Your party wanders into a medium sized town of less than only

>>53169065
John smith sold them all into white slavery

>>53169065
There's no secret, paladins came around to kill all sorcerers, that's it.

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>>53169065
The aliens that run the planet as flesh/labour farm came by and harvested them.

>>53169065
A large slave raid. Some wealthy group needed a large supply of human sacrifices

>>53169065
The mayor's family has been in league with a race of tyrannical molemen who live in subterranean caverns beneath the town going back generations. Every few decades these molepeople harvest the entire town's population sans the mayor's family, to be used as slaves/food/fuel/whatever devious purposes. After each cycle the mayor's family is tasked with covering it all up, and attracting new settlers to the town so the cycle can repeat. The current mayor massively fucked up by accidentally sending a group out on a supply run right before a harvest was supposed to happen.

>>53169065
The town was built over one of the mouths of The Tempter, a beast associated with the apocalypse like the biblical leviathan. She whispers into the minds of the people and over generations they have completely fallen under her thrall to the point where they are now mere extensions of her will so long as they remain within the town and surrounding area. Periodically she will urge individuals out of their homes at night and into tunnels that take them to the realm in which she is imprisoned to work out the rest of their lives trying to break her bonds. They avoid magicians because they are never quite sure if an individual's spellcraft is innate or empowered by the gods, and she would like to avoid drawing divine attention.

>>53169065
Went crazy from an unearthed artifact.
Mass suicide.
Bodies taken by ethereal forces for unknown reasons.
They'll return soon.

The group came back to a ghost town they thought was their home town. The real town they're from tells the story of how a group of townsfolk went to the city for vital supplies and never returned, causing a period of strife.

White Fright. They all left after the niggers moved in.

Then that small group returned, they found out the town was attacked by human-eating giants. They were able to convince the giants to not attack the town anymore on one condition: they must regularly sacrifice people to feed them.

While the elder is telling them this, a mob of locals try capturing the party

turned into turtles

>>53169065
The town are all disguised mind flayers. They invaded this town and slowly are taking over the minds of everyone that used to live in the town by the use of an elder brain hidden under the town. Only spellcasters can detect their psionics so they try to keep from even being near them.

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>>53169065
Every so often, the great King of the forests, a powerful lord of the fae, spends a night hunting whatever happens to be in his path.

This town and all the people who were in it, through no fault of it's own but simply as a matter of poor luck, was in the wrong place during one of these great hunts.

>>53169626
I like this. I think I'll steal it.

>>53169065
>Upon prodding he reveals that the town was populated 5 fold at one time but a small group of them left to get supplies from a larger city as they usually do but upon returning everyone was gone without a trace.
The group was really bad at reading maps. The original town is wondering what happened to their supply caravan.

>>53169065
The whole town was invited to the fairy party. They are drinking and dancing in the Otherworld and new people arrive constantly (that's new settlers who were invited too on the same day years after them). When this repeats seven times people will be returned to human world thinking it was one long day.

>>53174398
Na people put too much gay shit in renditions of the Hunt

>>53169626
best in thread

>>53169629
why even post

>>53169779
Thank gods we have vertical maneuver gear.

>>53174398

Best explanation. Fae would leave the town intact but take all the people. Could also leave a few changelings behind.

>>53169065
It all started on 2-for-1 wing night in the next town over. Now the missing townsfolk have seized control after days of bloody conflict and are demanding that the wings never stop flowing.

>>53169065
> What is this town's secret?
It misplaces living being on the realms of existence.
Basically, consider ghosts and imagine that ghosts are actually real people who separated from their living plane of existence.

The real question is why the fuck they remember the town being bigger, when there are no buildings for all those extra people.

Someone or something has been fucking with their memory and their awareness.

A False Hydra has taken up residence in the town

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>>53169065
>medium sized
>less than only 100

>>53169065
The single greatest game of hide and seek

>>53181454
>>53182688
The town is medium sized. The population is small. Alluding that it was made for more people but something happened. Pay attention.

>>53182575
Slightly off topic, but I've been thinking about having the party encounter a False Hydra. What're the odds that they absolutely hate it?

A terrible magical plague afflicted the town. It was highly contagious, but only in its final stage. Before that a person would exhibit a series of unmistakable symptoms. The uninfected townsfolk quarantined then killed all those infected out of fear of the plague spreading. The bodies were buried in a mass grave outside of town.

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>>53183154
Depends if they like mystery, ivestigating and aren't hardcore metagamers.

>>53169065
4 out of 5 villager volunteered to be shipped to not-Australia to colonise it, while being fully aware of what it will be like. When the remaining villagers told the mayor, he didn't believe his villagers would be insane enough to volunteer and therefore assumed nefarious and mysterious causes.

>>53169065
Case 1
The group that left sold the town to some demon/devil/old one for le profits, returned afterwards.

Case 2
The group was supposed to leave, but some great disaster wiped out all of the population, the group is ghosts now.

Case 3
The group that left died in an ambush, the remaining people are delusional and have inserted themselves as the group that left in order to wash away the guilt of sending the others on a dangerous journey.

>>53183096
I did. I like my version better.

>our town is missing its people!
>but you're living in a tinyass village...

>>53169065
http://goblinpunch.blogspot.co.nz/2014/09/false-hydra.html