Sudden sinkhole

[Joël of the FoS]

Interesting thing happening in the real world:

http://news.yahoo.com/mysterious-louisi ... ories.html

Lets play. In the land of mists, what wouldf be the cause of this phenomenon?

Feys?

The monsters rumored to be creeping under Darkon?

[HuManBing]

These are really scary - I should have thought of them as Ravenloftish features too!

In Central and South America, there is a related geographical terrain phenomenon known as "cenotes" which occur when underground water eats away at limestone deposits, causing collapses.

In 2010, one such collapse occurred in Guatemala City, swallowing up a three-story building.



If it happened in lower-tech societies, I could imagine this might be attributed to earth gods or hungry spirits of the soil - much like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are attributed to angry chthonic deities.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

In the land of mists, what wouldf be the cause of this phenomenon?

Feys?

The monsters rumored to be creeping under Darkon?

Something gone wrong with the fabric of the landscape, perhaps. Like how Sithicus started to fall apart when Soth turned into a mirror-gazing couch potato.

[HuManBing]

A potentially scary (but less-than-lethal) manifestation could be the sudden appearance of one of these, but filled with water.

That way, your PCs are suddenly scrambling to get out of the water and to save their equipment, which is a minor inconvenience compared to being suddenly suspended above a hundred-foot void.

It could also make them very uneasy. At first, the ground suddenly collapsed and they were treading water in a pool. Then they start probing the water to try to recoup some of their lost loot and equipment... and they find out it's much, much deeper than they thought. Tie three or four 10' poles end-to-end, and it STILL doesn't scrape the bottom of the pool. And it's damn COLD, as well...

And now you've gone the range of emotions from surprise, to irritation, to fear and wonderment, to awe... with an added tinge of creeping eerie unease.

[Trike]

There are several large underground beasts in Lovecraft that fit nicely into Ravenloft and could cause a sinkhole. Dholes come to mind. The seemingly mundane cult living in the town worships the creature because the sinkholes begin to appear if they do not.

It may even be coincidence. The body of a large creature is decay under the ground. The sinkholes appear as parts of its body collapse due to decay. But the prayers of the cult above is actually waking the spirit of the creature.

Maybe a group of Calibans or Broken Ones have become man-eaters in tunnels beneath an urban area. They are causing the sinkholes and eating the surprised victims that fall into their trap. Hmmmmm, Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers. It's possible that this idea has been done.

It also reminds me of the house that is so evil that it is sucked into the earth at the end. A location that collapse under the weight of its own corruption.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Possibly the in-game Fraternity of Shadows is experimenting with ways to disrupt the structure of the Land, to learn more about how its terrain is brought into being. They're curious about that sort of thing, and wouldn't be unduly worried about the hazards such holes in reality might pose to others, so long as no evidence links the sinkholes' formation to them.

[Hazgarn]

A mage/mad scientist in the area is conducting experiments on a certain kind of element (silver, iron, gold, something). Maybe trying the "lead into gold" scheme. He's getting some results. But what he doesn't know is that his work is actually sublimating mineral deposits in the surrounding area, causing hollow spots to form. The trick would be finding out that the two events are related.

[MichaelTumey]

Karst terrains are areas of limestone with extensive caverns honey-combing vast areas. The most cavernous regions are always in karst terrains. Now looking at cenotes, the entire Yucatan peninsula is karst terrain. In fact the Yucatan features no surface rivers, although the region is technically a jungle. Rivers flow richly beneath the surface. Old cenotes, water filled sinkholes, usually sit next to Mayan ruins (not all), as the cenote is viewed as a passage into the underworld.

I could see some Mayan horror, some worshipped being making in-roads, underground into an existing domain, even completely destroying a surface culture through surprising appearances of sinkhole at important crossroads, before bridges, in village markets... just an idea.

[The Lesser Evil]

A mage/mad scientist in the area is conducting experiments on a certain kind of element (silver, iron, gold, something). Maybe trying the "lead into gold" scheme. He's getting some results. But what he doesn't know is that his work is actually sublimating mineral deposits in the surrounding area, causing hollow spots to form. The trick would be finding out that the two events are related.

This might be an interesting hook for the Dark Delvers http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/wiki/Dark_Delvers

Other ideas might include aftershocks from the scourging of the Arak or perhaps wererats or marikith digging tunnels and such beneath the foundations of Richemulot/Paridon/Nosos. Scourange has terrain kinda patterned off of Lousiana, so you could always have some naturally occurring sinkholes similar to the one in that link pop up there, I'm guessing.