Croesus
Adventurer
Here's one I got from these very boards over 15 years ago:
The party is sitting at an inn, celebrating their latest adventure success. The door opens and they turn to see who it is...and everything goes black. Next thing they know, it is cold and something wet is on their skin.
What has happened is this: The person entering the inn was a medusa and they were turned to stone. 12 years have passed and it is now winter (which is why it turned cold all of a sudden). They have been transformed back to flesh by the mayor of the town they once aided (the town where the inn was located). He has spent the last several years trying to amass enough money to have them permanently transformed back to flesh, but he has failed.
All he could manage was to acquire enough money to buy a salve that turns them to flesh for one week (which is why their skin is wet). But if they can drink an elixir made from the blood of the "Stone Lord" (the medusa), the change to flesh will be permanent. So, they must find the medusa, kill him and drink his blood.
The problem is that in the dozen years that have passed, the "Stone Lord" has managed to overthrow the entire region and set himself up as dictator. He lives a couple of days away in a fortress.
To further complicate matters, the "statues" of the party were left at the inn as a display of what happens to those who would oppose the will of the Stone Lord. When they go missing, word will get back to the Stone Lord fairly quickly and he will be prepared for them.
This turned out to be great fun as an adventure because the party was on a tight timetable and had to keep moving forward (which is what I want when I'm running a one shot). They were immediately faced with the dilemma of heading for the fortress with all due haste or trying to kill the garrison of bugbears that the Stone Lord had stationed at the town to keep them from sending word about their "escape".
My own variant was for 2nd-level characters, so I eliminated the Stone Lord and added an eccentric troll shaman who could brew a permanent cure, if she only had the right ingredients. Meanwhile the characters were slowly turning back to stone while they rushed about trying to collect the ingredients needed. The session ended with one character still (barely) mobile sacrificing a stone finger from his own hand - the last ingredient.
The party is sitting at an inn, celebrating their latest adventure success. The door opens and they turn to see who it is...and everything goes black. Next thing they know, it is cold and something wet is on their skin.
What has happened is this: The person entering the inn was a medusa and they were turned to stone. 12 years have passed and it is now winter (which is why it turned cold all of a sudden). They have been transformed back to flesh by the mayor of the town they once aided (the town where the inn was located). He has spent the last several years trying to amass enough money to have them permanently transformed back to flesh, but he has failed.
All he could manage was to acquire enough money to buy a salve that turns them to flesh for one week (which is why their skin is wet). But if they can drink an elixir made from the blood of the "Stone Lord" (the medusa), the change to flesh will be permanent. So, they must find the medusa, kill him and drink his blood.
The problem is that in the dozen years that have passed, the "Stone Lord" has managed to overthrow the entire region and set himself up as dictator. He lives a couple of days away in a fortress.
To further complicate matters, the "statues" of the party were left at the inn as a display of what happens to those who would oppose the will of the Stone Lord. When they go missing, word will get back to the Stone Lord fairly quickly and he will be prepared for them.
This turned out to be great fun as an adventure because the party was on a tight timetable and had to keep moving forward (which is what I want when I'm running a one shot). They were immediately faced with the dilemma of heading for the fortress with all due haste or trying to kill the garrison of bugbears that the Stone Lord had stationed at the town to keep them from sending word about their "escape".
My own variant was for 2nd-level characters, so I eliminated the Stone Lord and added an eccentric troll shaman who could brew a permanent cure, if she only had the right ingredients. Meanwhile the characters were slowly turning back to stone while they rushed about trying to collect the ingredients needed. The session ended with one character still (barely) mobile sacrificing a stone finger from his own hand - the last ingredient.
