Curse of Strahd Death House Replacement?

[NRSASD]

Hey Playground!

I'm going to be running a Curse of Strahd campaign soon, and I was looking for suggestions on a lvl 1 encounter to replace Death House. I wasn't really a fan of how they force the PCs into the Death House, and given some IRL events recently an evil house seemed like a poor fit. So, I'm looking for a replacement event or short series of events that can punt the characters to level 3 relatively quickly.

Thoughts so far:
*Rictavio is running an actual circus as part of his cover, but underestimates how firm a grip Strahd has on the territory. Something in the circus goes awry and the PCs have to put it down.
*Several Skulks have set up shop in the area, and are protecting a young child for mysterious reasons. They've killed 5 people already, and said child has been ostracized for bringing bad luck onto the village.
*Join a search party looking for someone who disappeared in the night. Turns out the search party was just baiting the PCs into the woods so that Strahd and the wolves will leave their village alone.

[Horsz]

You could have a normal goblin/kobold dungeon, and halfway to town, while the group camp for the night, transport them to Sthrad's plane through mist.

[SirGraystone]

You could have a normal goblin/kobold dungeon, and halfway to town, while the group camp for the night, transport them to Sthrad's plane through mist.

Have the kobold shaman curse them when they kill him so they exit in ravenloft when the dungeon is done.

"may the powers of darkness curse you.. {coughing blood} may the mist take you and never find your way home"

[Bel-Torac]

I just ran some other modules (CCC Salt 1&2) to get them some experience and items. Then ran the campaign using the usual plot hooks. The characters start at level 3 so they are experienced adventurers already and are being pulled into Barovia slowly.

[Aurthur]

Dunno...the Death House is pretty much the perfect setup for CoS. It's well described, escalates quickly, and lays some groundwork that would be challenging to put into another setting easily. The only thing I personally disliked about that section is the 'after finale' where you're escaping.

That being said, if you're dead-set against it, you could start with a 'amazingly large wolves are harassing small village'. Have it end in a cave lair for the 'giant wolves' and when they come out, it's amazingly foggy and *poof* they are in Barovia. Could do tie-ins between the WW's of CoS and this intro-dungeon (maybe a brother of one of the two factions somehow escaped and formed the wolf pack or something).

Good luck, I'm a huge CoS fan.

[LeMooseImperium]

Ooh!
So I actually have something fairly ready-made.
I was running CoS a couple years back and I figured that the DH didn't look that good. I figured, since there were werewolves, have a small scout party were the PCs had to deal with a handful of human sentries (guard stats), some wolves, and a weaker werewolf Somethinglike that could work for you too.

[Horsz]

Have the kobold shaman curse them when they kill him so they exit in ravenloft when the dungeon is done.

"may the powers of darkness curse you.. {coughing blood} may the mist take you and never find your way home"

Well, you don't even need the hook at all, as I recall Strahd himself having a long record of inviting summon adventurer's party on his demiplane just for his own amusement. I was thinking at something more on the line of a carriage appearing in the woods, a strange and ugly looking dude in elegant cloth jumping down from it, and declaring pompously that the party have been invited by the great lord Strahd to Ravenloft.
No matter the party's choices, they are teleported to Ravenloft, after the dude mook them for how their decision to go to town and sell their precious loot.
I kind of recall that being the CoS intro in anycase, minus the dude, but ehi, I love to taunt my player as a DM.