Bringing outsiders to RL

[Joël of the FoS]

I'd like to start this thread to collect ideas / stories used to bring outsiders (PCs or NPCs) to Ravenloft (instead of the old “the mists takes you and you find yourself in an unknown land”!).

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I start:

I once had my group of PCs to sleep in a small inn, somewhere in Greyhawk. Food was OK, night was quiet. But then they woke up to the sound of a mob! They look outside to see a completely different landscape around the inn… And a mob of “mongrelmen” (broken ones) with torch, approaching the inn.

They are alone in the inn, nobody else is there with us.

They have to escape the mob, who will soon fire the inn (superstitious broken one tribe, afraid of that house that appeared out of thin air a morning, after a denser mist bank enveloped the land).

They flee and get to a land mark saying “Barovia”…

(when they eventually came back, the PCs learned they were thought dead when the inn was completely destroyed by a fire on this night)

Joël

[alhoon]

Good one Gotten.

I have used a similar one once. The PCs sleep in an inn and wake up in Verbek. They don't speak the language etc.

[Sorti]

Just remove the "Barovia" landmark, and have them guess about where they are, then arrive in a village where people speaks a language they don't understand, and so on...

[Spiteful Crow]

I was toying around with the idea of somehow having the party's Spelljammer suddenly crash land in Darkon...

[Jasper]

A few twists on the mists-

"The snow storm"
The PCs are traveling through a deep snow storm on the peeks of some outsider world. The wind suddenly picks up and the snow turns into a full blown white out. As the snow falls and visabilit is zero it seems to the PCs that the snowflakes are getting larger and the tempeture is much warmer. The winds stops quickly and when they open thier eyes they mind themselves covered with a mixture of melting snow and apple blossoms. A very confused farmer staires at them as they brush off the snow and flowers and starts yelling at them in a strange language....

"The haunted house"
The Pcs are trapped in a thunderstorm and stumbe upon a large masion tucked away off the main road. Light shines from every window and the sound of laughter can be heard over the pounding rain. As the storm seems to be getting worse and the next own is a days ride away the PCs decide to ask for shelter for the night. A butler greets them at the door and invites them in to dry off. Inside a party is in full swing and soon the PCs are asked to join in. Glasses of thick fermented liquid are passes around and toasts are made every half hour. Partions of both sexes dote on the PCs asking them to regale the crowd with thier exploites. As the night goes on the PCs find themselves grwing more and more tired as the guest seem more and more festive. One by one they fall alseep in the chairs and couches of the main room.

When they awake they find the house deserted. In fact it seems no living creature bigger then a rat has been in the home for years. The furiture the PCs slept on crumble at the touch and the light moring rain pours in through hole in the roof. Exiting the house the PCs find themselves in a strage land. When comunication is made with the nearby villagers the PCs are told the hosue is haunted, the spirts with curse to relive in the last night of thier lives as the jilted lover of the owners daughter sliped posion into thier glasses right before the last toast...

[Spiteful Crow]

You could always have their teleportation magic go horribly wrong and drop them off in Ravenloft instead of their intended destination.

[Fuzzball]

I don’t know much about RL, or the “normal” way outsiders enter, but I’ll give it a stab. These are just rough outlines for beginnings so please be kind.

It could have happened like this...

The players go to land X to investigate a plague on the land. People who were completely healthy the day before, don’t wake up the next morning. Investigations find no explanation for the most recent death/deaths.

When the players sleep, they find themselves dreaming of a strange land. Place a DC of maybe 15 or 20 on wisdom check to realize that in their dreams they really are in the place and when they die in sleep, they really die. [Okay, I know…“Simpsons did it!”] This also would induce a madness/horror check so people in the land might also be going crazy, and if they don’t fail others might still think they’re crazy for their theories regarding the deaths.

Even if the players leave the area, the “curse” (or whatever form you want the enchantment to take) persists.

Or perhaps...

You could use a teleport gone terribly wrong. A gate-trap would work if the rogue of the party failed to spot or disarm it.

But this is what really happened...

Bad guy, we shall call him G, captures the party and casts them into a portal. They find themselves in a strange land…blah blah blah…When/If they escape RL they are now powerful enough to kill G.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

In one of the old modules (possibly "The Created" IIRC), PCs end up in Ravenloft because they're actually there on the scene, when the town they happen to be visiting -- home of the DPs' choice for New Darklord Of The Month -- gets swept away by the Mists to become a new domain. Instead of the Mists specifically targeting the players' characters, the DPs wanted the local villain, and their PCs are just dragged along for the ride.

[Dominique]

You could always have their teleportation magic go horribly wrong and drop them off in Ravenloft instead of their intended destination.

We had teleportation magic as the plot device in my brother's RL campaign, actually. Our thief was a kender (which made Sithicus a thrill ride and a half, let me tell you) who noticed a shiny object in the pouch of a Black Robe and decided he wanted to take it just for a second, so he could admire it. Or so he said. His sleight of hand check didn't go too well, the Black Robe started trying to kill him, the party jumped in to intervene, and the Black Robe disgustedly cast a spell on us to make us all GO AWAY. AWAY turned out to be synonymous with TO IL ALUK. (This was pre-Necropolis, incidentally, so getting sent to Il Aluk wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been.)

[Manofevil]

Since many of teh DArklords began as Outsiders. I like the idea of having outsiders PCs visit places that used be there before the mists snatched them up. Or, LIke Dargaard Keep on Krynn, places where Darklords used to live. It gives RavenLoft a feeling of a huge bird of prey ready to swoop down on anyplace in the multiverse where the right sin or combination of sins are committed to attract it.... And no mortal is immune. It gives the PCs the feeling of that little rabbit in the field that looks up and sees a hawk and wonders. 'Is this the day it comes for me?' I think that's the thing that first attracted me to RavenLoft, back when it was just a weekend in hell. It's an aspect of RavenLoft I don't feel has ever been properly explored.

[Undead Cabbage]

IMC I'm currently pulling an Alice in Wonderland type of thing, where the players walked through a mirror into the realm. More specifically, a demon by the name of 'The Red Queen' wishes to use Mordent as a means to take over the realm of dread, but she needs the players to take her with them in the form of a red haired doll until she can fulfill her power ritual in the sleepy domain.

It's been kind of neat to carry the theme on from time to time. Sometimes they notice where the references are, and sometimes they don't. This is not to say that the players are actually playing in something that looks like Alice's Wonderland. It's more like how The Matrix would often make references to the book, sometimes in obvious ways, and sometimes more subtley.

[Fuzzball]

I had a few more ideas, most of which end in "they find themselves in a strange misty land..."

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Kidnapped by gypsies/bandits, tied up, and placed in the back of a wagon so the NPCs can't see out. Either the NPCs are sold or the gypsies/bandits are killed by someone else. They find....

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Change around the normal cosmos and RL could be where you go when you die. You get to keep all your class abilities, but no items.

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Undead start plaguing a land called M. The characters go out in search of the source and find a portal that they can’t destroy from side M. To close the portal they must travel through it to RL and destroy the creator of the portal. (This could mean that they can’t return once they’ve succeeded. Of course, you’d have to come up with a reason that the creator of the portal doesn’t go through it. I guess it could be a Darklord and the Darkpowers are just toying with him by letting him send minions out but not letting him go.)

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A dying curse has strong binding power. “May you spend eternity in hell” or something similar. When they exit the dungeon/house/castle they find...

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Crazy Bob (one of my favorite NPCs) tells one of the PCs about the most beautiful treasure he’s ever seen. How he got there and found it, but drops dead before he finishes the story. The PCs go in search of the treasure and find it (something like a gem or a statue). When it is touched “it disappears”. They’re really the ones that disappeared and find out when they exit the cave that they aren’t in Kansas anymore. To return they have to find the counterpart item in RL and return it to the wherever it belongs.

(Obviously Crazy Bob must have gone on the adventure years before and come back insane. Then somebody else stole the gem from the other side again. Maybe the gem can’t transport undead so it was a vampire that stole it. Could have been the same vampire many times since he’d return to un-life if they didn’t kill kill him.)

[Darkknight]

The event that started my epic campaign was the discovery of an ancient book. The book was rumoured to have the power to destoy whole worlds.

The characters had been forced to flee to a dwarven citadel, by those who wanted the book. A huge red dragon then besieged the citadel.

The characters had the final choice, the book whispered to the holder.... open me and you will be safe.

The book was opened and the screams of thousands rang out, was it the end of their world or was it just the sound of the dragon slaying everyone.

The characters awoke in another dwarven citadel, but this one was deserted and laid to ruin.

They had no contact with any "mist"

[Joël of the FoS]

very interesting thread. I will save it for the DM's notes.

Joël

[TwiceBorn]

I'm in the initial stages of a Greyhawk/Ravenloft campaign (my first one).

I'm using the 1st ed. Greyhawk module "Against the Cult of the Reptile God" as a basis for the transition between Greyhawk and Ravenloft (and, more specifically, Souragne). Both adventures were designed for the same level range, and "Night of the Walking Dead" contains what I consider to be a thinly veiled reference to the "reptile god" of Greyhawk's Rushmoors:

"Mordu... believes that [the mysterious deaths and disappearances] have something to do with an ancient swamp god that has been called to Souragne by a group of cultists" (NotWD, p. 19).

On the same page, it states that Mordu's favourite book is titled The Cult of the Swamp God. Given that NotWD was written back in the day when Ravenloft adventures were all written in the "weekend in hell" format, and that Greyhawk's so-called reptile god lived in a swamp, I think the potential connection betweem AtCotRG and NotWD was probably intentional.

In order to bring the party from Greyhawk to Souragne, I first have them get lost in the swamp after defeating the reptile god(dess) and fleeing her lair. A downpour hits the party in mid-trek home, making it impossible for them to find the trail they made through the muck. They wander around aimlessly for several days, getting soaked to the bone, being eaten alive by bugs (I'll even go so far as to make irritating mosquito sounds in the players' ears), becoming ill from swamp water, etc. Gradually, the temperature will warm, the temperature will change, and so will the vegetation and the stars in the sky.

Prior to the adventure, I will have given the party sorcerer/wizard information about Greyhawk's Fading Lands, and perhaps even rumours suggesting that a powerful and malevolent sorcerer (Vecna -- the Whispered One) from ancient times once had his lair in the Rushmoors. The players usually start to assume that they are being lured into some sort of magical Fading Land/demi-plane by a not quite dead Vecna (whom the PCs do not yet realize has achieved divine status, but who nevertheless is emerging as a long term campaign villain, manipulating plots and subplots from the shadows)... the players are only partially correct, but it does inspire terror in them (only one of my 3 players has vague metagame knowledge of who Vecna is and what Ravenloft is, and suspects that the latter is where I'm taking the party... the info about the Fading Lands is intended as a distraction). The environmental changes gradually to give way to the initial encounters in NotWD... and given that the party is lost in a swamp, a little bit of mist doesn't seem out of place.