I'm starting the campaign some time in the next bit, actually just test running it with my group here before I move and hopefully run it when I'm in Memphis (moving next month).
I'm starting my lil' PCs off at level 5 as a group of Greyhawk PCs who are shortly going to be transported to the mists. Campaign starts out mid epic battle of commoners versus undead army led by a necromancer. He's going to teleport away and scry on them and try to catch them alone. I dunno, I was going to have him make some sort of deal with the DP and get them taken through the mists (odds are they may or may not even know this whole backstory, but right
. Anyway, not to go into entire plot summary, they'll prolly get found by a vistani caravan or stumble across a town. There's one PC who's a watchmaker and not an outlander, I was thinking to work him in, I'd somehow get the PCs to his town (I was thinking Neurfurctenburg in Lamordia). Anyway, I was watching sweeney todd and reading my DMG (random adventure seeds #4 p 138 I believe) anyway, one of the seeds was "Wealthy Merchants are being murdered in their homes" and I was like, wow, that'll work, I just need to figure out motivations and who the murderer would be.
It'd be a great way to tie the PCs together and possibly mess with their heads a small bit.
Any help? It'd be greatly appreciated ^.^
My first thought was it could be a ghost or something. "No signs of entry, no weapon found, didn't even wake his wife sleeping right next to him"
Second thought was it could be someone very closely tied to the businessmen.
My third was some random villager or a visiting person. However, new people are kind of big things in small towns. Problem is I can come up with ideas but unless I think a bit in advance, I have trouble tying it in.
Thanks in advance. It's a pity this board's so...not very active it seems. Also, any general advice for DMing Ravenloft would be greatly appreciated.
Remember, not all horrors of Ravenloft need be Supernatural. Although the supernatural certainly gets the job done. Hope that helps.
I may have found an interesting twist on the Kargatane boards
but true I could go with a watch collector.As for the means you suggest for getting them to RL in the first place, the Dark Powers haven't been in the habit of cutting deals since Strahd's day. Rather, the Mists might appear to abduct the *necromancer* the Greyhawk PCs have been fighting, and take the PCs along for the ride! This would open up the possibility that the necromancer will become their personal nemesis (and vice versa) in the RL setting, and a recurring character.
BUt then again it could be the Dog with the shifty eyes sitting in the corner.
Good luck with getting the game going i just wish my players wouldnt stereotype me so much....not all my BBEG are pyromaniacs and i am NOT out to get them all.....much :D
Actually, all my ideas seem to involve dolls for ravenloft. Dolls scare me.
Um... Anyway, my suggestion falls into two places.
1. The Killer is actually a mad science project that resembles a Bakhna Rakhna (a small, hungry albino goblin with a paralytic bite and dimensional door ability). The scientist who accidently created it (a screw up in experimenting with some magic tainted meat from Falknovia or Darkon?) has been teaching it to act like an assassin, and has been sending the poor thing out to murder those that refused to fund his research. Remember, undead are VERY unlikely to be found in Lamordia, and there may be a chance that magic will fail every once in a while. Try using more mundane threats, and toss in a mad science created monster every once in a while. Make the monster truely hideous, almost melting half the time, and its dimensional door ability acts only when it squeezes through cracks in the walls. Plus, a paralytic bite would freeze the men while their heads were torn/chewed off. Bite the neck and the initial mark it all but gone.
I still remember with a smile the time my players ran around a blizzard chasing after Herbert, the Dire Giant Hamster. He had been exposed to a alchemical substance (laced with chemical X) designed to increase plant growth. He kidnapped the beautiful lab assistant and shoved her into a cheek pouch before escaping. Not the most terrifying event, but they had just escaped from the Necropolis and needed a break.
2. My second idea involves a Bastellus, or Dream Stalker. This is only good if the person died quietly in their sleep. The men start to complain about nightmares before they died, and now the PC is suffering from them too, being driven made by the bad dreams. The men are being targetted because they are funding a doctor who is doing research into dreams, and is getting near to learning about the Nightmare Court. Maybe the PC accidently gets placed on the bastellus' hit list after he buys parts from another targetted merchant (parts that mark one for death, planted by a human servant of the Nightmare Court).
I used the "merchants dying hook" in a town..doesn't matter where. The merchants were always found face down with a sword sticking in their gut. The "murderer" was a gold coin possessed by a spirit that had committed suicide. Anyone who fell asleep while in possession of this coin had lamentable dreams of such power that when the awoke, they had to make a will save (dc15) or commit suicide the same way the possessed ghost did (by falling on his sword). One of the pc's found the gold coin clenched in the merchant's hand (it had changed many hands in that town..the first being a travelling merchant), and didn't spend it that day (as most pcs are wont to save money). He failed his will save the following morning...and his fellow pcs found him about to commit suicide and had a small fist fight/brawl in order to stop him.
Needless to say, when the pc's found out what was happening, they never looked at coinage (or any object of value) the same.
I started the campaign and I thought I'd let everyone know I went with an old scribe lamenting the "good ol' days" when there weren't non-humans or women running businesses. (rolled for random victims and my 3 token non humans came up first) He started out killing random non-humans and hookers in the docks and has now moved onto merchants. Power checks are leading him eventually to vampirism, so certain things (like his attacks by night with no sign of entry and drained bodies, all results of failed power checks) are of course making people think one thing.
I'll use that coin thing later. :D