I'd prefer to have a peaceful setting to start with, though the plague could be a storyline somewhere later on. The only problem is, even modern people could die as easy as anyone from the plague so I'm not sure how we'd go around that. For now, let's leave the plague out, we can always include it if we feel like it. On that note, maybe we can agree that the year is somewhere around the first or last outbreak of the plague? That way we can either include it later on, or have it still exist in our RP but not as dangerous as it would be when it was in full swing.