Help with storing events

Hey,

In my game, every time the player reaches the next 'node' along the path a random event happens to them. In order to keep the gameplay interesting I need to have lots of events (a few hundred). What would be the best way to store the events? I need to store the event name, description and effects. My first thought was a database but I dont want to have to deal with using mySQL. I am coding in C++ using SDL.

Thanks