Maybe Tiamat and a disease deity are feuding and so a disease is raging through dragonkind.

I’m daydreaming/brainstorming about a similar black dragon looking into dracolichdom in the game I’m DMing.

Good luck!

Word might get around that they don’t talk to the law. Opportunities for less than legal missions might open up. I’d have the guards just be pissed, maybe look into them a bit and see if they were involved in the killing.

But…Thieves’ Guilds are fun.

“I hear from around the way that when the City Guard shows up you all know how to stay quiet. Want a job?”

This happened to me recently – same situation – an old friend died.

We decided to continue with the campaign. The character had been wounded and so we decided that the character died in their sleep. That might sound harsh but I thought it was what the player would’ve wanted and playing the character felt ghoulish to me.

Continuing the campaign and remembering the amazing things the character had done and even having characters/players being inspired by that character’s actions was a really nice thing.

I’m not saying this is the right thing for you and your friends to do. Grief is a strange thing with stages that can leave us in very different emotional states. Good luck sorting it out and make sure you set up easy methods for people to jump out of game and process those feelings.

Good luck. Strength and warmth to everyone at the gaming table with you.