The main villain, Zaria, in my stories has a rather complicated plan for how she's taking down the good guys, and I just want to make sure it makes sense. In my world, there is a god of gods. They are the most powerful of all the deities, and could completely redo all of history without us ever knowing about it, although they mostly act as a baby sitter to the lesser gods and goddesses. Zaria, who is a witch and a ghost, plans to kill the god of gods, and take their place in the inevitable cosmic power vacuum that ensues. Once in control, she'll recreate the universe, getting rid of all people she believes to be bad or immoral. Unfortunately, her perspective on good and bad is hugely flawed. She gathers a team of other spirits and some living creatures, who she communicates with via the Oujia board, essentially. They run around gathering supplies for potions that should kill the god of gods, and bring the dead members of their party back to life in the process. Enter our heroes. Each of them is unknowingly a threat to the plan in some way. They either have a thing that Zaria needs or potentially have powerful enough magic to stop her (this is a fantasy story, by the way). Instead of being the typical Dark Lord that immediately tries to kill off the heroes, even though they've done nothing, she goes for the path of least resistance. Each of her sidekicks is assigned a hero. Their job is to then get the thing from the hero, or make sure the hero stays oblivious to the magic shenanigans. Obviously, this goes astray and the villains are accidentally temporarily defeated by the heroes. The villains weren't prepared for just how strong the heroes would be, so they cook up a new plan. Zaria sends out invites to each of the heroes, claiming to be a mentor that can help them with their magic. Her idea is to get them all in one spot before they have a chance to fully learn the magic on their own and kill them off using the combined powers of the villains. Does that seem like a believable plan from a group of villains that are supposed to be fairly intelligent?
I love how you felt the need to clarify that it was fantasy after you already mentioned gods and ghosts. The plan sounds like it will be fairly straightforward if you write it that way. I know sometimes when I flesh out plot points they can get convoluted. One question: Is there any reason she wouldn’t immediately resort to Plan B? Because that’s fairly clever. Does she even need the first plan? Because her backup seems solid. But if there’s a reason that plan is a backup, then it makes sense. Is it dangerous having them in one place?
The thing I have trouble with is how they could hope to defeat a being apparently as powerful as you have described. If they are so mighty, can't this god stop what's going on?
If the God of God's is so powerful surely he could take down this witch so why would he/she need a team of heroes? Surely he/she can deal with this witch more effectively than any other being on the planet, as they are so powerful. It doesn't seem very intelligent to me from the get go. If this could found out I'd be screwed. And as a god with magic I would imagine keeping something that huge from him would be hard. Especially since heroes could take them down. If I was going to attempt something like this against a God I would ensure a group of lesser beings couldn't take me down. I'd be on my game and I wouldn't go for it until I was sure I had some chance of success. Zaria seems like she has everything against her. I think this plan needs work, in my opinion.
I have some comments and questions on this plan. What is it that Zaria has that let's her think that she can pull off this stunt with the God of Gods? I mean it can't be something too common or easy to do. I don't think that you need to have a flawed perception of good or bad to do wrong if you want to kill every person who is bad or immorale. Its kind of wrong anyway as murder is wrong. But then again I don't support death penalty and I believe more in rehabilitation than revenge. Just so that you know where I'm coming from. Given that the heroes have already defeated her henchemen one time I would be hesitant, if I was Zaria, to get them together and I would surley need to find something to seriously stack the odds in my guys' favor before trying to take them on again. They won the last time around and smart people don't usually, in my experience, enter frays without some reason to think they'll come out on top of it. And in honestly If I was Zaria I would try to divide the heroes and take them one by one rather than take them on all at once.
Thank you for your comments and suggestions. To be honest, this is literally all the information I have for the story so far. I got the idea and wanted to see if it made any sense at all. It seems like some of it does, but a lot of it doesn't. I might post the new plan once I have some of the kinks worked out to see how that one looks.
My favorite part is where you said it was fantasy after all of the most surreal things were already set in place, haha! I read your plot and not at any point did I go "this can't be it wouldn't work like that." I accepted there was a reason your villain assigned lower entities to each hero. This works well if the villain is just very arrogant, or simply never expected any opposition in any form. A second better prepared attack therefor just makes sense. In my mind the villain has to stay low key as to not raise suspicions from the gods. However once the original plan failed, the heroes would be suspicious I assume, and my only question would be, why isn't she stepping in herself at that point?
You have a good plan for how she would fight the heroes. What I don't understand is the role of the god of gods that she wants to defeat. Can't he see what she's planning? If not, how is she keeping it a secret? Also, if this god of gods is so powerful, why can't he fight Zaria himself instead of involving the heroes? Is there some reason why he can't do it but the heroes can?
