The Unquiet Plague

All across the continent of Ereb, the earth stirs. Cemeteries, crypts, and tombs have opened like blisters, disgorging hordes of shambling undead who stagger forth to assault the living. This malaise has been creeping onward for years, crawling westward with a dreadful certainty. Whole villages have been swallowed by this unnatural blight, the cause and source of which remain frustratingly unknown.   In the town of Arkest, in the heart of the Dvurgen Empire, the plague has arrived. The crypts have become a bleeding wound of undead, with most of the town's guard falling victim to these monsters simply trying to stop them from consuming the city. The local magistrate's pleas for help fall on the deaf ears of his lord, a count and elector in the Dvurgen Empire's byzantine political system; the Count is too broke from fighting both the plague and a wave of banditry to worry about the fate of one small town.   The magistrate, at his wits end, has put out a call for mercenaries and adventurers in a desperate attempt to spare the city from becoming just another empty shell of buildings in the wake of this doom. And while he would prefer not to do business with ratcatchers and sellswords, it's a far better thing to deal with unpleasant mercenaries than to become yet another victim of the Plague. Now he just hopes the gods will answer his prayers, and send him deliverance.