This just popped into my head, but it seems like it would be a fun idea for a one-off game.
Create any legal Pathfinder [or insert your game system of choice here] character of level 1d4+6 with level-appropriate gear.
You wake up, startled, and look around. Before you are a handful of other adventurers, similarly coming to their senses, as well as a woman in what appear to be priestly robes, who wields a magic wand. Surrounding you are several smashed and long-crumbled statues.
The woman speaks to you in a heavily-accented variant of the common tongue that takes you a few moments to comprehend. “Are you all right? Can you understand me? You have been restored from petrification by a medusa, centuries ago. The medusa is long dead. We have revived you because a great threat has arisen… and we have no heroes who have the strength to fight it. We hope that you, great warriors of the past, may have that strength…”
There you go, have fun with it. Depending on how weird you wanted to get you could tweak the available classes (say, disallow Gunslingers at the start of the game, even though there are Gunslinger NPC threats) or go for a superscience-and-sorcery angle a la Thundarr the Barbarian, depending on how long the PCs spent petrified. The PCs themselves could be from any number of different eras of your campaign world’s past.
-The Gneech
@the_gneech I like it. Have to remember This.
This is awesome! Random D&D Higher-Level Campaign Starter Idea http://t.co/OTNcA6N1Wp #dnd
Random D&D Higher-Level Campaign Starter Idea http://t.co/rZdyvQF2WK #SavageWorlds
RT @RebelsHeart: This is awesome! Random D&D Higher-Level Campaign Starter Idea http://t.co/OTNcA6N1Wp #dnd
I had a campaign that had a slightly similar beginning – but no gear. You wake up, starkers, on a stone slab with two silver coins covering your eyes. In a 5X8 room, with a bronze door, your name inscribed both on the wall above the slab and on the outside of the bronze door… The room is cold, and the floor is icy.