LE Standing Stones request

[Xion209]

Hello, I have an idea (and therefore a request) regarding Standing Stones. Excuse me if this has already been requested or done. I personally think it would be cool if standing stones do not initially give their bonuses to the player. First, the player would have to complete at least one quest to (perhaps) find ancient key-stones (or whatever, that's just a placeholder name) which are required to activate their matching Standing Stones. Of course, these key-stones will be well hidden in Ancient Nord Ruins (quest will guide the player to them) and perhaps the 3 basic (Warrior, Thief, Mage) key-stones in the inventories of merchants around Skyrim (Warrior Key-stone in Jorrvaskr, Mage Key-stone in College of Winterhold, Thief Key-stone in the Ratway?).

 

Each key-stone will weigh about 2 lbs. The player must have the appropriate key-stone in their inventory to use a Standing Stone. When all key-stones are collected, they can be placed in a key-stone index (would be a new activator in one of the ruins), to produce a Master key-stone, which works on all Standing Stones and only weighs 2 lbs like the others. The Master Index passively gives the player a power which, when used, allows him/her to instantly change their active standing stone buff once per day. (optional) But only within an x ft. radius of any Standing Stone.

 

If anyone thinks doing this would break the game, I do not think this would be the case. The player can still activate the stones, they just will not initially give any bonus (The message would appear something like "You touch the Standing Stone but nothing happens. ("OK" button)", so I can't see any quests or anything else being broken by this.

 

Overview:

-Passively increases game difficulty at low levels.

-Adds collectible and useful content, referring to the key-stones.

-Turns Standing Stones into hard earned, unique rewards, rather than "meh" boring get-at-level-1 buff activators. Increases the player's sense of accomplishment.

-Gives a logical, lore-friendly (IMHO) reason for why nobody but the Player can use Standing Stones

-Worthy reward for collecting all keystones, which does not obsolete the need to visit Standing Stones

-Quest would require no voice acting; an ancient Nord tome or tomes would be great ways to introduce the quest.

-A game can never have too many quests!

 

I'm sure there are plenty of other aspects which I haven't considered, positive and possibly also negative, so let me know what you think!

 

tl;dr Standing Stones need key-stones to work.

Edited January 5, 2013 by Xion209