A common tool of necromancers, nether mages, and others who are privvy to the arts of the dead and undead
A simple way to a fate most dreadful.
A wet brown sack… FULL OF MAGGOTS!
The secret for immortality has been discovered by an eccentric wizard/mad scientist. Its found you need to reapply once a month. As people stop dying, and the birth rate increases exponentially, people are forced into homelessness, because of the need for food reamins the same, and food is not being produced fast enough to feed the undying population. The PCs have to find the creator and kill him, and destroy production, to save the world from undying, unending torture from hungryness.