What Happened to Baulder's Gate?

[ndragonsbane]

I'm currently running a side-campaign for a couple of my friends that will be coming to an end in the next three weeks.

I have a problem.

The first adventure, the PC's were on a boat heading to Baulder's Gate but the city was closed to all traffic. This was going to be a plot hook for much later in their career, however, one of the players is going back to school and I have decided to stop this campaign to keep it from interfering with our standard weekend campaign. I want to resolve this Baulder's Gate thing as the PC's have expressed interest in finding out what's happening.

Here's some general info:
-PC's are ECL 4 and the party contains 1 earth gensai warblade, 1 drow rogue, and 1 aasimar cleric of lathander (NPC currently with the group that I'm going to keep with them).
-PC's will have rid the world of a tribe of goblins and a tribe of kobolds in the recent past so neither of them please.
-Our current main campaign just defeated an evil deity's cult...something we've been working on for a while...so I'd rather not do ANOTHER cult so soon after that one.

About the only things I can think of right now are plague and undead...but I need something that the PC's can have a hope of resolving quickly and that doesn't put too much focus on the NPC cleric.

Any suggestions?

[Exil3dbyrd]

How about a Sahuigen raid? Baldur's gate is on the coast and you can concoct a macguffin that the Sahuigen were after or something. This idea isn't mine unfortunately, in one of the FR books Sahuigen did overrun the city briefly.

[ndragonsbane]

I actually toyed around with that but couldn't think of anything the PC's could do that the mercenary guard couldn't.

[Jasdoif]

I actually toyed around with that but couldn't think of anything the PC's could do that the mercenary guard couldn't.

If the mercenary guard is the problem, take care of them. Say, the invaders deplete the mercenary guard, killing its most effective members. Now the guard needs some immediate assistance...just in time for the PCs to show up.

[Kioran]

Have some Goblins hire Assasins which have the PCs fight for their lives on unfamiliar ground (firing a vial of alchemists fire into their boat while they pull into the harbour, knife the Warblade in a dark alley and let him bleed out etc....
Fighting for their survival is always an easy to understand objective. Plus, if correctly done, the Urban environment might make it difficult to even find your target. The Assasins familiarity with the town puts them at a strong, but believable and temporary advantage.

[Yakk]

The Sahuigen infested the guard and the ruler of the city with a magical disease that turns the infected slowly into a mind-controlled fish-man thing.

The supply of mind-control fish-man poison is limited, so the Sahuigen aimed it at the guards and then the government.

The fish-man conversion happens from the inside out, with the skin of the being staying on the outside. These mind-controlled fish-men then manufactured a crisis and closed the port. Since then they have been keeping the humans captive and searching for their Macguffin.

The final transformation into mindless fish-man happens shortly after the infected is killed. Before the final transformation, they act charmed, with a limited ability for the Sahuigen to dominate them.

The party finds both a mind-controlled fish-man thing (which bursts out of it's skin before their eyes), and the obligatory "wounded person who knows what is going on" who can put them on the trail of the Macguffin.

Almost all of the city guard has been converted to fish-men, as has most of the ruling cast. There are two Macguffins in play -- the first lets the Sahuigen control the fish-men, the second is the Macguffin that the Sahuigen are looking for.

The artifact in question is not that important to the Sahuigen -- this is actually all a research project by a single Sahuigen wizard. Rather than risk actual Sahuigen lives, he's using remote-control humans to pacify the population, and only exposing the Sahuigen when they must. Remember, the Sahuigen own the planet, the humanoids are just allowed to live in the parts the Sahuigen don't find hospitable.

Inspirations: Lovecraft, some writings on the Sahuigen, a Buffy episode involving a swimming team, The Puppet Masters by RAH.

[Matthew]

Religious interdict? The High Duke of Baldur's Gate has angered the patron Deities of the city, which has resulted in the closing of all the temples and caused widespread panic in the city's inhabitants, leading the High Duke to close the city to outsiders.

[Sornjss Lichdom]

i like the last idea the best, but how bout a inner town war that has been brought to the streets and has made everybody made. you know like a couple of nobles to proud to back down after a few drinks. Have one noble house be adirty fighter, with alot of collatoral damage, and have contacted a dark place in the abyss for some sort of help, leaving a fog on the streets near there house etc. etc..