This is a plot element within my story. It is called "The Daemon Heart" or simply the Crystal. Its the heart of a god, who consumed everything in a bid to control all things. Though his madness and hunger compelled him to eat himself in the final moment ending his reign. What is left is a heart which though has no mind of its own, carries the same hunger. It was found by an empire who existed thousands of years prior to my story, who pulled it through from somwhere else. The heart gave them all their desires, until the populace ate themselves in a cannabilstic orgy which ended their empire overnight. The object works by giving you what you wish for essentially. But you sacrifice everything else, or more specifically the possibility of anything else. It makes the unlikely likely. By consuming all other possibilities but the one you wish for. So only one future remains. But like terrible gravity. When its exhausted its food source, it collapses what the owner has made upon them, finally eating the user. It also has a habit of making the wish a more extreme version then what the user wishes for. If you want say for example an empire of order and purity. It will compel your followers to "purify" even those who dont want to follow you. The story concerns an empire who kills the protagionists family, who had found the crystal themselves errecting an empire of order. The crystal acts as plot device which pulls the main charecter towards it. When Aren finally gets his revenge and claims the crystal himself. He fails to relise how he himself had been used. It was not Aren who destroyed the empire, as much as it wasnt the empire that killed Arens family. The crystal had mearly exhausted its current meal and wanted a new one. This is how I am explaining it to myself so far. It tells me why a barbarian was able to dismantle a structured empire, why the crystal is as powerful as it is. Though I am wondering if the idea will be to complex for the reader. Or if there is any plotholes which make this object seem to deus ex machina. Any opinions?
It all depends on how well you write it. You have an entire novel to make the complexities clear to the reader. Don't throw too much at the reader at any one time, and make the important points (in different ways) more than once if necessary. You can't judge much at all from a plot summary. A story concept means nothing. What matters is how you write it, the characterization, the flow, the imagery, all of it. There's no benefit in asking what other people think of the concept! They'll either say,"Sounds great," or, "it sounds like a ripoff of..." Develop the story, write it out, and re-read it. If you can, get someone else to read it when you think it's nearly ready to submit. They'll tell you if they were confused by the story, and with a little probing, you should be able to figure oiut what parts were unclear.
And in the end it could be nothing like it? You can pull plot and story from any movie or book and say "It's all been done before." It all matters on how you write it and what you add that is from you.
I don't really see any Dues Ex Machina or plot holes, other than maybe the reason the hero's family was killed. Other than that, like Cogito said, as long as you describe everything well and give everything a purpose and description, you shouldn't have any problems. On a fairly unrelated side note, gods are generally not considered to be daemons. (the distinction between demons is generally seen as demons being aligned with Satan, daemons being independent) so the name of the crystal seems (to me at least) to be a bit confusing. Of course, none of that really counts for anything. Gods can be daemons in your world, daemons the same as demons, and tea pots can grow crab legs. Your call.
It was called the daemon heart because of what terrible things it does. It was a name deemed an insult, without them knowing what they had named. Also the things this god has done puts him more in the position of demons. Though the charectetrs know nothing if very little about what he is until later. Also for all purposes that god is dead in this book.
You might see it as complex, but think of it this way. You are creating a whole system using a binary code, but in the story itself, you'll have to make the readers see it in English. You may see it as complex, because you are creating all the variables, but through your writing the reader will (or rather, has to) absorb it little by little, or else it would be an info dump.
The aspect of the plot that makes me wonder is why the crystal would need anyone to do anything for it. If it doesn't have a mind, then how does it plan to move from one people to the next? By what you stated, it's just a thing. I don't see how it could use Aren or the empire. Is the crystal influencing its own destiny, as something alive? Or is it merely influencing those people around it, as an object that is simply valuable?
The crystal has a kind of gravity about it. Once its exhausted its present food source, it draws the one with the most possibilities for food next. In this case, the one with the most possibilities is the main charecter Aren. As for its status. Its half alive and half not. It doesnt have an intellegence, more a primal chain of thought, a drive that wants to eat and only eat. But its still an object, it doesnt have the means to do anything for itself. It must use proxies. This is not to say there isnt a greater destiny shaping the events. The god in later books is revealed not to as dead as people thought. But within this story, its more an object thats drawing people to it. Also thanks to everyone for your advice. I am confident now that the plot should not become to overloaded to the reader.
No, I think it's different enough. Lord of the Rings was more about how power corrupted. This is more about desire. If someone in the story desired power more than anything else then it could affect them the same way as the One Ring, but I think the main point is more of a chasing-the-dragon thing. With every desire fulfilled, all you have left is more desire. I like it. The idea that the god eventually consumed his entire essence, leaving only this mindless thing of desire, is a pretty good construct. Make sure you don't waste the idea on a bad story.
