In my current fantasy project, there are three gods: Avani (life), Aeron (death), and Veiro (spirit). They require a delicate balance of power, so if one becomes too strong, it weakens the others. Hundreds of years before my story starts, there is a war. So much death makes Aeron too strong, and his very presence kills the people and earth around him. Knowing there is no other way to restore the balance and weaken Aeron, he is imprisoned and buried underground. At the start of my story, a group of death magic users, called the Acolytes of the Aeron Brotherhood, discover Aeron has been buried and seek to raise him. Originally, I planned on having Aeron be angry at his burial and wish to seek revenge. However, I decided instead that Aeron is a victim. He cannot control his powers and understands the need for balance between the three gods. He allowed himself to be imprisoned so that the balance could be restored. The entire first book focuses on trying to stop this raising, but my MC unknowingly fails and Aeron is released. And since I've decided Aeron is no longer angry and seeking revenge.... I have no idea what happens in the second book now. It was going to be about my MC trying to stop him from inciting war and killing Avani and Veiro... But since that isn't happening, I don't know where to go from here. I thought of having the Brotherhood imprison Aeron again, using him as a weapon against the world. But.... Why? For what purpose? I can't figure out what their motive would be to kill thousands of people. My husband suggested maybe the leader of the Brotherhood (Myron) was an assassin, working for a king or nobleman he thought was respectable, despite paying him to kill people. Myron thought that he was killing people who deserved it -- thieves, other murderers, people who escaped justice, etc. But then he finds out the king has hired him to kill people who stand against him -- people who wish to expose his corruption, take his seat, stand in the way of him getting more power. So then Myron becomes enraged and essentially loses his mind. He raises Aeron so he can use him to rid the world of corruption -- start anew with the Brotherhood. My problem with this is that I really want a more sinister villain. Someone who doesn't believe he's doing good -- someone who's just crazy and ruthless and unforgiving. So I thought.. Maybe Myron was the son of royalty. His family was denied the crown (years and years before the story starts), so he wants to take back what is "rightfully" his. But that's been done. So then I thought... Maybe the death magic users are looked down on. Maybe people are afraid of them because of what they can do, so they are often shut out, ignored, and flat out mistreated by other magic users. So then Myron wants to rebel against them -- take power for himself and do the same to the other magic users that they did to death magic users. But that would require a large rework of an already planned and outlined second draft. And it seems so... petty. I'm very much at a loss. So if any of you could suggest a reason why someone would want to destroy the world, I'd appreciate it. It doesn't necessarily have to be specifically for my world. Some generalizations would be fine, because I really just need the inspiration to come up with something. I need a second book, so I need to figure this out. And the reason I need to do it now is because I need to link it with the first. I already planned scenes for Aeron to visit my MC in her dreams, whispering awful things to her about her worthlessness and eventual death. But since he's now no longer a bad guy, I have to take that out. If I hadn't thought of this before, I'd have been stuck with Aeron being the villain. So if I finish the novel before planning the second, I'm going to be stuck with something that I may not necessarily want later. Any ideas?
Lol, this is really awesome! Anyway, I don't know if this might be useful or inspire anything, but here I go: What came to my mind when you asked for a more crazy and ruthless villain was that maybe Myron lost his young daughter to a simple cold. Despite being a powerful death magician he could only watch her die. Now he wants to resurrect her, but to make Aeron powerful enough to make it possible for a death magician to reverse death (!) Myron has to kill every single human alive except for himself - and destroy the world. With this much power to draw from Aeron as a death magician, he will also be able to create a sanctuary, for example a small house floating in outer space, where he can live for all of eternity with his resurrected, young daughter who will never age. I'm happy with the fact that he makes sense, but at the same time what he wants to do is completely insane and selfish; meanwhile there is a creepy contrast between the awful things he wants to do and the innocent, little girl it's about. Reading your post over again, I don't think you said the power of death magicians was connected to how powerful Aeron was though ... But if you put in that you can use killing everyone as a mechanism to fulfill any impossible wish Myron might have!
They don't want to use him as a weapon - they just want to free him so they can properly worship him again. Unfortunately, something went wrong during the attempt, and Aeron became corrupted or was injured, or something, and he turns actively evil and/or he can't control his power. Now he's walking the earth again, spreading death like before, and the MC is blaming herself for it - it's not him whispering to her in her dreams; it's her subconscious.
Well.... There are a few problems with this plan. 1) Losing a daughter makes Myron a sympathetic villain. People may relate to the fact that he wants her back at all costs, nothing is going to stop him. They may not agree with how he's choosing to do it, but they'd likely understand. And I definitely don't want that. I just want him to be cold, ruthless, and kind of crazy. And 2), death powers don't quite work that way. Only spirit magic users can resurrect the dead, being that they control souls. Death magic users can reanimate bodies, but they'll be more like zombies than actual people. And most people in my book don't even know that spirit magic users exist, so taking one hostage and forcing them to do it is unlikely. But thank you. I thought about making Aeron uncontrollable later. But I really wanted the Brotherhood to raise him for a purpose, other than just wanting to worship their god better. I had the idea that they raise him, trap him again, then start killing people to increase Aeron's magic. Then once so many have died and Aeron is so powerful, he loses control of himself and is no longer "Aeron," but just a blood-thirsty monster wreaking havoc on the world. While I like that idea, I would still need a good reason why they raised him.. And I don't like the idea of it being an "innocent" raising. Mostly because in order to raise him, they have to kill a lot of people. He's buried underground, so they sacrifice people over the site to draw him up. Then, once his prison is above ground, it sends out a disease, an infection that kills the land and people around it. It's taken over nearly half of the world before he's finally broken out. So for someone to do that with innocent purposes and not try to reverse it after seeing the devastating effects... It just doesn't jive well. This is harder than I expected... I really don't want to go back to Aeron being an angry villain just looking for revenge, because I love the idea of him being a victim... But if I can't think of a good reason for the Brotherhood to raise him, I'm going to have to. I need to start moving forward and I can't do that without a proper plan for the second book.
I figured it out! It's too complicated to detail here. But I figured it out! It's simple in its nature (mainly just a power grab) but sinister in its execution. Plus, it simplifies a few other parts of my story too, which makes everything easier. Simple is good. And... If I do it this way, I may even be able to make three books out of this series instead of two! I'll obviously have to wait and see once it comes time to outline. I'm not going to stretch it just to fit into three, so I need to see if there's enough content. But I could have book two be about saving Aeron. Then book three fighting Aeron once he becomes too powerful to even control his powers or his mind. I like it! What a relief. I was starting to feel the same way I did with the last book I ditched -- overwhelmed and confused. And I really, really don't want to ditch this book. It's a good book. Edit: I just realized I said it was too complicated to explain yet it's a simple solution... The idea isn't complicated. It's just hard to explain without explaining a bunch of other aspects of my story too.
