Plots · Duty · Single-Storyline
Queen Ari the Reluctant
She has everything: stunningly good looks, sharp brains and oodles of power: she's going to be a Queen. The only drawback is that she doesn't want to be a Queen.
The matriarchal throne of Acellia will descend to the ravishing young princess Ariadne (or Ari, as she likes to be called) as soon as her mother dies. Needless to say, Ari can exert a certain amount of influence over the male (and possibly even female) characters of the party. She has everything: stunningly good looks, sharp brains and oodles of power: she's going to be a Queen.
The only drawback is that she doesn't want to be a Queen. All that waving and being courteous? Ari wants to be an adventurer and really doesn't give a toss about what her ministers think. She's certainly got attitude. Just not the conventional one that everyone wants her to have.
That's why Ari has implored upon her friends (the PCs) to rescue her from her predicament. Abduction is the only answer. It's up to the PCs to figure out exactly how to carry it off, bearing in mind that Ari is very well guarded.
However, one or two of the PCs are under the (very good) pay of someone else, and Ari isn't paying anything. This mysterious someone else has reassured the PCs that he and Ari are deeply in love, and that's the real reason she wants to escape. The PCs should abduct her and bring her to him. These PCs will be smugly thinking they know more than anyone else in the party, but if they propose the idea to Ari it will be met with sheer repugnance. The enigmatic third person was lying. The PCs must choose between helping the princess and the rather large reward which would otherwise await them.
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Of course, if the third person wants to get her for a larger organization, and they want her for a special reason, this could go a lot deeper.......
But wouldn't the third parties offer of a prize for Ari's recovery might tip one astute member of the party off?
Three words: Abdicate the throne.
Find a distant offspring or even the decendant of a bastard child of one of the former rulers that is a decent enough and wise enough to run the country as it ought to be. Find a suitable replacment. Ari doesn't HATE her country, right? She just hates her position. Then the quest becomes to find and authenticate the successor, and protect them from anyone trying to eliminate them. That could prove harder than originally thought, if the ministers hire some of the lower elements of the crime world and arrange some accidents.
Very orginal.Ari could, if she comes from a land where Queens rule, become a warrior Queen.
I like the mini-plot associated with her. I would definitely make the motivation of the enigmatic third party a little deeper than pure lust -- probably a power play by a savvy duke who wants Ari out of the way, or a plot by the bastard son of the Queen's consort, who believes that he should be entitled to rule.
It's always fun to mix in royalty with the party, especially if one (or more) of the involved characters grow romantically attached to them, Perhaps the man in question is an old flame of the princess, but now she's fallen for the seductive ranger of the group and doesn't want to leave her side and elope with the man as she once planned to months ago?
If the princess and character are keeping their relationship secret it could create all kind of difficulties when others in the group agree to the proposed plan and try to move ahead with it.