Need help with a story arc

[Noblecrumpet]

Hi all,

I have a story going along right now and I have stories for 3 of the 4 characters. I wanted each story to be epic and change the character in some way over time through a conflict that highlights each character's flaws, but the fourth character is proving the most difficult as they have barely any bonds to the world.

Short summary of the characters' stories.

-Two players are two head of an ettin, one being a wizard and the other a barbarian (I homebrewed it). They are treated as monsters, and I made their "nemesis" a wziard obsessed with beauty and returning her youth. Hopefully these two players will learn that the brothers need each other, and that their appearance isn't everything.

-The third player is a demon hunter ranger whose sister was killed by a demon. Little does he know that his father offered his daughter's soul to a demon to save his dying wife, who already died in childbirth (from the son). Stuff happens he basically lost his wife AND daughter, grieving father becomes Genghis Khan and servant of the demon. The ranger will confront him, and have to convince him not to blame himself etc. despite the fact that the ranger also blames himself. Basically they both learn to cope.

-The fourth player is the one I need help with. She's a satyr bard and has barely any background. So far her only character flaws are that she likes taking the easy way out (she wanted to be a musician and bartered with a demon to get her bard powers instead of training) and she's playful and mischievous. The demon bit has already been dealt with for story reasons, so now I need to find her a conflict or villain to teach her character responsibility, like a badass coming-of-age story like Spirited Away or something.

So if anyone has suggestions, please post them here, whether good or bad.

My only idea so far is a Mind Flayer traps her in a perfect utopian dreamland while sucking out her brain. So she needs to escape its illusion and her allies need to fight through a dungeon to find her. Like Gravity Falls Weirdmageddon episode.

 

[BoldItalic]

This might help you: 36 plots

 

[Unwise]

This all sounds very interesting, it just raises a couple of red flags for me that I should mention. Firstly, do you have a group of awesome roleplayers? These sort of plots sound really great and I would love to play in a group that works like that, but unless your players have a demonstrated ability to RP well and engage in character growth, I would really hesitate to run those plots, as much as I would love to.

Secondly, if I was that ranger, dad is going to die. Slowly by preference. Unless your player is Gandhi, any PC that finds that their father sold their sisters soul and then went on a demon serving rampage is going to dish out some patricide. There are bad things that can be forgiven at a stretch, this is not one of them. Maybe help the father find a way to go to the abyss and get his daughters soul back (at the cost of his own?) ? Help him open a portal and get a demon-slaying weapon. He will likely die horribly, but will have at least taken a step towards redemption. Or a Darth Vader scene, where a demon comes to claim the sons soul and the father steps in, breaks his pact with them and fights. The effects of breaking the pact are beyond horrible.

Maybe the father made a deal with a succubus who knew that it could not claim him romantically, as he loved his wife too much, so it poisoned the wife and used that love against him. He screamed in grief that he would give anything for his wife, the demon took that as a pact and stole the daughter. At least this way it was negligence, not diabolical evil.

As for the Satyr, have her flake out on some duty and that end very badly. For instance, at the fey court, she has the job of "singing in the spring" which involves extended musical sessions and leading maypole dances etc, as well as a lot of courtly stuff. Long slow, heavily traditional and boring. She flakes out on it and abandons her "useless" ceremonial job. She leaves to go adventuring again. Upon her return, she finds that winter never ended, the people are starving and the Winter Queen has taken dominion over the Court of Spring. This is the direct result of her not following orders, she broke ancient fey pacts and has lead to a massive 'disturbance in the force'.

You could describe her musical abilities as not improving as she levels. The pact she made gave her the ability to be a good musician, but not to get better at it and become great or a legend. Without solid practice and going back and learning the basics, she has no way of ever improving. She does however, hear about this magic item, an instrument that belonged to a legendary bard that could make her play better. She can take the easy road or the hard road.

Assuming like any PC she goes for the magic item, the instrument is cursed. It plays sad songs and people become clinically depressed, long long after she finishes playing. She can destroy villages by sucking all the hope out of them, leaving people with nothing to live for. If she plays angry songs, strife starts up, old rivalries fester in the coming week and feuds start up. The item will only play songs based on negative or twisted emotions. She quickly loses the ability to play any other instrument. The only cure for the musics curse, is to play a song that is just as happy as the original was sad etc, without the use of any magical influences (including pacts). She will have to do this in each place she messed up. Of course all she knows is that this instrument is great, the ongoing effects on the listeners are not immediately obvious.

 

[BoldItalic]

If you want a twist, the satyr is convinced that she once had a brother and latches onto the ranger to help her find him. What neither of them knows is that she is the reincarnation of the ranger's dead sister and the ranger is the brother she is looking for.

 

[Noblecrumpet]

Don't worry, Unwise, these guys are heavy RP-ers. Except one of the ettin heads but that's the barbarian so by being an angry bastard he's roleplaying perfectly. As for the ranger's dad, I didn't mention the whole story to shorten the post but the reason he joined the demon is to save save his daughter's life for ten more years (giving the sister story-time time to raise her newborn brother after the mother dies.) Also, the demon promised not to torture her soul in Hell until the dad guy dies but he needs to serve him unwaveringly. He may be Genghis Khan, but he's been grieving the whole time. He's kinda stuck wavering between depression and anger steps and can't move on. He also has been taunted by the demon in his downtime with illusions of his sister and wife, as well as pretending to be his long-lost son (the demon is on to the PCs and wants to ensure the father doesn't believe he has a son).

Regardless, if they kill him he may be left at one HP to realize his son is real (PCs might go easy on him if he's down). But hey if they kill him there's no biggie. If they diplomacy him outright or midway through the battle, the demon (Balor) will come out all hot and bothered that his contract isn't being fulfilled.

Also: I love the satyr idea. When I went home thinking about it, I had come up with the idea that she's supposed to be protecting a portal to the Feywild in her local forest, but when she realizes how long she's been gone, she rushes back to find Uncle Owen- I mean the Feywild Portal and the only road back to her friends, destroyed. Besides shirking her duties, there's a mastermind-type villain behind the destruction of several of them, and will slowly influence the plot through me dropping hints, sending random assassination attempts once PCs are a threat...etc. I figured that the polar opposite of her carefree lifestyle is someone who's ODC about their lifestyle and evil to the core. She'll have to certainly take the hard road to beat him. Maybe she'll need a new magical instrument that happens to be cursed (his plan to trick her into using it? HMMMM???)

And BoldItalic, if that happens they better make out at some point and then realize they are siblings and their father is a sith lord. But good theory. I thought there was enough about family in this campaign so that's why I was leaning towards the fey portal closing; cutting her off from her family forcing her to take her own responsibility. Thinking about that, I also like the idea of the eternal winter thing. Maybe closing that portal sealed it off from... um... Springtime Energy. or something.

Thanks for all the suggestions! (also Bold, ty for that list of plots. I bookmarked that . before I was using the Hero's Journey to plan things out so if you don't know about that, look that up too. [you probably do know about it but for those that don't...there u go])