An ancient temple has mysitical stone gargyoles that were said to have been protectors in ancient times. The temple is going to come under attack by (insert the standard campaign threat here, if none, assume orcs [GO GREEN!]) The temple only has half of the tablet to bring the gargoyles back to life and asks the party decend into a tomb to retrieve the other half.
The temple's half gives the basic instructions to transform the majority of the gargoyles. The other half (the one the party is searching for) brings back the larger ones but also contains the "flavor text," which isn't important to the ritual but is important to the temple. They left it in the tomb because it was put there in ancient times and they didn't want to disturb it out of respect. But now, they feel it is more pragmatic to retrieve it.
The tomb has many traps and is guarded by the ghosts of fallen priests. (Speak with dead will reveal the mystery here, otherwise proceed on). Why would so many precautions be taken to prevent the raising of the temple's protectors? All is revelaed in the last room, where the tablet lies with a large gargoyle (48 hp) who is trapped in with the remaining tablet half. It seems the gargoyles were not protectors but attackers, and the temple priests of old reverted them to stone and kept the tablet that released the larger gargoyles away from the tablet that released the "normal" ones. Over the many centuries, the original story was lost and permutated into the modern fable.
Note, that if the players think to do a Knowledge (History) check of DC 22, they can discover this on their own. But this is very obscure trivia and very old. The temple books from the past 200 years have the "new" incorrect version so there is little reason a player would know the truth offhand.
In any event, upon learning the truth, the players realize the release of the "guardians" is drawing near and they have 15 minutes to get back to the surface and convince the high priest to call off the ceremony (Diplomacy - 15, Bluff -17, the truth works better than lies on this holy person).
If the players fail to stop the release of the gargoyles, entitle the next adventure "Gargoyles and Orcs a go-go!"
A young djinni summoned and bound to guard passage through a dungeon has been infected with whirling sickness, a magical disease that afflicts Air creatures. The whirling sickness forces the djinni into whirlwind form for 7 out of every 10 rounds.
The room the djinni guards is actually a shaft some 40 feet long and 30 feet in diameter. The floor is a lattice of sturdy iron crossbars about 1-foot-thick with about 2 feet of space between bars. When not in whirlwind form, the djinni lays exhausted on the floor at the bottom of the shaft.
The djinni's whirlwind fills the entire chamber above the lattice with dangerous, roaring winds. The djinni cannot communicate, but magic such as detect thoughts or an appropriate Knowledge skill check can determine that the whirlwind is actually a creature. Dispel magic has no effect on the djinni, but cure disease applied within the whirlwind itself cures the djinni.
The party recieves a letter written on a tablet of platinum, begging the party to go to the City of Brass on the Elemental Plane of Fire. If the party arrives, they find more letters leading them to the mephit district. The Heat Miser, king of all fire, magma and steam mephits, has been kidnapped by the Grand Sultan of All the Efreet to be his court jester. The mephits offer to pay a great sum, but how does one sneak into the Burning Palace and come out alive?
For many, many years, a decaying wizard's tower has stood unoccupied by its dark mistress. Only her various guardians and wards remain to protect her demesne. Among these guardians are a group of jann who have soaked up the seeping eldritch energies of the wizard's fortress. These energies have greatly heightened the jann's Intelligence scores (+1d6 Int each). The jann have delved into the wizard's arcane library. They are now wizards themselves, adding potent spell-casting abilities to their natural qualities.
Thus, exploring and looting this magical ruin is just that much more perilous.
A necromancer wants the party to fetch his bride, a tad unusual bride... Oh yes, they are not to let her come to any harm. And she is probably a bit hungry...
Way back into the hills lies a spiral of cairns in a deep oak grove. The spiral extends outwards for 100 yards in every direction. Some of the graves are marked with dwarf-sized dummies dressed as giant warriors, decayed in various states. Some of the cairns even have weapons atop them, some rusted with age, others glittering like new despite many seasons of scrubby growth around them.
Any man can safely enter, even handle weapons and inspect dummies, but if any stone is disturbed it awakens a hill giant ghoul.
Weirghunt, the evil and malicious hill giant warrior was buried here but arose from the sheer hatred buried in his bones.
A cabal of cloud giant sorcerers, convinced of their own superiority, have declared a holy war upon the neighboring tribes and kingdoms and, with the aid of conquered ogres and hill giants, attempt to forge a new empire with themselves as its leaders.
The cloud giant armies wreck havoc in the great central mountain range of the land sweeping all before them. Heading north, they come upon their greatest obstacle and richest prize, the Citadel of Moradin, home to the dwarves of the land.
As fate would have it a group of adventurers has just crossed the mountains from the east and entered the citadel, unaware of the war they have stumbled into.
The tooth shall set you free.
Fireblight, the stinging rash of legend, has begun to decimate outlying posts. Noone is sure how it started but a semi-hermitic crazed cleric of Ehlonna claims to know a cure. All he requires to make a poultice capable of healing 100 men is the tooth of a fire giant.
The hitch is that the giant must give up the tooth of its own volition.
The party is on its way through the polar lands of their world, on their search for an important artifact.
They find a small settlement of humans, but when they enter it, they only find people that seem to be frozen in the place they were. A further examination shows that they seem not to be dead yet, and that some kind of magic seems to affect them, that is not dispellable. A Break Enchantment (Caster Level Check DC 23) does break the effect (for a single person only). Either questioning an awakened citizen or further examination shows that the attacker, a frost giant, took a few of the frozen people with him.
The party can also find trails of a large creature, possibly a giant (appropriate Wilderness Lore Checks neccessary).
Tracking him leads to the icy lair of the frost giant lives. He is either a Wizard or Sorceror of 11 or 12th level (high level campaigns) or uses an item that creates the special effect that froze the citizen (Which is very similar to a Flesh to Stone spell, just with the effect of freezing the creature.).
Questions to solve: Why did he freeze the citizens, and what was he going to do with the captured ones? Eat them? Or use them as some kind of beautiful decoration? Did he prepare a evil ritual?
A small band of hill giants has kicked a group of gnomes out of their natural ahbitat in order to have all the ore of the area to themselves.
Of course, the gold they are pulling out of the hills is fools' gold, but they will fight to defend their claim as if it were the real thing.
During an adventure that involves the party searching for something (An item, information, a person –- it doesn’t really matter.), the party runs across a path in the wilderness lined with several different “statues” made of various natural things that can be found in surrounding area (wood, bark, plant matter, animal hides, bones, etc), as well as things that likely once belonged to other adventuring parties (pieces of weapons and armor, gear, etc). The items making up the statues seem to be somewhat randomly and haphazardly put together and the statues range from bizarre and humorous to somewhat gruesome.
As the party continues down the path, they continue to see more of the statues, and as they progress, the statues appear to be getting more realistic looking. Finally they come to a clearing filled with many more of these statues and a cave at the far side. The statues in the clearing appear to look progressively better as they get closer to the cave mouth, some even looking quite beautiful. The party can also see several unfinished statues near a very large (i.e. giant-sized) table. Inside the cave the party finds the creator of the statues – a solitary stone giant “artist.”
Assuming the party doesn’t attack first and ask questions later, the stone giant has information or a clue to help the party on their quest, but only if they can retrieve some interesting pieces for him to include in his art.
On a large lake, which normally carries a lot of traffic, shipping has recently been brought to a standstill, thanks to bad weather caused by a storm giant who is ravaging anything that attempts to ply the waters over his underground home.
what noone has yet figured out is that he is simply angry because the love of his life, a silver dragoness, is long overdue to return from her research being done in human form.
It turns out the silver dragon had dealings with a nasty night hag and has aquired demon fever. She succumbed to the disease before making it back to the hills over the loch and lies racked with fever in a local primitive hospital run by lawful monks for the poor and orphaned.
If the adventurers can locate her after finding out why the storm giant is upset and have her healed and returned the storm giant will promise to consider favors asked by 3 generations of their offspring.
A mage is researching an improved Fly spell, and needs giant eagle feathers. (fresh and undamaged only) The eagle might be willing, but has qualms about the feathers being in the hands of a mage whose reputation is "not of the best".
Party can steal the feathers, buy and not mention who will be getting them, or try to make some deal with the bird (or just kill it if the party is the more violent type, though there is danger this will ruin the feathers).
A local were-rat clan is offering a hefty bounty for the death of a giant owl, who has been hunting and killing the were-rats one by one during each full moon.
A Ravenloft setting for the Gibbering Mouther:
A doctor calls the party for help when his patients and staff start to disappear and strange noises are heard throughout the assylum. He tells the group that a creature of nightmares is loose and killing patients and staff and that strange noises occur with the deaths and a few trickles of blood and in some cases the ground has turned to a quicksand.
A group of adventurers arrives in Port Orloth, a small trading city on a small island a few hundred miles south of the Old Kingdom. The port is a base for miners who have come to gather gold, which the otherwise unexplored island has in abundance.
However, the small city is in the grip of terror. Monthly, bands of indigenous wild elves raid the cities poor defenses and kidnap young women. A few rescue parties sent to find the abductees have found the gruesome remains of the victims on the high central plataeu of the forested island interior.
As the PCs investigate, they realize theat the tribe of wild elves have been kidnaping young women as a sacrifice for a very old girallon (20 HD Huge Size) that they worship as a forest spirit-god. Without this sacrifice the elves fear the girallon will destroy their settlements.
The party has to either negotiate with the elves to end the sacrifices or prove themsleves stronger than the elf's god, and destroy the girallon in its forest lair.
A large city's equally large cemetary is targeted by midnight raids and body-snatchings. Suspecting ghouls, the local priests bless the area, cast consecrate spells, line the boundaries of the graveyard with iron filings and salt, all to no avail. Targeted by mockery from the local mage academy, the high priest hires the party to investigate, little knowing that the true culprits are a gang of gnolls lurking in the sewers...
The party is hired by a mysterious man who is only visible as a long gloved arm. He has been trying to harvest truffula trees so he can make three-fingered sneeds (a very fashionable garment indeed), and wants the party to deal with a forest gnome druid who threatens his factory. This gnome calls himself the Lorax...
Far, far upstream, a band of gnomes has dammed the river to turn the waterwheel that provides power for their mechanical inventions. Downstream, the river has dried up to a trickle. Formerly irrigated crops are withering, and the city is growing thirsty. The characters must find a way to restore the water flow.
What is really happening is a splinter faction of svirfneblin have begun using change self to take on drowish appearance, and some minor illusion magic stolen from their surface-dwelling cousins to appear as giant fungi. They are harrassing the miners hoping that the surface-dwelling population will strike at the drow, relieving the pressure on their kin to carry the fight. Searching amongst shriekers and violet fungi for the "drow" will be difficult, and, if they find them, could be dangerous. And of course, adventurers could always run into some real drow in the process....
Goblins approach the party and ask for help. They are being pushed around by gnolls and want combat training, in particular courage. (The goblin battle cry is "Run away!")
The threat is real, but of course once goblins win with PC help, they have the problem of dealing with lots of trained brave goblins, who want the PCs' friend for dinner...
Petre Voulkos was always a secretive man. His evil arcane doings were kept locked away in his deep ,mountain layer where he laboured at controlling the elemental forces and bending them to his will.
But life in an undeground secret lair can be quite lonely, and he struck up a friendly rivalry with another elementalist named Otoheino. They often tried to impress one another with their magical creations and frequently ended up spending a great deal of their time competing directly through elemental servants.
These petty games soon bored them, and they began collecting drow and svirfneblin -- occasionally even deep dwarves- and testing their creations on them.
One of their favorite passtimes was to dump several captives in a labyrinth-style maze and bet on whether or not they could escape. Escape was made difficult by 2 clay golems they had created. Kaolus And Pherrus, their white and red clay golems, would leave their alcoves at either side of the enormous maze as soon as anything size small or larger entered it and pursue the quarry, almost always killing it.
Kaolus and Pherrus had one failure in all their time. Schnohbeel the svirfneblin escaped, and when making it to the surface he spread word of the evil elementalists, and the treasure within their lair, but few believed him.
After the escape of Schnohbeel the wizards decided to enhance their prized golems to make the test tougher, etching a sigil on each golem's chest granting them the the ability to Passwall within the maze 3 times per day.
Schnohbeel passed away many winters ago and with him passed the facts about the golems, but the rumours of the existence of Petre Voulkos and Otoheino have begun to circle again, and talk of their vast treasure hidden underground behind a maze....
A former zookeeper has built several flesh golems form the remains of wolves and big cats. They were set in his research chamber, which is now buried in rubble, and told to attack any living thing that entered families property.
The evil wizard/zookeeper was killed and his keep crushed long ago, but, unbeknownst to anyone, his great-grandson has entered the town that was built on the site of his keep, triggering the arcane stipulations in his will which state that all of the surrounding town's land shall belong to whichever of his heirs should visit it first...and the golems now realize that the town of 5000 above is on their turf.
An unwise wizard near the ocean uses his iron golem to strip mine the land for peat. Nature has taken its toll and the golem has fallen into a saltwater bog. The wizard needs help getting the golem out (he does not have access to telekenisis or the like). Opposing the wizard is a group of druids who have decided that this is creation's revenge on the construct and will oppose all attempts to release the golem. Ideally, the party must find some sort of compromise between the two groups.
In the meantime the golem is slowly rusting and losing 1 hit point from its maximum total with every passing day.
Hearing a rumor that a stone golem guards a treasure, the party arrives with a variety of one-use magics to take out that foe, and they use them to great effect on this 9' tall finely carved stone statue that is between them and the treasure chest.
They may or may not notice it is just a large antimated object. They will definitely notice that the real stone golem is the barely carved mass of stone they assumed was part of the wall when they entered, and that it will not let them leave.
A gnome alchemist learns that gorgon's blood might have properties that prevent scrying. She asks that the players capture one alive and present her with 10hp (one flask) of gorgon's blood.
She has a stone shed which the gorgon is supposed to stay in. A Knowledge (archeticture) or craft(stone) check of DC15 will reveal that it isn't well made and the gorgon will break out in matter of days. Wheater they decide to tell the gnome or not is their decision.
The party druid, on a brief sabbatical from the adventuring life, finds himself recieving small presents of meat every day he is in the wilderness. After a few weeks of these unusual gifts, a grey render helps him when he is ambushed by a pack of savage girillions. The druid accepts his new ally and returns to the party, but there is a problem; the render keeps trying to eat his companions. What's a druid to do?
An aquatic grick has holed up under a dock where poled boats are frequently launched. Smugglers have been counting on the grick's daylight activity and using the dock to sneak in and out at night, but the smell of rotting boatmen is begining to bother them. They will attempt to gather help from someone who they think can kill it, or will at least try, and are paying a suspiciously large sum for someone to "guard their boat until they can return at night."
Sooner or later any party has to travel from one part of the world to another very quickly. Teleports and gates are fine if one already knows where one is going, but that option isn't always available. If such a situation arises, the party hears of a griffon trainer down the road. He is willing to loan out griffons for the party to ride. The griffons are somewhat slow (fly 70') but easier to handle (ride DC checks are made with a +5 circumstance bonus).
The catch is that he can't break a new, mature griffon he captured from the wild. The griffon is muzzled and is tethered with a rather long rope, but it is very mean. Someone has to try to "break" the beast. This can be accomplished by a Handle Animal check (DC 30) or a Ride (griffon) check (DC 15). The players can try as many times as they like. Each attempt represents one minute of effort. Failure at Handle Animal results in d6 damage from getting knocked down. Failure at Ride results in d12 damage from a nasty fall. Remember that the Ride check can be made at DC 20 if the characters only have Ride (horse) as a skill.
"Grimlock Smash! Puny human am no threat to Grimlock, Grimlock is the strongest one there is!"
"Yes Grimmy, we know," the gnome says, and then asks his elven companion "Why is it that we're dragging this thing along with us?"
"Well, I didn't want to have to kill the silly thing, besides, its eyesight is much better adapted to these caves than ours is. They are also immune to a vast number of spells, inlcuding phantasmal force, darkness, invisibility, mirror image, and so on. And we've already encountered a number of creatures that can throw a number of those spells. Better safe than sorry."
"Grimlock no like puny humans. Grimlock smash puny humans to bits."
"Yes, but he is so annoying," the gnome states. "Why couldn't we have run into more intelligent leader Grimlock, instead of this...this...."
"Grimmy!" the gray skinned creature finishes, adding "Grimmy like little man. Grimmy think little man funny."
"This is hell," the gnome mutters.