Evil power behind the king?

[Gundark]

So IMC that I'm designing the current king murdered his father and older brother in order to sit on the throne. While he is evil and ambitious, he was manipulated into action by a creature that is shapechanged as his childrens nanny. The creature and the king are lovers, not that the creature loves the king, but finds that the king's lust is his weakness. The king knows that the nanny is something more than human, but doesn't know what. Thus the creature really rules the kingdom through her puppet lover

The question is I'm having trouble with what the nanny is. I don't really want the old standbys (doppelganger/orge mage/dragon).

I'm planning on the PCs to be high level when they confront her.

So any ideas what she could be?

 

[Crothian]

a gnome

 

[LostSoul]

Why do you want to make his nanny a monster? Setting up a fight?

 

[Numion]

I once made the evil behind the throne (actually it was the barony next door to the players barony) an intelligent sword. The story was standard "the barony was goodish-neutral before, but at some point it became very repressive and obsessed with mining with slaves*". The players figured that something changed the baron during his expedition to nearby mountains, so they killed him, freed his son from the slave mines, and everything was good.

Until the son soon succumbed to the sword. The players were a little surprised and pissed when they later learned that business was as usual at their neighboring barony and they had to intervene once again.

Then again if they had done their research properly, they could've learned what happened on that fateful expedition 20 years ago

I know, not a nanny and maybe not help at all, but I felt the need to share since it was one of the finest adventures I've written

* It was a derro sword, and wanted to mine deep for riches

 

[Gundark]

Why do you want to make his nanny a monster? Setting up a fight?

Sorry I should have been more clear. Not his nanny but his children's nanny. I thought the nanny would be less suspicous IMHO.

 

[Kafkonia]

Tsochar -- tentacled goodness!

High-level Changeling -- perhaps not as impressive as some other options, but relatively straightforward.

Phasm or Aranea with class levels -- Think of the reaction when she reveals her true form! Especially if she's seduced one of the PCs on the side.

Mutant barghest -- just convert her from changing into a goblin to changing into a human, or some other human-palatable woman.

 

[sckeener]

Why do you want to make his nanny a monster? Setting up a fight?

yeah I was wondering that myself....I was thinking wizard would be a good choice...maybe a bit like Sigourney Weaver in Snow White Tale of Terror.

Going the monster route though...

how about

• Succubus
• Lilitu
• Erinyes
• Brachina (pleasure devil)
• Annis
• Green Hag
• Dryad (evil version - maybe w/a dead tree)
• Lich (with a well preserved body that doesn't get the Paralyzing Touch or Fear Aura)

personally I like the Lich idea since then it makes me wonder how long she's been working behind the throne. Maybe there is a painting missing of the lich when she was actually the queen of the kingdom.

As for the Dryad...maybe have a evil fiend possess her. Then have the White Tree of Gondor where it looks totally dead until the evil fiend possessing the dryad is exercised from her body.

 

[Gundark]

I know, not a nanny and maybe not help at all, but I felt the need to share since it was one of the finest adventures I've written

* It was a derro sword, and wanted to mine deep for riches

No that's great . I'm looking for "outside the box ideas"

 

[Kafkonia]

I know, not a nanny and maybe not help at all, but I felt the need to share since it was one of the finest adventures I've written

You know, this gives me an idea: perhaps the power behind the throne is an item the nanny owns, which has corrupted her. So the PCs determine the nanny is the power behind the throne, kill her (an innocent) and let the actual corruptor go -- or better yet, take it with them...

 

[LostSoul]

Sorry I should have been more clear. Not his nanny but his children's nanny. I thought the nanny would be less suspicous IMHO.

Oh, cool.

Still, I'm thinking that you could just make her a human commoner/expert/aristocrat. Thing is, she has the king wrapped around her little finger, so confronting her means confronting the king. There will be consequences to it.

I might include a monster of some sort (succubus/doppleganger, the "obvious choice" that you want to avoid) that was linked to the old king and now hates the new king and his consort. As a red herring. The nanny and the king could manipulate the PCs into getting rid of this monster for them.

I'd also make the nanny more or less sympathetic. Maybe she had a good reason (something that resonates with the PCs/players) to hate the old king. "Don't I have the right to justice?"

I'm probably not being much help. I'm more interested in the relationship between all these NPCs than what kind of creature the nanny is.

Here's something that just came to me. Probably won't help you out, but I thought it cool:

Father is a bad guy. Drives mother to suicide. She becomes an allip. Son finds allip, locks it up somehow (permanent magic circle vs evil?). Son visits his "mother". She drives him insane with her mindless babbling. He fails his save vs. hypnotism, goes and kills his father and brother. Is wracked with guilt. Doesn't want to destroy his "mother", all the family he's got left.

edit: Needs more NPCs to make it cool. It's a start.