[quest plot] The Disappearing Few

Every now and then an Idea for a game pops into my head, When I'm in bed or near my desk I have a notebook, I prefer to flesh it out when I have time, yet with a full time job, part time gigs, children, family commitments, etc etc.. Many of these ideas will never see the light of day. Whats the good of all these ideas if they just stay locked in the notebook.
So From now on, as I have ideas, I think I'll just shared them, maybe you'll be sparked for your own ideas, maybe you can use this one. Please, if you do use it, just a shout out that you were inspired from here, so others may come and use the ideas too.

So, for the first Idea:

The Disappearing Few

The Concept is this: You roll up several NPCs for a village, Once done, pick one each as your "group of friends / the heroes, Flesh out their characters, roleplay a small side quest that explains why you think of yourselves as the heroes of the village, and then begin the plot.

Nightmares have begun in the village, no-one rememberes specifics, only that they did not sleep well, witnesses say they tossed and turned, then when people started to discuss this, they realise that two members of the village have not been seen in days or weeks. This is not uncommon, as people on the outskirts might only visit the village once a week, sometimes once a month, but something feels off.

The Heroes investigate the home of the missing person, and nothing is to be found.

Another small quest, rats or bugs or forest creatures imposing on farmland, meanwhile another person has gone missing,

The Heroes investigate the home of the missing person, and nothing is to be found.

Another small quest,but this time, the heroes spot a villager wandering into the forest, they give chase, but lose them in some thickets. Returning to the village the partner of that villager asks, have they seen them, they just wandered off in the wee hours of the morning, they haven't seen them since.

The Heroes begin to realise, the village is under some kind of curse, nightmares, people wandering off, never to be seen again. What should they do?

Its the end of the Growing season, its harvest time, the heroes have their daily chores to take care of too, now with missing villagers, its going to be harder, people will need to pick up the slack, else the village will starve next winter.

Players now need to assign the workload to the rest of the villagers, as they continue to dissapear and the villagers depend on the heroes to make decisions.

If they Try to determine where they have gone, they lose precious harvest time, If they stay up late to 'watch' they lose sleep and are ineffective the next day, Each time a new villager goes missing is only when everyone is asleep, or at least asleep on that side of the village.

Stress to the players, people who wander into the forest go missing all the time, its not safe, so trying to follow one of them will as likely lose the whole group of heroes.

The Blacksmith, Leatherworker and Shaman of the village can prepare Armour and or weapons if the players assign them to do so, at the cost of repairs to harvesting equipment, and Protective powers.

This could be the kind of setting I'd put the game in.. 

The Players have to balance the Harvest, Sleep, and occasional defensive measures for normal forest denizens.

Once the Players have armed themselves enough to go into the forest, AND harvested enough food for the village that winter, (incase the heroes never return) then they may do so.

This could be a board game, where the end phase is the players going into the forest, matching stats against the enemy and winning (or losing if they are unprepared)


It could be the 'backstory' for your heroes.

It could be a roleplay scenario for a few weeks,

It could even be the plot of a movie, TV show, Story, Book or something entirely different.

I was thinking of calling it "Grimms Forest: Nightmares" and having it as a Forest Based board game with turns, combat and a final battle. Each round of "forest denizens" could be creatures from the Grims fairy tales or just were-versions of everything like the Grimm TV show,

Maybe its set in the Grimm Universe...?