The Ol' Switcheroo
The party is from a small remote town high up in the mountains. One day, a bright light fills the sky and a horrible sound floats through the air. Rumors reach the village that the outside world is changed somehow; expeditions speak of cities of ghosts and of a black sky . Trade and communication ceases with areas outside of the mountain range. The PCs thus spend most of their low-levels doing standard PC stuff in the mountains (political intrigue, dungeon crawls, kill orcs, slaying dragons, rescuing princesses, etc.) All the while avoiding the outside world.
Occassionaly, groups of ghosts wander in and ravage the towns (to be beaten back by PCs). When the PCs are high enough level, they explore the area outside of the mountain range and find that not only are all of its inhabitants ghosts, but the land itself is ghostlike as well; Everything looks slightly translucent and polarized with a strange billowing shadow. The sky and sun are black. Towns are literally ghost towns with ghost horses, ghost buildings, etc. They are attacked on sight by the ghost creatures (template can be applied to anything, giants etc.).
Eventually, the PCs begin to notice more strange things. Through spying, they may discover that when unaware of being observed, the ghosts act "normally"; cooking, cleaning, drinking. In the outside world, everything is incorporeal. Treasure is near worthless since the PCs can't grab it. When PCs return to their home town, any dead PCs are there waiting for them. Unsure of how they got there but unhurt (no level loss).
By this point, it should be obvious. The PCs, their land and all of its inhabitants are the ghosts while the outside world is alive. You'd probably have to institute some house rules in order to make it work (no ressurection/ raise dead from the begining, if PCs die in their homeland they are DEAD, Healing spells actually work as inflict spells though you don't have to tell them that.) It would take some serious constant misdirection to pull this off, but it could work well as a short minicampaign. Inspiration (heck, pretty much the whole idea) from The Third Policeman
The party is from a small remote town high up in the mountains. One day, a bright light fills the sky and a horrible sound floats through the air. Rumors reach the village that the outside world is changed somehow; expeditions speak of cities of ghosts and of a black sky . Trade and communication ceases with areas outside of the mountain range. The PCs thus spend most of their low-levels doing standard PC stuff in the mountains (political intrigue, dungeon crawls, kill orcs, slaying dragons, rescuing princesses, etc.) All the while avoiding the outside world.
Occassionaly, groups of ghosts wander in and ravage the towns (to be beaten back by PCs). When the PCs are high enough level, they explore the area outside of the mountain range and find that not only are all of its inhabitants ghosts, but the land itself is ghostlike as well; Everything looks slightly translucent and polarized with a strange billowing shadow. The sky and sun are black. Towns are literally ghost towns with ghost horses, ghost buildings, etc. They are attacked on sight by the ghost creatures (template can be applied to anything, giants etc.).
Eventually, the PCs begin to notice more strange things. Through spying, they may discover that when unaware of being observed, the ghosts act "normally"; cooking, cleaning, drinking. In the outside world, everything is incorporeal. Treasure is near worthless since the PCs can't grab it. When PCs return to their home town, any dead PCs are there waiting for them. Unsure of how they got there but unhurt (no level loss).
By this point, it should be obvious. The PCs, their land and all of its inhabitants are the ghosts while the outside world is alive. You'd probably have to institute some house rules in order to make it work (no ressurection/ raise dead from the begining, if PCs die in their homeland they are DEAD, Healing spells actually work as inflict spells though you don't have to tell them that.) It would take some serious constant misdirection to pull this off, but it could work well as a short minicampaign. Inspiration (heck, pretty much the whole idea) from The Third Policeman