I think your fine. The players will forget 90% of this stuff in a month or two. It'll go from "Molvek of the Armaranthine" To "Was it Molvey, or Mortey? From the what? Armageddon, Armament, or something?"
Haha! This is too true
Or they Players will run into a 'corrupted' Quora and need to protect him from the minions, and need to find a way to 'purify' the corrupted bloodline. Maybe with a special ritual, or maybe a good deed, maybe self sacrifice, or maybe a corrupt needs to fall in love/have a baby with a 'pure blood'. Keep in mind that just because the bloodline is corrupted it doesn't mean the person is corrupted or bad. So the Players will run into a kid who is corrupted but only because his father killed his grandfather before he was born, and maybe hes in love with this noble girl who just so happens to be a pure blood. but the families hate each other and wont allow it.
I really like the general idea of the heirs needing to be "corrupted" in some way in order for them to be of use to Morvek. That train of though got me to thinking... maybe they are only of use to Morvek if the have not been "corrupted". Perhaps there could be some condition that would "corrupt" the heirs and make them unusable to Morvek. This is appealing because it would give my PC's an extra possible solution to keep Morvek imprisoned. What sort of action/condition might render a person an "unsuitable" sacrifice for a blood ritual? Any ideas?
I mean, given the set up, the character could be an avatar of Molvek himself, a surviving Amaranthine, a member of a cult who worship the Amaranthine, Molvek or any other god, an apprentice to a powerful diviner etc etc.
Originally I planned for my PC's to gain much of the backstory from a mage at the Arcane Order (located in the city they are currently traveling to). I liked this ideas because they would have to work for the information first since mages in the Order have no reason to want to help my PC's right now. That being said, I really like the idea of a surviving Armaranthine or maybe a cult devoted to the Armaranthine being responsible for revealing the information. I have been throwing around the idea of introducing a surviving Armaranthine NPC, but I hadn't decided what role I wanted that character to potentially fulfill. An antagonistic role seems most obvious as I feel most of the Armaranthine would sympathize with Morvek's vengeful motivations.... but, I can also see a potential Armaranthine character condemning Morvek for his reign of terror. I originally envisioned the Armaranthine as a docile and pragmatic race, so it might make sense that one would judge Morvek harshly despite his obvious justifications.
You could give it a twist by making the royal bloodline a decoy. Perhaps a secret society exists among the elves who realized the descendants of the Quora Tal are the key to releasing Morvek. They seeded the story that the royals were descendants of the elven sorcerer, while keeping the true bloodline hidden. Even the King would not know the truth of this (thus making the potential sacrifice of his son even more tragic). Eventually the PCs somehow discover the truth of the matter and now have to deal with the secret society, which might be less than cooperative.
This is an interesting concept. I guess I wonder if Morvek would be able to see through the ruse. I guess that depends on how I'll decide he is hunting downt the heirs in the first place, and if it will be the same method my PC's use. Any ideas on that?
If not an intentional decoy, it may be a good idea to a have a secret 6th member of the Quora Tal. But that makes even less sense as far as Morvek being ignorant on the matter.
At any rate, for the vast majority of the campaign the players thought that they were acting to thwart the plans of the evil god, but in actuality they were unwittingly carrying out the plans of one of the patron gods who had become corrupted and was trying to ascend to greater power by eliminating the hero gods and finally destroying the evil god.
Along the way, the party may get some clues that something is off. If at some point they show that they no longer believe the lies, then the corrupted god immediately acts to slay all of the Quora Tal that were placed under his protection, and the race is on to find the last of them. But in this case the decision is more difficult! Do they preserve the last of the Quora Tal and thus maintain the possibility that Morvek can still be released from his banishment, or do they allow the corrupted god to reach the last of the Quora Tal and ascend to what unknown heights his fevered mind has imagined?
As for the prince, you might consider making having his father instead call in the priests of this corrupt god, whereby the priests can perform divinations that then reveal the lies that the god wants the party to believe.
This is a really interesting concept. I like it, but I'm confused on one point. Why would Morvek being defeated cause a patron god to ascend to ultimate power? What is the connection? And just to clarify, this Patron god who is playing both sides, is he an original god, or is he one of the people who ascended to godhood after sacrificing himself to imprison Morvek?
Just curious, what happens if one (or all) of the Quora Tal bloodline dies or becomes otherwise inaccessible (Sequester)? Does it become impossible for Morvek to realize his plans, or...?
Yes, it then becomes impossible for Morvek to free himself. Which is why my players would have the choice to kill off all the heirs as a potential solution to the Morvek problem. Not very paragon though. I need to think up some alternative solutions that offer the same amount of security/finality. Any ideas?
A simple solution to the prince problem for me is that the prince isn't actually the first born. So in order to fulfill his side of the bargain, the King needs to track down his real first-born.
Unbeknownst to the King, he actually sired an heir as a teenager (I'll let you make up the reason as to why the King didn't know about this child).
As luck would have it, the King and the party find out about the existence of the illegitimate son at the same time as each other and it becomes a race between the PCs and the King to track down the actual first-born.
This is a great idea. Although I sort of used it with the very first heir that my party found that alerted them to this whole thing. In my game's case, they found a father with two sons. Morvek's agent had been trying to capture the adult son for years but after she collected some of his blood she suddenly quit trying to capture him and instead set her sights on the younger brother. My players asked themselves why the elder son's blood didn't work and they weren't quite sure. They will soon learn that the blood needs to be of the first born and the adult son was actually the product of his mother's secret adultery.
Do you think using your idea is too similar to what I have already done?
Maybe the original ritual was not designed to revive your original Antagonist but to kill him once and for all (makes sense to eradicate his offspring)
But this got twisted over the time and no one knows. In preventing the sacrifices done, the party will instead strengthen your original villain.
I like this idea, but I guess my question is: why didn't the original ritual do it's job and kill him once and for all? And why would Morvek now be trying to hunt down the heirs? I suppose he might hunt them down to kill them so that they can't complete the ritual.... but why is he still alive to hunt them down in the first place?
Another possibility is adding a third character, say, the queen who's a secret follower of the imprisoned god or, even better, the king is under an enchantment of the queen or somebody else in the court that forces him to act in the interest of the primary antagonist.
My prince character does have a younger sister that I have not introduced yet. I hadn't fully decided on what to do with her yet but I was thinking that she would be well loved by her father as she is the only child the king has that he actually has any intentions of investing in. I suppose she might feel motivated to have her father turn on her brother as she could potentially become the next heir to the throne. To that end, maybe it would work better if she were a younger brother instead. I guess I just find myself wondering how a second born son could gain enough influence to effectively "convince" his father to betray his first born.