Adventure Advice Needed!

[MonkeyMage]

So last week, half of my group didn't show up so we decided to start a new (4th Level) game. So pulling the first idea out of my *ahem*, I tell them they are on their way back to their home town, an elven forest city. But as they approach they see their home in ruins. After a brief ambush by a drow patrol, they inspect the city to find it not only destroyed but it seems to have happened decades, if not centuries, ago. They followed the trail of the drow back to a cave, were ambushed by an ettercap (random encounter) and are about to set forth into the Darklands.
Now, all of this was me flying by the seat of my pants. What I need help with is where to go next and an explanation for the state of their home town.

 

[Crothian]

While the town was destroyed decades ago allow them to find evidence that the Drow only recently have gotten to the surface through these caves. The Drow are such an obvious bad guy so don't make them the cause of the town's destruction. Have it be that the Drow have only recently learned of the cities fall and were scavenging and looting it.

Or maybe the group that destroyed the city is framing the Drow. And they also destroyed a Drow city and made it look like the surface elves did it. Someone is trying to cause a war between these two people and it's up to the PCs to stop the war, find the true bad guys, and stop them.

 

[MonkeyMage]

I like the idea that the drow aren't behind it. I think I will have them find a drow city in a similar state of ruin.

But what I don't think I made clear was that this is the PC's home town that they have been to only a few weeks earlier. So it having been destroyed decades ago means some kind of time magic hooey is going on.

 

[Crothian]

Sorry, I was thinking since they are elves it has just been a while since they were in the city as a few decades or a century is not terrible long time for them.

The reason why the city looks like it was destroyed so long ago is a conclave of Druids has come up with a way for the forset to take back areas of civilization much faster. So, the weeds spread fast and the trees take root quickly and knock over buildings and cover up the roads. You can hint at this with a wierd visual of some elven corpses that are only a few weeks or a month old but they have the roots of a 30 year old tree running through them.

The group is anti civilization. So, they want war to come to the world and then they will have the wilds claim more of the civilized lands that gets destroyed by the war. Their new magic of fast growing plants make it so that they are not worried about the destruction the war will bring. A battlefield scorched to ash they can make a vibrant forest in under a month.

 

[Dingo333]

Well, good news bad news time

Good news, this isn't their real home town, they are in an alternate dimension which is very similar except about 70 years ago a dark lich raised an undead army and laid waste to most of the continent they live on. There are small resistance settlements to the far south, but most if not all of the governing bodies in their world are gone. Human and dwarf kingdoms, elven free cities, halfling settlements, all now undead factories as slaves of the people who used to live there are made into undead

Bad news, you have no idea how you got to this world or how to get home. Have fun in Zombieland

As far as I know, there is no time travel/manipulation magic in PF, you will need to go through 3.5 for some actual time travel rules. Or you can say the PCs have taken a page outta rip van wrinkle's book and been napping for the last 4 decades

 

[Scott DeWar]

In the Wirtlestaff wizards campaign, Leif- the DM, we have been on a long and treacherous journey following a sketchy map and lead by a half orc guide. It is not describe foot by foot, but rather like an outside journy- a few miles at a time.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/playing-game/259886-whirtlestaffs-wizards-academy-reprise-ic03.html

that link is to the third IC thread. there may be a bit of searching needed