(Originally posted to the Ravenloft mailing list on July 22, 1998. Watch for updates.)
OK, I just have to get this out of my head.
I saw The Mask of Zorro the other night. It was fun, and that's really all I'll say. But I seem to have a tendency to twist happy endings into setups for Ravenloft adventures, so here's my ideas for a Masque of the Red Death tie-in to this movie.
(Warning: If you haven't seen the movie, the following paragraph reveals stuff about the ending. Nothing you wouldn't anticipate, I expect, but there's your warning.)
OK, at the end of the movie (c. 1841?), the two Zorros (old and new) have confronted their arch-nemeses, Montero and Captain Love, at the site of a gold mine in a remote California canyon. Montero was dragged off a cliff by a wagon full of gold. Captain Love, after being stabbed in the stomach by Zorro the younger (hate those stomach wounds, they take forever to finish you off), is finally killed by the gold on its way down to the canyon floor. Then Elena and Alejandro (Zorro the younger) rush around to free the slave workers before the explosives go off in the mine, Zorro the elder dies, and everyone else lives happiy ever after.
Oh no, not in Gothic Earth they don't.
Zorro the younger and Elena are too late to free the slave-workers, barely escaping with their miserable lives. Zorro the elder dies in the explosion, after having been mortally wounded by Montero. He becomes a geist, and harmlessly haunts the canyon, shattered by his failure. Montero becomes a full-fledged ghost, while Captain Love I'd like to see turned into a 19th-century equivalent of a death knight. Montero, then, is lord of this cursed canyon, while Captain Love is a demilord under his command. The workers ... hm, haven't thought about this. Either minor ghosts, geists, or perhaps mindless undead who are forced to continue serving Montero in death as they were in life.
Fifty years later... Zorro the younger is dead, but his son is still around, and could show up. California is part of the U.S., and the Mexican government never did figure out what Montero was up to. During the gold rush, prospectors never got very far into the haunted canyon, despite the wealth of gold there. Many tried, lured by gold found downstream, but none returned. Then, sometime in the 1890s, something happens to bring the PCs to this canyon. Maybe Alejandro's son finds the map that his father stole from Montero, and, in his curiosity to find where it leads, hires a group of brave adventurers to accompany him there. (He's got none of his father's expertise with the sword, being a foppish dandy sort of character. Bookish, but he loves adventure stories.)
Well, there it is in broad outline, as it's been bubbling in my brain for 2 days. Maybe someday I'll flesh it out more, but it will have to wait until I can unearth my D&D books from the boxes where they've been since our move.