Alrighty then, I'm going to toss out the idea I have so far out and see what people think. It's very rough and I'd love to add more to it, but I want it to be player-driven and not entirely scripted. ^^
So, there's a kingdom named Lluvian. It's a prosperous and happy place, ruled by a wise king and a fair queen, who have two children: a teenaged princess and a toddling prince, who are both absolute darlings. Unfortunately, happy royal families don't make for good plot lines, so when a sudden plague strikes the country the royal couple perish, plunging the nation into chaos.
Fortunately there's a solution! The famed and powerful leader of the Mages' Guild, Isolden, has offered to take the princess' hand and lead the country. He's famous, he's well-liked, and he's already taken the Guild from zeroes to heroes, so the marriage is approved and they're husband and wife by the weekend, and there's a baby on the way before the year is over.
Well, there's an old saying in Lluvian: "magic and madness might wear two faces but they always stand in just the same places". Suffice to say, Isolden is famed as the world's most powerful mage, and he has crazy in equal amounts. He keeps it under wraps- at least until the birth of his child, and simultaneous death of his wife. Insult to injury, the baby didn't inherit the recessive trait that allows the usage of magic, so his heir is an abject failure in his mind.
Now the cat's out of the bag, and he lets his craziness roam free. As a preventative measure, the young prince is spirited away from the castle to be raised in secret, just in case Isolden turns his rage on the only other heir. The rest of the kingdom can't so easily be hidden, so Lluvian quickly deteriorates into a dystopian autocracy at the whim of the witch-king.
Thirty years pass.
As fate would have it, the prince meets up with a most interesting woman. She was once Isolden's lover, apprentice, and heir, with power that might even surpass his own- and enough ambition to attempt a coup, which soured their relationship a bit. Suffice to say, mage + prince is a pretty good combo, and together they lead his fledgling rebellion to victory, with her landing the critical strike on the witch-king and ensuring victory for the good guys.
They've gotten their victory. Happily-ever-after, not so much.
Enter the current political climate.
- The Prince wants to be king because he is the living child of the original royal couple, and also the leader of the rebellion that overthrew the witch-king.
- The Heir of the witch-king wants the throne for his/her self, by rights of being firstborn of the previous king.
- The Mage has had a falling out with her sweetheart and sees this as a brilliant opportunity to simultaneously screw him over and start a tradition of merit-based leadership (with the sole merit being magical talent).
- The Court is desperately throwing their weight behind one claimant or the other.
All the Single Ladies Eligible noble men & women realize this is a good time to be staking their claims in royal blood of some sort.- The Rest of the World knows that Lluvian is weak and leaderless, and this might be a good time to strike.
- Your Characters probably see great opportunities to exploit this as well.
I'd like to take the Mage as my character, but the other two claimants for the throne are open, and yours to interpret. Aside from them, characters are entirely up to you guys, though I'd really love for everyone to play
at least one character with an important role to the plot- a spymaster rather than a serving girl, for example.
I want the threads of this plot to be so convoluted they look like a bowl of delicious ramen. ^^
