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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6269478" data-attributes="member: 4937">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...</blockquote>

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