They will wake up in a big, circular stone room. The room looks like a tomb, or something similar, even though the floor looks natural. The walls are full of bas-reliefs (actually representing three heroes fighting the force of darkness and saving the world, or something similar. I'm still thinking about it. If you have any suggestion about how to expose this let me know, but read below first.). In the room with them there will be a lot of dead bodies, skeletons for the most part.
Probably at the beginning they will think they just awakened in a tomb, maybe they were dead. But why did they rise? they will have many questions, questions that will remain unanswered for a long time.
PC will not have any memory of what happened to them, except this: A big blue flash, crackling sound, And an explosion, Than nothing. (This has been suggested by another member in one of my older post, and since i liked the idea, i'll use it
, thanks again for this hint!)
They will not know what this memory is until the very end of the campaign.
(A little explanation: Dead bodies are actually Member of the Fraternity of shadows (Read all, and tell me if the fraternity is a decent choice or if there is someone else who would do something like this). The fraternity attempted an ancient ritual to bring the PC Back to life, sacrifying their own life to complete this very ritual. The purpose of this sacrifice is to prevent Azalin's Doomsday Device to destroy the demiplane.
If i'm not wrong, Doomsday device had a malfunction and instead of breaking the demiplane (Freeing Azalin), it created necropolis. In the adventure the PCs will be there and will be the cause of this malfunction. )
Actually PC's souls are not their own souls. Their souls are the souls of their former characters - The heroes in the bas-reliefs. (They will think that those bas-reliefs are something like a prophecy for them, but that's not the case. Those are the reminiscence of another timeline - The timeline of the last campaign). Those characters are from another timeline, and same stands for the FoS dead members in the chamber. The former characters (From now on i'll call them "The Heroes") fought Azalin to stop the doomsday device and failed, but just by a noose. In that reality Ravenloft just exploded (If it is plausible, let me know) freeing azalin and everyone who is trapped inside RL (with a very high chance of being disrupted during this process anyway). This is the reason that made FoS choose them to be worth the sacrifice and give them a second chance in this reality to save the world they spent their life to study. (I know FoS is actually Neutral Evil, this is why i'm not totally convinced about this point. If you have any other candidate for the "Resurrection Ritual" i would be glad to hear).
First problem: How could I proceed from here? I need them to go in souragne and fight against the walking dead. I need them to find the scroll of Hyskosa prophecy and i need them to follow this path.
For this I can have them "spawn" in Souragne already, and as soon as they come out of the cave they see Marais d'Tarascon, and as soon as they get in town they will witness a murder, and then the adventure will go on from there.
If they'll believe the bas-relief is a prophecy (as I could suggest as DM
...) they could actually feel like they have a job to do, and probably they will go and find out more about this Scroll of hyskosa.
What will happen at the end? Well, IF they will reach the end of the campaign, after doomsday device explode i will describe it like this: "A big blue flash, crackling sound, an explosion, Than Darkness." At this point it will be clear (even if reaching this point will take months) what happened. They will have their memories back (many ways to justify this... Mist, magic, the doomsday device, Timeline collapsing into one, anything else...) and they will understand that the bas-reliefs story is their story.
The Fraternity could do something like this? what could be the reason? How can I improve this story?
Now that you know the full plan, how would you describe the bas-relief? what events should be shown in there?
Be careful because i would like to give them the impression of a prophecy about them, but in the end I would like to have the Player figure out that this is actually not the case. I'd like that in the end they think that the answer was under their nose all the time, and they just didn't get it.
Consider that if I put any of the adventure on the bas-reliefs (For example the Scroll of Hyskosa that they will find very soon, the undead, the pyramid of harakir and so on...) they will feel like they are completing the prophecy, but if I want that bas-relief to be the story of their former characters it should end with their death, not their triumph... Edit: Meanwhile i was reading this, it just come into mind this idea: I could have the last part of the story missing from the bas-reliefs (it could be broken into pieces, it could be cracked from the wall, anything that makes it un-readable). This way they will not be sure of what to expect and they will only know once they will find the Truth during the Doomsday device event (by having them see some cut-scenes, even some scenes of which they could not be witness to have a bigger and better explanation).
The downside of this possibility is that by having the end of the story cracked or ruined they will not have the full puzzle, and thus they will not think that the answer has been always under their noses. So if you have any ideas on how to let them think this is a prophecy, and at the same time give them everything they need to solve this "puzzle" let me know. I think this little detail would improve the feeling at the climax by a ton.
Let me know what you think!
As you can see the timeline tries to follow the canon, and there is (usually) a space of an year between adventures. How could i justify this "time lapse"? I dont want to describe it as "An year passes, and very little happens, until...". I'd like to have something more enjoyable to explain this jump, or find a way to avoid it completely and have them play an adventure after the another (Of course i'll give them time to do stuff in city and so on...). What do you think? how could I get rid of this little problem?
I also thought about having them not completely humans. But i'm not sure about this point. They have been resurrected through a very ancient and sinister ritual, and I'd like that they do not age (at the very least, they do not age like normal people, but slower). This because if they start the campaign with a character who's around 30 years, at the very end their character will be almost 50 years (consider that I will go on if they want to, even after the doomsday event). I don's see a 50 yo man fight azalin, even if this man is a renown hero
. What you think? How could i proceed about this point?