There are three virtue stones.
One is the Hope Stone – The Praesporous Stone
One is the Love Stone – The Cordis Stone
One is the Faith Stone – The Fidelis Stone
Each of these once belonged to an Ancient Crown of the Purest Gold. The Crown was stolen and is in the possession of an ancient monster high in the forbidding mountain range called “The Wall of Stone”.
Fourteen travelers are called into a mysterious land existing outside of their own times to fulfill a quest to restore these stones to the Ancient Crown.
Their mission: To bear the Cordis Stone. The Love Stone.
And an Ancient Text assures them that “Love never fails.”
IF that is the case, the task should be easy. But is this true?
Two friends believed in that promise and risked their lives to test it.
Now one of them is dead. The other lives with the guilt of it. Uncertain of anything anymore. He seems to be losing faith and hope that anything he is involved with will ever make a difference anymore. He believes he is cursed for his part in a foolishly hatched plan went terribly wrong.
As a consequence, a dark and dangerous enemy now has possession of a stone that wields power that will lead it and its legion of hybrid monsters to the rest of the survivor’s companions. They are being hunted down.
More will die because of the two men’s foolish action. But only the living one will suffer the guilt of what follows.
What the survivor did not know led to this. Now the quest that he believed could not fail, did just that.
Their former leader has vanished. The company is broken, many are dead.
All because of his foolish belief.
He returned to his own world in shame, dejected and broken–carrying only painful and lingering memories of the experience.
Was it a dream? A nightmare? What had he not been told? Did the truth even matter?
What he never could have imagined was that he would be called back into this mysterious land…to complete the quest his actions, as a follower, had betrayed.
Only this time, he has been sent back…to lead it.
Comical Pitch version…
A traitor returns to the scene of the crime disguised as an older man, hoping no one remembers him enough to slap him silly, and give him the big freeze out when he asks them for help. He is looking for a legendary rock, because The Rock told him to find it, but he doesn’t know where he is supposed to look. Meanwhile, he is being pursued by a monster who is as persistent as Captain Hook’s crocodile, who wants to demoralize him, and basically have him for a crunchy snack as if he is the last Cheeto in the bag. A gang of thugs is after him, too, and they want to stomp him into guacamole and use their swords on him as chips. Meanwhile, he leads a team of followers who are as bewildered as he is about the quest he claims is vitally important. So far, he has led them to people who feed them well, so they are at least game enough to find out whether or not he is a kook or someone actually worth trusting.
They do accidentally immolate a troll. Burned him like a campfire marshmallow. This doesn’t sit well with his brother, so they, too, are tracking him and his followers like coonhounds who scented a trash panda in the vicinity of their dog bowls. The trolls look like stumpy gorillas, but have a bad attitude. They ride onocentaurs. Half-men, half… (well, the biblical word for “donkey”). The onocentaurs are comical and mouthy. But their monstrous king gave them the order to carry these frog-faced trolls wherever they needed to go. To complicate matters, there are flying hags…harpies…who are resentful of the wood nymphs who appear in beautiful female forms, but sometimes like a tree on a bad hair day. Perhaps they envy their cosmetics and just want to borrow their wrinkle creams. The flying hags have brokered a deal to be spies with a local human king who has some “daddy issues”. That king’s father is dead, but the son who succeeded him was the runt of the family and a black sheep as well. His daddy barely claimed him, and reluctantly made him the heir after his brothers died…(playing pickleball)…[don’t ask.]
Alternate Pitch: Can a betrayer lead a team in the renewal of a quest he caused to fail? Can he be forgiven by those he betrayed? Most importantly, can he forgive himself and be free enough from the guilt to lead others to trust him and help them survive what seems to be an impossible mission to return one of the lost virtue stones to a great crown held by a sleeping dragon in the mountains? Some fear the legends, some place all their hope in them, for they promise a restoration of justice and order in a world where kingdoms are divided and on the brink of a war that will sweep up all into the conflict.
Excavatia 