Help flesh out a one-shot (My players STAY OUT! That means YOU, Matt!)

[Salad Shooter]

So...in the really twisted thing that is my mind, I devised this little plan. The (princess,lady,duchess,high-ranking and/or important female person) has been kidnapped while travelling home. Her (Father/Brother/Significant Other) wishes to get her back. So the party is hired to do so. However, sometime in the process, she has been turned to stone. And, now, is in the hands of an (ogre, giant-type creature) who rather likes his new club, and doesn't want to get rid of it. Now, any of you beautifully devious minds out there have any ideas on how to spice this up? The more rat-bastard the better. I was thinking of ignoring the possibility of having said stone woman breaking in combat, but then, it would be fun to have the PCs try and explain how it happened. Whoops! Basic plot: Find Woman, Rescue Her, De-stone her, return her...so...any ideas?

edit: The title needed some changing

 

[Rel]

Ok, what I got is this:

The Duke definately wants her returned, but not for nice reasons. The (recently married) Dutchess actually found out something really nasty about the Duke (maybe he's part of some dark cult or something). She fled the dutchy in a panic, heading off into the wilderness in the general direction of the King's palace to warn him of the nefarious activities of his vassal.

The Duke sent out his assassin to kill her before she could tattle on him. She managed to spot the assassin approaching her on the road and, in even greater panic, she fled into the Stonewood, rumored to be haunted by a Medusa, figuring that maybe the assassin wouldn't follow her there.

But he did. And he caught her and pinned her down, ramming a dagger into her chest in a nearly fatal blow. But just then, they were both surprised by the Medusa and turned to stone.

A couple of years pass and the Duke never gets word back from the assassin, but he also knows that the Dutchess hasn't been seen either. He's just starting to relax when he hears tales of this Hill Giant using a stone club that looks like a pair of joined humans (maybe they are rumored to be lovers in an embrace). But when a body of a merchant slain by the Giant is observed, the bruise that covers his crushed chest exactly matches the pattern of the silver tiara worn by the Dutchess! (ok, I'll admit that this is the weakest part)

Now he wants the "club" recovered so that he might have them transformed back to life whereupon the Dutchess will be permenantly slain and he'll have (as a bonus) his assassin back.

 

[Salad Shooter]

Interesting ideas...definately going to use a few of them. Much better than the things I had come up with before, thanks!

 

[Quickleaf]

Here's my idea...
The ogre was enslaved by the medusa for some time, living under the threat of being turned to stone, as his ogre wife was. He only escaped by leading a group of lost soldiers of the Duke into the medusa's sanctuary; in the fight he took to the hills. Today, those soldiers are decorative garden art for the medusa.

The ogre believes his new club is a magic gift from whatever higher power he venerates and is contemplating getting revenge on the medusa for turning his wife to stone and enslaving him.

If the players learn of the duke's evils, they are taken off the case. Continuing to investigate leads to the duke forming a perilous alliance with the medusa to set up a trap for the PCs.

The medusa became infatuated with the assassin (whose good looks are imbedded in granite), and hopes to use the PCs to return him to her and punish the ogre for stealing him.

 

[Salad Shooter]

Anyone know how heavy a body would be once turned to stone? Might be a good thing to know.

 

[Rel]

Anyone know how heavy a body would be once turned to stone? Might be a good thing to know.

Very heavy. Granite weights 168 lb. per cubic foot.

Maybe the dutchess should be a Gnome.

Or maybe the Medusa in question turns things into Pumice (40 lb. per cubic foot).

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Here's my quick idea - sorry for the notes form, no time to flesh this out more.

Lady X is betrothed of Duke Y

While traveling to the Duke’s residence to prepare for the wedding, Lady’s entourage attacked.

Two survivors, one guard and one Lady-in-Waiting, both badly injured.

Lady X’s horse spooked and bolted during attack.

Horse can be found dead of an arrow wound deep into the woods

Lady X turned to stone in a chance encounter in the woods

Ogre using Lady X as a club

Lady-in-Waiting had been poisoning Lady X – she was in the employ of Lady Z who was Lady X’s main rival for the Duke’s heart

Once Lady X is returned to flesh and to the Duke, the poison starts to show its effects.

Fearing that she’ll be implicated Lady-in-Waiting attempts to plant the poison on the party and implicate them instead.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Having fun at your players expense

I think that having an Ogre use the woman as a club is not going to be very plausible due to the rather huge mass of a granite statue. But if you want to stretch this out a bit, why have the woman in one piece? An ogre could probably manage to use one of her legs as a club?

Anyway, you could probably get some entertainment value out of the current owner of the statue being a mad sculptor type, who decided to improve the statue. Or perhaps the person who turned her to stone was a jealous mage type who decided to possess her at any cost, and has defaced the statue. Or just an art collected ("It wouldnt fit through the door, so I knocked the arms off. Looks not half bad that way.")

You might also get away with having the statue under the influence of an Animated Object spell, and having it attack the players as an unhandy suprise.

Also, if she is a statue, she could be incorporated into some evil altar. Let the players figure out a way to safely extract the statue from the wall.

So after the players manage to extract the torso from the walls of a castle, recover its leg from the club weilding ogre, and restore its appearance from the vandalism, have them return triumpantly to the castle, which is now under seige by some evil army. And have the army promptly load the statue into the catapult / trebuchet and fire it at the castle of the noble they are returning it to.

No advice on how to keep your players from launching you out the nearest window, however. Your on your own for that.

END COMMUNICATION