D&D General Cyre 1313 Ideas

[RoiC.]

I'm planning for a Planescape campaign, with the party originating in two smaller groups from different Prime Material Plane worlds, each being thrown into Sigil by some kind of a freak planar incident. I want to give the party an origin point that would discourage them from wanting to go back - I'm thinking of going with Dark Sun for one, and I'm locked on Eberron for the other.

The Eberron group is going to start in the Mournland - either having witnessed the Day of Mourning from just outside the borders and having to travel through the wasteland and survive until they get to safety, or possibly as a scavenger team sent to retrieve something from the ruins (I'm leaning more towards the first option, because I don't think they'll want to return to Eberron all that much after what they just went through, especially if they'll be Cyreans).

Now, my plan is to have the party somehow board the Cyre 1313 lightning rail (a new, barely expanded on Dark Domain from Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft ), realize that they boarded the wrong train, and somehow get off in Sigil, or possibly in some other spot and accidentally get to Sigil from there.

Thing is, I'm short on ideas. Not sure how would the party even board the train, what they should expect to see in there (especially what will have them realize that everything is wrong), nor how would they reach Sigil (I can imagine the train stopping in a lot of planes and planar locations, but for some reason I can't imagine Sigil being one of them).

Basically, any ideas and tips you have, based on plans, actual experience, other works of fiction or whatever comes to mind would be wildly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

I think one of the first steps is to 'normalize' the lightning rail. Have them travel on it for awhile, maybe even have a Murder on the Orient Express type session(s)... make them feel like this is a normal place. That will make it more likely they'll get on the 'wrong' train to leave observing the Day of Mourning... but clearly something has happened from being near the event, and whatever rail they get on IS the 1313.
Make them slowly have the realization they're 'trapped'. Maybe have another throwback to the Murder on the Orient Express session...

For the weirdness of being on the haunted rail, again, lay the ground work in the set up session. Little things like... oh, they bring fresh, hot towels at noon for people to refresh themselves, or cucumber sandwiches on the observation deck... now, the towels never come, and the observation deck serves a heavy stew. Just really weird connected things.. and go from there