Adventure/Campaign beginning help

[Autolykos]

Hello!

I am a long time lurker who is trying to put together a Ravenloft campaign and looking for a bit of input. I am only in the rough-outline stage so any comments will be appreciated!

My idea to begin the campaign was to start with something similar to the movie Saw II. For those who have not seen the movie, the premise is that a psycho locks a group of people in a house, giving them only a limited time to escape and get the antitode to the poison they have been breathing. My idea is something similar, only hopefully less fatal in the end!

The game will be a message board play-by-post game and I am requiring a rather detailed background. Starting level will be 3rd or 4th level.

Once the backgrounds are finalized, I plan to tie them together with one individual who has been wronged in some way by either the PC or a relative of the PC. The house will be filled with traps designed for each PC that fit their individual crimes. The key to getting out will be finding the thing they all have in common (that being the connection to my villain).

An additional twist I had in mind was to actually put the villain in the house with the characters to start the game. As it will be a message board game, I can create another character to serve my purposes without the real characters being the wiser until the end!

I would like some ideas to flush out my villain - I was thinking about a female sorcerer/rogue-type character. And any ideas on how I could tie this into a larger campaign? Perhaps at the end she abscods with something of value, taunting them to come find her? I was also considering having her be an agent of Darklord perhaps - one that perceives the characters as potential future threats.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I haven't seen the movie, and unfortunately, I don't have much advice. But I just wanted to say that I love the idea of secretly running one of the "PC's" as the villian. Fantastic. I'd love to watch this play out.

[Bryan1108]

A good model for your villain may be H.H. Holmes. He is thought of as America's first serial killer. The reason for this is that like the villain in the "Saw" movies (Clockwork was his name, I think.), Holmes built an elaborate "Murder Castle".
Obviously there are significant differences but I think that he would make for an ideal Ravenloft villain.
There is more info on Holmes here:
http://www.prairieghosts.com/holmes.html

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

A good model for your villain may be H.H. Holmes. He is thought of as America's first serial killer. The reason for this is that like the villain in the "Saw" movies (Clockwork was his name, I think.), Holmes built an elaborate "Murder Castle".
Obviously there are significant differences but I think that he would make for an ideal Ravenloft villain.
There is more info on Holmes here:
http://www.prairieghosts.com/holmes.html

Wasn't it Jigsaw?

Anyway, in the Ravenloft DMG, there is a Paridon boarding house based on H.H. Holmes.

[Autolykos]

A good model for your villain may be H.H. Holmes. He is thought of as America's first serial killer. The reason for this is that like the villain in the "Saw" movies (Clockwork was his name, I think.), Holmes built an elaborate "Murder Castle".
Obviously there are significant differences but I think that he would make for an ideal Ravenloft villain.
There is more info on Holmes here:
http://www.prairieghosts.com/holmes.html

That man was a severly twisted individual! Thanks for the link.

Wasn't it Jigsaw?

Anyway, in the Ravenloft DMG, there is a Paridon boarding house based on H.H. Holmes.

Yep - it was Jigsaw. He would cut a jigsaw puzzle piece shape from the flesh of his victims to symbolize the piece of themselves they were missing.

And thank you for the tip - I had always skimmed right through that section of DMG without ever picking up on that.

[Bryan1108]

His name was Jigsaw? hmm, okay. I haven't seen that flick since it was in theatres and I never saw the sequal.
I never got the Ravenloft DMG.
Sorry