I'm working on my next Ravenloft campaign and I want the first adventure as a "Here is how you get there" scenario, so I figured I'd ask everyone what their favorite way to get to Ravenloft was. I'd rather avoid, "Your walking... and your walking... and theres mist... and your somewhere else"
My last campaign started with them hunting down a mad druid who summoned the mists from a tablet carved by the only known man to return from the Domain of Dread. He read it, spewed out mists until they couldn't see. When the mist cleared they got back into their boat and was lost in the swamp of Soragne (I know thats not how its spelled).
Anyone else have any interesting stories of how they ended up in Ravenloft?
Hello all,
I'm working on my next Ravenloft campaign and I want the first adventure as a "Here is how you get there" scenario, so I figured I'd ask everyone what their favorite way to get to Ravenloft was. I'd rather avoid, "Your walking... and your walking... and theres mist... and your somewhere else"
My last campaign started with them hunting down a mad druid who summoned the mists from a tablet carved by the only known man to return from the Domain of Dread. He read it, spewed out mists until they couldn't see. When the mist cleared they got back into their boat and was lost in the swamp of Soragne (I know thats not how its spelled).
Anyone else have any interesting stories of how they ended up in Ravenloft?
In media res. Had my PC's start in the middle of a big fight/battle, the mist can was described as rising up on a round to round basis, if you put the right spin on it you have one of those mediaeval films where the chaos and press of bodies has dust and mist so thick in the air the Characters can't see 5' in front of each other.
The party went deeper into the forest, tracking the skeletons back to a barrow. After going inside the party fought through to a large crypt, discovering that the undead were being created and commanded by a powerful lich (way more powerful than the party). The party was only saved by the intervention of the mists, which came to take to the lich to the domain of dread. The party was swept up in the mists and deposited in Darkon.
- They are running after a villain, who opens a gate. The PCs follow, to find themselves in RL.
- The Inn. The PCs were in a FR Inn, where they stayed for a night. But the next morning, they find out the inn have been moved to a new place. None of the other patrons or Inn staff is there, just the PCs.
As if it wasn't enough, they find the Inn surrounded by a large number of hostile peasants, who are setting the Inn on fire ("it just appeared here, it must be evil, let's burn it").
So they were thrown into action and must act quickly.
Later, when they are back in FR, they found out the inn burned that night and the PCs were believed dead from the blaze.
- Have the PCs be present when an old enemy commits an act evil enough to gain a RL domain, and they got sucked in along with it (the domain was a building snatched from their world, and they were in the building when it happened). That worked quite well - they were very freaked out and had no idea what had happened, why the building had suddenly become a lot more haunted, or why their enemy had gained strange new powers.
- There are also a few domains/lords that could be able to reach into other worlds: the Headless Horseman's Road, the theater of Scaena, the Phantom Lover, and the beam from Monette's lighthouse.
- on an expedition in the Rockies, a great earthquake: the PCs plunged down a thousand feet below, to the Domain of Dread.
- an creepy option on the mists: the mists as teleporting everything they touched, but only those parts that they touched. The mists would thus maul everything with which they came in contact. Animals would be stripped of limbs, people decapitated, buildings slashed, etc. When the PC awoke, he would be whole, but also surrounded with the missing parts of animals, people, trees, ect...
- Planar rip due to spell misfunction or gate opens near the PCs.
- The PCs are lost in a swamp. They end up still lost in a swamp, but this time it's in RL Souragne (see the library in my sig for a great netbook IMHO: the FoS report on Souragne).
- There are also a the vistanis gypsies that could be able to reach into other worlds. Someone could have paid enemies to bring them to RL
, or PCs are pickpocketed by gypsies, when they give chase, they get their money back but find the road that they're on doesn't lead where it used to... - Accidently tear open a portal. Like dropping a bag of holding into a portable hole. It could be an act of self sacrifice. And instead of getting shunted into the Atral plane they get dumped into RL.
- They could be summoned by someone in RL. "A strange voice cries for aid from beyond, do you offer your assistance?"
Those are a few ideas to get in. Getting out is another matter
Joël
The other times I've had it be a teleport gone wrong, and being near an evil wizard who was being turned into a darklord.
I have had a mixed party before with some born there and others drawn in by the Mists, and Forgotten Terror was probably one of my favorite intros into Ravenloft.