Who controls the king?

[Rogozhin]

I'm creating a home brew d&d 5e campaign and have hit a bit of writer's block... There is a new King in the kingdom, the troubled son of the previous king. He is dark and twisted and the Kingdom is suffering as a result... devil cults are popping up all over and a threat to the kingdom looms... but who is behind it all???

I need suggestions on what kind of devil or demon or dragon or anything fiend related might be secretly controlling the young king. I had thought of an incubus... but they tend not to have those sorts of power machinations. Also at cr4 they're hardly the big bad threat I'm looking for.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[Hawkstar]

Any devil of appropriate CR should do.

[Ruslan]

The kindly court adviser, the questgiver who hires the party to investigate who's controlling the king is actually the one controlling the king. Least surprising plot twist ever.

[Whyrocknodie]

Druza the Adder, an ancient night hag witch bent on warping the Kingdom into a realm of nightmares she can then draw into an enchanted bottle and sell to bored arch-fiends of one kind or another.

Even better, she already has and the entire kingdom is trapped in her pocket dimension of 'hilarious' despair and depravity.

Even even better, everyone is already dead and inhabiting the bottle universe as echoes of their former lives. They perform in Druza's twisted dream world purely to provide a backdrop of anguish for the poor young king, who is the only real soul left of his shattered kingdom - eventually he will descend into total madness and be a valuable trade commodity in the lower planes.

[Erys]

The court jester is actually a Cambion or Incubus (either can be improved if you want the final fight to be higher CR then they start, or they can have some item/ability to summon more powerful devil guards when the time comes to save the young king from the devils grip).

[NichG]

I'm creating a home brew d&d 5e campaign and have hit a bit of writer's block... There is a new King in the kingdom, the troubled son of the previous king. He is dark and twisted and the Kingdom is suffering as a result... devil cults are popping up all over and a threat to the kingdom looms... but who is behind it all???

I need suggestions on what kind of devil or demon or dragon or anything fiend related might be secretly controlling the young king. I had thought of an incubus... but they tend not to have those sorts of power machinations. Also at cr4 they're hardly the big bad threat I'm looking for.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Eight generations ago, the king at that time clawed his way to the throne on the back of a succession war, fought off a number of invaders who were trying to take advantage of the country's weakness, and weathered the economic collapse and famine that followed a third of the available young adults of the realm perishing in the various wars. He saw the mess that his incompetent brothers had made, just due to a quirk of fate and archaic inheritance laws, and could see a future in which the same mistakes of the past could easily happen once again. One stupid son of squabbling set of brothers could tear the whole thing down.

So, he sent heroes questing through the realm after bits and pieces of lore, hints at what he saw as a way to solve this issue: binding the spirits of the greatest of the line to the throne as advisors, who would be evoked in times of weak rulership or need. Those of the king's line would have an inherited, built-in geas to obey the consensus of the collected spirits of the former kings. In that way, succession wars could be thwarted by the unfavored children getting themselves killed or abdicating, driven by the geas; major challenges to the kingdom would be faced by the collected knowledge and wisdom of the former kings, and so on.

However, the geas both binds the descendants of the king and is bound by them. That is to say, all of those kings that have died since its formation have joined the spirit pool, and remain susceptible to influence. One of the spirits in the pool recognized this possibility while alive and made arrangements to manipulate and thwart that effect, seizing de-facto control over the spirit pool with the intended plan of using a future heir to reincarnate themselves. To make matters worse, supernatural entities recognize that the spirit pool has the potential to fully merge and become a kind of potent supernatural entity in its own right, and they want to stop that/enslave that/steal it for themselves/etc.

Breaking the line of descent resolves this issue, but removes the benefit of that accumulated wisdom and power from the rulership of the land. That power isn't just good ideas, but there's enough accumulated magic and heroics in the pool that it has corporeal effects on the land - the kingdom's armies fight stronger, the crops grow better, etc. So there's a consideration as to whether this one spirit reigning as eternal dictator is a price that people might be willing to pay. On the other hand, it might be possible to get the pool functioning as intended again by breaking the geas while retaining the binding, or by acquiring the 'vote' of a majority of the past monarchs in some representative corporeal form and granting them to the reigning living one - a symbol of office from each of their reigns.

[BWR]

The court jester is actually a Cambodian or Incubus (either can be improved if you want the final fight to be higher CR then they start, or they can have some item/ability to summon more powerful devil guards when the time comes to save the young king from the devils grip).

Do you mean 'cambion'?
Because I am unaware of any real world nationalities that are used as monsters in D&D.

[RazorChain]

No one, he's just incompetent.

[John Longarrow]

If you want to go for a fun, long game approach, he's being poisoned by a family member. His goblet is never empty and all of the sweet tasting wine has been sweetened in the old way, with juices brewed up in a lead cauldron. The king is suffering from lead poisoning, thus making him often irrational, moody, and violent.

The family member isn't one you'd normally expect either, its his own mother who'd been doing this to him for some time. She's planning to drive him insane so she can rule as regent. She has how ever made sure he's married and working hard to produce his own heir. Her goal is, once he's incapacitated to make sure her poor daughter in law doesn't survive child birth. She's also got a couple bastards being born just to make sure the baby is male. Yep, she's willing to kill off one of her son's children if they are the wrong gender and switch in the right gender.

Course her plan is to make sure she raises her grandchild to be a weak ruled themselves dependent upon her, something her more strong willed husband prevented. That IS what did him in after all...

[hymer]

Do you mean 'cambion'?
Because I am unaware of any real world nationalities that are used as monsters in D&D.

Who said technology can't be racist?

@ OP: How about you don't lock yourself down just yet? You need an overall sense of who it is, so whether it's CE, NE or LE is probably worth setting down. Then, you have the flexibility of picking a particular creature when you know what CR would be appropriate.

[LibraryOgre]

Well, my love for "Eyes of the Dragon" makes me want to suggest the king's adviser is an ancient evil demon-wizard who has, for centuries, appeared to help drag the kingdom toward ruin. He reappears every few generations, only to be driven out by the inevitable good king.

[Berenger]

Also at cr4 they're hardly the big bad threat I'm looking for.

Are Incubi incapable of gaining class levels?

[hymer]

Are Incubi incapable of gaining class levels?

in 5e you'd make a new creature and use the guidelines to assign a CR. NPCs and monsters don't have a mechanic for adding on levels. You could do it anyway, though you'd still need to find the new CR afterwards with the same guidelines.

[Erys]

Do you mean 'cambion'?
Because I am unaware of any real world nationalities that are used as monsters in D&D.

Oops!

What I get for posting so late at night half asleep.

Embarrassing, but funny.

[Keltest]

Some wizard who lived in the area summoned the ghost of the old king to advice the current weak king. Problem is, the devils hijacked the ghost and are using it to keep the king weak and out of the way while they do whatever other thing it is they want to do. The fact that its bad for the kingdom is just bonus points.

[Mastikator]

Plot twist

The king is the only one NOT under control, instead he's protected by an archon who's only barely keeping the kingdom from succumbing to the devil's grasp.

The devils were originally invited by the kings grandfather who sold his soul to become king. The current king is trying to stop the devils takeover.

[Grim Portent]

The new king was born on the anniversary of the death of the first king of his bloodline, a powerful necromancer who united the kingdom using dark sorcery and fiendish pacts, and then left it to his more mundane descendants to rule upon his death. This connection between the two, however tenuous, has allowed the ancient king's spirit to converse with his descendant since birth, revealing things better left unknown and the indiscretions of the palace court.

While not controlled by his ancestor the new king has long been driven to paranoia and distrust of others in the court as he has been informed of all the secrets and intrigues of those around him since he could understand language, and gradually persuaded himself that none of the nobility, his line included, deserve their positions of power. As such in lieu of ruling the realm properly he spends his time brooding on the deeds of the various notable members of his family and the nobles of the realm, listening as the spirit tells him of the forgotten misdeeds of each one, the people who suffered for their glory and the injustices they perpetrated.

He has become fascinated with what he now sees as the one greatest achievement of his line, the creation of the kingdom itself, when the nobles were appointed to their positions on merit by the first king, and wishes to tear it apart and start over, seeking to wash away the crimes of his family and the other nobles with blood. His ancestor however refuses to teach him the mystical powers that allowed him to conquer the land, and so he has sent missives to various hedge wizards, wandering sorcerers and other dabblers of arcane lore granting them his patronage in attempting to uncover means by which to emulate the founder of his dynasty. Many of these scholars have begun to traffic with devils, animate the dead and experiment on the common folk of the land, sending their findings in secret to the king, who sits at the center of a spider's web of gathering necromantic and diabolic lore.

[J-H]

The prince's foreign-born princess wife is actually a follower of foreign, pagan, dark gods. She has him wrapped around her little finger. She has a small entourage that came with her, including several handmaidens and an adviser with levels in Evil Cleric or something similar.

Go read the story of Solomon sometime. Tons of wisdom & knowledge, great judgement, and he still got led astray by hot foreign women.

There's plenty of room to play with one of the entourage members being an Outsider in disguise, a high-level caster, etc. Since she is part of a marriage alliance, there are external diplomatic repercussions (war, or loss of an alliance that's preventing war with a 3rd party) to any attempt to kill or imprison her.

[Coidzor]

Plot-Twist: He's messed up all on his own, and the issues cropping up around the kingdom are unrelated to his debauchery.

Alternatively, the young king is messed up because he was possessed in the womb by an evil spirit that merged with his fetal soul and ate his developing mind. See the Unholy Scion template from D&D 3.5.

[Segev]

The young king's dark and troubled nature is due to his realization at a very young age that his family was corrupt. Saved from being sacrificed to the devils his father worshipped only by the devil demanding his older brother (and former heir) instead, he grew to fear and loathe it rather than be enamored of it.

Perhaps his efforts to appear an easily-swayed and callow believer who just is too self-absorbed to be trusted with the full initiates' rites (mainly because he is trying desperately not to have to engage in the horrific acts that worship requires) are a little too successful; his court runs roughshod over him and he takes too many bribes of luxury and praise.

But in truth, there's a core of iron, inculcated by one of his nursemaids who was a silver dragon in disguise. This dragoness has protected him since her own divinations revealed he would be the best hope to undo the evils of the kingdom.

For years, he's put on a disguise and gone out to rescue victims of the devil cults, to thwart their worst aims. His alter ego's frequent appearance at sites of desolation and destruction have earned him a fearsome reputation, with speculation that this figure might be either a devil, himself, or one of the chief priests thereof. The cult, meanwhile, promotes these rumors in the circles of society that know nothing of the cult's true reach, hoping to turn them against this man - this CREATURE - that hunts their haunts.

Now that he's King (which happened much earlier than he expected; he really did have nothing to do with his father's untimely demise), he finds himself even more torn between royal duties and his alter ego.

Now, he's pulling a Sapphire Gambit (pretending to be weak and malleable so that if he agrees with any nobles, they think he capitualted to their ideas, and if he goes against them, they assume it's their rivals that had the thought) while on the throne, secretly trying to expose and excise the devil cults. The cults "springing up" are really very old. They're just now being EXPOSED. But there are those who don't like that, so they hope directing investigations into the devil cults as they "crop up" will help them find where the exposure is coming from.

[Nifft]

Because I am unaware of any real world nationalities that are used as monsters in D&D.

Check out the 5e MM Appendix B.

"When everybody is a monster..."

- - -

But seriously, having a secret agent from another nearby human nation as the advisor -- disguised, of course -- would be a nice twist. It's just mortals engaging in espionage, not an ancient evil just yet.

[Hawkstar]

.. by that crazy train of thought...

The Jester is a Cambodian double-agent working for the CIA - the agency's influence not only extends across national borders, but also into non-realities!

[Stealth Marmot]

Anyone but the vizier.

But try to make the party think it's the vizier.

[Koo Rehtorb]

The magical equivalent of nanobots.

[Delicious Taffy]

The King controls the King. It turns out, the one everyone's been dealing with has been nothing more than the empty husk of the King's lifeless body, controlled by his consciousness from outside the mortal realm.

[lukitux]

He isn't being controlled by one person. Everyone is trying to control him at once. His family is manipulating him, the theives guild is blackmailing him, the wizards are controlling his mind, some demon cult expects him to obey them based on a promise his grandfather made, the church will declare him a heretic if he doesn't support their agenda, and spys from sixteen different countries are threatening to kill him. The only one who actually supports the good of the kingdom and king is that sinister looking advisor with one eye and a scar.

[JAL_1138]

The only one who actually supports the good of the kingdom and king is that sinister looking advisor with one eye and a scar.

Don't forget the goatee.

Wait, no, the players would kill the advisor on the spot then...

I actually really like the suggestion of using the Stereotypically-Evil-Looking Vizier as the lone good npc in a poisonous court. Just flipping the standard trope like that can make things really interesting.

As for an actual evil vizier, a secretly-evil-aligned Knowledge Cleric, Trickery Cleric, or Lore Bard would be a highly-effective manipulator and potentially a frighteningly-competent opponent, especially if they have a cadre of henchmen when/if they fight the PCs.

[Stealth Marmot]

Don't forget the goatee.

Wait, no, the players would kill the advisor on the spot then...

Have you been reading Darths and Droids?

[hifidelity2]

One I have used – feel free to steal as much / little as you want (Notre that this is not run in D&D so I have tried to use generic terms)

A new religion has been gaining power over the last X years
Its far more hands on – lots of miracles / help for believers – so increasing in power / followers
The (new) god of madness has taken control of the king
There is then a power struggle between
The Old Church
The New Church
Nobles (some on one side some on the other)
Neither Church really liked “wizards” so are stirring up trouble for all (none Cleric) MU’s

Party can start on low level adventures and end up starting / stopping a major civil / religious war

In my world the more followers a god has the more power the god has. So while it’s a war between Gods he party can affect it by influencing the number of followers

[Thinker]

I think a Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde scenario would be cool. During the day, his darker side is in control and he is a temperamental bastard. At night, he locks himself up when his reasonable side takes control.