Love can bite you on the ass - after death

[Rechan]

So far, I've managed to find a way to work most of my PCs into the plots for my campaign.

Except one.

He has a really interesting backstory, but I can't think of a good way to use it to my advantage.

[sblock=The Backstory]The PC (Riskov) was a powerful Eladrin in the Court of Summer. He was madly in love with another eladrin. There was a great war, and it involved the Fomorians. At some point, his lady love was kidnapped by the Fomorians, and he pursued. By the time Riskov battled his way through the Fomorian castle to her captors, he discovered that his love's soul had been sacrificed; the Fomorians had used it to work a dark ritual to aid them in the war. She was gone.

He left the Feywild, into the Shadowfell, to pursue his lady love's soul. His journey took him to the realm of the Raven Queen, who told him that she had his love's soul, and it was hers now - even if she chose to ressurect it, it would not be brought back as an Eladrin. Part of this was to spite the Summer Court, and part (the player believes) the Raven Queen's scheme.

After leaving the Raven Queen's court he wandered the Shadowfell in despair. Naturally the plane tried consuming his memories and personality, and while it did so for most of him to the point where he had started to fade away, he wouldn't let it take away the memory of his lover, even if that would take away the pain.

Before he died, a voice spoke on his head. The Voice of the Evening Glory, Goddess of Love, Beauty and Undeath. She saw the pain in him, and said she would reward his heartache. As he died, she returned him to live as a Revenant, and her servant.[/sblock]

[sblock=The Evening Glory]The Eternal Lover is a lesser deity of Love that Never Dies - love at any price. She is a goddess of love, beauty and immortality through undeath - the notion that the contents of the heart should go on, even after the organ stops beating. Love transcending life should mean living through undeath. So she's worshiped by lovers, immortality seekers, and the undead. She is also (by accident) the Goddess of Romantic Suicide.[/sblock]

So I want to find a way to use this to my advantage. Namely:

1) A good place for the soul of Riskov's love to pop up. Preferably reincarnated as a foe the players will face. So that regardless of who she was, her new incarnation's goals are opposite that of the party.
2) Why is she there, given that the RQ had a hold of her soul? Why did the RQ let it go?
3) Anything else using the Evening Glory.

 

[Rechan]

An aside: My take on the RQ is not what's in Divine Power/et al. She's not a soul-hungry this-side-of-evil deity. More like Hades - an indifferent jailer and manager of souls - making sure they get from point A to Point B and stay at point B. Also a bit of a control freak.

The reason that the Raven Queen hates undeath is not necessarily because they disrupt the migration of souls. Ghosts, wights, etc certainly do, but the biggest reason that the RQ has a zero-tolerance policy towards undead: undead operate outside of fate.

The RQ is also the Goddess of Fate. But destiny is tied to your soul. Once you die, and your soul is gone - that's all Destiny wrote. It says nothing about your body! So if your body gets up and goes to kill someone, Fate didn't see that coming. Fate has no control over the Undead. (Additionally, demons IMC work outside of fate too, hence why Orcus is such bad news for the RQ. But Orcus is not the focus of my campaign).

Not to mention certain undead (particularly powerful ones) can eat souls, or spawn new undead. Thus further getting in her craw.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

knowing nothing about your game I already see an idea...

she comes back as a reverant searving the lord of frost as part of the winter court. The idea beinging the RQ has 'tiped the balance' between the courts. Now have the Winter court go after the same mcguffen as the PCs, but they send there new go to woman...


edit: really extra points if the ex love, and new winter mistress is doing good just in a cold way. Remeber the winter court is not 'evil' per say... the PCs need the mcguffen for X, she and the WC need it for Y, but both are good but incompadable goals

 

[Rechan]

One option: the soul of the ex-love is tainted. Because the Fomorians used it to fuel some foul ritual, the magic polluted the very soul. So, she just can't reincarnate it as an Eladrin; it's so ugly it'd come out something else entirely.

The question is, if this is the case, why'd she let it out of the cage in the first place?

she comes back as a reverant searving the lord of frost as part of the winter court. The idea beinging the RQ has 'tiped the balance' between the courts. Now have the Winter court go after the same mcguffen as the PCs, but they send there new go to woman...

Ooh, that's sexy.

See, there's a second revenant in the party for a similar reason: the RQ brought him back (at Bahamut's behest) because the Prince of Frost and the Northern Wind (a big bad primal spirit) are trying to usher in Ragnorok pre-maturely. Since the RQ is ALSO the Goddess of Winter and Fate, and knows that a world-ending winter is not happening until she says so.

So that would be an interesting situation - The RQ has a horse in the running, because she doesn't know that the PoF is the guy behind it all. She might also put a horse in the PoF's corner simply because there is a prophecy: that a Revenant will stop X. And so, she puts things in motion.

 

[Jaysue]

One option: the soul of the ex-love is tainted. Because the Fomorians used it to fuel some foul ritual, the magic polluted the very soul. So, she just can't reincarnate it as an Eladrin; it's so ugly it'd come out something else entirely.

The question is, if this is the case, why'd she let it out of the cage in the first place?

Perhaps RQ knows something of the fate of the PC and she saw it as he came before her, thus she let his ex-love watch the exchange to bait her into making your typical "deal with the devil".
After he leaves she offers a new life, as a revenant with some bargain made where she is told she should catch up with her former life and wait for the opportunity to present itself and instructions to continue.

Shortly after she finds her love she is forced to turn against him and prompts a bunch of those difficult emotional situations where its the girl (even tho she is corrupt) or the quest/party.


... or something!

 

[Angellis_ater]

Easy. The Raven Queen does not appreciate this "lesser god" - all dead are hers and all undead are to be destroyed. Revenanthood is only for those who are worthy. Thus, she gives His Love a chance to return to life, to see her family, to speak with her loved ones in exchange for killing the Champion of the Lesser God (no names). Over time, she plots and acts against the party, using mercenaries and magic as tools to weaken them until she has divined their strengths and weaknesses. She might then try to join the party to divide them against Riskov, or to assassinate him in his sleep. She does, after all, not look like herself anymore.

 

[Jack7]

I don't know. I'm played out and going to bed. Nuttin really to add.

But I just wanted to say Rech, that really sounds like one helluvah nice game.
And, depending on the size of your ass, and how slow ya move it, love can take a good chew on ya just about anytime.

 

[Wycen]

Assuming that revenants in your game are undead, then the formerly dead love who is now supposed to be the antagonist for the party should be living. Not undead, or possessing a body, but fully flesh, blood, and whatever spiritual/mental element you want to call it.

Unless you want some sort of happy ending. Since I would, I work from that point in the rest of my suggestion. Which I see working if both bodies die (at the end of the campaign) and their souls go together to Evening Glory or a "happy afterlife".

Assuming you are using 4E since you mention the Raven Queen and 4E cosmology, I would say that all they need to do is kill her and cast Reincarnate (the 3E version) and then she'd get a different body. Or eventually use a Wish to transform her body, or use it in conjunction with Reincarnate.

The best place to meet is some place with psychic damage from a love suicides or some other traumatic event, like Medea murdering a whole slew of kids or something.

The Raven Queen maybe wants to harvest some liquid pain or material component for a ritual of some sort and really, who needs to know all the goals of an immortal god? Have a flash forward at the campaign ending with RQ and somebody else like 'yeah, I guess you won that bet'. Something like that.

As for anything using Evening Glory, well, having played a cleric of her, here are a few bits I remember from my game.

I had an equally tragic story, except I went the horror route. My backstory was that he asked a local crack pot (read that: black magic) to bring her back and he warned "you aren't gonna like her" but not listening I promptly had to fight the undead zombie of my former love. Unhinged a bit by the experience he turned to Evening Glory in order to find true eternal love.

From that point, the goal for my character was to find anything to prolong life or existence. Lichdom, elixers, magic items, legends, whatever.

Our party found a depressed city, where the only normal people were those who worked in the temple of Evening Glory (they were goths, the second highest priestess was named Betty, who I always thought of as Helga Phugly from the Oblongs cartoon). The land was cursed, but I can't remember the circumstances, only that if the king wasn't deferred to when first met he would attack, (and being way higher in level it was a lame GM instant death trap) and the common people melancholy.

From that point we ventured into the Aerie of the Crow God, by Goodman Games. Actually this would be a good point to insert the RQ antagonist, since there is a good part of the Aerie adventure where a certain undead figure is learned about.

That's about all I can remember right now.

 

[El Mahdi]

The soul has been let loose, but not completely. The Raven Queen still has partial control or influence over the new creature (it's working as her proxy, or it's being forced to work as her proxy through coercion). Because of the Raven Queens hold on the soul of his love, the Raven Queen is pulling his strings - "Do this for me or you will never see her again."-"Do what I request of you or I will destroy her forever.",etc.