Help with locating players in a new campaign

[Razan de Ullapool]

I'm starting my first RL campaign with players that are veterans (since 1st ed) but none have ever set foot in RL before. We're in the stage right now of picking classes and I've decided, against my best judgment, to run a module - the Night of the Walking Dead. I just don't know enough about Ravenloft yet to generate my own story and am hoping I'll get inspired as this module moves on.

The module, as you may recall, opens in Souragne as the players are boating around in a swamp in their native lands and are drawn into the Mists to the swamp of Souragne.

My players don't know where we are starting and about half of them want to play RL natives with the other half being outsiders. I am looking forward to this push/pull over motivation as the outlanders will likely be looking for a way home while the natives will have other motivations to their travels.

Given my players don't know where we're starting, they are generating character backgrounds from different domains.

I'm finding it really hard to figure out how to suddenly place 6 characters on a boat in the swamps of Souragne. I have considered making only the outlanders take part in the boat portion of the adventure and having the natives wake up in an inn in Marais D'Tarascon, maybe have the natives level 2 and start the outlanders as level 1.

Any thoughts?

By the way, the current starting character ideas are:
Fighter/assassin
Psionic
Mage - probably necromancer or wildmage outlander
Cleric or monk
Paladin
Bard or ranger

The psionic and mage players really want to explore how these are different in Ravenloft.

[Joël of the FoS]

Have you read the FoS report on Souragne? (found here in the library). There are many adventure hooks in this netbook, and the descriptions could also help make suitable beggining for your campaign (other then "you are in a tavern... " or "you find yourself in a boat in the swamp" )

Joël

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I'm finding it really hard to figure out how to suddenly place 6 characters on a boat in the swamps of Souragne.

Easiest way I can think if is start with 6 characters on a boat anywhere and suck them through the mists to Souragne. Give the natives some reason to go on a voyage on the Sea of Sorrows or the Nocturnal Sea, then have the boat sink by whatever means you like, and the 6 PC's just happen to be in the same lifeboat, which hits a bank of fog, and viola! Nothing like being alone in a swamp to bond together a bunch of strangers. You can have the same thing happen to the outlanders, just starting in their own world, and have both lifeboats end up in the same place.

EDIT: as for where the natives came from originally, ask the players a bit more about their characters than class, and see where it leads. You can ask what sort of climate they envision being from, a rural or urban hometown, or even ask them to name a real-world country that fits their character and stick them in the closest RL equivalent.