“ You come upon a ruined building in the back section of a city park (or other out of the way area of the city). The ruins are fairly overgrown. All that is really standing is a doorway and its frame. If you pass through the opened door, you travel to a different world. If the door closes, there may not be a doorway back to get you back.”
“ All magic is suddenly gone. No mage can sling sorcery anymore. This upsets all empires and civilizations. It is soon discovered though, trough the combined work of mystics, scholars and dreams, that all the magic has been drawn into a single orb in a vast tower located at one of the poles. Whoever gets there first wins the greatest price in history, access to all the magic in the world. But who owns the tower?”
“ A legend tells of a people living deep in the desert, they appear at first as ordinary human beings, sometimes impersonating someone familiar to the PCs, before causing their features to disappear, leaving a blank, smooth sheet of skin where their face should be.”