Because of today's events, and as a nod towards the original influence of the event (The 1999 Cinematic Masterpiece starring Rachel Weisz and Brendan Fraser) I wanted to make a post towards some of the additional event plotting I've been working on.
For starters- I'm going to have the ancient city where the Never King was from only be visible during a solar eclipse. Other wise, the area just has ruins and nothing of true or real value to relinquishing the mysteries of once was.
But the true and former city will be revealed during the total eclipse of the sun, where any residual dark magics lingering behind would be at their most potent. Like in the Mummy when Hamunaptra is revealed as the sun rises, so will it be for this city when the solar eclipse is at it's peak. Leading up to this event, the whole area would be an active hot spot for strange magics, ancient ghosts and so on. This event also happens during the lunar eclipse, except the city itself does not appear during this event- only the ancient magics and active ghosts are their most potent.
In any given location on Earth, a total eclipse happens only once every 360 years- I'm assuming such an event would be similar in nature in the SOTE universe, thus making it a unique event to the onlookers when one occurs.
That being said, obviously this event is going to start off because of one such event :D
And with my character Winston already trying to make the area a hot spot for travelers and adventure seekers, he doesn't realize that while he is doing this to make money off of those of a curious or greedy nature- that this is going on during a year in which there is fated to be a total eclipse of the sun.
Before I post more, I just wanted to place this here to get thoughts and feed back!
I'll be posting more about the hows and whys behind the mysterious phenomenon and curse once I finalize the unique artifacts that'll be referenced in this event as well as my priest character who is meant to be a keeper of the knowledge of the Never King- AND is also meant to be the blood sacrifice to awaken him. One who is purely faithful must give up their own blood so that the Never King can rise again, were a fate to befall him and he were to die before his true rise to power.
Of course, this DID happen, the poor Never king's reign DID fall and many were scrambling to cover up the dark magics he was awakening- as I'm envisioning the dark magics / lich powers would be a joint effort to those following him. Not all that would follow this king realize the darker intents, so there would be a number of fellows studying the unique arts in this prophesized portion of the desert.
In a sense, this small portion of the desert is almost similar in nature to the corrupt powers of the Fell- but it's not exactly there on a permanent basis and the powers seemed to be contained or related to the cycles of the moon and sun and quite obviously, through the solar eclipse - their union.
The Metetzi warriors have a steak in on this which, I'm sure I'll be plotting a bit more with goldie on the depths of their connections, but they would have been around during and likely prior to the Never King's rise.
Maybe the Never King was a prophecy in which they were aware and tried to steer the events for themselves,
What is for certain is-
They apparently have possession of this so called 'priest' who was meant to spill his blood to save and rise again the Never King-
and it just so happens he doesn't seem to be able to die or age since those events transpired and he was never used as a sacrifice to awaken his king.
So to this day, the Metetzi have a hold of this man, who still dreams of awakening his king to bring about his full potential unto this world.
Some ideas I might play around with on this are that he's set in stone during the times his death wouldn't affect the never king- but during events, such as the coming of and during eclipses, his body will turn back into it's mortal form in hopes he can finally sacrifice his blood to his King and bring him back into our world again.
This priest (who again, I need to finish creating lol) documented everything so meticulously about how and what the never king's purpose is that each time he returns to mortal form, he tries to make his way back to the city to awaken his King.
SO far, he's not been very successful, as the Metetzi have his petrified stone body held within the deep caverns beneath their village- and it is guarded and protected by no less than 2 highly trained warriors at any given time.
This priest is also going to be the one responsible for creating 'The Golden Map'- an intricate, golden book like object that has foldable parts and secret compartments that are designed to move and open to reveal secrets about the locations of the various artifacts hidden that are meant to be utilized to awaken the never king, or to be used BY the awakened never king.
I'm still working on the specifics of this unique map, but the ideas are still coagulating inside my head so I'm letting them continue to stew while I at least share the rest of what I was thinking here and wanting to gain feedback, since this was a lot to toss out there x.x
Let me know your thoughts! More will come :D