I did a wholly inadequate amount of planning for this plot, though I like the idea of needing to win the favor of the temple of the love goddess.
Turns out my party wanted to investigate a side quest I hadn't really planned, and so the romance plot will begin next week.
---
Instead they spoke with a tree full of crows that shared a collective consciousness, but any crow that went outside a certain radius reverted to a normal beast. If it came back in the radius, it would rejoin the gestalt, and could share what it had seen, but the entity could not control the crows from a distance, stranding it. I meant it as sort of a meditation on what the self is, and how we are never the same being from day to day.
The PCs stole some of the boundary stones that kept it trapped, because they want to ward off other flying monsters, and everyone involved expected this might just outright kill the sentient swarm because of the 'rules lawyery' nature of the magic stones. For now, the boundary persists, because the magic only updates at dawn. Then, rather than kill the swarm, it'll set it free. And this murder of crows will be a bit, well, inclined to live up to its name.
---
But next week, the party will meet with the young men who could be paramours for the princess, to get the measure of them. I'm thinking I'm going to have the high priestess of the river goddess decide that she does not want to try to make peace with No-Ostalin. She would prefer war to defend her city's identity, and so she's going to tip off a ruthless lawman in the city that the PCs are criminals.
If he can catch and arrest them, that's a win for her. If they kill him, she'll ensure their guilt is found out, causing people to mistrust them; also a win for her. We'll see if the party can find a way to avoid that, or form enough of a rapport with one of the paramours that he'll go along with the plan even if it's got opposition and people are trying to kill him.
But I need the paramours to have some personality. So far I've gotten as far as this website -
RanGen | Love Interest Generator - which gave me a 'financially insolvent lazy guy who loves to bake and bicycle,' . . . so maybe not where I want to go.