (poison)
- a loud party with a few girls giggling and stumbling out of the house (debauchery - guy made the deal with the devil)
- an old man and a young girl sitting in a sofa in front of a house. They are incestous lovers (hag deal)

I want to go dark. Community lacks food, has poisoned water supply and is harassed from all directions. How do I show, not tell this?

Thanks!

[MrStabby]

Some of these don't quite work for me. Prostitution and begging don't call out "famine" to me - as someone must spare resources to share with them. To me they speak more to unequal distribution of food.

The rest seem good.

I might add a lot of suspicion. People aligned with one faction or another not knowing knowing who had gone one way or the other always trying to hide intention and information whilst listening intently. Outsiders might even be more welcome than locals.

[Berenger]

People resorting to gather and eat famine food (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_food) would be an obvious sign.

[ToranIronfinder]

Quintuple normal food prices, famines cause decreased supplies of food, which causes increased prices.

Mercenaries and others will question them to make sure they aren't on the other side.

People in town ask them weird questions, to try to figure out what side they are on.

People ate just disappearing, but nobody goes looking for them, because everybody knows they are dead, even if there is no body.

People heal from illnesses, but there are side effects.

[HoboKnight]

Nice contributions. How do I go for more physical, psychological and moral decay? How is this seen? Basically, due to poisoned water supply, everybody is slowly losing their mind.

Paranoia part is very good idea.

[Mastikator]

How are the hags poisoning the water supply? Are they just pouring out gallons of the stuff upstream somewhere? Do they have lackeys that do it for them? How do they make the poison? What happens if you ingest the poison directly?

How do you show that people are paranoid and delusional? Boarded up windows? Everyone has a weapon for self defense? Is the warlock maybe offering some kind of cure or protection? Or maybe the warlock is trying to capitalize on the poison in some way?

[Sapphire Guard]

Small animals dead or acting erratically next to water sources. Mice attack instead of hiding, cats run away from mice, birds fly into walls, and so on

The warlock's faction is very paranoid about where they get their water, people are locking their wells. People are selling healing water in the streets, some of which is really uncontaminated or actually magical healing water, some of which is the hag's people trying to spread the contagion.

Some crops are twisted from poisoned water and do strange things rather than simply dying. A specific cornfield that is near a very concentrated source of poison is carnivorous and the corn stalks try to kill by strangling anyone who enters.

Dancing madness (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_mania) in the streets.

Random people ask questions about where you get your water. Businesses advertise how good their water supply is (some are lying or mistaken.)

Important question: What happens if the party members drink the water?

[Quertus]

Although it’s usually bad form, in this case, the Idiot Ball can be your friend.

*If* you have built up trust with your players that you will treat competent people as competent, and not hand them the Idiot Ball “so the plot can happen”… and then hand someone the Idiot Ball… they might be clued in that there could be a *reason* why they were so uncharacteristically dumb (poisoned).

Another friend is “disproportionate”.

“Sometimes fear is the appropriate response”. Boarded-up windows, largely empty streets, guarded looks, paranoia, sure. Have someone desperately hire the PCs for gold… to kill a rat. Have someone offer the PCs a safe place to stay (in a “it’s not safe for strangers, get off the street” style), perhaps after a stomach rumble ask if the PCs have anything to eat… and go insane with the response, offering their body or marriage or their eternal service or whatever for that simple act of kindness. Have the goodly priest(ess) be ripping the church to pieces, using it for materials to “craft” bonfires in which to cleanse the sinful. Have villagers react too little to most things, and suddenly react with explosive intensity to random stimulus.

Martial law / disorganized crime

Now is the time for the people with power to do something. However, they’re all a bit touched in the head, so what? Maybe someone tries to confiscate all the food in town… then sells it back to people at exorbitant rates. Maybe they start arresting anyone who breaks curfew… which they set differently each day. Maybe the town drunk who never touches water is the sanest man in town, and people come to him for his wise advice.

A final friend I’ll mention is man’s best.

Have the wildlife be affected by the poison, too - walking in circles, bellies burst from overeating / dead from eating things that aren’t food, predators fleeing (especially from their prey, but also having developed odd phobias or simply jumping at shadows). Birds swarming down to attack a tree, or hunting at night. Cockroaches sunning themselves, cats that come up to people and let them pet them. A bear hibernating in the summer. Bees trying to get nectar from the PCs. NPCs who revel in being covered in bees / ants / sleeping bats / whatever. Or have the town have “banned” (eaten) all the dogs “because they went mad”.

[HoboKnight]

Important question: What happens if the party members drink the water?

Poison is here mainly as a plot device. I'd have a PC roll a Con Save. If it fails, it gets 1 level of exhaustion, removable with long rest.

[HoboKnight]

Although it’s usually bad form, in this case, the Idiot Ball can be your friend.

*If* you have built up trust with your players that you will treat competent people as competent, and not hand them the Idiot Ball “so the plot can happen”… and then hand someone the Idiot Ball… they might be clued in that there could be a *reason* why they were so uncharacteristically dumb (poisoned).

Another friend is “disproportionate”.

“Sometimes fear is the appropriate response”. Boarded-up windows, largely empty streets, guarded looks, paranoia, sure. Have someone desperately hire the PCs for gold… to kill a rat. Have someone offer the PCs a safe place to stay (in a “it’s not safe for strangers, get off the street” style), perhaps after a stomach rumble ask if the PCs have anything to eat… and go insane with the response, offering their body or marriage or their eternal service or whatever for that simple act of kindness. Have the goodly priest(ess) be ripping the church to pieces, using it for materials to “craft” bonfires in which to cleanse the sinful. Have villagers react too little to most things, and suddenly react with explosive intensity to random stimulus.

Martial law / disorganized crime

Now is the time for the people with power to do something. However, they’re all a bit touched in the head, so what? Maybe someone tries to confiscate all the food in town… then sells it back to people at exorbitant rates. Maybe they start arresting anyone who breaks curfew… which they set differently each day. Maybe the town drunk who never touches water is the sanest man in town, and people come to him for his wise advice.

A final friend I’ll mention is man’s best.

Have the wildlife be affected by the poison, too - walking in circles, bellies burst from overeating / dead from eating things that aren’t food, predators fleeing (especially from their prey, but also having developed odd phobias or simply jumping at shadows). Birds swarming down to attack a tree, or hunting at night. Cockroaches sunning themselves, cats that come up to people and let them pet them. A bear hibernating in the summer. Bees trying to get nectar from the PCs. NPCs who revel in being covered in bees / ants / sleeping bats / whatever. Or have the town have “banned” (eaten) all the dogs “because they went mad”.

This is really splendid, just what I'm looking for.