D&D 5E Developing new plot line - Rebellion!

[Trit One-Ear]

Firstly, thanks for all the comments and support! This is getting the wheels turning.

I haven't decided what the King's secret to his long life was yet. This idea that it may have had something to do with his children is actually really interesting... going to file that away for later, either as a rumor or the truth.

I'm in a bad habit of making plot characters male by default, which is something I'm working on. As such, the suggestion that the king have a daughter, not a son, is something I'm going to adopt. I've been getting better about gender representation, and this will be another step in the right direction.
Add to that the idea that there is a grandchild who survived, and is in fact older than the young daughter, and we have an interesting dynamic to play with. Older male heir, however he is a generation "below" the younger female heir. Infinitely more interesting. Perhaps the grandson even sides with the rebellion then, leading to conflict within the royal family.

As for [MENTION=2518]Derren[/MENTION]'s notes on dungeon crawls etc, I would ultimately love this to be a more intrigue focused game. I'm leaving it a little open ended to see how engaged with all this courtly drama my players end up being, and if they take to it, we'll focus much more on the intrigue. If they feel like they want to kick down doors for a while, I'll let their successes and failures in the dungeon crawls influence the flow of political events. We tend to focus on a more on story than anything else so the character development will be the main focus regardless.

Thank you all again for reading my mass wall of text, and commenting with such great insight!

Trit

 

[broghammerj]

Some alternative ideas and/or variations to think about:

1: King made some sort of Faustian deal in which he can bear no or limited children. He has traded the immortality of successive generations for the immortality of a long life. This fixes your heir problem with multiple wives. Perhaps he appoints a Duke as his successor leading to unrest and possible takeover by the elf.

2. King dabbles in necromancy to prolong his life and brings some sort of curse upon the lands when his death unleashes some evil power. Group returns from Feywild to find strange happenings they must investigate. Later on in the campaign, your elf guy goes for a power grab and outright war starts with neighboring region.

3. King makes a Faustian deal or dabbles in necromancy. Strange things are happening and ultimately the people rise up (led by our heroes) to overthrow the king (now some variant of undead).

4. King makes a Faustian deal or dabbles in necromancy. Strange things are happening and the neighboring elf king sees his kingdom being affected. Hires a band of heroes to investigate and assassinate the long lived king. They must go on a quest to figure out how to kill the seemingly immortal king.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

For intrigue based games. I always find that one of the best villains to have in them is a Rakshasa. One of the evil shapeshifting tiger fiends always like to get involved in scenario's like this.

Here's a Scenario. Proudstar's puppet duke has been killed and replaced by a Rakshasa who had gained lots of power in the criminal underworld of the dukes land or alternately he is pretending to be the duke's aid but has dominated and put the duke completely under his control.Thanks to it's magic it has learned of the plans that Proudstar and the Duke have and aims to manipulate Proudstar to come out on top as the King of the land. Meanwhile Proudstar is attempting to manipulate the Duke while having no idea he has been replaced/is being controlled by the Rakshasa.

 

[Quartz]

I haven't decided what the King's secret to his long life was yet. This idea that it may have had something to do with his children is actually really interesting... going to file that away for later, either as a rumor or the truth.

In the magical worlds of D&D there are any number of ways - half elf, fountain of youth, 3E Extended Lifespan Epic feat, class features which stop apparent aging, etc.

Imagine a Kt 8 / Mk 17+ taking the Extended Lifespan Epic feats.