After reading several Clark Ashton Smith stories I've come up with my alternate idea for the Tomb of Stephen. After the PC's acquire the 4 items and perform the ritual to transport them to the tomb, I'm going to have them transported to Yondo. They will end up on a strange endless plain with a sickly smelling lake before them. On the other side of the lake will be a strange hemispherical mountain that was created by an asteroid or moon crashing down upon the plain. At the base of this spherical mountain is a large marble building with columns all around it.
They will have to work their way around the lake, encountering various "abominations" among them a group of sickly white ape men who are performing horrible sacrificial rituals to elder uncaring deities. This world that the PC's have found themselves is a pocket dimensional dumping ground. It was created by Stephen for his tomb and over the many years that passed by it has become populated by creatures from many dimensions and worlds, sucking them in as the pocket dimension moved through the inter-dimensional vortex and overlapped temporarily with other realms and planes.
If the PC's can get past these strange white ape men and into the tomb I will have antechamber attended by skeletal knights in rusty chain. In the inner sanctum are mummy guardian kings, bound by magic to the tomb of Stephen. The PC's must battle their way through the mummy guardians to the coffin and following the instructions on the inside of the coffin, burn the tapestry. This will revive Stephen and the rest of the adventure will conclude as written in X2.
I think I will be running this adventure on the weekend of the 18-19th and since X2 is a pretty large adventure I'm not sure we will make it to the Tomb of Stephen or to Averoigne. I'll probably keep this much detail for now and then just wing it based on this premise if the PC's make it that far.
