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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6476470" data-attributes="member: 4937">I can't give you much advice, except to say that I love the way you are thinking and keep up with the brain storming.   Presumably a cauldron of everlife lets you brew a potion of youth, thereby giving you the ability to stay young indefinitely.    As for the Lich, perhaps the Lich wants a mortal body back in order to once again enjoy the pleasures of the flesh.   Or perhaps he intends to make it his phylactery, gambling that the item will not be one anyone will ever want to destroy.  Or perhaps he wants it for some twisted but nominally altruistic reason - he intends to make them by the hundreds so that people will be immortal.... to bad the brewing recipe he knows involves the blood of a virgin.  But what a child now and then to extend you own life?  You can always make more.  Or perhaps he's just an art collector and the whole reason for everything is to fill his hoard with the greatest objects of beauty in the world and then stare at them for all eternity.Lichs for me are always difficult as villains because I can't really imagine them wanting anything.   They are dead.  They seem to have no reason or passion left to them.  I always imagine them as slowly falling into stasis and lacking in initiative, highly reactionary beings, with fading reason and sense of self.  What did this lich want in life?  Just to rule?  Why?  Almost no one just wants to rule.  Usually they want to rule to accomplish something.  What did this liche want to do?  What his reason? MMS should do fine for your basic position in Baronial court - Steward, Bailiff, Cook, Butler, Head Groom, etc.  I tend to try to bury the characters in side plots and red herrings, with the number and sophistication chosen to match my player's skill and interests.   If they aren't very good at murder mysteries and don't have a lot of sense of narrative, you won't need much disguise to hide your main plots.  But sophisticated players will figure out everything right away if you don't distract them with minor largely harmless villains.  1) As a sorceress, she's potentially suborned members of the household already.  I don't know if 5e actually provides for a useful charm that doesn't leave its victim hostile, but if it does, then they could be 'charmed'.  Some minor character will act as her alibi as needed.2) Some member of the household could be a petty thief or guilty of other minor crimes that have gone unnoticed - the Head Groom is a violent drunk that abuses local prostitutes and beats the footboys, the Butler is taking bribes for receiving inferior goods or is skimming silver from the petty cash, the elder sister prays to forbidden gods, or the housekeeper beats the maids unduly.  Whatever suits the level of disgusting you are willing to deal with and is a character you otherwise can't figure out what to do with.  This is useful because its always good to have someone who has a need to lie, and who will generally detect as 'bad guy' if the players try divination win buttons.   Meanwhile, your sorcerer probably has the wherewithal to provide herself magical obfuscation and will appear cherubic against such investigation.   It's also good to give the real villain a 'fall guy' that the sorcerer can blame a crime on if she has to bump off someone.   Potentially this could be a double whammy, as it could be that the otherwise not nice person also suspects the new fiancé and the fiancé knows it.   The discovery of crimes of the person could be part of a plot to discredit potential foils.3) Eventually, someone has to die.  It's hardly a fantasy role playing game if some innocent's blood doesn't get vilely shed.  One of the pages seems like the obvious choice as potentially a cousin of the PC and so plenty of emotional impact, but depending on how touchy the players are about violence against children that could be over doing it.  Otherwise, pick a another sympathetic character - one of the Grooms is dead, all signs points to the Head Groom getting drunk and beating him to death, ect.   It should be pretty easy to think up plot.4) Meanwhile, wolf riders have been seen in remote parts of the Barony, and near this 'Candlekeep' of yours.   There actually scouting the area looking for weaknesses should 'plan A' fail.  Worse come to worse, the sorceress can try to buy time by putting it in the ear of the Baron to send the PC's out on some deed of errantry with the knights to suppress this threat.5) One of the Knights is estranged from the court.  Nobody wants to talk about it, because the Baron has forbid it.   However, he and the Baron had words regarding this strange woman and the Baron's desire to marry beneath his station.  The Baron got outraged and forbid him to visit his court and fined him for his impolitic and offensive speech - in fact, the Baron very nearly had the man challenged.  Almost everyone agrees he deserved it.  The knight is an impolitic racist and a snob, who hates the gypsy people for reasons real and imagined, but he is also truly a loyal knight.   He's hired a man to check out her story, and has discovered some evidence that indicates her story is false, but at this point no one is listening and he's lost any influence.6) A strange priest has arrived and wishes to build a small shrine to a deity not worshiped in these parts in centuries.  The local priests are very skeptical.  However, the deity nominally has dominion over something that appeals to the common folk - rain, fertility, prosperity, hunting, etc. - and appears to have attracted quite a following.  Secretly, some minor NPC is backing the priest's bid.   The priest may or may not be connected to the Lich, but in any event the worship of the deity may come with unexpected consequences.  Depending on how interested you are in adding more minor villains, you could have this guy turn out to be a good guy, wrongly maligned by jealous local priests eager to protect their monopoly.7) Following up on the goblins, finds that the invading goblins are led by a pair of hags.  They'll also find connections to the long ago invasion.  Particularly astute members of the party should note that two hags is an unusual number.  The third member of the coven is of course the fiancé.</blockquote>

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