Looking for gaming ideas

Wondering if I could pick your brain(s) a bit on the subject of gaming.

My current Pathfinder group has been getting their butts handed to them the last few games during their travels in Rappan Athuk (Dungeon of Graves). And rightfully so, given the location and the places they go while they have split the party.

They are currently alive and recovering back at their keep. I'm pretty sure that this Saturday when we play, they are going to want to avoid the dungeon for a while and go looking around the countryside for something to do that is 'less' deadly. The Rappan Athuk module/campaign has a lot of Wilderness encounters that they could deal with. But, I wanted to do something a bit different that would start planting seeds for a long term plan of mine.

What follows is a very brief (I only came up with this today while at work) idea for the adventure. I have NOT done any research into actual Pathfinder rules or references to solidify these things. They may not even exist and then I'll just make stuff up. What I'm asking of you is do you have any other ideas to add in, or thoughts on fleshing out any of the current ideas? And, do you have any references that you can point me to? I know there is a technology book and a spelljamming book and stuff, I just have never read them to know what is in them.

A meteor crashes down 'nearby' (a few days journey on horseback). It could crash into the land, or the ocean (I'm leaning towards the ocean). Need to figure out the effects of the crash itself. In water... what is affected by the tsunami? a few capsized and/or beached pirate ships? The meteor itself I originally thought of as being a piece of rock from a dead magic planet that exploded somewhere in the universe and this piece eventually crashed here. The rock itself would have a natural anti-magic field surrounding it. A very large field. Within the effects of this field, strange creatures emerge and wreck havoc on the locals. If it crashes in the water, this would mean the creatures are aquatic based. I then had a second idea that instead of a chuck of rock, this was in fact some kind of escape pod, or a prison pod and the anti-magic field was a defense mechanism of the pod. The inhabitant, to be determined, could be the Boss Fight of this adventure. I also thought that the pod was damaged and was leaking radiation, which could be the cause of the strange mutant creatures (ideas on already created mutants?) The players would meet a new NPC (I'm having one of their more loyal and strong NPC's pull out of the group for nefarious backstory reasons unbeknownst to the players). This new NPC is going to be from the stars. Maybe a robot/android? Or a soul-mech (see the Dragonstar RPG cap system for 3.5). They would be pretending to be a sorcerer or wizard or something so that the few pieces of tech they have and use can be explained away as magic. Maybe disguised as a Witch? Something that doesn't show up to Arcane or Divine detect magic spells? The NPC is a bounty hunter, or retrieval specialist or something, come to the planet to recapture the pod occupant. They should join forces and in the end kill the Boss. Need to come up with an excuse to keep the NPC around once the mission is completed.

So that is what I've got. Do you have any ideas to throw in the mix?