Help fleshing out a plot idea...

[Remathilis]

So I have a neat idea for an adventure, but I'm stuck on the details and I'm hoping to get some feedback/suggestions on it.

Ok, quick backstory: Group of D&D PCs are in the largest town of my world (Greyhawk/Waterdeep/NYC big). They come across a black stone (akin to a marble) which radiates magic. Turns out, its the eye of a destroyed gargoyle (the stone ones) and that the eye has matching ones located in other points in the town (three other gargoyles) that all of them together do something cool. A group of bad guys (gargoyles, the MM style living ones) are trying to collect them for a nefarious purpose.

Now, here is where I run into the problems with the plot.

1.) What do all four stones DO? I originally thought a ward over the city OR they open some magical vault.
2.) There has to be a reason for the PCs to want to gather the stones for themselves, or else the adventure turns to "We ground the black stone into powder and spread it in the river; quest over".
3.) Why do the gargoyles want them? I originally thought they view them as their own property and are claiming them back.

Ideas are very welcome.

 

[LostSoul]

1. They watch over the city. They act like crystal balls (with some added junk, like detect evil and even maybe detect thoughts), but only when all are together; what's more, they record whatever they see. Now it might be difficult to bring up exactly what "memories" you want (ie. a stat or spellcraft check), but you can do it. Gargoyles can do it with ease.

2. Crystal balls are powerful.

3. They are sacred to the gargoyles - they may be ancient gargoyle "heroes" or "saints" who willingly sacrificed themselves so they could be used this way. An ancient pact with the founders of the city between gargoyles, who would watch over the city in exchange for protections/privileges within the city. This pact was broken in the past (which is why the stone eyes are scattered about), and the gargoyles want to use them to wreak terrible vengeance upon the city.

 

[Tortoise]

So I have a neat idea for an adventure, but I'm stuck on the details and I'm hoping to get some feedback/suggestions on it.

Ok, quick backstory: Group of D&D PCs are in the largest town of my world (Greyhawk/Waterdeep/NYC big). They come across a black stone (akin to a marble) which radiates magic. Turns out, its the eye of a destroyed gargoyle (the stone ones) and that the eye has matching ones located in other points in the town (three other gargoyles) that all of them together do something cool. A group of bad guys (gargoyles, the MM style living ones) are trying to collect them for a nefarious purpose.

Now, here is where I run into the problems with the plot.

1.) What do all four stones DO? I originally thought a ward over the city OR they open some magical vault.
2.) There has to be a reason for the PCs to want to gather the stones for themselves, or else the adventure turns to "We ground the black stone into powder and spread it in the river; quest over".
3.) Why do the gargoyles want them? I originally thought they view them as their own property and are claiming them back.

Ideas are very welcome.

". . . grind it to stone and spread it in the river."

Sayeth a gargoyle, "You have made a terrible mistake." as it flies off.

Next morning the river appears oily, smells of sickness, and a lot of people that have been exposed are suffering illnesses, nearby plants along thebnks are also showing signs if malady.

Watchful characters may spot a gargoyle or more watching them from a distance. They can be talked with and can discover that the eyes where orignally placed to absorb curses and disease, but over time had reached limits and now risked being used for foul purposes.

Some of he gargoyles wanted to remove them and find a safe place to store them, while some see profit in selling them to those who would use them for war.

 

[GMMichael]

Obvious once I think about it:

The black stones were anchors for a magic spell that froze all the gargoyles in place. Their positioning in the city is a geometric shape important to the spell. Well, one of the gargoyles broke and dropped his marble, thus breaking the spell.

Who broke that gargoyle?

The purpose of the gargoyles is obvious (or is it?): capture the stones, save their brethren, and prevent the spell from ever being cast again.

THEN maybe they can return to the original purpose that caused them to flock to the city...

 

[Remathilis]

Obvious once I think about it:

The black stones were anchors for a magic spell that froze all the gargoyles in place. Their positioning in the city is a geometric shape important to the spell. Well, one of the gargoyles broke and dropped his marble, thus breaking the spell.

Who broke that gargoyle?

The purpose of the gargoyles is obvious (or is it?): capture the stones, save their brethren, and prevent the spell from ever being cast again.

THEN maybe they can return to the original purpose that caused them to flock to the city...

That is really good.

 

[Celebrim]

Obvious once I think about it:

I like it. My only problem with it is it may be too obvious. But since I can't come up with anything better...

The black stones were anchors for a magic spell that froze all the gargoyles in place. Their positioning in the city is a geometric shape important to the spell. Well, one of the gargoyles broke and dropped his marble, thus breaking the spell.

The big problem here is that this gives the PC's no reason to collect the marbles. In fact, they have the one peice they need to prememptively fix everything now as well. A simple mending spell to restore the broken gargoyle and put its eye back in and the adventure gets truncated. Worse, knowing my players, this is something they'd do without ever figuring out any of the back story or mystery or interacting with the factions. Whether your players are similar, I don't know, but I do know players have a way of frustrated the best laid plans.

So as a start, I'd say that if you are going this way, the gargoyles have already got another marble. One question might be why they haven't already got three of the four.

A potential problem with this is that it might result in the adventure being simply 'kill the NPCs'.

Who broke that gargoyle?...
THEN maybe they can return to the original purpose that caused them to flock to the city...

The absolute best thing about your idea is that it doesn't end somewhere, but immediately leads to further adventures.

However, "Who broke the gargoyle?" immediately creates a more important question in my mind, "If someone meant to break the gargoyle, why in the heck did they just leave the marble lying around for the PC's to find it? Surely if the stones just lock a spell down and someone meant to destroy the gargoyle, their quest could have been reduced down to 'grind the stones to powder' So why didn't they?"

So either the plan was never to loss the stone...

Or the people who broke the gargoyle didn't know what it did...

Or the PCs can do something (terrible?) with the stone that the people who left it for them can't do - either they lack the power or spells/security are in place that only good aligned humans can breach - and very likely the next stage of the plan is going to be "pose as an advisor/mentor who will tell them all the secrets", except everything they tell the PC's will be an easily believable lie.

 

[Celebrim]

Alternate myth/lies:

1) The purpose of the stones isn't to lock the gargoyles down. A spell locked the gargoyles down so long as the stones were undisturbed, but the actual purpose of the stones is to contain/surpress orbs of anhilliation. You can't just break them because they were designed to resist anything short of a lesser deity. The gargoyles of the city were released when the stones were moved, and are now under a geas to restore them to their original position - after which they regain their freedom. The stone was removed by a powerful wizard who came into the possession of the orbs control wand (an anhk shaped device) and who learned the location of the stones, but he either can't open the stone or knows that whoever opens the stone is immediately blasted into non-existance. So he needs some dupes to collect the stones, go on a quest break them together somewhere they can actually be broken, and do that job for him.

2) The original purpose of the stones wasn't to lock the gargoyles down, but to lock humanity down. Collectively, the stones have a powerful magic that turns all living beings to stone over a miles wide area (with a save DC around 30). Long ago a group of mighty adventurers wrested the stones from the elemental lord Ogremoch before he could deploy it against the world in his plan to turn the world into a stone paradise. Unable to destory the stones, and unable to keep them from Ogremoch indefinately, the adventures (who were the founding lords of the city) hid them in special statues located in the city, each of which rendered all Earth creatures of a specific type immobile - turning Ogremoch's magics against his own armies. So long as the stones/statues were intact, Ogremoch could never reclaim his stones. However, now the gargoyle statue has broken, allowing Ogremoch to send his gargoyle servitors in. They are seeking the statue of the Earth Grue, and with the help of the Earth Grues they plan on breaking the statue of the Earth Elemental and ultimately the Dao statue.

3) The four stones are peices of a philosophers stone, which can be used to transmute lead into gold and brew potions of youth as well as many other power effects. Long ago the citizens of the city were ruled by their benevolent immortal philospher king who ruled fairly and wisely and with great benevolence, so that disease and sickness were unknown and the people enjoyed prosperity and life spans far beyond the normal alotment of mortals. However the king had an enemy, a powerful demon lord that hated how the people of the city did not fall under his dominion of sickness on account of the king, and so deviced a plan to kill the king and destroy his hated stone. The plan succeeded, the king felll ill and died, and once again sickness and death return to the city. But a prophesy said there would come a time when the king would be reincarnated in the city as a child prodigy and that he would be able to restore the stone and return to his immortal rule. After a time, the new rulers - who were neither as fair and just as the old king - decided that they did not wish this prophesy to come about, for they were greedy and did not wish to ever lose the throne. So the servants loyal to the old king stole the stone from the treasury hid the peices of the stone in the city in ways that would seem innocuous. Thus it has been for the last 1000 years, until the age of the Philosopher King has past into legend and myth and the stone has been forgotten...

More ideas as they come to me. My suggestion is to pick the one you like the best, then throw in the others as rumors and deliberately lies by the factions that want control of the stones. Note that good lies are usually partial truths. So the PC's could learn that there really had been a war between the city and earth elementals, or that the city had once been ruled for 1000 years by an alchemist king, or that the orbs of annhilation were left over artifacts from a gods war and had been sealed to prevent their reuse or whatever. The particulars story of the stones would be missing from the common (real) histories of the events, but they would be, right? I mean, in all fantasy worlds the real history is always a secret, so...

 

[RMcCall]

I like the idea of the stones being part of some "seeing" spell, since they were once eyes. Perhaps they can each be used to see a certain kind of magical force, or since gargoyles in D&D are typically associated with earth elementals, they could see different classical elements (fire, air, water, earth). Using one, you can see the element and anything related to it through solid objects. In a mythical sense, everything is comprised of the four elements, so using the earth stone would let you see not only dirt and rocks, but people's bodies as well. Fire could see the electricity that runs through living being's nerves, water can see blood, and air can see the empty spaces around moving objects, all through walls and such.

In a gargoyle's hands, a single stone gives it a better chance to chase down its prey. Perhaps the nature of gargoyles even allows them to spread the effect to all the gargoyles in the city if they gain possession of a stone. But when all stones are gathered together, it allows you to see perfectly through any surface and at any distance. No enemy of the gargoyles would be safe. They could be in town searching for a particular person who is very difficult to find, but that the PCs want to keep alive at any cost. The PCs would want to keep the eyes because they would never miss another secret door or hidden treasure or be ambushed ever again. Of course, you'd want to create some caveat to prevent them from becoming overpowered.

 

[Remathilis]

How does this sound...

Five hundred years ago, a group of dwarven miners discovered a rare chunk of stone that was of unknown origin in a crater a dozen leagues from the city of Dragonreach. The ore was brought to the city and examined, where it was determined to be not of this world and contained fantastic magical properties over earth and stone. However, it seemed to have the ability to attract creatures of earth to it, specifically gargoyles. In an unprecedented event, one hundred gargoyles from all over Ardania took to flight, their destination Dragonreach. Their goal was to recover the stone for themselves. And they would tear Dragonreach apart to find it.

The wizard Belesaro devised a plan. He used the power of the stone to create a magical ward over the city, turning all the gargoyles in town into lifeless stone statues. He then sealed the stone away in a vault and made four gems that locked the vault. The four gems were then placed in the eyes of four gargoyles across the city: a white one in the Hall of Heroes (a temple), a gold one in the Dragonreach Academy, a black one in the Clocktower, and a silver one in the Great Bazaar.

Recently, a group of gargoyles called the Stone Children discovered that the ritual Belesaro used can be reversed; freeing the frozen gargoyles while petrifying all the humans of the city. They attempted to recover the black gem, but a distraction caused one to drop it to the street below. A wandering merchant found it and, realizing it was magical and thus valuable, sold it to the greatest magic shop in Dragonreach. The PCs get involved when the shop is robbed in the most peculiar fashion…