Weird group makeup. Advice sought!

[Gruns]

Hey all.
I'm DMing a new campaign with three players. As our campaigns tend to die out around level 10, we decided we'd try something different this time, and start at level 12. They rolled up characters, and all decided on casters...
Relatively normal Dwarf Cleric
Slightly abnormal Gnome Illusionist/Effigy Master (No Evocation/Conjuration!)
Very abnormal Gnome Wizard/Alienist (Summoner type guy)

Any suggestion for an opening adventure for this motley crew? At this point, it hasn't been decided what their background is or how(or even IF) they know each other.
"You're eating in a VERY NICE inn... Nicer than the old kind you usually meet weird people in."

Any good (free?) adventures out there that would make logical sense for these three to get together and do? And how about some nifty background ideas? I have a few ideas in mind, but figured I'd see what the collective minds of ENWorld would come up with.
Thanks!
Gruns

 

[Shayuri]

Well, two gnomes and a dwarf...that might be going somewhere...

What god does the dwarf cleric follow? I suspect it'll be easiest to "hook" the cleric first...then lure the other two with promises of alienist lore and technomagical techniques for the effigy master.

 

[freyar]

You could try "The Flow of Fresh Brains" if you have Lords of Madness (it's the web enhancement adventure available free from WotC). It's supposedly a tough adventure for 11th level, so I'm sure it would still be a challenge. Since it's about mindflayers stealing people to eat their brains, it's probably an easy hook for the cleric and might also interest the alienist. Don't know about the illusionist, though. Might have enough spelljamming tech to be interesting, actually, since I think the mindflayers are spacefaring.

 

[Warren Okuma]

Ask them.

1) Okay, so why are you adventuring together?
2) What are your goals?
3) What do you need?
4) What is your favorite color?
5) How do you know each other?

 

[SavageRobby]

Ask them.

1) Okay, so why are you adventuring together?
2) What are your goals?
3) What do you need?
4) What is your favorite color?
5) How do you know each other?

In addition, you might ask them to describe a previous adventure or two. Maybe ask them how they got their best magic item or two together.

 

[Asmor]

All that matters is that the first word out of your mouth is that magic word:

INITIATIVE!

They can sort out their relations if they survive.

 

[rgard]

All that matters is that the first word out of your mouth is that magic word:

INITIATIVE!

They can sort out their relations if they survive.

That's the magic word! Amazing how that one word can end table bantering, side conversations and cat naps.

 

[Arkhandus]

Everything makes sense in Planescape!

So! ......They start out meeting in Sigil, and either some craziness starts up in the wierd-arse tavern they're at, or at some social function they're at, or they are witnessing some odd event on the street when someone from a Faction (or former Faction, depending on pre- or post-Faction War) who wants/needs their help with something......

Extrapolate and insert wackiness as desired.

 

[GreatLemur]

It's a weird party when the characters actually have things in common? Hell, a group like this seems especially easy to explain.

Say they're all from one of those dwarf-communities-with-a-large-gnome-population or gnome-communities-with-a-large-dwarf-population that we often see mentioned. As they're all high-level casters, it'd be tremendously easy to say they know each other as professional colleagues, rivals, and/or associates. The gnomes might even have attended the same arcane college together, before their paths diverged into stranger specialties. The dwarf is a little harder to fit in. Depending on his deity, he might have a some kind of anti-arcane stance (maybe he's actually a temple official sent to keep an eye on these two gnomes to keep them from perverting nature too much), or maybe he's a more scholarly type who could then share the gnomes' interest in arcane lore (maybe they all go to the same library, even founded it together . . . or, maybe they're just competing for rare books and artifacts).

Like Shayuri said, the cleric could be a very easy member of the group to set the hook in, depending on what his god is like. If he's really just a straight-up "BY MORADIN'S HAMMER!"-type dungeon cleric, you can give him the traditional types of adventure hooks, and have him just drag the other two along for help (they're the most powerful people he knows; the mission calls for experts in arcane magic; etc.). Maybe they're friends, or maybe he can just threaten to tell the city elders what they've been doing (an effigy master and a frigging alienist might bother the local stuffy dwarven authority figures quite a bit, I think).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's a weird party when the characters actually have things in common? Hell, a group like this seems especially easy to explain.

I concur. This seems like a very ordinary party, and I'm having a hard time understanding how it's at all odd.

Make the campaign be about gnomish/dwarvish issues in some way, and you're set.